I know you only from books and from what my father told. They say you always spoke with great courtesy, dressed immaculately, “like a reed,” as my father put it. When you listened, you clasped your hands out of respect and leaned toward people’s lips to hear them better. What a human being you were. You would leave parliament and wander the streets as you liked; one could spot you somewhere in Ankara at any hour. You walked kilometers without stopping, stitching this country stitch by stitch, step by step. My father called you the first person truly in love with this homeland: with this soil, this people. People fall in love with people or with nature, he said, but this Gentleman was in love with every span of this land. You loved us; did we love you as much? Did we value you as you valued us? Sir…
You resigned as President without hesitation to bring the Ottoman dynasty back to its own homeland. Did we love the Ottomans as you did? In Paris you told the ambassador to learn the dynasty’s situation overnight or resign. Did we claim our dynasty as you did? Did they hang you because you broke no one, hurt no one, and wanted these lands raised to the level of contemporary civilization? History on this soil often destroys those who love it first; that is why we lost you early, Sir. Even on trial you kept your courtesy, wanted to tire no one, wanted to leave hearts you entered with a greeting with a prayer. Today millions of us remember you with prayer. Perhaps you see us from beyond while we refuse to name those who tried to chain that gentle heart, and with a million hearts, hands, and tongues we remember you and friends of the same greatness. 27 May is the day our flower wilted, yet we know death for us is a wedding night. Still, if only we had not sent you off that way, Sir… We, today’s youth, trusted you first in this country; when we teach the young, we start with you. Hardly anyone who dreams of this country’s better days does not know you. You were the first guarantee of our good days, one of the first leaders of a promising youth. On the anniversary of the first blow to our freedom, our future, our love of this homeland, of everything we are, we miss you deeply, Sir…
