Sunday 3rd April 2011
Last day and a long drive of 800km. A large snow-capped mountain Mt Hasan, accompanies us for the initial part.
Snow-capped Mt Hasan
There are regular stops every 2 hours or less and the ritual of Turkish tea became a habit for us. Turks seem to drink small quantities at a time, but very frequently.
We stopped at Ankara, capital of Turkey, to view the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of the Republic and a truly remarkable man. A brief summary: firstly as a soldier, he took command of the Turkish troops at Gallipoli and lead them to victory, but with huge number of casualties. The subsequent loss of the war (Turkey was an ally of Germany) saw Ataturk, or Mustafa Kemal as he was then, take on the cause of independence leading a very bloody conflict against the Greeks (and Allies in the background) when they invaded Turkey in 1919 - 1922.
Then he took on political leadership as he set up the Republic of Turkey in 1923 with Ankara as the capital. It is way inland and therefore, he figured, easier to defend from invaders. The population of Ankara has grown from 40,000 then to 4.5 million now. It was the capital of Galatia (remember Paul’s letter to the Galatians?) and, incidentally, just west of Caesarea, which is centred on Kayseri just to the east. (Not to be confused with the Israeli Caesarea)
From 1923 until his death just 15 years later, Mustafa Kemal (later given the eminent title Ataturk – Father of the Republic) achieved remarkable reforms and developed policies way ahead of this time. He established a democratic republic (elections every 4 years; President elected by Parliament every 7 years). He valued education highly and insisted on compulsory secular education, gave women independence and the right to vote (c.f. much later in France, Switzerland etc), adopted western-style dress for everyone and setup structures for transport, industry and the Arts. (I will have to ‘google’ for some of his quotes – they seem pithy and ‘on-the-money’.) Perhaps his most amazing achievement was to introduce a Latin alphabet (like ours but no W or Q plus a few other letters added) to replace the Arabic written language which was prevalent at the time, and still visible on many historic buildings. One imagines there was some opposition to that change!
In addition, the secular state he set up meant that religious groups which could become zealots (the Dervishes for one) were abolished. (Will have to check on this to confirm it) Nevertheless, the state which has developed seems very tolerant and flexible; no religious juntas here! It is a Muslim state but most follow the moderate Sunni strand.
More than anything, though, he seems to have altered the mindset of all so that his philosophy and outlook lived on past his death in 1938. He is remembered now with total respect and reverence and his mausoleum in Ankara is vast and informative.
On 10th November each year, at the moment of his death in 1938, everyone (and apparently it is just that – even drivers of cars on bridges) stop and all stand for one minute’s silence to remember him. The museum dedicated to him (and probably biased) points to a fair-dinkum good guy. It seems to be genuine – not the product of totalitarian fear as some would suspect.
Approaching the Entrance Walkway
The mausoleum was huge, accessed via a long walk of known distance of some significance (298 m I think, but I don’t know why). At the start of the walkway, on each side, are imposing statues of 3 males on the left (a student, a shepherd and a soldier, I think) and equally large statues of 3 women on the right.
The Student, the Shepherd and the Soldier
The Walkway or Avenue
The Mausoleum
The large mausoleum is part of a courtyard.
The Courtyard
The grave is large, as expected.
Ataturk's grave
Mary and Kate in Mausoleum
The guards are real, but did not move. Our Tour Guide had told us beforehand that we could photograph the guards but do not touch them?? Watching them, we realised why he said that – you are tempted to reach out to touch them to see if they are real.
They are real - they just don't move!
The rest of the day was a long haul, arriving in Istanbul at 7.30pm after 12.5 hours on the road.
A rest day in Istanbul for the Monday 4th April was just what was needed, although some shopping was done, with Kate acquiring the long-sought-after leather jacket and Mary acquiring a Turkish lamp.
The alarm went at 3.00am local time next morning, Tuesday, so we could catch a flight at 6.30am to Naples via Munich with Lufthansa.
No comments:
Post a Comment