Putting together Anzac Day throwback galleries for newspapers in the North West NSW, I came across a curious picture of a girl marching with elderly Moree war veterans.
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A splash of eye-popping red among the khaki uniforms and with her chin poised with pride, the young girl wore a blood-red beanie. Embroidered across the beanie was the word “Canakkale” – the Turkish seaport where Aussie tourists are ferried before paying their respects to the more than 8,709 Australian soldiers that lost their lives at Gallipoli.
She waved a Turkish flag with a picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a face that would have been abhorrent to the Anzacs in the trenches in 1915. And yet, here was the face of this Ottoman slayer of diggers at Gallipoli, leading a march to honour the very heroes he fought against.
Truth be told, our Anzac heroes would not have existed were it not for the one-sided slaughter at Gallipoli that has come to symbolise sacrifice and heroism. Their stories had great impact on our country and are taught at schools, but ask your average Aussie Joe Blow who the “enemy” was and the name of commander Mustafa Kemal Ataturk eludes them.
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But it may be more than ignorance that allows Ataturk to feature prominently at a march honouring the very people he helped kill. Especially if you look at the antics of Turkish tour guides at the other end of the world. They weave their own unique perspective in their retelling of the Gallipoli story. They would have tourists believe that there was amity between the two sides as bullets flew between them.
Manipulation of truth aside, there is one fact that nobody can deny. We know for certain that it is both Anzac and Turkish corpses tangled under the earth at Gallipoli.
It is at Gallipoli that Australians, strangers to fighting, learnt that there is nothing romantic about war. It was also at Gallipoli that the Ottomans, used to battle, began to envision a modern Turkish nation. And Ataturk, a key figure in the conflict, went on to become the “father of modern Turkey”. In thus doing so, he earned the right for portraits of him to be displayed in every public place in his country forevermore.
He also became the first president of Turkey and was still president in 1934 when the first official Australian, New Zealand and English delegation returned to Gallipoli to pay their respects.
He may or may not have written a speech for his interior minister, Sukru Kaya, which states:
“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. To us there is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears, your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives in this land they have become our sons as well.”
Of course, there is no evidence that Kaya was near Canakkale on that day, let alone giving talks. In fact, in another speech she gave around that time, she clearly made reference to Australians as “invaders”, and hence, foes.
Nor did the famous words appear in a book of Ataturk’s speeches published in 1937. They were however referenced in a Turkish newspaper in 1953 for the first time, and that was 15 years after his death.
Yet, in the retelling of history, Ataturk’s supposed words are replicated widely. And history is tweaked a little - romanticised - because we want to believe that “Johnnies and Mehmets” lie side by side in friendly soil. We want to take home a lesson from the deaths of Anzacs, and what better lesson than an understanding that war is futile and the colour of your flag matters little when you’re dead.
So we allow a Turkish flag to be waved as a symbol that sacrifices are never one-sided.
And we remember. Lest we forget.
Mary Sinanidis is the NW NSW Group Editor for Fairfax Media.