I write this to you with sadness for our great leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died last night. I’m sorry for the smudging; I can’t hold back my tears when I think about him. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born on March 12th 1881 in Thessaloniki, Greece. I was just born when he first became the leader of Turkey 15 years ago in the year of 1923. In the years since he made many improvements in the lives of my people. He gave women the right to vote, let women/girls go to school, introduced the Roman alphabet which is my second language and ordered all Turks to chose a family name. He was given the name Ataturk that means father of the Turks.
My favorite quote of his is “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. There is no difference between Jonnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side. Here in this country of ours…you, the Mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bossom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.” I think that this was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s finest speech given at the Anzac Memorial in 1934.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk lived a relatively short but fulfilling life which he dedicated to improving the lives of others. Now you know why I and my fellow countrymen are grieving and why he will be greatly missed.
4 responses so far ↓
1 samm // Mar 8, 2006 at 8:26 pm
I liked your post and I wll gladly put up more cartoons like you said in your comment!
2 emilym // Mar 13, 2006 at 7:18 pm
That has awesome detail. You made it sound so devestating to the person you wrote to and Mrs. Ekstrom would also be very happy only because you used a golden brick. That was a great quote! To tell you the truth, if I were to rate you on this post, from 1-10, you would get a 10! KEEP UP THE FANTASTIC WORK!!!
3 Emre Akinay // Sep 12, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Dear Friend,
A few minutes ago when I searched for some Ataturk portraits on internet, I suprisingly have found myself in this site in fornt of this entry.And after I read that quote, my memories have been refreshed and I couldn’t hold back my tears of proud.As an ordinary member of Turkish nation I can tell you that we were all always aware of how a great leader was he and choosed to die instead of giving up saving and improving his ideas and his revoulutions.We also proud of him who became a shining light by his ideas and his great ambition of other nations which were about to lose their independence and their nationality.
Just like the Romanians said, ” If History has a heart, he should jealous of Ataturk!”
4 MHetherington.net » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 and Student Blogging - Presentation Notes // Sep 12, 2006 at 5:18 pm
[…] Sixth grader AnnB’s first person period piece evokes tears of pride from a native Turk halfway around the world. […]