ANZAC Day and Gallipoli April 25, 2008

Anzac Day is commemorated by Australia and New Zealand on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I.

In 1934, nineteen years after the 1915 landing, the first ANZAC veterans returned to Gallipoli. On them, on behalf of the Turkish nation President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk gave this message as soldier-statesman whose genius turned the Gallipoli campaign against the Allies, his famous words of reconciliation: … to Mothers who lost their sons at the Gallipoli Battle :

“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives;
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers,
who sent their sons from far away countries,
wipe away your tears;
your sons are now lying in our bosom
and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have
become our sons as well.”
ATATURK 1934

Memories of ANZACs

“…as the cries of the wounded continued and the hot sun rose, the Anzacs were moved to pity. They had never seen such bravery before. A truce was arranged and Anzacs and Turks together helped to bury the dead. It is said that the AUstralians’ hatred of the dead. It is said that day and was replaced by a healty respect. From then on, the Turks were fellow sufferers; human beings. “ A.K.MAcdougall-Australian History-Gallipoli and the Middle East

“We mounted over a plateau and down through gullies filled with thyme, where there lay about 4000 Turkish dead. It was indescribable. One was grateful for the rain and the grey sky. A Turkish Red Crescent man came and gave me some antiseptic wool with scent on it… The Turkish captain with me said: “At this spectacle even the most gentle must feel savage, and the most savage must weep’ … I talked to the Turks, one of whom pointed to the graves. ‘That’s politics,’ he said. Then he pointed to the dead bodies and said: ‘That’s diplomacy. God pity all us poor soldiers.’” - Captain Aubrey Herbert, ANZAC, May 1915 (taken from the inside dust-jacket of the book).

“Extraordinary friendly exchanges between the Turks and our fellows this morning early.Some of our chaps ran right over to the enemy trenches and exchaged bully, jam, cigarettes etc. The whole business was wonderful and proves how madly unneccessary this part of the war is” Lt T.E Cozens,AIF,DIARY,19 October. Jonathan King 8. section page: 187.

“…. On 18 May when I was shot, there was a sniper Turkish girl. She was beautiful, huge and aged 19 or 20. Throughout the day, she continuously fired her gun. Although she shot many of us, I felt sorry when an Australian has shot her. As we have caught her dead body, we found a man’s body by her side.There were 52 bullets in her body. This war is horrible.”

” Between April 25 and December 20, 1915, in an area of 20 kilometres by 8, the following numbers of troops were killed:

86,000 Turkish 8,700 Australian 2,700 New Zealanders 27,000 British and Indian”

“While Turkish armies were fighting with British, Anzacs and the French at Gallipoli, they were also fighting the Russians in the Eastern front and British-Arab alliance in the south.

At a time when there were no young men left in Anatolian villages, Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire collaborated with the Russian invaders.. pillaging and murdering women and children in villages which were left defenseless after all men were conscripted to fight the enemies who were in a feeding frenzy – trying to devour what was left of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.

Armenians in border regions were thus deported to southern provinces and many perished during the arduous exodus.
Generations of Armenian militants later resorted to vicious terror tactics murdering numerous Turkish diplomats as revenge killings for an alleged genocide during the war years”

“ After the terrible punishment inflicted upon the brave but futile assaults all bitterness faded … The Turks displayed an admirable manliness … From that morning onwards the attitude of the Anzac troops towards the individual Turks was rather that of opponents in a friendly game.‘[ Charles. E Bean, the Australian official historian, The Story of Anzac, Vol II, Sydney, 1924, p.162 ]

Me and Lorenzo in front of the Turkish soldiers memorial in Gallipoli

PS : Sometimes l see that people search in google ” turkish anzac pics” and they visit my post. I just want to tell those people that turkish soldiers didnt even have shoes to wear in the war , how could they take pics of Anzacs?? The existing photos of the war and of Anzac soldiers were taken by anzacs themselves.

Empty Tourists October 6, 2007

Usually I don’t spend time in very touristical areas of Istanbul, I stroll around the historical districts which tours dont take tourists much. Nowadays I walk in the back streets of Uskudar a lot because of the project I am working on. I’m designing a little library next to a building which was an ottoman primary school some hundreds of years ago.

So I dont see many tourists. Only one or two very curious and courageous ones who are able to get a map and stroll alone. Today while I was going down the hill, I saw one climbing the hill with an Istanbul map in the hand and a stupid fes on the head. I couldn’t stop laughing… It wasn’t the only one with fes I have seen so far.Why do tourists wear those weird fes?? Don’t they feel stupid with it? Don’t they look around themselves and notice that noone in Turkey would wear it?

Sometimes the ignorance of the tourists amazes me. They have no idea about Ottoman Empire, Turkish republic , turkish culture, Istanbul, other cities of Turkey…So why are they in Istanbul? They usually go to Italy because it’s a kind of fashion, it seems even Istanbul becomes something like that. I hate this empty tourism. Like the shopkeeper who sells miniatures has told me once : ” Tourists don’t come to my shop to buy miniatures. I have only very special foreigner customers who understand miniature art. Usual tourists who come here aren’t different than gypsies towards art”

Like french, italian, english in Istanbul, like hundreds of americans I see in Florence whole summer or thousands of russians in Antalya…like milions of tourists who destroy , pollute and rape Venice each year more just for commercial reasons far from art, architecture and understanding.

Qouran Doesn’t Mention Headscarf September 3, 2007

TRADITIONS MADE INTO RELIGIOUS PRESCRIPTIONS

What was not stated in the Qouran was introduced into religious practice, and customs related to a man’s attire were considered to be part of his devotional lifestyle. For instance, the turban had been worn by nearly everybody at a given period of history to keep the head warm. There was nothing wrong in this. What was unwarranted, however, was attributing a religious character to it. We must go over the verses in the Quran to see what has been ordained as far as man’s attire is concerned.

26 – O you children of Adam! We have bestowed raiment upon you to cover your private parts as well as to be an adornment to you.
7 The Purgatory, 26

The minimum covering for both men and women has been since times immemorial the covering of the private parts of a person as foreseen in Verses 26-22 of the Sura The Purgatory. There are three verses in the Quran that have reference to a woman’s attire.

THERE IS NO MENTION OF COVERING THE HEAD FOR WOMEN

31 – Say to the believing women to lower their eyes and guard their private parts, and not display their ornaments (ziynet) except what is apparent outwardly, and cover their bosom with their veils (hýmar). And not show their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers or the fathers of their husbands or their sons or the sons of their husbands or their brothers or the sons of their brothers and the sons of their sisters or their women or their captives or male servants free of physical need or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex. They should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O believers! All of you shall repent to God that you may succeed.
24 The Light, 31

The Arabic word hýmar means simply ‘cover.’ It has a wide range of meanings. It may be any cover such as the table napkin. If it is used to cover the head, it will signify the headscarf. However, if the head had been the target, the expression should have been hýmar-ur-ras meaning the covering of the head. However, in the context, one should understand the portion of the body corresponding to the bosom. Therefore it is the low-necked attire that is meant here. Even though the headscarf was the corresponding meaning, one should conclude that it was to be used to cover a woman’s bosom and not her head.

Another important expression mentioned in the verse is the word ‘ornaments,’ which, to our own interpretation should mean the bosom. This, we believe, is in harmony with the rest of the sentence in which the covering of the low neck is imperative. Moreover, striking of the feet comes next, which might attract attention to the breasts that would be wiggling as a consequence of the striking movement, considering the brassiere did not exist at that time. Then the verse makes an exception for those ornaments that are self-conspicuous. Big breasts cannot be hidden no matter what one does, as a result of physical movements of the body, or may become even more conspicuous when the dress under the effect of a strong wind sticks to the body. So the verse explains this as a natural phenomenon. We read in other verses that women nursed their children sometimes for two years. When her baby cries she may be obliged to nurse it in the presence of her next of kin like her father. This commentary provides us with the necessary elbowroom under the circumstances. One other point that corroborates our argument is the fact that this word makes no allusion to the hanging objects that adorn a woman since the verse also mentions that they can let their ornaments be seen in the presence of women. Dangling ornaments may, of course, be used to show off rather than be an object for seduction. The striking of the feet would not render conspicuous the finery or the jewelry of the woman. Moreover, there is the fact that adornments may be used everywhere. Even during prayer they may be used, so they don’t have to be hidden (see 7 The Purgatory, 31). From all of these it follows that the word ornament is used to refer to the breasts of the woman.

VEILING

The word tasattur, which means the veiling of a woman, does not exist in the Quran. It has come to be used in the way that it is today much later. The Arabic expression humur and its singular form hýmar mentioned in the verse is a cover, any cover rather than a headscarf. The dictionaries Al Mujam ul Vasýf, Al Munjid, Lisan-ý Arab, Tajul Arus may be consulted. The connotation of the hýmar in the sense of headscarf emerged much later, following the interpretation and practices of sectarian scholarship. The Quran speaks of the bosom as the part of the body that must be covered, and not the head. The words that correspond to the headscarf worn by Arabs are mýkna and nasýf and not hýmar, for which any dictionary of the Arabic language may be consulted.

http://www.quranic.org/