Canakkale Epic and Our Duty

Henna Lambs:

Have you ever looked at the Dardanelles Wars "Through the Eyes of the Dead"? What did people feel and aim for when they left their child, mother, father, and baby in swaddling to die? Well, have you ever thought about what death was in the eyes of the young high school children called "Henna Lambs" and recruited into the military? They had not hesitated for a moment while they were "Exchanging Education, which is the most important capital of their lives, for Death".

Foreword of the Republic:

The Ottoman state lost more than 250,000 martyrs in the Dardanelles wars, which we can call the "preface" of the Republic. 10 thousand of them were university students and 70 thousand of them were secondary school students. In other words, these sons of the country, who rushed to the front from all over Anatolia, were only thinking of guaranteeing the "life and comfort" of future generations while sacrificing their family, property and life. What most of us overlook is the sacrifice made by an educated generation.

In this article, I will mainly deal with this “educational sacrifice” and project it to our day. At the end of this, I will remind you of the heavy “responsibility and debt of gratitude” on the shoulders of today's young generation of Turkey. Since the Çanakkale front is the gateway to Istanbul in historical written records, the nation understood that with the conquest of Istanbul, the entire Ottoman Empire would fall victim to imperialism. With this concern, thousands of people came to Dardanelles from Kars, Edirne, all of Anatolia, Bosnia, Thessaloniki and Plovdiv, Yemen and Baghdad, even Pakistan and India. Students from Galatasaray, Kayseri, Konya, Sivas and many high schools, holding a gun, rushed to the front.

45s are Recruited:

Historical documents and publications stating that anyone who is "over 45" regardless of their age is recruited, states that all of their students went to war, except for the officers of the Faculty of Law. The numbers in the quality of Education between 1918-20 were heartbreaking. During this three-year period, there was no graduation in High Schools. Moreover, 10 thousand university students and 70,000 secondary school students were martyred. As an educated generation was lost, primary school graduates were made post-war teachers.

We Buried the University:

Atatürk's statement "We buried a Dar-ülfünun (University) in Çanakkale" is a painful and correct statement. At this point, the British general Oglander has an interesting determination: “We withdrew. We could not pass Çanakkale, but we destroyed the young and educated generation and flower of the Turkish Nation. So we destroyed his future. They hardly straighten their backs”.

Again, the British historian Arnold Toynbee, in his memoir, includes the sentences "My mother used to say to us at breakfasts, "Turkey, Anatolia is a very beautiful country, it is not worthy of Turks". This is the West's view of us and it will never change.

Our Duty:

It is necessary to pay attention to what kind of legacy is left to the Turkey of the future with the Human Capital lost in the Dardanelles War. Again, according to historical records, the population of Anatolia at that time was less than 12 million. Literacy rate is below 10%, that is about 1 million people. If we accept the martyrs as 100 thousand people, 10% of the educated generation sacrificed themselves for the survival of our current Republic. I think this is an amazing figure and should make today's youth think. The loss of this educated generation has delayed our development rate since the Republic. We must close this gap. Well, what kind of gratitude do we owe to these martyrs who signed the deed of the Republic with their blood? Here is where the heart of the matter begins. Although they have left us a homeland where we can live in confidence, we also need to raise Generations that hold fast to the homeland, do research, and always think ahead. In fact, we should think about a much higher quality high school and university education for the sake of their education that they were martyred and deprived of. Maybe then we can repay a little bit of our debt to them.

Conclusion:

Those who tried to destroy this nation in Çanakkale are now continuing the same war with Information and Technology. For example, China started to approach the USA rapidly by increasing its R&D expenditures by 20% in 2013. With its new strategy, China aims to become the "world's R&D Giant", not the "factory of the world" anymore. Already in the vision of the country, there is a perception of "Made in China" instead of "Made in China". For this reason, they give importance to education first. Frequent changes in the education system in our country also weaken our qualified human capital. On the other hand, according to TUIK data, the rate of university graduates is 11%, while this rate is 37% in Europe. All these data show that we need to hurry now. We must write a brand new “Knowledge and Technology Story” with a different excitement, 106 years later, on top of our lost education capital in Çanakkale. Yes, we must not be late any longer. Let's not forget, Mehmet Akif said in his last moments, "May Allah never let this nation write the National Anthem."

NOTE:

The numerical information specified in this article are numerical values ​​obtained from the internet. These values ​​may differ. Written in free text, this article is just for you.