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HIS EVALUATION OF OTHER ARTISTS
Namık Kemal (1840-1888)
"Briefly, to claim that Namık Kemal is not an ingenius harbinger is to claim that he does not emerge as a revolutionary and a visionary of change when he is evaluated in the context of the state of the Ottoman Empire at the time, the state of Europe at the time and his physical state related to his psychological make-up. However, it is a fact that, whatever the reason is, Namık Kemal has a legendary heroic personality and this fact should be considered within definite practical and tactical instances. In short, it is not our fault if our bourgeoisie could not breed a genius of change; we do not exactly have to be devoted to his defence and make him seem like something he is not. Namık Kemal ought to be seen as what he is. Especially today, when the Racist, Pan-Turanist, Hitlerist Çınaraltı group are attacking him, asserting that he was an Albanian and thus an enemy of the Ottoman dynasty and that he was a Free Mason, we should take into consideration his positive aspects. Likewise, when the chauvinists considered him a democrat even above Marx, and a revolutionary, we had to do the opposite. There again, you have that dearest of methods called the dialectic method."
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