COLUMNIST WRITES HUMANISTIC ADAPTATION OF ATATURK ADDRESS, RECEIVES HATE MAIL

Tert
Nov 12 2009
Armenia

Columnist of Turkish daily Taraf Sevan Nshanyan (NiÅ~_anyan), who
wrote a humanistic adaptation of Ataturk’s "Address to Turkish Youth,"
a patriotic speech calling on young people to protect their country
at all costs, published e-mails received from irate nationalists
and filled with threats and vulgar language in his column yesterday,
Today Zaman’s reports.

In his adaptation, Nshanyan replaced the first sentence of the address,
"Your first duty is to preserve and to defend Turkish Independence
and the Turkish Republic forever," with "Your first duty is to be a
human being."

"This is the very foundation of your existence and your future. This
foundation is your most precious treasure. In the future, too,
there may be malevolent people at home and abroad, who will wish to
deprive you of this treasure" in the original was changed to "The
very foundation of being human is love toward other human beings. All
through your life, you shall consider it a duty for yourself to teach
beauty, reason and justice to people. If you have knowledge, you will
share it without expecting anything in return." The rest of Nshanyan’s
adaptation was a treatise on the equality of all human beings.

However, the backlash from some among Turkish youth was
spine-chilling. "We will make you write the correct version of the
‘Address to Youth’ with your own blood. … I’ll kill you like that
Hrant Dink dog," said one of the messages, most of which is not
suitable for reproduction here.

One such message was the sender’s own adaptation, "Turkish Youth! Your
primary duty is to adopt as a principle to wipe from the earth for the
sake of Turkishness and humanity the Armenians and Kurds, that champion
enmity against Turks and which are the most debased nations on earth."