I was in Bandirma, looking at the ships anchored in the harbor, the sea was calm. I thought of the “Bandırma Ferry”. I thought about that journey, those days. How did we experience the breaking point for this country? What was the state of the nation?
In those days, the country was de facto under the control of foreign powers. There were navies in the harbors and other flags in the cities. This was not only a picture experienced at the front; it was an order of captivity that extended to daily life. Prohibitions, oppression and silence had become part of life. But despite all this, deep within society there was a will that refused to surrender.
This is where we need to pause and ask: Where did Mustafa Kemal Atatürk find the courage to take these steps? There was no regular army, no cannon, no rifle, no money.
Atatürk did not rely on lists of weapons. He saw that the real strength lay in the determination and resolve of the nation. He knew that this society, which had been worn out on the fronts for years, would not accept captivity as a permanent fate. His belief was not a hope; it was the cold-blooded determination of a commander who knew the society and history.
The landing in Samsun is therefore a historical threshold. No war was declared that day, no big words were spoken. But a will that refused to surrender was clearly put forward. For the first time, the question appeared in front of everyone: Will this country accept its fate or will it chart its own path? This was the breaking point.
The subsequent Erzurum and Sivas congresses are the answer to this question. Local and disorganized resistances united around a common goal. Not submitting to what was imposed and illegitimate was no longer a scattered reaction, but a conscious, organized and determined attitude. The struggle made clear both what it was against and how it was to be waged. Kuva-yi Milliye became the counterpart of this will on the ground.
At this point, the city I live in has a different place in my eyes. Balıkesir played a prominent role in the field of legitimacy opened by the Bandırma Ferry. Here congresses were convened, resistance decisions were taken and organization was established. The will put forward in Samsun found its actualization in Balıkesir. The struggle ceased to be an idea on paper; it turned into a movement on the ground.
These experiences do not belong only to our history. The history of the world has been shaped by moments when similar thresholds were crossed by the stand of a single person.
In the 1990s, when Nelson Mandela came out of prison after 27 years, he did not have a gun. But he did not recognize the so-called ’unchanging“ racist order; he did not renounce equality without calling for revenge. This attitude collapsed the political and moral basis of the apartheid regime.
In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her seat on a bus to a white person. The boycotts and riots that followed her arrest made segregation in the US legally untenable.
In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi deliberately violated the British government's Salt Act, which prohibited the production and sale of salt to Indians. The law was in force, but it lost its legitimacy.
The common line that unites these names and Atatürk is clear: None of them waited for the power to be ready. They did not say “let the conditions mature”. They chose not to de facto recognize the order they knew was wrong.
Atatürk did not accept the occupation as a fate either. His decision to set out when there was no army, no ammunition, and the state authority was in disarray was not an act of recklessness; it was the decision of a leader who knew where legitimacy began.
The difference of the people who changed history was not that they were extraordinary. It was that they did not settle for what seemed ordinary, they did not submit. They did not stand and wait where everyone else said “these are the conditions”. They saw the risks, but they knew that the price of retreat was much heavier. They marched quietly, without showboating, with determination.
The meaning of the Bandırma Ferry stops here. It did not start a war, but it made visible the threshold that declared to the world that a nation would not surrender. Balıkesir was one of the cities where this will was realized in the field.
So what should we do today?
We are not expected to say big words. It is not to accept what is wrong. Not to accept what is imposed without question. Not to normalize the illegitimate. Not to mistake silence for vigilance. To stand up for what we know is right, regardless of who has the power or whether the outcome is guaranteed. What is required of us is not heroism; it is an upright stance.
This is what started with the Bandirma Ferry.
And this story is still with us.