//Ed. note: In this bizarre and comical exchange
during Ebüzziya's interrogation, the issue of
whether or not he is a Free Mason is addressed
and its relevance to his arrest case debated.//
Free Masonry
All this was done by the middle of the
afternoon, at which time the
examination of my documents concluded, as
well. My interrogation
began toward
evening. The questions were quite absurd
and had
nothing at all to do with my arrest.
Herewith an example:
After the basic name and place of birth questions, I was asked:
Question:
Are you a Free Mason
Answer: Why do you ask?
Q: You can be sure there is a reason for
asking this.
A:
Of course, but who is asking and why?
Q: Never you mind.
A: Then, whether or not I am a Free Mason
has nothing to do with the
matters at hand.
Q: You must answer all the questions put
to you!
A:
Perhaps! But only on the condition that they pertain to my arrest
and
the documents of mine that have been examined.
Otherwise, I must
warn you that the man sitting opposite you will not
give you any
information about matters that are beyond the scope of my
arrest.
Q: Well then!
A: Well then!
Q: My dear sir, you are here not in
relation to an investigation by our
Ministry.
As you know, you have been brought by a decree of the Sultan.
Consequently, any question you are asked come
under the scope of this
decree.
A: I don’t think so.
Q:
What do you mean you don’t think so. We did not arrest you of our
own
accord, we arrested you because of the Sultan’s decree.
A: Everyone knows that.
Q: So then why won’t you answer?
A:
I won’t answer because I don’t see any connection between my
arrest and the
questions you are asking. Because there
is nothing that
commands you to “arrest Tevfik Bey and determine whether or not
he
is a Free Mason!” And that is not going to happen because the Sultan
is not
a dolt like you. All the foreign
statesmen and ambassadors who
have conversed with the Sultan have confirmed his
keen intelligence.
Q: How do you know there’s no connection
between the reasons for
your arrest and the questions?
A: As I just said, the intellect of the
Sultan of the world’s Moslems
would not countenance such a question.
Q: But you know that an examination of
your writings has been ordered
and that the search is being conducted with that
aim in mind. That is
what we have been
charged with doing.
A: What you say is true but I am certain
that my arrest and the
examination of my documents is not based on what you are
talking
about.
Q: In other words, you think you know why you have been brought
here.
A: (The head policeman was trying to trap
me with this question). I’m
not saying
that I know why I was brought here, I’m saying that I know
I wasn’t brought
here for the matter you have raised. As I said before,
no one would be arrested
and interrogated for being a Mason but you
can think whatever you want to.
Q:
But we are asking you whether or not you are a Mason so you have
to say
‘yes’ or ‘no’.
A:
And what if I ramain silent?
Q: We will make a judgment based on your
silence.
A: That’s up to you.
Q: So you are a Mason?
A: (I was silent).
Q: Why are you remaining silent?
A: That is my preference.
Q: Since you are a member of the “bidayet
mahkemesi” ((a primary
court attached to the Council of State)), you should view this situation
in the same
way that your court would question a defendant.
A: Individuals tried in the Council of State’s primary
courts are not
asked questions that do not pertain to the matter under
consideration
and you should do the same.
Q: You still think that this question is
not pertinent to the matter at hand?
A: I don’t think it, I know it.
Q: Yet, your relationship with the Masons
is written in a letter sent to
you by your son from Egypt.
A: Would you please read it aloud?
Q: (the head policeman carefully took my
son’s letter out of the pocket
of his frock coat and read this portion of
it:) “Dear Father, if it is no
trouble,
please have ‘Naturi’ mentioned in your letter to ‘editor Mason’
sent directly
to Hilvan.” What do you say to this?
A: Nothing to you, but please have the
Minister come and join us and
then you will hear what I have to say.
Q: So you won’t condescend to consider me
your collocutor?
A: It’s not that at all. Since this is a personal letter, I don’t want
my
remarks to be misinterpreted. That is
why I think it is very important to
have the Minister here or, if he prefers,
we can go to him.
Q: Very strange!
A: A person may encounter ‘strange’ things
in his personal or his
official life, so this should not be considered all that
unusual. Most of
the people that are
brought to you for questioning are already
considered guilty so you expect them
to confess when they face you
so you frame you questions in that light. That is your big mistake. A
person brought in for questioning ought to
be considered innocent and
treated as such to prevent and avoid mistakes. What I mean to say is
that you always
consider what a person says to be false so when you
really want to say ‘Be
quiet! You’re lying!” you resort to the more
polite ‘that’s strange’. Yet, I didn’t say anything ‘strange’, although
you took it that way. This seems to be a
habit of yours that I cannot
change.
Nevertheless, I will not grant to you that I have said anything
‘strange’, as opposed to intelligent and logical.
After delivering this sermon to the head
policeman, however ‘strange’
he thought it might be, he couldn’t find anything
to say. Apparently,
though, the Minister
had been listening to this odd exchange from
behind the door curtain. As I finished speaking he entered the
room.
Once the Minister sat down I said
to him: “Dear Minister! Given that
my questioning has been ordered by a decree
from the Sultan and that
some of my documents are in French, I ask that you
assign a French-
speaker to differentiate between ‘mason’, meaning a wall plasterer,
and ‘Mason’, referring to the group. For
the past half hour, the head
policeman has been trying to find out whether or
not I am a Free Mason,
based on a letter my son sent to me from Egypt”.
“For my part, I am asserting that I know
perfectly well that I was not
brought here to find out whether or not I am a
Free Mason, and the
head policeman knows this better than I do. Evidently, by inferring
this Free Mason
connection from a single mention in a personal letter,
he wanted to
characterize it as a mischevous group and thought ‘while
we have this fellow in custody
let’s accuse him of being a Free Mason,
too.
Even if this charge doesn’t stick, we will have put him under
suspicion.’”
“In the letter my son sent to me from
Egypt, he asked me to have the
“Mason editor” , the publisher of the nature
magazine ‘La Nature’, for
which I have had a subscription for years, send the
magazine to Hilvan
((near Şanlıurfa)). As
soon as the head policeman saw this, like a thief
who has come upon a treasure,
he posed the question of whether or not
I am a Free Mason to me. Of course, when I answered with a mocking
response he was amazed and upset. Let me
assure you that I will not
respond to such questions, or I will answer with
unexpected remarks.
Because I did not come here to answer to the idle
tales of common
people and a few concocted imaginings. I request that you ((Minister))
remain here
or that you formulate the questions.”
The Minister, having heard at least some
of the preceeding discussion,
understood the situation and he said to me:
“Please excuse the head
policeman. The
fault lies with me, not him. In any
event, this absurdity
will not be repeated.” So this is the ridiculous way that my
interrogation
began. And despite the
Minister’s assurance, the subsequent questioning
took on an even more laughable
tone. In any case, they said that the
questioning about these documents was finished and that I would go
with them in
the morning tomorrow, Friday, to my print shop.
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