Hurriyet, Turkey
Nov 22 2011
Let’s talk about `massacres’ of today
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Initiated by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and
strongly backed by the like-minded media, an ongoing campaign on the
Dersim Massacre of the late 1930s has a clear motive. It is part of
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an’s strategy against his party’s
main rival that aims at tarnishing the image and value of the
country’s oldest political party in the eyes of the Turkish people.
During the election campaign, ErdoÄ?an severely criticized the
Republican People’s Party (CHP) former boss and Turkey’s second
president İsmet İnönü for launching assimilation policies against the
Kurds. Today, he and his men are leveling vocal accusations against
the CHP over the killing of more than 10,000 Alevis at the hands of
the security forces in Dersim, with undertones that everything was
done upon orders of Atatürk, the national hero of Turks.
There is nothing wrong in facing the realities of the past, or writing
newspaper articles, or shooting documentaries on such issues. This is
the only way for nations to learn a lesson from history in order not
to repeat the same mistakes in the future. In this sense, the lands of
Anatolia have not been very successful.
But consistency in politics obliges the AKP to open debate on other
and more recent historical events that remain a bleeding wound in the
inner conscience of millions of Turkish people. For example, the MaraÅ?
massacre of 1978 in which at least 111 people, mostly Alevis, were
killed and hundreds of others wounded at the hands of fascists backed
by state officials. How about opening another investigation on the
Sivas massacre of 1993 in which 37 intellectuals were killed when a
mob of Islamic fundamentalists set fire on the Madımak Hotel?
Perhaps we should once again look into the backlog of unresolved
murders in the 1990s and investigate them, no matter where the probes
lead. The list could be extended with other sour historical events of
a Communist witch-hunt in the 1950s or the massive arrests of innocent
people who were subjected to brutal torture under military rule in the
wake of coup d’états.
Let us skip over, if you may, those bitter cases of the past. Instead,
let us deal with today’s oddities. Hopa and its people, for example,
have been under close scrutiny since May just because ErdoÄ?an was
protested by dissident groups. Or Van, for example. Who do you think
will open investigations on wrongdoings in the post-earthquake period?
Children in this part of the country are still dying, not because of
the earthquake but either of hunger or tent fires.
Eight elected deputies are still behind bars. Two Ergenekon suspects
died in prison before they could even appear in court. Hundreds of
others have been in jail for years without conviction in what many now
see as `a massacre of the law.’ Unpublished books have been
confiscated and journalists have imposed self-censorship on themselves
in what has become a `massacre of free speech.’ KCK operations,
massive illegal wiretappings breaching the right to privacy, a series
of sex tapes of opposition figures, the release of the Lighthouse e.V.
(Deniz Feneri) suspects after the deposition of prosecutors¦ Hopefully
Turkey will also face those realities before they become history.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011