Hat Reform and The Revolution
in Dress
 Although
the rebellion in the East had been crushed, the Law for the Maintenance of
Order still contributed in operation, to prevent if possible new disturbances.
The Gazi was going to make use of this to put into practice the social reforms
on which he had long meditated.
The people said that the Gazi was keeping the
Emergency Law, really Martial Law, in order to use it as an instrument of
despotism, but he only used it to ensure the stability of the Republic, expect
also to destroy the people's false beliefs and oblige them to adopt Western
dress and customs.
On the 24th of August the Gazi
began a journey to the coast of the Black Sea. He left at such an early hour,
that only those accompanying him noticed the original manner in which His
Excellency the President was planing to travel: instead of the famous
astrakhan cap of the Nationalists, he was wearing a panama hat. When he
arrived at the city of Kastamonu, the multitude who had come to welcome him
were left dumb with amazement when they saw the Liberator salute them with a
"hat", and receive their delegations with his head uncovered.
The surprise of the inhabitants of Kastamonu
was fully justified, since until that day the hat, as used in Europe, was the
distinctive sign of foreigners, of the "Gavur," infidels. The Turks
wore the fez, and during the War of Independence, the kalpak began to be worn
amongst the Nationalists, but this custom was still very much in the minority
in 1925.
The fez, which in Turkey represented the
traditionalist and religious spirit, was not of Turkish but of African origin,
and bore the name of the city of Fez, where there were the best factories of
this kind of headgear. It consists of a cylindrical cap of scarlet or purple
felt, ornamented with a tassel of long black cord. Having no peak, it was a
great nuisance on sunny days, and since it had to be worn on all occasions,
even in closed places, during meals, and in offices, the colour and lower part
were deformed by perspiration.
The fez became generally worn amongst the
Greeks on the islands and the Anatolian coast of the Aegean. It had been
instituted by the Sultan Mahmut II, the reformer who wished to Westernize the
Empire but who lacked the moral strength of the Gazi, who was to achieve this
later on. The Padişah wanted to make his subjects adopt a uniform headgear,
since until that time they had been using the most varied turbans, caps and
coiffures. The different parts of the Army and Navy, as also the Imperial
Guards and Janissaries, distinguished themselves by their headgear, which was
in some cases so large and complicated that it was sometimes a real
impediment. Civil servants and administrators showed their rank by the shape
and colour of their turbans, as was also the case with the different
categories of clergy and dervish sects. It was easy to distinguish a man by
his headgear.
At a time when the Empire was still large,
and the Padişah had numerous non-Moslem subjects, and while the Great Powers
were exercising pressure in favour of non-Moslem's rights, Mahmut's policy of
eliminating as far as possible the signs which separated them from the
Faithful was an intelligent one. Mahmut tried not only to standardise headgear
with the fez, but also to Westernize the from of dress. He himself wore a
simple frock coat buttoned up to the neck, and trousers, with a European style
cloak over all, capped and sumptuous clothing of the time of Selim III,
Mustafa IV and Abdülhamit I.
When Mahmut began his fez campaign in 1829 he
believed that it would be accepted by the people without much protest, because
of its convenience and because it suited the rules of Moslem ritual, which
demand that player is made with the head covered, and that the forehead is
touched to the ground as a sign of humility. It was in every way a delicate
subject. The Sultan wished before all else to attract support from the higher
class of what can be called the Moslem clergy, the ulemas, that is the Doctors
of Theology and senior priests. He knew that if they accepted the fez, the
people would do likewise. However the mosques trembled at the first attempt.
What! A hoca, an imam, wearing a fez? The Seyhülislam, Minister for Religion,
categorically refused to obey the Imperial ruling, although he was a liberal
man who had often supported the Sultan's reforming ideas; this new proposal,
however, went beyond all limits. He declared: "The Sultan can cause the
head of his slave to fall, but he must not profane it". The affair
reached such dimensions that Mahmut feared revolution, and decided not to
insist upon it.
Little by little the fez came into general
use, and with the exception of men of religion and those who pretended to be
such, who went on using the turban, the country adopted it, so that it came to
represent the spirit of the nation and the religion, the opposite of what it
ad been originally considered, a symbol of anti-Islamic reforms.
In 1903, the Red Sultan tried to have the
cavalry troops adopt the kalpak, which was of Turkoman origin, but the Seyhülislam
and his counsellors declared that the sacred fez could not be replaced by the
kalpak.
When Kemal began his campaign in 1925 in
favour of the the hats used in civilized countries, those who defended the fez
used the same arguments as had been used in 1829 by those who favoured the
turban. The fez, which at that time had meant progress, was now the emblem of
reaction.
The Gazi conversed with the inhabitants of
Kastamonu and made speeches in favour of the adoption of the hat. He declared
that it was necessary for the Turks to reach the level of the civilized
peoples from every point of view, and that they must completely change their
old mentality. "Look at the Turkish and Moslem world" he said,
"and think about the misfortunes that have happened to us. If we have
saved ourselves with the space of a few years, it had been thanks to the
transformation of our mentality. We must not stop; we must always go forward.
The nation must know that civilization has a strength which destroys
everything which remains indifferent to it."
The Gazi tirelessly tried to convert the
people to this ideas; he talked to the tailors, and asked them to make cloth
caps, since the demand would soon be so great that it would be wise for them
to start working right away. The news of the Gazi's promotion of the use of
hats flew through the telegraph wires. Thus his speeches were not confined to
his hearers in Kastamonu but reached the whole nation. A gasp of horror passed
through the mosques and dervish convents. The last warning made to the people
by the men of religion had been: "They will even make you wear
hats," and this was seen to have happened.
From Kastamonu the reforming President moved
on to the port of Inebolu, where he took his reforms of dress a stage further.
The costume used by the Turks could not be called national, since it was an
amalgam of heterogeneous garments: tunics, wide coloured sashes, the "şalvar"
or trousers gathered in half way down the leg, and with an enormous fullness
in the upper part, woolen stocking with many-coloured patterns, and shoes of
skin with the wool still wrapped in the "çarşaf" and their face
covered with the "peçe." "Comrades" said Kemal, "the
international and civilized method of dress in suitable for our nation, and we
shall adopt it. We shall shoes and boots on our feet; we shall wear trousers,
waistcoat, tie, shirt and jacket and naturally to complete this method of
dress, I will say frankly, a hat. There are some people who oppose the
adoption of a hat; I call them fools and ignorant people. By the side of the
power of civilisation, which illuminates, studies and examines, those nations
who insists on going ahead with a medieval mentality and with primitive
superstitions are condemned to disappear, or at the every least to liven in
slavery."
The Turks had good examples to support the
Gazi's claims, in the ruin of the Ottoman Empire and the Moslem pepoles who
had been enslaved or humiliated by the Europeans. Kemal also spoke of women,
and the place which must be accorded to them in the home and the life of the
nation; he spoke of the religious orders, and said that it was advisable to
close the convents, dissolve the sects and establish rules for the way in
which the clergy should dress.
When the reforming President returned to the
capital on the 1st of September, a multitude of heads could be seen
wearing hats; from then on, the intellectuals and the majority of the
populations of the large towns adopted the hat without any law being passed;
however news reached Ankara that in the Eastern provinces and generally in the
less civilized parts of the country the inhabitants, like a large part to the
inhabitants of the large cities, were continuing to use the fez and turban,
and roundly refusing to wear the sign of the infidel upon their heads. It was
surprising that part of the population should have become so angry over a
matter of lesser importance like this, compared to the abolition of the
Califate or the proclamation of the Republic.
When the Assembly met again, a bill was
passed making the wearing of hats compulsory, on the 25th of
November. When attempts were made to put the law into practice, disorders of
only moderate importance happened; however, there were demonstrations in
several places, led by men bearing the green flags of the prophet, carried
from the mosque. Since the movement was daily reaching larger proportions, and
like the Kurdish revolt against the reforms from Ankara had already cost a lot
of blood and sacrifices, the government decided to put it down with energy.
For this it sufficed that the Independence Tribunals began their work, and
several dozen instigators were hanged at a time at the doors of mosques.
The Gazi said: "We had to throw off the
fez, which sat upon our head as an emblem of ignorance, fanaticism, and hatred
of progress and civiliation."
Source :
"Atatürk", by Jorge Blanco Villalta, translated from Spanish by
William Campbell,
Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınevi, 1991
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