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Altemur Kiliç |
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A Slap on my Face
..: 15.09.2008:.. |
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I have the honor of having been slapped on my face by Great Mustafa Kemal Ataturk when I was about ten years old! It was a dubious honor at the time and I was ashamed of remembering and recounting it. But now I am proud of having been slapped by the founder and First President of the Turkish Republic.
My father Kilic Ali was a close companion of the great man from 1919 when he offered his services to him as an officer at Sivas and then was continuously with him for 19 years until Ataturk died in 1938. HE was there, when he died and closed his eyes.
When he was alive was almost a part of our family and came to our house often. He loved children. When we were not sent out of ear shot he called us to his side, and either tested us in history or made us wrestle.
During summers he stayed in Florya beach where the official residence was a wooden house built on steel piles. Our bungalow was on the opposite hill because my father had to be close to him.
We children mostly off springs of hi entourage swam and played in the sea under the house. Some time Ataturk swam among us and common people without bodyguards.
He offered us ice cream. At that particular time we were again playing under the hose and Ayla the sister of Ataturk's companion Professor Afet Inan was among us. Apparently Aydin Gurer the son of another member of entourage who was a few years older than me had taken his jostling a little too far! And Ataturk who was watching us withy his binoculars was angry. He sent an aid to pick us by our ears and to him and then he admonished us and gave us slight slaps on our faces and then we were exiled from Florya for a time!
My honor was redeemed a few years later: in 1937 at the peek of the ‘Hatay crisis’ with France I had written a patriotic poem about the issue and attacked France as an Imperialist foe. My father took the poem to the ‘sofra’ as it was called the nightly dinner table where Ataturk consulted with experts and usual friends to discuss and consult about current affairs and issues! Apparently the great man was pleased by what I had written and corrected some words with his own pen. And wrote ‘Bravo DK’! (Demir is my nickname) He sent his aid to take me to the dinner table, but I was sleeping and they did not wake me up! I never forgave them... Ataturk sent me the corrected verses with his pen. The framed corrected poem hangs on my wall and I gave the pen to the Museum at his Mausoleum in Ankara…|
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