Polemics Debate of Old-New Kemal Ahmet's Case Against the Accusation That He Had Turned Bourgeois Against Leftist Pretenders Against the Accusation that He was a Nationalist "A little Light, Please 3," published five days later in the "Hafta" of 22 July 1935, constituted a reply to the interview. "No sociology," the article pointed out, "could gurge up this nonsense. No objective, scientific book would mouthe the words of this sidewalk politician. The palavre hurled out in the name of scientificness is no longer welcomed even among the pages of the meanest propaganda pamphlet." Peyami Safa went on to provide explanations on various topic: "Some time back, it was fashionable in Russia to attack as 'depraved bourgeois' or 'mean bourgeois' anyone who was not a communist. [...] Even in Bolshevik Russia is such a style of aggression now considered passé. The very chiefs of the revolution have written books elucidating the debt of the Soviet revolution to bourgeois civilisation and the meaninglessness of the epithet of 'depraved bourgeois.' [...] "Nine years ago, in my early youth, upon the insistence of some freemasons among my friends and family, it is true I considered entering Freemasonry. Particularly their high ethical principles attracted me. But when Freemasons contacted me for an interview concerning my views on 'nature, morals, and creation', I believe my replies proved at odds with their creed and, perhaps finding that I lacked the talent for Freemasonry, they did not respond to my application. "It is a lie that I applied, and was rejected, thrice. [...] "I am a writer who has been earning a living by his pen without even a week's vacation for the past 18 years. [...] "From time when İsmail Sefa died in exile, that is to say from the time I was two years old, until recently, I have grown up and lived at times in dire need, but always nobly, because I owe no one anything. Even so, I have not applied to anyone or anything except to my pen. "And now, that grandson of a pasha, who has been nursed in his family's lap till he was tall as a beanstalk, that Bolshevik snob, dons the labourer's cap and would insinuate political immorality about one of Turkey's most blameless sons. [...] "At first, like the people and readers in general, I too, had assumed that he was sincere in his convictions. And because I did, I committed the error of defending him even though I was not of the same mind as he. [...] "If the man that wears a cap and labourer's jacket on his back is an ordinary and oppressed worker, no police will pursue him. but if this man is Nâzım Hikmet, keen on flaunting his Bolshevik adornments in writing and in the courtroom, and ever out to recruit a few more followers from among young people, one has to figure the effect created by cap, straw jacket, and gait. "In fact it is on the basis of this calculation that even he has managed to pocket more than 200 in a month, he will still stroll the streets clad in the poor working man's clothes. Nor has he ever known that 'historical materialism' is not street theatre. Neither patriotic youth nor the Turkish labourer will prove credulous enough to be taken in by the act of the clever grandson of a pasha who has cast himself in the role of the footman." In the "Yedigün" dated to 17 July 1935, Naci Sadullah had been able to print in its entirety the interview he had conducted with Nâzım Hikmet. In the parts he did not publish the issue of conversation has been provocateurs in general and Peyami Safa as provocateur in particular. Upon Nâzım's request, Naci Sadullah published in the following issue, of 24 July 1935, of "Yedigün" these previously excised segments: "Everywhere, provocateur big-and small-time, mischiefmakers and agents, the type, in other words, we are investigating here, are found among the likes of Peyami Safa. If we are to take up this aspect to Peyami, I should say that Peyami is a fugitive of smugglers' courts and a hesitant provocateur. And it is time to tear asunder the mark of this hesitant mischiefmaster like an edifying poster hanging on the wall of a hospital for contagious diseases. "I shall undertake this task with the sensation of deep disgust felt at the tip of my fingers. But undertake if I shall, in order to save my friends from the evil of this insidious disease. [...] "There is one wheel that steers his thoughts, opinions, and the entire floe of his life: his appetite, his egotism, and his personal interest. "Let me now prove this argument: "We shall find the following upon scrutinising Peyami's intellectual life from the moment he fell to Babıâli Street to today: he as always oscillated between the right and the left. As long as he holds a post and there is some cash in his pocket, he is on the right. Every time he has been fired from a post, every time he has fallen into need, he has turned left. But the maestro who, in times when he is on the right orchestrates provocations on the left, is astute enough to look after the right. [...] "In the days of our friendship, Peyami was in dire financial straits. This difficulty was propelling him toward the left. This propulsion reached such point one day that Peyami was not reluctant personally to say to me, 'For your sake I can become a Marxist'. [...] "The friendship Peyami struck up with me as a favour in those days, his inclination 'to become a Marxist for the sake of someone' had begun with him when he started imagining that my back was secure. His enmity toward me set in when he eventually realised that what he imagined was the case with me was in fact not true. Thus, to this very day, what he cannot forgive me is that I have thus disappointed him. [...] "I consider it my duty to let friends know of the following: "Say, three of you are sitting around talking. You're talking about the change for the worse in the weather. If you see him approaching, hush! Peyami is coming! "If you are standing by the window at the publishing office. You're looking out at the street and exchanging confidences. If you see his shadow cast upon the sidewalk, hush! Peyami is coming! "You are at a gathering. The door opens. He enters, hush! Peyami is coming! "There is an adaggio every young newcomer to Babıâli Street ought to learn: hush, Peyami is coming!" In his article "A Little More Light, Please 4" published in the "Hafta" of 29 July 1935, mocked this second conversation: "Nâzım Hikmet, it turns out, has not yet reached the end of what he has to say about me. Last week I read some scribbles of his. I must confess I failed to grasp whether he was serious or whether he was bent to hilarity in order to extricate himself - albeit belatedly - from the intellectual dead-end where he now finds himself. [...] "Poor lad... "As it were done out of his mind, he beholds mischief, treachery, and revolutions in his mind's eye and suddenly, Po! a scarlet demon, the vile one, the accursed among all the chaotic ghosts resembling the dream of a paranoiac - I, appear in front of him. [...] "He writes that I am a mischiefmaker, an instigator, and (I cannot help but laugh as I write this) a Lawrence. 'Hush', he says, 'Peyami is coming, hush'. "Hush, here I come, and I shall strike!... And do you know how I strike? I note down everything you say. I inform the government. I fill up my pockets. I make you suffer. I traverse right and left. I obtain information. I get all of you locked up. "This lad did not used to be a Bolshevik. He was a patriotic Turkophile through and through. He had never claimed communism. It was I who deviously converted him... I, Lawrence of Turkey, the Red Devil, Cingöz Recai, I. [...] "I swear I did not expect him to turn into the monument of intelligence and consciousness. Nevertheless, I do not believe that Nâzım Hikmet in fact uttered those words. How could that be. He is not a demon of the intellect, but the Nâzım I know is not all that stupid. [...] "He says that since 'Cingöz', all my works are so fallen that they are sold in the street. Which works does he have in mind I wonder, except the one book of short stories? [...] "And whose books are there that are not sold in the street? Practically every volume of Turkish science and Turkish literature. "And Nâzım Hikmet who, as a Turkish intellectual, ought to feel the agony of this fact... "But what am I saying? Nâzım Hikmet is neither a Turk nor an intellectual. He is a non-responsible man." ^ Top | Next >