“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
---Mark Twain, What Is Man?
Turkish President Abdullah Gul grappled mightily with Mark Twain’s tricky dilemma when a military cadet dropped him a hot-potato question after he addressed them in Ankara on January 8.
“Of all the books that you have read,” queried attractive Cadet Bagci, “which are your favorites?”
Ah! This might be fascinating—far more than his tedious speech.
Curiosity devoured me! What are they? And since a lady asked, how about the First Lady’s favorite books?
We waited—and waited and waited. The president looked testily tongue-tied, lock-jawed, grinning like a “treed” possum, struggling pitifully for words. Paralyzing panic slinked awkwardly across his befuddled face, fretfully striving to unshackle his vapor-locked brain.
Finally—as the seconds rapidly piled up like Kurdish corpses after a murderous Turkish assault in Kurdistan—he mumbled something about the greatness of Russian classics, but kept mute on names.
His jittery writhing elicited even my sympathy.
He ultimately wobbled beyond the past, seeking sanctuary in current books. With vast relief, he cited Why Nations Fail, in English, by [Kamer] Daron Acemoglu, whom Turkey honored with its Presidential Medal.
That bounced me out of my chair!
Since Acemoglu means son of Persian in Turkish, isn’t he Persian? Nope—he’s Armenian. His parents faked his identity to stay alive in Turkey, because the son of an Armenian is an obscenity in Turkish.
The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman called the book “fascinating.”
Mr. Acemoglu draws high praise for plainly articulating how prosperity tremendously rewards “inclusive” societies with clear-cut advantages over “extractive” ones.
Plainly put: “inclusive” societies encourage renewal—such as textile industries being updated by metallurgy and chemical industries, then giving way to today’s smartphones and electronic wizardry.
In short: inventive geniuses like Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs replenish those societies with lavish success.
By contrast, “extractive” societies are parasitically corrosive, suffocating their subjects in stagnant backwaters of stunted growth. Mr. Acemoglu cites the printing press, invented in Europe in the 15th century, but couldn’t penetrate Ottoman Empire barriers for 300 years!
Three centuries spawn indescribably arrested development!
But I digress. I’m glad a Turkish president honors a brilliant Armenian in disguise. It would be better to explain why his Armenian parents were forced to counterfeit their name to survive in “modern” Turkey.
The Turkish president ducked that, but what about his take on war? Thucydides, the Greek historian and Athenian general who chronicled the 27-year Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, says nations go to war primarily for honor, fear and interest.
Thucydides’ celebrated funeral oration of Pericles leaps forward 2,500 years, almost telepathically foreseeing the Turkish/Kurdish conflict:
“The whole earth is the sepulcher [especially war-ravaged Kurdistan] of famous men; they are honored by columns and inscriptions in their own lands, but in foreign nations on memorials graven not on stone but in the hearts and minds of men.”
The Turks cruelly mistreat Kurdistan as a “foreign” nation, mercilessly carving their brutality in “the hearts and minds” of Kurds.
In light of Thucydides’ use of “honor” to justify war, do Turks consider it “honor” to ban—in effect “dishonor”—a living language?
Answer that, President Gul.
Do the Turks “fear” the Kurds want a common border with Greeks, as our Mede ancestors shared one? No Kurd I know equates greatness with conquest.
Will Turks be satisfied with a fiscal “cut” in our oil wealth? Maybe money will cure their predatory instincts better than our resistance to tyranny!
But getting back to President Gul’s reading, after belatedly citing Mr. Acemoglu, he mentioned It Worked for Me, by Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and ex-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I’ve read that book, and know of Mr. Gul’s work with General Powell on the eve of the Iraq War for American troops to attack Saddam Hussein through Kurdistan from Turkey. Thankfully, nothing came of that plot and Kurds became the largest accidental beneficiaries of Yankee intervention in Baghdad.
In General Powell’s book, one comment jumped out: “Leaders should never bury a problem. You can be sure it will eventually rise from its grave and walk the earth again.”
That is excellent advice for Turkish cadets. In reading the book, they might question why their predecessors immorally crippled Armenia, and why their immediate superiors stubbornly insist on banning our living Kurdish language!
President Gul could have hailed a great chapter by General Powell, “Kindness Works,” citing a clergyman’s advice: “Always show more kindness than seems necessary, because the person receiving it needs it more than you will ever know.”
I salute that, General, on behalf of all oppressed Kurds who would welcome kindness—not killing—from the Turks. Kill us with kindness, Mr. Gul, not bombs!
President Gul’s exchange with cadets is troubling overall. He didn’t know if the books he cited had been translated into Turkish. So unless they speak English, they can’t even read them.
Worse yet, he couldn’t cite a single Turkish book worth reading!
There’s a fine howdy-do! It’s like a U.S. President being unable to recommend a single American-authored book to West Point cadets.
Maybe that printing press—300 years late getting to Turkey—is still stunted!
Mr. Acemoglu is exactly right. “Extractive” tyrannical societies like Turkey horribly stifle innovation, inventions, art and cultural contributions which enrich societies.
It’s long past time for Turkey to honor, not only an Armenian orphan, whose race suffered hideous genocide by the Turks, but to adopt “inclusivity” for all who call Anatolia home.
That includes 20 million Kurds inside what passes as Turkey, the largest ethnic group in the world brutally denied their own country.
We still bravely cry out, as battered orphan Jane Eyre wailed in Charlotte Bronte’s novel by that name: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
Well said, Jane!
P.S. Mr. Gul: You might sleep better if you embrace this French proverb: “There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.”
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