Four of Turkey’s national holidays stem from the Turkish War for Independence (1919-1923). Youth and Sports Day commemorates the beginning of the Turkish War for Independence on May 19, 1919.
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After World War I, the Ottoman Empire found itself under the influence of Western powers. Sultan Mehmed VI appointed Mustafa Kemal, a general and hero of WWI, to oversee demobilization of army divisions. However, concerned about foreign dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal took a ferry from Istanbul to Samsun on the main Turkish peninsula on May 19, 1919 to rally support for a unified, independent Turkey. His landing is considered the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence.
In Ankara the following year, Mustafa Kemal convened the first Turkish Grand National Assembly. In 1921 and 1922 he defeated the Greek army at the battles of Sakarya and Dumlupinar, and he refused to sign any treaty that undermined Turkish sovereignty. The Treaty of Lausanne recognized Turkey’s independence in 1923 and Mustafa Kemal became the country’s first president in October of that year. He remained in power until his death in 1938.
Mustafa Kemal established Youth and Sports Day during his presidency; however, since his death, Turks have observed it more as “Commemoration of Ataturk.”
Ataturk is Mustafa Kemal’s honorary title. It means “Father of the Turks.”
Today is Flag Day in Haiti. Flag Day is a major holiday for Haitians both in Haiti and overseas. On this day (May 18) in 1803, Haitian leaders of the revolution (Petion and Dessalines) in the city of Archahaine removed the center column of the French flag to create the red and blue symbol of Haitian independence.
The design was turned on its side the following year when Haiti won its independence to create the horizontally stripped flag Haiti has today. Between 1964 and 1986 Haiti used a red and black flag. The flag was returned to red and blue following the fall of the Duvalier regime.
Despite being enemies during the 1790s and early 1800’s, the Haitian struggle for independence embraced many of the same ideals of the French Revolution—Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity—making the French flag an appropriate basis for the burgeoning nation’s symbol.
May is also Haitian Heritage Month for Haitians in the United States. It marks several important Haitian holidays and milestones, including the May 20th birthday of Haiti’s national hero, slave-turned-general Toussaint L’Ouverture.
“To remember the unity reached by the Black and Mulatto officers at their historic congress on May 15-18, 1803 to fight together against slavery in the French colony of St. Domingue, and for its independence, which they proclaimed on January 1, 1804.
To celebrate the creation of the blue and red Haitian flag on May 18, 1803.
To honor Haitian General Toussaint Louverture who was born on May 20 1743.
To celebrate Haitian achievements and contributions across the globe.
To raise awareness and understanding about Haitian culture and traditions.
To strengthen the self-esteem of Haitian/Haitian American youth.
To honor Haitian tradition of celebrating:
The month of May as Mary’s, the mother of Jesus (Haitian Catholics)
In 1814 the four-century union between Denmark and Norway abruptly ended when Denmark was forced to cede Norway to Sweden following the Napoleonic Wars. Norway also lost what had once been its own. Iceland and Greenland, settled by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries, would remain in Denmark’s possession.
With the emergence of a national ‘farm culture’ in Norway, and a growing awareness of the French and American Revolutions, a movement for Norwegian sovereignty gained momentum. Crown Prince Christian Frederik assembled a congress of Norwegian leaders in Eidsvoll to draft a Norwegian Constitution, which was signed on May 17, 1814. To this day Norway celebrates May 17, Constitution Day, as its most important national holiday.
The road to independence was not that easy though. The Swedes attacked Norway in July (The last war the Swedes have ever fought) leading to a ceasefire agreement in August. The treaty establish a ‘personal union’ with Sweden, in which Norway recognized the authority of the Swedish King.
Ninety years later the Norwegian parliament declared its independence as a constitutional monarchy, backed by a united populace, and the Swedish parliament voted to accept the dissolution a few months later.
It wasn’t until 1991 that Harald V, the present King of Norway, became the first native-born Norwegian monarch since Queen Margaret’s 17 year-old son King Olaf died in 1387.
At 16 I traveled to Norway as a foreign exchange student. Aside from a week in Canada, I had never left the United States. Before I left, a friend from Spain made fun of me for wanting to go to Norway. He assured me I would be surrounded by cows.
I stayed in a tiny sea-side town (they’re just about all sea-side, or fjord-side, towns) near Molde, between Bergen and Trondheim. The town’s population was smaller than my high school back in the States. I remember my host family’s TV. It had one TV station, and it went off the air each night to be replaced by a static signal. The signal was more intriguing to me than the actual programming. I had never seen dead air:
Norwegian television
Traveling from Long Beach, California (alma mater of Snoop Dogg) to Elnesvågen, Norway was a shock. I had always been taught I lived in the greatest country on earth, yet here I was in a near social utopia. A land where crime had, relatively speaking, disappeared and poverty was a non-issue. Norway was years ahead of us even in issues like gender equality. And it didn’t hurt that the Norwegian landscape was pristine and picture perfect. I still believe it’s one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
One week my host siblings took me in a tiny motorboat to an island off the coast, named Bjornsund. There we caught crabs (the edible kind) and had to pump our own water. It was like traveling to another world, another century.
Of all my travels since, perhaps none has affected me like that first journey to Norway. It showed me that there are alternative ways of living, of governing. That the wide divide between rich and poor and the persistence of crime are not absolutes. Yes, the tax rate was high, but Norwegians got a lot in return, health care included.
The question was–I could never be sure–was the U.S. behind Norway, or was Norway behind the U.S.?
I mean, hopefully it was the former. That America was on the path to making equality a reality instead of a mantra. That by emulating countries like Norway we would reduce crime, improve our social services, and increase our standard of living for all citizens.
But more and more I feared it was the other way around. As Norway dealt with new immigration from other parts of Europe and the Middle East, for example, I could see the beginnings of racism where homogeneity had long been the norm. Was Norway ahead of the world, our was it destined to lose its sense of community and follow in the footsteps of other modern countries plagued by urban violence and disparity in the mass media-crazed 21st century?
I returned six years later to Norway, to that same house with the one TV station. It was still too early to tell what was in store for Norway’s social future. But I did notice that my host family in Elnesvågen now had 200 channels.
There was another way Norway affected me. Just as my Spanish friend predicted, the house I lived in was sandwiched between two farms. Being a city boy I couldn’t help but notice the ever-present aroma of cow manure. Though I eventually got used to it, the memories of that summer were woven indelibly into my olfactory lobes.
To this day, when we pass a farm on the highway and smell the fertilizer, others may plug their noses.
I close my eyes, and remember Norway. (-;
Vartdal med Vartdalsfjorden, Ørsta, Norge; by Andreas Vartdal
Today is the anniversary of the Farakka Long March in 1976. The march protested the construction of the Farakka dam, aka the Farakka Barrage. The dam is located just 11 miles from the border of Bangladesh, and it diverts up to 200,000 gallons of water per second from the Ganges River that would have flowed to Bangladesh.
“If ever there was a lesson in the unintended effects of damming rivers, the Farakka Barrage is probably it…
“Although the barrage, the longest in the world, was originally intended to divert water from the Ganges into the Hooghly River during the dry season and rescue the Kolkata port 257 km downstream, the government in Dhaka has accused India of using it to turn parts of Bangladesh into a desert, raising salinity, affecting navigation and adversely influencing the environment, agriculture and fisheries. ”
In India, the dam has not only contributed to the problem it was intended to fix (the silt build-up in Kolkata harbor), it may even cause bigger problems, such as the merging of two of the Ganges’ major tributaries.
“Critics say this is a product of the so-called “engineers’ racket,” a term coined by the Indian geographer Sunil K Munshi, to describe corruption resulting from greedy civil contractors working together with irresponsible state and federal governments. And it appears that now India will seek to undo the damage with a mammoth US120 billion plan to interlink its rivers, which originate in the Himalaya Mountains, with 30 interlinked canal systems that would deliver water to so-called Peninsular India.” (Iqbal)
Back in 1976, to protest the construction of the dam, populist leader Moulana Bhasani led a mass demonstration and march of thousands of Bangladeshis across approximately 100 kilometers. Since the 1970s, the two countries have engaged in talks attempting to come to a solution regarding the sharing of water.
Like the Ganges, the observance of Farakka Long March Day each year on May 16 tends to ebb and flow with the passing of time. On the anniversary of the march in 2005, a half million people gathered to protest the Farakka Barrage and the proposed Indian River Interlink Project.
The damage caused by the dam is just one more problem Bangladesh has to worry about.
With over 160 million people in a space the size of Iowa (Iowa’s population by the way is 3 million), Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Contrary to news reports, Bangladesh is not an environmental disaster waiting to happen… It’s already happening. Bangladesh, the canary in a coal mine for the rest of the world, is “set to disappear under the waves by the end of the century” — independent.co.uk.
However, according to Professor Ainun Nishat…
“Although everyone says that 17% of the country will be under water, it is not sea level rise that we fear but the increase of salinity.”
Rising sea levels means deep wells in low-lying communities will become effected with salt water, effecting both agriculture and drinkability.
Many researchers believe that climate change may also increase the frequency of tropical cyclones, which routinely strike the Bangladesh coast. The deadliest of these—in fact the deadliest cyclone in recorded history—was the Bhola Cyclone of November 1970, which killed over half a million people.
Just when Madrid sobers up from back-to-back celebrations of Labor Day and Dos de Mayo, it pulls out all the stops for the week-long celebration of San Isidro.
San Isidro (1070-1130) is Madrid’s patron saint, whose feast day falls on May 15.
A simple farm worker, Isidro never had much money, never led a diocese or congregation, never fought in a war, and was not martyred or notably persecuted for his faith. Nor was his wife Santa Maria de la Cabeza (Saint Mary of the Head). And yet Maria and Isidro are among the few husband-and-wife teams to be canonized in 2000 years of Christendom. (Though it did take 500 years for the Pope to do so.)
[Iberian Gothic? 12th century saints Ysidro & Maria reincarnated]
The couple lived in poverty for most of their lives, but they were known for their generosity, giving more to the poor than they kept for themselves. Stories of Isidro’s miracles, like the materialization of food and water for the hungry, are reminiscent of Jesus feeding the masses with a single loaf of bread. According to legend, one day Isidro’s scythe struck the earth, and a spring burst forth with enough water to sustain the whole city.
In the 900 years since Isidro and Maria walked the earth, farmers have called on them for relief in times of drought.
The holiday also marks the beginning of bullfighting season. Spanish bullfighting traces its roots back to Mithras, imported from the Middle East either through Rome or North Africa.
“The killing of the sacred bull (tauromachy) is the essential central iconic act of Mithras, which was commemorated in the mithraeum wherever Roman soldiers were stationed. Many of the oldest bullrings in Spain are located on the sites of, or adjacent to the locations of temples to Mithras.”
If you’re with PETA, and bullfighting doesn’t do it for you, concerts and dancing fill the streets the whole week. Parks are converted into open-air verbenas, where celebrants wear traditional attire: chulos and majos for the guys, chulapas and majas for the ladies.
Chulo is a derogatory term sometimes applied by other Spaniards to the inhabitants of Madrid. It means arrogant. But the Madrilenos take it in stride. Dressed in chulo and chulapa costumes, performers live up to their name in a stylized dance of exaggerated arrogance.
Strange that a holiday in honor of a man so down-to-earth would be celebrated by imbibing vast quantities of alcohol and performing dances that exude arrogance. But as the Spanish say…
We here in the United States get cranky at our politicians for the slightest misstep, like plunging our country into bankruptcy or sending our children into misguided opportunistic wars.
Yet our stalwart Liberian cousins put up with 14 years of civil war before finally giving their leaders the boot in 2005. The rallying cry of the president to-be?
“All the men have failed Liberia. Let’s try a woman this time!”
In November 2005 the Liberians elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the highest office in the country, becoming Africa’s first elected woman head of state.
President Sirleaf declared:
“My administration shall thus endeavor to give Liberian women prominence in all affairs of our country…. We will also try to provide economic programs that enable Liberian women — particuarly our market women — to assume their proper place in our economic process.”
Americans may not know it, but the U.S. has played a pivotal role in Liberian history over the past two centuries, unparalleled in transAtlantic history. Back in 1817 the American Colonization Society purchased land in on the West African coast to emigrate freed African-American men, women and children. The motives for doing so were as different as the Society’s members, which included abolitionists and slave owners. Some saw emigration as the road to freedom for African Americans; others saw it as an alternative to integration in order to maintain a homogenous white state.
“In the main, free blacks were suspicious of the motives of the American Colonization Society and strongly opposed it.”
Over 3,000 free blacks met in Philadelphia to protest the Society in the year of its founding.
However, over the next 40 years the well-funded ACS “repatriated” 13,000 African Americans to live in Liberia.
The Society’s involvement in Liberia lessened after 1847 when the Americo-Liberians (those who emigrated from the U.S.) declared Liberia an independent nation. Americo-Liberians modeled Liberia after the U.S. in a number of ways. The name Liberia itself means “Land of the Free.” Its capital is Monrovia, named for President James Monroe. Its flag, government and constitution are modeled on that of the U.S. It became the first African republic in 1847, though the U.S. didn’t recognize its independence until 1862.
Liberia received monetary support from the United States over the years. Despite the fact that Americo-Liberians constituted a small minority of the population, the “Americans” as they were called, controlled the government and dominated the African population for the next 150 years.
In fact, as late as the 1930’s, the League of Nations censured the Liberian government for the forced labor of its indigenous population. Even after the abolishment of forced labor, indigenous Liberians remained disenfranchised second-class citizens until 1951. President William V.S. Tubman was a major proponent of integration and unification during his 28 years as President (1943-1971). Under his leadership, the government declared May 14 National Unification Day (during the 1959/1960 legislative session) to celebrate the integration of American and indigenous Liberians.
President Sirleaf reinvigorated National Unification (and Integration) Day in 2007, calling on Liberians work together to heal the wounds of a decade and a half of civil war.
“In November 2005, Liberian women strapped their babies on their backs and flocked to voting tables all across their war-racked country to elect Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Africa’s first female president. It was a seminal moment in the political history of not just Liberia but the entire continent, where patriarchal rule has long dominated, leaving African women on the sidelines to fetch water, carry logs, tend farms, sell market wares and bear the children of their rapists, while their menfolk launched one pointless war after another.” Madame President, NY Times, by Helene Cooper, May 15, 2009
The Liberian Civil War of the 1990’s and 2000’s took nearly 300,000 lives.
When midnight comes and drops silence for sleep,
and dogs and dappled birds are hushed,
The man who remembers the ancient rite
and fears the gods, rises up (barefoot)
And makes a thumb sign between his closed fingers
to avoid some ghostly wraith in the quiet.
When he has washed his hands clean with fountain water,
he turns around after taking black beans,
Glances away and throws, saying: ‘These I release;
I redeem me and mine with these beans.’
The head of the Roman household would, according to Ovid, perform this rite nine times and then, after rinsing his hands, would shout, “Leave, ancestral spirits!” another nine times, purifying his house of those departed whose souls refuse to rest. (The Japanese still observe a similar bean-throwing tradition during the Shinto lunar new year, Setsubun.)
The Roman superstition that Ovid describes was once a public festival known as the Feast of Lemuria, or Lemuralia, decreed by Rome’s co-founder Romulus.
She-wolf suckles Romulus & Remus
Romulus and Remus were twin sons of Mars, god of war, who were nursed by a she-wolf in the wild. They wanted to build a great city, but couldn’t agree on the location. Romulus preferred Palatine Hill, Remus preferred Aventine Hill. They each built their own city. When Remus mocked Romulus by jumping over the wall meant to protect his, Romulus slew Remus in a fit of rage.
Guilt-ridden, Romulus was haunted by Remus’s ghost, who asked to be remembered on this day.
Lemuralia, says Ovid, is a corruption of Remus (Maybe Remuralia was too hard to pronounce?):
Over a long time the rough letter became smooth
at the beginning of the whole name.
Soon they also called the silent souls lemures…
The ancients shut temples on those days, as you now
see them closed in the season of the dead.
The same times are unfit for a widow’s marriage
or virgin’s. No girls who wed then live long…
Folk say: “Malicious girls marry in May.”
Around 610, Pope Boniface IV declared May 13 “All Saints Day”, in honor of all martyred. All Saints Day was later moved to November 1, coinciding with regional harvest festivals remembering the spirits of the dead.
Sightings of the Virgin Mary date all the way back to 40 AD when the Virgin Mary first appeared to the Apostle James in Spain. They’ve occurred all over the world, in communities big and small, and the sightings continue to this day. In fact…
“Just last week, the Virgin Mary appeared in the form of a stain on a griddle at Las Palmas restaurant in Calexico, California. More than 100 people have come to gaze upon it, manager Brenda Martinez told the Imperial Valley Press…” — The Standard – May 13, 2009
But the most famous sighting in modern times may be the one that took place on this day (May 13) in 1917 in Fátima, Portugal. As the World War raged throughout Europe, three Portuguese children—Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ages 9 and 7, and their cousin Lucia Dos Santos, age 10—were building a wall in the fields when their play was interrupted by a flash of lightning.
“They thought that a storm was brewing and herded the sheep together to take them home. They once again saw a flash of lightening and shortly afterwards they saw above a small holm oak tree a Lady dressed entirely in white and shining more brilliantly than the sun.” http://www.marypages.eu/fatimaEng.htm
The apparition answered the children’s questions on heaven, and entreated them to return on the 13th of each month thereafter. At subsequent encounters she told them about heaven, hell, and God’s message. Over the next 5 months, word spread of the children’s encounters. By October 13, 70,000 people gathered in the field hoping to catch a glimpse of “Our Lady of Fátima” (now also known as “Our Lady of the Rosary”).
“After the long extensive rains, the sky became blue, people could easily look into the sun, which started to spin round like a wheel of fire which radiated wonderful shafts of light in all sorts of colours. The people, the hills, the trees and everything in Fatima seemed to radiate these marvellous colours.
Then the sun stood still for a moment then the wonderful thing that had happened reoccurred. It was repeated for a third time. But now the sun broke loose from the heavens and came down to earth with a zigzagging movement. It became bigger and bigger and looked as though it would fall on the people and flatten them. All were frightened and fell to the ground while they prayed for mercy and forgiveness.” — http://www.marypages.eu/fatimaEng.htm
Jacinta, Lucia, & Francisco
Sadly, Francisco died only 2 years later and Jacinta the year after that. Pope John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta on May 13, 2000. Lucia lived to the ripe old age of 97. She died in 2005.
May 13 is celebrated in Portugal and by many Portuguese Catholics in other parts of the world. On May 13, 2009, “The 13th Day”, about the miracle of Fátima, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
