A private reading of Andre Gide's public Journal

Social Research, Fall, 2004 by Orhan Pamuk

Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish republic and father of the modern Turkish nation, carried out a program of Occidentalist reforms during the early years of the republic, from 1923 to the mid-1930s. Along with the replacement of the Arabic alphabet by the Latin, the Islamic by the Christian calendar, and Friday by Sunday as the day of rest, there were other reforms such as improvements in women's rights that left deeper marks on society. The debate triggered by these reforms between Occidentalists and the modernists who defended them, and the nationalists and conservatives who attacked them, still forms the basis for most ideological discussion in Turkey today.

One of the first reforms Ataturk carried out was the statutory adoption of Western dress two years after the establishment of the republic in 1923. This proscriptive reform, which obliged everyone to dress like a European, was inspired as much by the Ottoman legacy of distinguishing forms of dress for each religious community as by an Occidentalist vision of Europe.

In 1925, exactly one year after the publication of Gide's remarks about the Turks, Kemal Ataturk was to express similar ideas in a public address delivered in the course of a tour of Anatolia during which he announced the new laws on dress:

   For example, I see a person [indicating with his hand] in the
   crowd before me wearing a fez on his head, a green turban
   wound around the fez, a mintan [collarless shirt], and over
   that a jacket like my own. The lower part I am unable to
   see. Now what kind of costume is that? Would a civilized
   person let the world hold him up to ridicule by dressing so
   strangely? (Unan, 1959: 216)

If these remarks are read in conjunction with Gide's notes, it could be assumed that Ataturk concurred with the French writer in thinking that what was most infuriating about Turkey was the way people dressed. We have no idea whether Ataturk had read Gide's observations published a year before, but as we have already seen, Yahya Kemal, one of his supporters, had read them just around that time, and expressed his strong indignation in letters. However, what matters here is that Ataturk echoed Gide in viewing dress as a yardstick of civilization: "When the citizens of the Turkish republic declare that they are civilized, they are obliged to prove that they are so in their family life and in their lifestyle. A costume which, if you will excuse the expression, is half flute half fire barrel, is neither national nor international" (Unan, 1959: 210).

The point is not whether these words by Kemal Ataturk addressing the forms of private life are an answer to those of Gide or not. The fact that Ataturk identifies Europe with civilization entails that Occidentalist discourse is a source of humiliation. This humiliation is closely bound up with nationalism. Occidentalism and nationalism have the same spirit, but as in the case of Tanpinar, it exists in combination with feelings of guilt and shame. The idea of Europe in my world is also profoundly mixed up with these sentiments, but in a very "private" way.