On Monday, September 11th, I woke up to a terrible day, it was the beginning of school. I have always hated school all my life, so I had a hard time waking up today. I was sad that a fun-filled summer vacation was coming to an end today. Even though I was sad, I was excited for my new school year.
At 7:30 a.m., I left the house with my brother and my father. When I arrived at the school, I went to my friends, I missed them. Fortunately, since it was the first day, the teachers did not teach, and when we entered the 5th class, I saw our theater teacher coming in the door. After chatting with the teacher for a while, we understood why the teacher came, we were going to organize a theater show for the 29th of October Republic Day! I was very happy when I received this news, it was an honor to be involved in such a beautiful and meaningful event! I went home with excitement and started practicing. All the preparations were going very well until the day of the performance.
On the evening of October 28, 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk invited the executives and members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey to a dinner at the Çankaya Mansion. After a nice dinner, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk started his speech. “Sirs, tomorrow we will declare the republic!” he said. Atatürk’s sudden announcement took everyone by surprise, but at the same time everyone was very excited.
A few months ago, in 1922, the Turkish people fought a very important war, the War of Independence, in which their enemies left as they had come. This war, won by Turkish soldiers fighting hard to defend their homeland, had changed the lives of Turks. Atatürk’s goal was to make the victory of the War of Independence certain, so Atatürk decided to proclaim the Republic. It was not a coincidence that Atatürk chose October 29 for this important day, in fact, Atatürk chose this date to invalidate the Mudros Treaty, which had caused great damage to Turkey and the Turkish people on October 30, 1918. In other words, he turned back time by 5 years.
A republic is a form of government in which the nation retains its sovereignty in its own hands and exercises it through the deputies it elects for a certain period of time. A republic is the ability to offer the people the right to vote without adopting a one-person system of government. A republic means that every individual in the country has equal rights. Republic is justice, equality. Republic is freedom, independence. The Republic is the development of the country’s administration, health services, education and economy. The Republic is a form of government that offers quality of life to the people. Thanks to Atatürk, Atatürk’s comrades-in-arms and our soldiers, we had such a beautiful country, while in many other countries, one-man rule was still in place and women could not vote.
There was a loud applause and I was startled. I was so engrossed in this play that I didn’t realize that we had reached the end of the play. I was deeply moved, I felt like I was living that moment. Thank you Mustafa Kemal Atatürk for giving us a wonderful future.