Speaking of the Turks

by bey K. Ziya Mufti-zada

In the shadows of the old garden at Erenkeuy, my aunts were incessantly engaged in bringing their contribution to this general work of relief. They would sit in a circle under some big trees and be busy one day sewing garments for refugees, another day packing medicines for the Red Crescent, or knitting socks, sweaters or gloves for the soldiers of the Nationalist Armies. They would remain at work for hours at a time, day in and day out, in their quiet, unostentatious ways making a most touching picture: a group incessantly engaged in humanitarian work—the elder aunt, poised and refined, directing the work of all and participating in it with all her untiring activity—the second aunt, emaciated by years of domestic troubles caused by the kaleidoscopic political changes and wars of Turkey, but still cheerful and hopeful—the youngest aunt, as sweet as a Madonna and as resigned as one—cutting, sewing or packing with the help of their children.

I confess that I was not a little surprised by this continuous activity in which all Turkish women, without distinction of class, took a feverish part. It is true that even before I left Constantinople women were already much more emancipated than they generally were given credit for being by foreigners—it is true that I was hoping to find them at my return well on the road to full emancipation. But frankly I was not prepared for the long stride they had made during these few years. I was especially not prepared to see them so competent in public organization and so businesslike in the conduct of actual productive work. I expected to find them rather inefficient in the new fields opened to them for the first time after so many generations of seclusion.

I said this frankly to my aunt, one Friday afternoon, on the eve of our departure from Erenkeuy. We were enjoying the ever attractive sunset from the terraces of a public garden on the shores of the Sea of Marmora. At a distance and blurred by the purple haze of the horizon, Prinkipo and the other islands were reflecting their dark green hills in the opalescent sea where glimmered the dancing lights of an orange-coloured sun. Gentle waves were breaking in cadence over the rocks at our feet. Around us other Turkish families were sitting at wooden tables in small groups. We had just finished sipping our coffees. The general relaxation preceding all oriental sunsets was gradually creeping over nature together with the lavendar shadows of the coming twilight. My aunts had been working hard that day, and I told them how much I admired them and all their Turkish sisters for their indefatigable activities, for their efficiency in works they had not participated in for generations.

My aunt looked at me. Then she laughed in her musical and contagious manner: “You talk like a foreigner, my son,” she said. “Whenever foreigners talk of the new emancipation of Turkish women, they express their surprise at our efficiency.”

I explained to my aunt what I meant—I said: “Our women have been kept for so many generations out of all activities, their attention has been consecrated for so many centuries exclusively on their homes and families and they have so recently acquired their freedom, that I can not help being surprised to find them turning their freedom into really productive channels and to see how capable they are in their new pursuits.”

“Why should we be incapable or inefficient?” asked my aunt, “and why should the seclusion of Turkish women in past generations influence or interfere with the organizing, administrative or productive capacities of the Turkish women of this generation? After all women do not belong to a different race than men, we are the daughters of men and inherit their qualities—or their faults—their capacities or their inefficiency, just as much as their sons do. This present generation, without distinction of sex, has inherited the accumulated qualities or faults of all past generations. It is not the sex which makes or mars the individual, which makes or mars his or her talents. Individual talents, qualities or faults are of course inherited to a great degree, but they don't descend exclusively from women to women and from men to men. Furthermore they are especially enhanced by the education, upbringing and training of the individual and I consider that the Turkish women of this generation have had individually a better opportunity than their brothers—or even than their western sisters—to prepare, educate and train themselves for the work they are now doing. The Turkish men of this generation have had to struggle for life as soon as they were out of boyhood and, confronted by the necessity of earning their immediate living, they did not have the opportunity of preparing themselves for the lines of activity best suited to their individual talents—or else and still worse, they have been drafted into the armies and have fought consecutively for the last fifteen years. Thousands have perished in these wars, thousands and thousands have been maimed or otherwise incapacitated for life. As for western women, those of the higher classes—therefore those who have received a better education—are caught in a whirlwind of social amusement as soon as they are little more than children and the greatest majority keep throughout their lives the earmark of the influence that society has impressed on them in their early youth. It is therefore only western women who start life with the handicap of a lesser education who, through hard work and perseverance, are generally the women who accomplish things in the Western world. This is not the case with the Turkish women of this generation. They have had an opportunity to study and prepare thoroughly until they had reached maturity. They had no social life to interfere with their studies. It is true that they did not prepare to enter personally the different fields of activity as they did not expect that their full emancipation would come so soon. But they were conscious of being the mothers of the coming generation, and to prepare their sons and daughters for their task, they equipped themselves with all the knowledge they desired to impart and they had plenty of leisure to do this. That is why you see now so many Turkish women efficient in the activities they have deliberately shouldered.”

“Tell me, my aunt, how did the participation of Turkish women in all activities of life come to pass? Was it sudden or gradual?”

“When the war came and all the men were called to the front, women unostentatiously stepped into the employments left vacant. As is generally the case in all movements of emancipation for which people are really ready the movement started in the lower classes. Pushed by necessity, some young girls dared to apply for clerical employments in shops and offices. At the time hundreds of ladies of the higher classes were engaged in helping at home the Red Crescent and other relief works. They had studied nursing. Encouraged by the fact that their less fortunate sisters had met with no opposition and were working openly in shops and offices, they in turn offered their services as nurses. Much of the field work and hospital work of the Red Crescent was confided to them to liberate men for military service. This is just what happened in other countries. But the change was greater and more permanent in Turkey. The daily contact of Turkish women with the public during the war years resulted of course in tearing down the social walls which had so far secluded them and once these walls were destroyed no one desired to build them up again. Turkish women had proved their administrative and organizing capacities in relief and charitable work during the war. There was no reason why they should not continue to give the country the benefit of their services even after the general war was ended. Furthermore there was still much relief and charitable work to be done and Turkey needed good administrators and organisers in many fields. So within a few years, but with gradual steps, the emancipation of Turkish women became complete, and to-day it is so thorough that any woman in Turkey can fill any responsible position as long as she has shown herself capable of it. In Anatolia, we have a woman, Halidé Hanoum, who was elected Minister of Public Education by the National Assembly.”

I wanted to know how Anatolia and the rural districts had reacted to this emancipation of women.

“The peasant women were always more emancipated than the city women, my son. Our peasants have remained in a way much nearer to the original precepts of our religion and to the old traditions of the Turks than our city dwellers. We have deviated from our religion and racial traditions by the contact we were forced to enter into with the degenerate Levantine elements dwelling in the cities. Muslim laws placed women on equality with men long before western laws did so, and at the time of the Prophet women were allowed more freedom than they ever had before. The Koran is full of mentions of women who were participating in public life and the only restriction placed on women in the Holy Book—a restriction which was necessary to correct the customs of the Arabs living in warm climates—is that women should not appear in public unless they were covered from the breasts down to the ankles. This is a simple rule of decency and modesty. As for the original Turkish customs they used to be so liberal that women participated in public affairs among the nomad Turkish tribes roaming on the plateau of Pamir, centuries ago. Many a Turkish woman was then the recognized chieftain of her tribe. Many a Turkish Joan of Arc has fought on the battlefields shoulder to shoulder with her warriors. It is only after the Muslims and the Turks came in contact with the decadent Byzantine Empire, it is only after the Turks conquered the dissolute colonies of old Rome and ancient Greece in Asia Minor that the Turks—especially those who settled in the cities—adopted certain customs of the conquered races. Unfortunately these customs are identified to-day, in the eyes of the foreigners, with the Turks and the Muslims as if they had originated with them. But that is not the case. While polygamy was not strictly forbidden so as to prevent—as was then the case in Europe—the increase of bastards and illegitimate children, Harems in the original sense of the word did not exist in Muslim or Turkish countries until they assimilated byzantine customs. The seclusion of women in separate apartments where they were condemned to lead the life of recluses pampered and spoiled solely for the pleasure of their master, can be retraced to the “Gyneceum” of Byzance. So can the custom of veiling the women when they went out, as evidenced by the pictures on old Grecian vases. The barbarous institution of Eunuchs is exclusively Byzantine. All these were certainly not originally Turkish customs and they have nearly never been practised by the peasants and country people of Turkey, except the custom which made it obligatory for women to be entirely veiled in the presence of men. Otherwise the rural population never restricted its women in any way. They always participated in the every-day life of their men. You should have been with us when I went to Eski-Shehir, in Anatolia, with your uncle during the war.” Here my aunt drew such a picture of her arrival at Eski-Shehir that I will try to give an account of it, in her own words.