Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland

Ahmet Ümit, Rakesh Jobanputra

Description

The story of a man forced to choose between his country and his love

Taking place in Istanbul, Salonika, Paris and Macedonia between 1908 and 1926, Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland is the story of lives that have been turned upside down by rebellion, revolution and war. It is the story of the Greek declaration of independence, of the Jews of Salonika being forced into exile, of the Bulgarians fighting for their independence and of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the struggle to create a new nation out of its crumbling ruins. It is also the story of one man’s search for his true calling amidst the chaos of a turbulent historical era, the story of a man caught between his love for his country and his love for his woman. Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland is a story of unfulfilled dreams and the call of history. And underpinning it all is one fundamental question, one fundamental struggle: which takes precedence – the state or the people?

Death Begins with the Loss of Our Cities…; Are You Going to Be a Killer?; An Idea Whose Time Has Come; Your Decision; Dogs Smelling Blood on a Hunt; The Meaning of This Empire for Us; Confronting Death; The Ancient Wound; The Essence of the State; Becoming the Hunted; Like Two Wistful Flowers; The World’s Greatest Mystery; The Love That Will Never Fade; What Does a Single Individual Matter?; A Game of Revenge; The Motherland Is Lost; The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive; No Intention of Surrendering; A Man’s Word Is His Honour; An Inappropriate Sense of Compassion; A Token of a Conversation; I Am Not the One to Decide; Miracles; The Ability to Forgive Ourselves; Losing One’s Humanity; No Choice But to Fight; Give Me an Honourable Death; The Walking Dead; Save Yourself, Soldier; Wishing for Help from the Dead; Resign, Your Excellency!; A False Sense of Security; The True Power in the Land; Betrothed to Life, Married to Death; When the Wolf Dies in the Forest; This Is Not Ankara; Vultures Circling Over an Old Man; Ignoble Alliances; A Betrayal of Their Own History; Fighting for a Lost Cause; Evil Stalks This Land; A Malevolent Rain; A Fragmented Homeland, a Disintegrating World; Turning Us All into Killers; When I Began Losing My Country; Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland; Glossary.

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 31 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785271052
• Langue: English

Extrait

FAREWELL, MY BEAUTIFUL HOMELAND
The secrets of the state are darker than those of the earth…
FAREWELL, MY BEAUTIFUL HOMELAND
A hmet  Ü mit
T ranslated by R akesh J obanputra
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2020
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
Original title: Elveda Güzel Vatanım
Copyright © Ahmet Ümit 2020
Originally published by Everest Publications
English translation copyright © Rakesh Jobanputra 2020
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-103-8 (Pbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-103-2 (Pbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
Dedicated to the peace protestors that were slaughtered in Ankara on Saturday 10th of October 2015…
A plan to assassinate me upon my arrival in Izmir on the 16th of June has been unearthed. The primary culprits were caught in the act and have been detained. The detainees have all confessed to their involvement in the plot. Sarı Efe, for whom an arrest warrant has been issued, is amongst the conspirators. There is no doubt that Sarı Efe has friends and organisations backing him in Istanbul, where he is based. In the event of the plot succeeding, meetings are expected to be held this evening and tomorrow by the organisation in question to discuss the necessary measures to be taken in regards to the politics to be pursued in the wake of the assassination.
If Sarı Efe has been detained, the initial intelligence obtained from his interrogation must be used to help us find the organisation in question and discover the location of the planned meeting; if, on the other hand, he is still at large, our priority is to obtain the aforementioned information once has he has been detained.
–Excerpts from a coded message sent by
the President of the Republic Gazi Mustafa Kemal
to Ekrem Bey, the Chief of Istanbul Police

Mister President, Your Excellency, let me now speak directly on this matter of the ‘clandestine organisation’, the clandestine organisation whose existence you have assumed since the day the Committee for Union and Progress’ agenda was drawn up. I absolutely and categorically have no information regarding the assassination as ordered by that organisation. Proof must be provided for the actions a man has taken. How am I to prove I have not done something? I have never, in my life, engaged in violence against anybody, even against my worst enemies or those that have violated my rights, my dignity or my honour. Nor have I ever espoused the use of violence. I am a man that has always maintained his impartiality. You will not find violence or the championing of violence in any of my actions, writings or speeches.
–From former Minister of Finance Cavit Bey’s defence
during the trial pertaining to the Izmir assassination
in the Independence Court
Contents
Death Begins with the Loss of Our Cities…
Are You Going to Be a Killer?
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Your Decision
Dogs Smelling Blood on a Hunt
The Meaning of This Empire for Us
Confronting Death
The Ancient Wound
The Essence of the State
Becoming the Hunted
Like Two Wistful Flowers
The World’s Greatest Mystery
The Love That Will Never Fade
What Does a Single Individual Matter?
A Game of Revenge
The Motherland Is Lost
The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive
No Intention of Surrendering
A Man’s Word Is His Honour
An Inappropriate Sense of Compassion
A Token of a Conversation
I Am Not the One to Decide
Miracles
The Ability to Forgive Ourselves
Losing One’s Humanity
No Choice But to Fight
Give Me an Honourable Death
The Walking Dead
Save Yourself, Soldier
Wishing for Help from the Dead
Resign, Your Excellency!
A False Sense of Security
The True Power in the Land
Betrothed to Life, Married to Death
When the Wolf Dies in the Forest
This Is Not Ankara
Vultures Circling Over an Old Man
Ignoble Alliances
A Betrayal of Their Own History
Fighting for a Lost Cause
Evil Stalks This Land
A Malevolent Rain
A Fragmented Homeland, a Disintegrating World
Turning Us All into Killers
When I Began Losing My Country
Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland
Glossary
Death Begins with the Loss of Our Cities…
Good Morning, Ester (Morning, Day 1)
The sun finally rose. The dim grey that had been trying to steal through my window gave way to the clearest, deepest blue. I opened the balcony door, stepped outside and felt a damp breeze caress my face. I breathed in the clammy morning air, hoping that it would dispel some of the heaviness in my head. There was something about the chill that I liked, however, something invigorating. The city had awoken. Shouts and cries rose up from the street below; jokes and wisecracks, the rattling of yoghurt vendors’ carts, the rumble of carriages trundling past… the familiar rush of the streets of Pera. Down below, the glowing white waters of the Golden Horn stretched away like a lake of milk, flecked by the ashen stains of a few boats bobbing on the waters. I cast my mind back to the tranquil waters of Salonika. That endless blue stretching from the bay out towards the open sea…
If I remember correctly, the balcony of my house in Salonika was wider than this one… How my heart aches when I say the word remember . Is it possible for someone to forget the city of his birth? The house in which he was raised? Of course not. One cannot forget but time, slowly, inexorably, begins to erase the memories, one by one. Death begins with the loss of one’s city. I can’t remember who said those words, but how unfortunate that he was right. There is one crucial omission, however: death begins with the loss of one’s city and is completed with the loss of the homeland. That is the feeling that now haunts me. My city I have long since lost. Now it is time to lose my homeland. Perhaps I have already lost it and I am just oblivious of the fact.
Indeed, what is a country? A handful of earth, wide seas and deep lakes? Is it rugged mountains, fertile plains, lush forests, crowded cities and scattered villages? No, a homeland is more than just that. It is not just a handful of earth or river plains or rows of trees… The homeland is our mother’s love for us, it is the specks of white in our father’s beard, it is our first love, the birth of our children, our grandparents’ graves… Those without a homeland are also without life. At one point, my heart and mind were full of ideas like these. And now? Now, I am not sure.
Just as that vast land is now disintegrating and facing annihilation, so too are my thoughts, goals and ideals. Indeed, my entire life now seems to be evaporating in front of my very eyes. No, don’t worry, my body is fine, but my mind and my soul are in torment. Such is the pain that I sometimes ask myself why I am prolonging the torture. There are times I wish to end this macabre escapade with my own hands. But then I desist. Not because I fear death, or because I love life, but simply out of some strange curiosity. I may not need to do it in the end because the new masters of the land may soon decide to end the beating of this heart that still clings stubbornly onto life in my otherwise weary, jaded body. The possibility is very real… It happened to my friends, and I imagine the same fate may also lay in wait for me. My life shall come to an end either with a bullet to the head in some dark, grimy corner of a dingy room or at the end of a rope in the wake of a verdict and sentence passed by a hastily assembled court. I feel it; every day, every hour, every second. The circle is closing in on me. That is why I am writing this to you. I know I do not have the right to do so, but believe me, I have no choice.
They are after me, Ester. They are hunting me down. They do not spare any of the old members of the party. None of them have been spared. The assassination attempt in Izmir on the president was a pretext, a smokescreen. The reckoning has finally begun. The gallows set up in Izmir were not enough; they also hanged our men in Ankara. Guilty or innocent, they don’t care. Take Kara Kemal, for instance. He had nothing to do with the assassination plot, but they got rid of him anyway. They say he killed himself, and in a henhouse too. Who could actually fall for such nonsense? What do they take us for? Not only are they telling us he committed suicide, but that he did it in a chicken coop too. What they’re doing is blackening his name. Humiliating him completely. They’re getting rid of them all, of everybody, one by one, and I am next. I can feel it. A power that can have so many committee members imprisoned and so many more exiled would never deign to leave me alive. That is why I left t