When conservative politician and former London mayor Boris Johnson became prime minister of the United Kingdom, a jubilant mood spread through the small Turkish village of Kalfat, where residents consider Johnson a “local son.” They are proud that distant relatives of the polarizing politician still live among them. Johnson’s great-great-grandfather Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi was born in Kalfat, and the house he lived in still stands.

One local man, Adem Karaagac, told Al-Monitor, “We were honored that someone who has Ottoman genes, who comes from these lands, has become the prime minister of the UK, [which is] a [player] at the international level.” Karaagac, like many other Kalfat residents, has been eagerly talking to the local and international press, offering up details that might attract the attention of tabloids around the world. They often volunteer that members of Johnson’s family are today known as the Sarioglangiller, which roughly translates as the “family of the blond boy.”

Given the enthusiasm of the Kalfat villagers and the headlines in some of Turkey's major newspapers — like those proclaiming “Welcome Cousin Boris” and the “Grandson of the Ottomans” — one might think that Johnson’s ancestors were respected and beloved figures in Turkey, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Johnson's great-grandfather Ali Kemal was the last Ottoman minister of the interior, a well-known journalist and one of the most-hated figures in the nationalist narrative of the Turkish Republic.

Clear traces of the disdain for Ali Kemal are evident from browsing Turkish newspapers from the last couple of weeks. One article referred to him as the “embodiment of treachery” while two others called him a “traitor beyond the shadow of a doubt” and “Johnson’s treacherous grandfather.”