AKP İzmir branch lauds gov’t and renowned poet
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Sevim Songün
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Ocak 10, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - Admirers of the poet and opposition parties welcome the Cabinet’s decision regardless of the AKP being a center-right party. The AKP’s İzmir branch says its advertisement is a message of thanks to the Cabinet and not a campaign to bring the poet’s grave to İzmir.
With full-page newspaper ads thanking the government, the ruling party’s İzmir branch has utilized praise the government has won by restoring communist poet Nazım Hikmet’s citizenship 46 years after his death.
The promotional initiative by the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, İzmir branch also implicitly invites the poet’s family to transfer his remains from a cemetery in Moscow to İzmir, on Turkey’s western coast.
The ad comes only months before the local elections, where İzmir is one of the main battlegrounds between the AKP and the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, which currently holds İzmir’s mayoral office. İzmir is seen as a secularist stronghold and has symbolic value for both the secularist CHP and the conservative AKP.
Hikmet went to exile in 1952 after spending more than a decade in prison for communist sympathies and died in Moscow 1963. His patriotic poems about Turkey have generated many admirers through the generations.
Journalists at daily Taraf, which published the full-page ad Thursday, are proud to have Hikmet’s picture on the paper’s back page. Some of Hikmet’s admirers, however, have criticized the ad for being opportunistic.
Despite previous attempts by leftist parties, it was the conservative AKP that was able to secure the decision through a Cabinet decree Monday.
The headline on AKP’s İzmir organization’s advertisement reads: "We have a hill with a plane tree, Nazım," referring to Hikmet’s 1953 poem Testament.
Translated by Ruth Christie, the poem reads: "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence ... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."
Ads in various papers
AKP’s advertisement given to Taraf on Thursday was also given to local İzmir dailies Yeni Asır and Yeni Gün on Friday.
The ad says: "You were tried, sent to prison, but the worst is that you were never understood. Even the shade of a plane tree in Anatolia was forbidden to you. A Cabinet decree has restored your citizenship and honored us by sharing citizenship with you once again. We express our gratitude to those who contributed to that decision. Now, it’s time for your grave. We have a hill with a plane tree, Nazım."
A former İzmir deputy from CHP, Hakkı Ülkü, said he didn’t find the AKP’s move to be realistic. "How can those who were always enemies of communists and socialists embrace Hikmet so much?"
He said the AKP was trying to win CHP votes in İzmir. "I don’t believe that they will even bring Nazım Hikmet’s body to İzmir." This ad showed that the AKP was a populist and opportunist party, Ülkü told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
AKP’s İzmir branch defended their advertisement, saying that it was their way of publicly thanking the Cabinet and AKP ministers who gave the poet’s citizenship back. "This is not a campaign for bringing Nazım Hikmet’s grave to İzmir. This is a message of thanks," said Halis Hayırlı, AKP İzmir branch spokesperson.
Admirers of the poet and opposition parties welcomed the Cabinet’s decision regardless of the AKP being a center-right party. "Nazım Hikmet is loved and embraced by everyone in and out of Turkey," said İbrahim Günel, news editor at daily Taraf, adding that even Alparslan Türkeş, the former leader of right-wing Nationalist Action Party, or MHP, once read Hikmet’s poems.
"But political parties of course try any means to win the elections," Günel said, adding that he was not speaking on behalf of the newspaper.
Whether a larger campaign for bringing the poet’s grave to İzmir will be launched is not clear at the moment.
Also, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek said bringing the remains of the poet back to Turkey was entirely up to the poet’s family.
The promotional initiative by the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, İzmir branch also implicitly invites the poet’s family to transfer his remains from a cemetery in Moscow to İzmir, on Turkey’s western coast.
The ad comes only months before the local elections, where İzmir is one of the main battlegrounds between the AKP and the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, which currently holds İzmir’s mayoral office. İzmir is seen as a secularist stronghold and has symbolic value for both the secularist CHP and the conservative AKP.
Hikmet went to exile in 1952 after spending more than a decade in prison for communist sympathies and died in Moscow 1963. His patriotic poems about Turkey have generated many admirers through the generations.
Journalists at daily Taraf, which published the full-page ad Thursday, are proud to have Hikmet’s picture on the paper’s back page. Some of Hikmet’s admirers, however, have criticized the ad for being opportunistic.
Despite previous attempts by leftist parties, it was the conservative AKP that was able to secure the decision through a Cabinet decree Monday.
The headline on AKP’s İzmir organization’s advertisement reads: "We have a hill with a plane tree, Nazım," referring to Hikmet’s 1953 poem Testament.
Translated by Ruth Christie, the poem reads: "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence ... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."
Ads in various papers
AKP’s advertisement given to Taraf on Thursday was also given to local İzmir dailies Yeni Asır and Yeni Gün on Friday.
The ad says: "You were tried, sent to prison, but the worst is that you were never understood. Even the shade of a plane tree in Anatolia was forbidden to you. A Cabinet decree has restored your citizenship and honored us by sharing citizenship with you once again. We express our gratitude to those who contributed to that decision. Now, it’s time for your grave. We have a hill with a plane tree, Nazım."
A former İzmir deputy from CHP, Hakkı Ülkü, said he didn’t find the AKP’s move to be realistic. "How can those who were always enemies of communists and socialists embrace Hikmet so much?"
He said the AKP was trying to win CHP votes in İzmir. "I don’t believe that they will even bring Nazım Hikmet’s body to İzmir." This ad showed that the AKP was a populist and opportunist party, Ülkü told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
AKP’s İzmir branch defended their advertisement, saying that it was their way of publicly thanking the Cabinet and AKP ministers who gave the poet’s citizenship back. "This is not a campaign for bringing Nazım Hikmet’s grave to İzmir. This is a message of thanks," said Halis Hayırlı, AKP İzmir branch spokesperson.
Admirers of the poet and opposition parties welcomed the Cabinet’s decision regardless of the AKP being a center-right party. "Nazım Hikmet is loved and embraced by everyone in and out of Turkey," said İbrahim Günel, news editor at daily Taraf, adding that even Alparslan Türkeş, the former leader of right-wing Nationalist Action Party, or MHP, once read Hikmet’s poems.
"But political parties of course try any means to win the elections," Günel said, adding that he was not speaking on behalf of the newspaper.
Whether a larger campaign for bringing the poet’s grave to İzmir will be launched is not clear at the moment.
Also, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek said bringing the remains of the poet back to Turkey was entirely up to the poet’s family.