THE BOWLER HAT.

Shannon News, 13 April 1926, Page 3

THE BOWLER HAT.

REPLACES THE FEZI NEW SCENES IN OLD STAMBOUL Every ship and every train running to Constantinople for months past has been filled with crates packed with men’s bowler hats, and still the cry is always for more, writes Mr. J. A. Spender in the “Westminster Gazette.” Mr. Spender has been wintering in the East, and gathering many interesting impressions of the new Turkey. “Whatever the old Turk may be thinking in Constantinople, he has learnt not to question the inscrutable decrees which come down to him from the Providence enthroned at Angora; and from the Turks to whom I have been introduced since I came into this city I have heard no word in reflection on the greatness and wisdom of Kemal in this or any other matter. He at this moment is everything and everybody. \ /‘For instance, this business of the hats. The leading quality of the Kemalist movement is an ardent Turkish Nationalism. Nobody doubts that or questions- its sincerity. But why should an ardent Nationalist seek to abolish an immemorial feature of ,the national costume?

“Why at a stroke make the streets, of Constantinople look like those of any Southern European city, and remove an outward and visible mark which distinguishes the Turk from the motley Levantine population which crowds this city? One would have expected Kemal to say not that the Turks should wear hats, but that no one expects a Turk should wear a fez. The result of doing the reverse is outwardly to de-Turkify Constantinople. Theophile Gautier or any old-time Turcophil would wring his hands if he could walk in Stamboul to-day and see the women unveiled and the street-sellers in bowlers.

"And yet I suppose It is just the fact that the Western eye considers the fez picturesque and amusing, which stings the pride of the Turk. He is determined to be taken sen., ously. “Carlyle might have enlarged on this theme, for it has a serious meaning, if one can get at it. The Turks henceforth, according to the creed of Kemal, is to be Turk first and last, but he is to be on the same modern plane as the peoples of Europe, and he will have none of their condescension to the picturesque Asiatic. “The fez, then, must go that he may be modern, and with the fez, and for the same reason, has gone the JChalifate. It would be untrue to say that the Moslem religion is persecuted in Turkey to-day, hut there is no longer the old stream of fervent worshippers in the mosques, and among the younger Turks the fashion is more and more to speak of the Moslem faith as obsolete and fanatical.