Mephisto v. Allah

As neat a trick as daylight saving was announced last fortnight by smart Dictator Mustafa Kemal Pasha whose beetling brows and piercing eyes suggest the wisdom of a Mephisto.

Turkish days of the week are:

Juma 1st Friday

Jumartesi 2nd Saturday

Pazar 3rd Sunday

Pazartesi 4th Monday

Sali 5th Tuesday

Tcharshamba 6th Wednesday

Pershembe 7th Thursday

Juma is the Turkish sabbath. Because it falls on Friday, Turkish business houses with international connections and the government itself are out of step with the rest of the world three days a week.

After spending a quiet Juma, your Turkish official comes down to the foreign office bright and early Jumartesi, only to find that London, Paris and New York are in no mood to answer his cables because they are knocking off for Saturday afternoon. The next day, Pazar, third day of the Turkish week, is simply hopeless for the poor official, because throughout Christendom it is Sunday.

After seven years of power, business-like Dictator Kemal is itching to save wasted hours. But he is cautious. Last week he merely tabled before the National Assembly a bill which, if taken up and passed, would make the first day of the Turkish week fall on what is now the third, the second on the fourth, the third on the fifth, and so on. This would make Juma, the day of rest and worship, fall on the Christian Sunday, yet preserve the traditional sequence of Turkish days of the week. Even simpler than daylight saving, the Kemal plan is open to only one objection: possibly Allah will not like to be worshipped on Jehovah's day. Until popular feeling on this Godly point can be gauged, Mephisto Kemal will lie low.

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