Chapter VII: Passionate Women Patriots--A Mass Meeting

This is the anniversary of the foundation of the Ottoman Empire--a red-letter day for Turkish feminists. To-day for the first time the various women’s societies have held a mass meeting, and a member from each society has given an account of the year’s work. This meeting, then, marks the end of the old régime for the Turkish woman. She has now given us, as it were, chapter and verse as to the rôle she intends to play in the future. She has cast aside the dangerous rôle she played until quite recently--a powerful part, and all the more powerful since it was anonymous. When anything went wrong with the political pie into which so many of them had put their fingers--it was not a case of “cherchez la femme,” for she disappeared behind the veil, and the men least of all suspected how well these women could ruin a cause if only they chose. Turkish women, then, are sacrificing a powerful anonymous rôle for an honest responsible part in the work of the world, and recognizing that only by straightforward, honest methods can they advance the welfare of humanity. And so the Turkish women who declared themselves perfectly satisfied with their bondage, and yet at the same time worked in secret to break those chains, have now come out in the manner of the Western women, openly to demand their rights.

But it is unjust to give all the credit of this meeting to the women. How different would have been their position now had they had a Government against them! I am not going to put halos round the heads of the Young Turks, nor am I going to present them with a pair of angel’s wings; such vain flattery would be as useless as it is bad form. The Young Turk, however, has not yet had his opportunity. Youth and inexperience are responsible for many strange blunders--effort is so new a chapter in the life-story of Turkey; effort and blunders beget experience, and experience he must have at all costs. In his political methods he has not been impeccable. I do not defend him. What I do protest against, however, is that an action committed by a Turk should be called “a crime,” and yet committed by a Christian neighbour “a diplomatic error.” And so in this question of women. “See,” says Europe, “how the Turk treats his women.” “See,” I might answer, “how the British Government treats its women.”

There are so many questions which should be entirely settled by women and never taken to the Imperial Parliament at all. The Turkish Government has been wiser than we in this matter, for it recognizes that education and the housing of the poor are questions which should be left as much as possible in the women’s hands.

A Turkish Feminist Government! To Western Europe this sounds strange. We have heard for so long of the Paradise of Mahomet, where women have no place, and of a religion which does not credit them even with the possession of a soul. Exactly how these ideas originated no one has been able to tell me--perhaps in the imagination of Hood, for the Koran distinctly states that “Paradise is at the mother’s feet.” A Turkish Feminist Government! Have the women quite become accustomed to the idea? It is true they never before possessed such privileges. One of the first triumphs of the counter-revolution of April 13 was the total destruction of the woman’s club founded by Selma Hanoum, sister of Ahmed Riza Bey, and that lady nearly lost her life as her reward for having espoused the cause of the liberty of her Turkish sisters.

This meeting, which celebrated the foundation of the Ottoman Empire, was under the patronage of Djémal Pasha, now General Pasha and Minister of Public Works, to whom I have so often referred as the Military Governor of Constantinople. When congratulating him on his new appointment, I asked him if, in his new capacity, he would still be the “feminist” Minister. “Most certainly,” said he; “this whole Eastern question, is it not a woman’s question?”

He it was who gave women the opportunity of visiting the warship _Hamidieh_; he who allowed a Turkish woman, Belkis Chefket Hanoum, to go up in an aeroplane, and then had her portrait placed in the Military Museum beside the heroes of Turkey; he it was who had the State Treasury and old Serail opened for the first time for Turkish women. They have now sold at a charity bazaar; they are organizing a concert, at which they will be allowed to perform. It seems hardly comprehensible to Western readers that these favours should be a question to be decided by a Government, or that such elementary every-day occurrences should be counted as steps towards freedom; they should have been in Constantinople under the régime of Hamid, then they could take these “reforms” at their proper value.

Every place in the theatre where the meeting was held was crowded long before the time announced for its starting. There were no men in the audience, but men took part in the proceedings and made brilliant feminist speeches. The whole aspect of the audience was so different from anything I had seen in the West--the black-robed and veiled women, some puffing away contentedly at their cigarettes, others walking up and down to soothe their restless babies. Babies at a meeting such as this astonished me. I made the remark to my friend. They were not the women of the “mothers’ meeting” class, as many would have supposed judging according to our Western habits, but simply mothers who were interested in the welfare of the country, and curious to hear what was being done for the uplifting of their sex, but who at the same time could not make up their minds to leave “the baby at home.” It was a curious conflict between the woman of the old and new civilizations, which, although so natural to my Turkish colleagues, interested me more even than the accounts given by the various societies of the work done.

It is unfortunate not to be able to understand the language of the country one is visiting--this was the first time I had ever heard Turkish women speak in public, and I had to rely on the assistance of an interpreter. They all seemed to speak, however, without difficulty, quite simply, with few gestures, no notes, and perfect calmness until they came to the sacred word, “fatherland”--then there were tears in their voice as well as in their eyes.

How magnificent is this patriotism of the women! There is a strong movement of patriotism amongst the men, but nothing to be compared with that wonderful “Joan of Arc”-ism which is going on amongst the women. With the men it is a mourning for their lost honour, a desire for revenge. On coming out of the military college at Broussa I saw each boy pause before an image, which I from the distance mistook for the “Sacred Heart.” How had this “Sacred Heart” come into a Moslem college, I wondered; but on closer inspection I found it to be the heart of the fatherland, pierced and bleeding, and above it the map of the Ottoman Empire, with its lost provinces covered in black crêpe. Each boy, I repeat, paused, his brow clouded, his chin was set firm, and then he placed in the collecting-box his “mite” for the national defence.

With the women the patriotism has the same foundation of giving to a cause (far, far more than they can afford they have given to the fund), but a woman’s patriotism is more complete than that of a man--there is in it a mixture of fine religious feeling, a pious cult for traditions and responsibility as mothers of the race. Woman is the destiny of man, and the Turkish woman, because of her lack of education and her cloistered condition, has been unable to give to the country the men it needed. All this was explained in the speeches. All her shortcomings the Turkish woman recognizes--this is the beginning of her salvation.

Another feature of this meeting which interested and surprised me was to see how cleverly the Turkish woman is able to raise money and how willingly her sisters respond to her appeal.

The seats for the meeting were from five francs downwards, the entrance money being devoted to the upkeep of a school for girls that women have recently opened. They are responsible for the expenses of the school. During the afternoon “Alexandra roses” were sold in the same manner in which they are sold in my country for the benefit of the poor refugees, by whom they are made, and finally, after the principal speeches, a collection was taken in the real “Pankhurst” style for the national defence. I might almost have been back in London hearing the “militant” speakers pleading for funds for the “war chest.”

“The nation must have a fleet, its very existence depends on its fleet, and the women must help,” began the speaker. “I trust the women to give whatever they can.” There was a moment’s silence, a thrill went through the audience. What was coming? One of the charms of Turkish life is that you never know what will happen. Anything may happen, and generally that which is least expected. There was another pause. All eyes were fixed on the stage, for coming through the wings appeared a Turkish woman, wearing the white sash of the Navy League, and carrying in her arms what I supposed to be a baby in long clothes. Slowly and reverently she began to take off its silk wrappers, reverently she handed it to the chairman--it was not a baby at all, but a magnificent head of woman’s hair sent with these words, “This is all I can give towards the Turkish fleet.”

As a rule Turkish women have very beautiful hair. Mahomet regarded a woman’s hair as her “crowning glory,” and it was for this reason he considered it wiser for married women’s hair to be veiled; it is not a woman’s face, but her hair the fanatics insist on having covered, and, as I have already explained, it is almost indecent to appear before a man with one’s hair unveiled. One day I had strayed through the selamlik, and had gone bareheaded to the door. An employee had arrived at the door at the same time, and seeing me turned his head discreetly away until I had time to pull my _écharpe_ over my hair. Hair, then, having this value attached to it, this extraordinary contribution towards the Turkish navy had a special meaning for the Turkish women. And the giver? Was she married? If so, her gift was of even greater value, since physical charm is the Turkish woman’s dowry. Was she the wife, sister, or daughter of a Turkish officer? She preferred to remain anonymous with true Turkish modesty, and £80 was raised for the fund from the sale of her hair.

Dear little patriot! Every time I see in the papers the Turks have bought a new ship I shall think of her. Those ships to me have now taken a form different from mere ships, for have I not seen them purchased with the price of a woman’s hair, the widow’s mite, and the orphan’s halfpence? But not only a woman’s hair--jewels, embroideries, stuffs were sold for the ships that were to “guarantee the very existence of the fatherland.” Most women were weeping. Who could help it when mothers with bowed heads and broken hearts came forward with offerings such as this: “£5 I give to the National Defence in memory of my five sons fallen for the fatherland”?

And so the moments I am spending in Turkey in the charming intimacy of my Turkish sisters are at bottom moments of sadness. Only five years ago I saw this people strike for freedom and shout with joy at the proclamation of the Constitution; now after only five years they are in the deepest mourning. It is not in a fashionable hotel at Pera that one can understand the real meaning of the war. Never shall I forget the spectacle of a long procession of soldiers crossing the Galata Bridge. Medical science had done its best for these men, snatched almost, as it were, from the jaws of death. Of what use were they in life? One person more to feed, and an eyesore to their nearest and dearest, one really begins to wonder if the old Chinese method of hacking the enemy to pieces is not, after all, the most merciful. There were men without legs; some without hands and arms; some blind; but these were nothing compared to the hideously disfigured faces of many, and some of those earless or eyeless victims of the “Christian” Bulgars. No words can describe their pitiful condition--these men had been mutilated for their fatherland, a glorious destiny indeed. Should we not rejoice? At the sight of them I was physically ill.

But there is another side to the question. These men, many of them, were the breadwinners. Who is going to feed the women now? Now is the time to blame the harem system. The idle, protected women, what are they going to do now? In other countries women of this class could cook or sew or clean. I would have been glad of some one to sew for me besides Miss Chocolate, but in all Stamboul, amongst all these starving women, I can find no woman to do plain sewing. It is not when women are actually starving that one can teach them a trade; they must work at once. They can embroider; they can produce embroidery that is worth leaving to one’s grandchildren, and yet a European child of ten would be ashamed to make buttonholes as they do.

And this priceless embroidery is less well paid than plain needlework in my country. The Red Crescent Society undertakes to pay one franc a day to these poor women who embroider and weave, and also to find work for the poor refugees who have come back penniless to their native land rather than lose their nationality. It is sad to see these poor creatures arriving. I have been with the women of the Red Crescent Society to meet them at the boats or outside the mosques, where they sit and wait, whilst their husbands try to get work. They look perfectly resigned, these poor women, as they sit huddled up beside the carpets and the cats, kept in bird-cages. Those who have no baby to nurse sit with their elbows on their knees and their heads on their hands. They can only wait their fate. But the Red Crescent ladies are there; they will not starve.

I had no idea before coming here of the splendid self-sacrifice these women are making for these starving souls. They have formed a league and have undertaken to buy only the stuffs of their own country, and have opened a shop in Stamboul where only Turkish goods are sold. No more Paris dresses, no more jewels; not one luxury till these poor, starving women are fed, and if you ask a Turkish woman to-day what is her greatest ambition, she will answer without hesitation, “To save my poor country.”

I have no space in this book to write of the other works started by women, but the Red Crescent, which is organized on the lines of the Red Cross Society (and has the embroidery and weaving establishment in addition), and the movement for the education of the women are, to my mind, the most important of all. It is when one sees these women themselves fettered by atavism, crippled for want of education and a misunderstood teaching of the Koran, fighting against the terrible odds of having to find work for women who cannot work, and food for hungry mouths in a country where there is no money, that one understands how bitterly these women resent the manner in which they are introduced by the writer’s imagination to the Western world.

I very much doubt whether, in the West, we could have fought this terrible fight against poverty as the Turkish women have done. It is infinitely comforting, however, to think, as I sink at nights into my comfortable cushions, that although the wind is howling and the rain is beating against the windows of this konak, any beggar may come in and find food and shelter in the basement. “Find me one of your Western countries,” said one day to me Zeyneb (Pierre Loti’s disenchanted heroine, to whom everything Western now is tarnished by a lack of Christian charity), “where the poor are accommodated in the houses of the rich; and if they were,” she added, “you would have to employ a detective to watch them.”