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Her was here this mornin' t' ask me to open it and read it along with her. Theer's no tekin' note of her, Reuben, poor old ooman. Her's got a hive in her head. 'Do you know this young man's character' her says. 'Why, yis, I says; 'it'd be odd if I didn't, I says.
Turkish was to be the official language for use in all public proclamations, and, with Prussian thoroughness, it was even substituted on such railway tickets as had hitherto been printed in Arabic. But the translation of the Koran was the greatest linguistic feat, and Tekin Alp, the most prominent exponent of Nationalism, refers to it as one of the noblest tasks undertaken by the new movement.
They see clearly enough that Turkish Nationalism carried to a logical extreme is incompatible with the Ottoman pretension, and they favour the view, so severely criticised by Tekin Alp, "that all three groups of ideas Ottomanism, Islamism, and the Turkish Movement should work side by side and together."
If they are resolved to clear their Empire of every non-Turkish element, that is only a step towards extending it over everything Turkish that lies outside. The Turks have not only aliens to get rid of, but an irredenta to win. "The Ottoman Turks," Tekin Alp reminds his readers, "now only represent a tenth of the whole Turkish nation.
And if, as we know, Germany can never be victorious, will the Allies once more strive to keep the Sick Man alive, or leave in his ruthless power the peoples whom he is longing to exterminate? Even Tekin Alp can hardly expect that. Here then, in brief, is the policy of New Turkey.
The Committee consists by its statutes of Turks alone, and the election even of one Arab was vetoed . Tekin Alp informs us that
"Kin' ob wish we could wake up den, if it is. See yere, Miss Lou, you on'y a lil chile arter all. Doan you see Marse Scoville des tekin' a longer way roun' de bush? Wen he tell you he want you ter be happy he mean he want you hissef!" "Oh, yes, Aun' Jinkey, that was plain enough; but do you know how he would take me and when?"
"The French Ideal," writes the Nationalist Tekin Alp in Thoughts on the Nature and Plan of a Greater Turkey, "is in contradiction to the needs and conditions of the age." By contrast, "the Turkish national movement does not exhibit the failings of the earlier movements. It is in every way adapted to the intellectual standard and feelings of the nation.
In the second part of his pamphlet Tekin Alp passes on with an enthusiasm which is as sincere as it is pathetic to the vision of a tremendous Turkey, extending from Thrace on the west to the Desert of Gobi on the east.
"The Turkish Nationalists," Tekin Alp explains, "have made great efforts to nationalise religion itself, and to give it the impress of the Turkish national spirit. This idea was zealously supported by a fortnightly periodical, and one of the noblest tasks undertaken by it has been the translation of the Koran into Turkish. This is a reform of the greatest importance.
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