turkish → English transcript

Why did Vahidettin send Mustafa Kemal to Samsun?

People now think something happened in Samsun.

However, nothing happened in Samsun.

Kemalist historians say Mustafa Kemal went to Samsun and started the War of Independence — that's how they begin, right?

Kadir Mısıroğlu also says, "But Vahidettin sent him."

Your thesis is actually the exact opposite.

You say he sent him to start some kind of War of Independence.

No, there was no war that began in Samsun.

Because when Mustafa Kemal went, Samsun was under British occupation.

The British occupied Samsun on March 9, 1919.

They occupied Samsun with 100 men led by Hürt and 200 soldiers.

At that time Samsun had a population of 11,000.

It was a tiny place, and 200 British soldiers arrived.

That is, two and a half months before Mustafa Kemal came to Samsun.

So, can the national struggle be started from an occupied city?

So it doesn't start in Istanbul, then.

For six months you were buddy-buddy with the British.

You strutted through the streets of Istanbul in polished shoes.

In fact, Mustafa Kemal asked the British for a governorship.

Then he made an offer to Bennet, saying he could form a Turkish army loyal to the British.

After that, the British didn't respond.

Mustafa Kemal got angry and became a communist.

Mustafa Kemal spent three years of his life living as a communist.

During which years?

He founded the Communist Party on October 18, 1920.

In 1923 he shut it down.

But he didn't shut it down.

Very interesting — Mustafa Kemal didn't close the Communist Party.

The party seems to have simply faded away into history.

This theory that he closed it is also wrong.

That is also wrong, of course.

Mustafa Kemal didn't shut down the Communist Party because he was a communist himself.

Read Mustafa Kemal's writings.

In the Hakimiyeti Milliye newspaper.

The man was shouting "Long live Anatolian Communism."

These are things we didn't know.

Yes.

But generally, when I delved deeper into the story,

that story that Vahdettin sent Mustafa Kemal to save Anatolia

began to seem very inconsistent.

I mean, his position at the Erzurum Congress, and then the actions he took when he arrived in Ankara,

showed me that there was no special plan behind the scenes.

Neither in Vahdettin's, nor in Vahdettin's or Damat Ferit's, nor in Mustafa Kemal's mind.

There was no idea of starting a liberation war in Samsun.

There was no such thing.

Mustafa Kemal was sent by Damat Ferit.

After that, his assignment in Samsun was to deal with 11-12 Turkish bands in the Samsun mountains.

To collect the weapons of those Turkish bands.

So, on the contrary, not to start a war of liberation,

he was going on a mission to prevent a liberation war that was about to begin.

Mustafa Kemal said, "I landed in Samsun on May 19."

Now historians will fill that in; they will supply the details.

How do they fill it in?

It was a rotten, ramshackle ship.

Its compass was broken.

The Black Sea's wild waves, and so on.

The captain, moreover, didn't know the area at all, and so on.

The British were after him.

They're all lies.

They're all lies.

So look, the French have a saying.

The only true thing in a newspaper is the date.

And you, in fact, just repeat the day's date.

Of course, yes, Mustafa Kemal did arrive in Samsun on May 19.

He didn't actually disembark.

He arrived in Samsun on May 19, but everything written about Samsun is a lie.

He came to Erzurum on July 3.

Everything told about the Erzurum Congress is a lie.

So, he came to Sivas on September 4.

Everything said about the Sivas Congress is a lie.

On April 23 he established the parliament in Ankara.

Everything that's been said about the establishment of the parliament is a lie.

Atatürkçü Düşünce Derneği filed a complaint against me.

After that, the prosecutor's office and others came; they summoned me.

They took my statement.

Then I was tried.

The judge said, "Well then, Mr. Yaşar, didn't Mustafa Kemal ever do anything good for Turkey?"

I said, "He did."

Both the prosecutor and the judge lit up.

Then what did he do?

I said, "He sold Mosul and Kirkuk to the British for 500,000 pounds sterling."

The prosecutor freaked out.

You could see signs of madness in the man.

Now he has a wheelchair.

He wheeled himself up to the judge.

Whatever he's saying, the court's still on his side.

I need to hear it too.

No, whisper, whisper, whisper into his ear.

Write, girl, the judge said.

I think it's a year and a half in prison.