At Beyrout she converted the big building of the Dames de Nazareth into a fine school, where, faithful to her Western training, she gave special prominence to Swedish drill, and where, as in the American colleges, Moslem and Christian sit side by side. When the English advanced in Syria she handed over her schools, and her Armenian and Turkish orphans, to the Americans, with the womanly entreaty that they would “care for them and, above all, make them good boys and girls.”
The Turkey of her dreams and ambitions stands for peace and territorial integrity, for progress in education and equal rights to Moslems and Christians. She knows when peace comes that England, with no thoughts of intrusion, will yet be only too glad to help. England is generous and hospitable. Turkish students, in medicine and other faculties, have long been with us (at Bedford College and elsewhere), conquering all difficulties of language, climate, and social customs, taking their degrees, etc, beside British women. Our schools, our hospitals and clubs will always welcome all who wish to come to us: as Halidé Hanoum knew well, before I reminded her.
Despite their limited heritage, often from mothers who cannot read or write, Turkish women are brilliant students. I well remember trying to interest the public in a friend of mine who, after specialising in Gynæcology at Dublin, secured a London M.D. But the paper which could not find space for this interesting achievement gaily printed long columns of “Arabian Nights” nonsense about the strange ways of Turkey which belonged, in fact, to the period of the woad-stained ancient Britons. If the public really must have cheap romance, they would not complain of an approximately correct date!
It is fortunate, indeed, for Turkey that their leading feminist will work for progress on sound lines, and is far too wise to see no farther for women than a junior partnership with men.
There are, at present, but few feminine stars in the Turkish firmament. But all are loyally united in one common cause—to gain their freedom and save the Fatherland. It is too soon for us to indulge in prophecy on what their final self-organisation may achieve.
Halidé Hanoum, like so many others, is trying to regain the health she spent so generously during the war. Attached to the army as a sergeant, she followed the troops without a thought of danger and fatigue; and since the recent hostilities she has ridden from town to town throughout Anatolia, collecting and arranging her report of the Greek destruction and atrocities. This report, controlled by experts and neutral commissions, was sent to the Lausanne Conference. Halidé Hanoum’s expression is sad. “How can I help loving my Anatolian home?” she said. “It has cost us such a terrible price in lives and suffering to save our land, we naturally would all die now rather than live in slavery again.
“I am horrified to hear,” she went on, “that anyone can still attribute the fire in Smyrna to the Turks. Why do they not accuse them, too, of burning Asia Minor? Will it always have to be so? Although the Greek atrocities committed in our land are too horrible even to talk or write about, excuses are always found for the Greeks, while anything done by the Turks is grossly, unjustly exaggerated. If one Christian dies, the whole Christian world is concerned, as it should be. But, on the other hand, when a whole community of Moslems is wiped out, no one cares.... It is this spirit of injustice that exasperates Moslems. Now, however, our recent victory gives us the right to demand equal consideration with Europeans, no more, no less.” But, “speaking of Greek atrocities,” she continues, “the world has simply got to know what they were during this war. Dr. Nansen, of the League of Nations, is busy lecturing on the Greeks’ suffering, but what of the Turks’? All the terrible devastation to which you can testify, all the number of women and children burnt and violated; the world must have these figures to pass judgment on the Greeks. This eternal and unjust fault-finding with the Turk not only breaks his spirit (remember he is an Asiatic), but incites him to do things he never otherwise would think of doing. It is a most dangerous policy.”
With regard to the Conference, Halidé Hanoum seems to have lost her usual optimism. “Are we right to have faith?” she asked. “We all of us welcomed a change in the British Government, and hoped that our interests would be impartially discussed at Lausanne, but what is happening?”
The two actions which Halidé Hanoum considers most unjust to Turkey are the endeavours to exempt Christians from military service and the retention of the Greek Patriarch. “After the effort we have made to be free, we must have our country to ourselves, and if the Greeks expect equal rights with the Moslems, they must fight for those citizen rights. As to the Patriarch, imagine asking us to keep a man who had taken advantage of his sacred calling to turn his flock against us.... Will the Western Powers always interfere? All our history goes to prove that Turks and Christians have lived together in perfect harmony. When the Powers began to interfere, however, the Christians showed the basest ingratitude. They invented the most wicked stories, knowing there was no justice for us, and that whatever they said would be believed. Now the Powers who turned the Christians against us cannot keep their promises. The Christians want to come back to us. But we will have no more interference.
“If the Conference is only to be an excuse to wear the Turks out, why should we wait, only to fight in the end? A policy of slow death is intolerable. We do not seek war, though we are ready to fight, because we want to build up our country, take care of and educate our people, and give them a little of the comfort and happiness they deserve. Rather than have an unjust vassal-peace,” she concluded, “let us perish altogether.”