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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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FIRST STEPS IN YOUNG TURKS’ PROGRAM

Page 6

    In the (at that time) pro-Turk "Progres de Saloniqne", a journal published in the French language at Saloniki, appeared an article which expresses a state of feeling among Oriental peoples which has taken great distension since the date of the article (July 22, 1910). What was then a fire bids fair now to grow into a general conflagration, due to the building up, by Christian powers, of the sinister puissance of Mustapha Khemal:

    "In the space of three years," says the article, "the Orient, twice and from its two extremities, has marvelously astonished the civilized world: first, by the great victory won by the Japanese over the strongest of Occidental peoples, and next by the wonderful revolution in Turkey! In fact, it is a marvel, which is being accomplished to-day! There is no comparison between the Orient of to-day and that of ten years ago. What is more curious is that this Oriental movement has taken the form of two separate currents, which, starting from the two extremities of the Orient, are going to meet and their points of junction will be, in all probability, India."

    "At the head of these movement will be found the peoples belonging to the same race—the Mongolians. Each one possesses the unquestionable title to the moral and intellectual supremacy of the great countries over which their influence extents."

    "The Japanese are incontestably at the head of the peoples professing Buddhism, the doctrine of Confucius, etc.; the Turks, defenders of Islam for centuries, are the incontestable leaders of the people professing Islamism. Therefore, the two movements, starting from the two extremities of Asia, from the Bosphoros and Tokio, go spreading, each one in an appropriate field prepared in advance by history itself to accept it, then, since they are essentially the same, they will unite at their point of junction, to form a common and formidable Asiatic current. With this in view, the Occident is feeling uneasy and agitated."

    Immediately after the reestablishment of the Constitution, then, the first step of the dominant race was to solidify its supremacy by measures of suppression, oppression, and murder. The Turks also deliberately undertook to force all the non-Turkish races to become in language, laws, habits and almost all other particulars, "Ottomans." (Professor Davis’ "Short History of the Near East")

    It is exactly this policy, in operation, which is referred to in the clipping from the "Nea Aletheia", quoted above. A more foolish project was never conceived by the mind of man—that of forcing whole nations to change their languages and habits overnight. The impossibility of this scheme becomes all the more evident when the reader reflects that an inferior civilization was attempting to impose itself upon a superior one. The Turk never had any intention of giving equal liberty to all the peoples who were so unfortunate as to be in his power. Failing to "Turkify" them, as it has been called, his only next alternative was to massacre and drive them out, a policy not long in developing.

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The Blight of Asia in Print