Journal of Ottoman Legacy Studies (Nov 2020)
SAMİZADE SÜREYYA BEY VE JAPONYA’DAN ALINACAK DERSLER
Abstract
Süreyya Bey was born in 1895 in Istanbul. His father, Ebussüreyya Sami Bey, was a clerk at the Naval Ministry Warehouse Office at the time. He also studied at the American University of Beirut while his father served in various parts of the Syrian province. Süreyya Bey started to write articles on politics, culture and history in various magazines and newspapers, in a relatively young age, since the beginning of the 1910s. In 1914, Süreyya Bey made a plan to go to Japan, which he had read a lot about. He left Istanbul in April-May 1914 onboard a ship. Süreyya Bey had reached Japan when the World War started. He probably spent 1915 in Japan. He left Japan in late 1915 or early 1916. After Japan, Süreyya Bey went to America, which had not yet entered the war at that time, and from there he stopped by England. Subsequently he passed to Germany with whom we were allies with, and from there returned to Istanbul. The idea that Islamic and Eastern societies lagged behind the civilized world was one of the main arguments of Samizade Süreyya Bey's writings. Accordingly, as a name who traveled both East and West at a young age, he was a name who tried to produce a remedy for the problems of the Orient and Islam based on his experiences and readings. In one of his articles about the Islamic world in 1911, Süreyya Bey claimed that Muslims had gone through 3 periods; these developed after the manifestation of Islam and were 1- The era of civilization with the treasures of science and education, 2- decline and invalid, that is, the period of descent / collapse, and 3- renaissance and vigilance periods that did not take place before 1911. According to Süreyya Bey, the Orient had been lazy for the last two centuries, yet at the same time its demands never ended. Furthermore, the Orientals were indifferent in their duties towards the homeland. They had no “mutual benefits and actions” nor specific purpose. They did not know where and why they are going; although they wanted to move forward, they could not figure out the path and procedure for this. There had to be an intellectual movement felt among the intellectuals of that nation in order to awaken the sensitive spirit of a nation that had slept for centuries. In the eyes of Süreyya Bey, who has been studying and researching the Japanese for years, going to Japan and accumulating knowledge and experience about the Japanese in social, cultural, religious and political terms, the most obvious characteristic of the Japanese was "their devotion to their nation ". This feeling was the same among the rich and the poor, or the people and the nobility. In particular, they displayed an allied (united) stance against the outside / enemy, and the main reason for this outlook was putting the patriotism of the altruistic, farsighted and magnanimous Japanese into practice. Regardless of his status, any Japanese could abandon his personal interests and disregard his life for his homeland. The Japanese certainly had a vision of the future and they could easily compromise on their “established order” to realize this. Their patriotism had two main bases: 1- their personal affection for their rulers and 2- the lands that nourished and embraced them. Besides, the bones of their ancestors were resting in the bosom of that homeland; it was impossible not to love it. The Japanese would ensure peace and quiet inside especially when the homeland was exposed to danger from the outside. The Japanese were not fanatic about progress. They had eliminated the obstacles they had encountered in the way they knew to be right. They never thought of being deprived of the West's "abundant light of progress", thinking that it was against the laws of Buddha or Confucius. They borrowed Europe's "all the means of knowledge and wisdom and the treasure of science that would bring genuine happiness to a nation" by amending or reforming. They also managed to attribute it to themselves. In the light of all those, Samizade Süreyya Bey thought that Japan, surely not the colonialist Westerners, would be the right example to follow for the Ottomans. They maintained peculiar elements of their history and culture and yet managed to reform the state and the public socially, technologically and culturally only to rank themselves higher in the list of the civilized nations.
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