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IN SEARCH OF HUMANISM IN TURKEY
The Globe - By Khalid Khayati
Kurdish Aspect, CO
http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc111407KK.html
N ov 14 2007
What reasons lie behind the exclusionary behavior of the Turkish state?
Political commentator Khalid Khayati discusses Turkey's "paranoia,
nationalistic hate sentiments, and phobia vis-a-vis other people
and other cultures that were perceived as deviant and harmful to
the state."
Where are the Kurds in Istanbul?
At the end of 2003 in Istanbul, I was attending a conference on
immigration that was organized by a number of Swedish and Turkish
universities, research institutions, and the Swedish consulate in
Istanbul. At the conference, several researchers from both Turkey
and EU countries presented a number of research papers addressing
the different aspects of contemporary immigration and its various
implications for Turkey, as this country has always been considered
a turning plate for hundred of thousands of immigrants and refugees
who wanted in one way or another to go to Western countries.
The most striking was that during this two-days-long conference,
not a single allusion was made to the Kurds. In the same way, West
European researchers, completely aware about the rule of the play
and the constraint of official Turkish sociology, remained reluctant
to pronounce any word that would sound Kurdish as they knew perfectly
well that the larger part of those refugees and immigrants who entered
Turkey legally and illegally from the neighboring countries were
Kurds. Likewise, the scholars were conscious of several international
reports about the devastation of more than 3,000 Kurdish villages
by the Turkish army during the armed conflict with the PKK that
had its apogee in 1990s and the followed forced displacement of 3
million Kurds who in a way became internal refugees and immigrants
in Turkey. However, treating the issue of immigration in such a way
without evoking the Kurds is more or less the same as talking about
cutting a tropical forest without mentioning the forest itself.
Another striking example that can be evoked in this context is to
see how Kurdishness is excluded from the heart of the city of Istanbul.
In the most frequented part of the city, thousands of small and large
shops, restaurants, and recreation offices offer their services and
items to tourists from all over the world and address them in almost
all existing languages. One can perceive shop windows displayed,
for instance, in Greek, Russian, Persian, English, Arabic, French,
Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Albanian, Ukrainian, German, Spanish, Italian,
etc., while finding a sign of Kurdishness and Kurdish language in the
tourist areas of Istanbul is almost impossible; this in spite of the
fact that unofficial figures acknowledge the presence of a powerful
Kurdish community in the city of approximately 2 million people.
In this respect, one can pose a couple of questions, such as the
following: What is the reason behind such exclusionary behavior of the
Turkish state? Is a creation of a so "fake" nation that important that
one is ready to pay with real lives and genuine cultures? In any state
of cause, the absence of the humanism in the Turkish initial project
of nation-building paved the way instead for paranoia, nationalistic
hate sentiments, and phobia vis-a-vis other people and other cultures
that were perceived as deviant and harmful to the state.
The act of ethnocide and zero-tolerance vis-a-vis critical voices
Excluding the "others" and particularly the Kurdish language and
culture from the country's public spaces is not uniquely a matter
for politic and culture. This is about a pure act of ethnocide or,
as Abbas Vali says, about a stolen history that has been pursued by
the Turkish state since the establishment of the modern Turkish state
by Mustafa Kamal Ataturk in 1923. In 1924, Kurdish language was banned.
Following that, almost all other cultural and symbolic manifestations
of Kurdish life were prohibited. The names and appellations of the
Kurdish cities, towns, villages, rivers, mountains, springs, ways,
lakes, etc., have, through different legislations, been changed into
Turkish. The Turkish state, reluctant in all situations to mention
the word of Kurd, began to call the Kurdish people "mountain Turks."
In other words, the creation of a modern and homogenous Turkish
state has not only suppressed the ethnic and cultural differences in
the Anatolia but also the traditional political and administrative
organization of the society.
In such a furious climate, there were not so many voices that could
talk in favor of the Kurds.
For instance, Ismail Beþikci was the first, and for a long time,
the only Turkish intellectual to publicly criticize Turkey's official
ideology and politics for being considerably harmful vis-a-vis Kurds.
The price he paid for his moral and intellectual courage and conviction
was high: All his books were banned after he spent more than 10 years
writing them and for defending the Kurdish cause.
Even today, opinions critical of the strongly nationalistic line
are regularly prosecuted. For example, the famous Article 301 of the
Turkish penal code, which is perceived as being contrary to ideas of
freedom of speech, states: "A person who explicitly insults being a
Turk, the Republic, or Turkish Grand National Assembly, the penalty
to be imposed shall be imprisonment for a term of six months to three
years," and, "When insulting being a Turk is committed by a Turkish
citizen in a foreign country, the penalty to be imposed shall be
increased by one third."
It also states: "Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall
not constitute a crime."
Some critical voices say that Turkey may abandon or modify Article 301,
after the embarrassment suffered by high-profile cases.
Nationalists within the judicial system who are not inclined to
work for an EU accession process have used Article 301 to initiate
trials against people like Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan
Pamuk, the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, and the late Hrant Dink. In
an interview, Pamuk stated: "Thirty-thousand Kurds and a million
Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody dares to talk about
it." Professor Shafak wrote a book dealing with the Armenian Genocide
entitled "The Bastard of Istanbul." In this regard, the destiny of
Hrant Dink was the most tragic one.
Hrant Dink, who was editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian
newspaper Agos, was best known for his opinions on methods toward a
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and on human and minority rights in
Turkey, with a special emphasis on the rights of the Armenian minority.
He was often critical of both Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide
and of the Armenian Diaspora's campaign for its international
recognition. Regarding his statements, Dink was prosecuted three
times for denigrating Turkishness and received numerous death threats
from Turkish nationalists who accused him of treachery. Hrant Dink
was assassinated in Istanbul on January 19, 2007, allegedly by Ogun
Samast, an ultra-nationalist Turk.
The need of humanism
In October 2005, the European Union opened membership talks with
Turkey, the first time a predominately Muslim nation has been
considered for inclusion in the European confederation. Turkey's
bid to join the European Union turned a corner with the opening of
the long-awaited accession negotiations. The terms of accession and
Turkey's long-term prospects for EU membership remain unclear.
As a response to the process of accession, Ankara has in recent
years implemented political and economic reforms intended to appease
EU members opposed to its inclusion. But these reforms have been
considered inadequate for Turkey's EU accession as many people continue
to distrust the commitment of the Turkish state to democracy and human
rights and its ability to reach European standards in issues such as
gender equality, political freedom, religious freedom, and minority
rights, especially regarding the Kurdish population, non-Muslims,
particularly Christians, journalists, and homosexuals.
Today, Turkey is going through a very sensitive period in its
history. More than any other country in the Middle East, it needs the
assistance of democratic nations to manage this fragile transitory
phase of its historical and political existence. Let us paraphrase
Martin Luther King and say the people of Turkey have a dream; the
dream of a nation where Ismail Beþikci is not obliged to spend 10
years of his life in prison for defending the Kurdish cause; a nation
where Orhan Pamuk one more time stays in his beloved Istanbul to
create his masterworks; a nation where Hrant Dink has come back to
life and writes freely in his Agos; a nation where the language and
culture of others are recognized and promoted; and a nation where
even the case of the PKK is considered a human affair and solved
through peaceful methods. The new Turkish nation is a multicultural
and multiethnic nation that is no longer intimated by its past, as
the past is informed and recognized. In the new nation, humanism is
the most important guideline of society.
--Boundary_(ID_SnqCslNaJpS1r0FNBCn+ug)--
The Globe - By Khalid Khayati
Kurdish Aspect, CO
http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc111407KK.html
N ov 14 2007
What reasons lie behind the exclusionary behavior of the Turkish state?
Political commentator Khalid Khayati discusses Turkey's "paranoia,
nationalistic hate sentiments, and phobia vis-a-vis other people
and other cultures that were perceived as deviant and harmful to
the state."
Where are the Kurds in Istanbul?
At the end of 2003 in Istanbul, I was attending a conference on
immigration that was organized by a number of Swedish and Turkish
universities, research institutions, and the Swedish consulate in
Istanbul. At the conference, several researchers from both Turkey
and EU countries presented a number of research papers addressing
the different aspects of contemporary immigration and its various
implications for Turkey, as this country has always been considered
a turning plate for hundred of thousands of immigrants and refugees
who wanted in one way or another to go to Western countries.
The most striking was that during this two-days-long conference,
not a single allusion was made to the Kurds. In the same way, West
European researchers, completely aware about the rule of the play
and the constraint of official Turkish sociology, remained reluctant
to pronounce any word that would sound Kurdish as they knew perfectly
well that the larger part of those refugees and immigrants who entered
Turkey legally and illegally from the neighboring countries were
Kurds. Likewise, the scholars were conscious of several international
reports about the devastation of more than 3,000 Kurdish villages
by the Turkish army during the armed conflict with the PKK that
had its apogee in 1990s and the followed forced displacement of 3
million Kurds who in a way became internal refugees and immigrants
in Turkey. However, treating the issue of immigration in such a way
without evoking the Kurds is more or less the same as talking about
cutting a tropical forest without mentioning the forest itself.
Another striking example that can be evoked in this context is to
see how Kurdishness is excluded from the heart of the city of Istanbul.
In the most frequented part of the city, thousands of small and large
shops, restaurants, and recreation offices offer their services and
items to tourists from all over the world and address them in almost
all existing languages. One can perceive shop windows displayed,
for instance, in Greek, Russian, Persian, English, Arabic, French,
Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Albanian, Ukrainian, German, Spanish, Italian,
etc., while finding a sign of Kurdishness and Kurdish language in the
tourist areas of Istanbul is almost impossible; this in spite of the
fact that unofficial figures acknowledge the presence of a powerful
Kurdish community in the city of approximately 2 million people.
In this respect, one can pose a couple of questions, such as the
following: What is the reason behind such exclusionary behavior of the
Turkish state? Is a creation of a so "fake" nation that important that
one is ready to pay with real lives and genuine cultures? In any state
of cause, the absence of the humanism in the Turkish initial project
of nation-building paved the way instead for paranoia, nationalistic
hate sentiments, and phobia vis-a-vis other people and other cultures
that were perceived as deviant and harmful to the state.
The act of ethnocide and zero-tolerance vis-a-vis critical voices
Excluding the "others" and particularly the Kurdish language and
culture from the country's public spaces is not uniquely a matter
for politic and culture. This is about a pure act of ethnocide or,
as Abbas Vali says, about a stolen history that has been pursued by
the Turkish state since the establishment of the modern Turkish state
by Mustafa Kamal Ataturk in 1923. In 1924, Kurdish language was banned.
Following that, almost all other cultural and symbolic manifestations
of Kurdish life were prohibited. The names and appellations of the
Kurdish cities, towns, villages, rivers, mountains, springs, ways,
lakes, etc., have, through different legislations, been changed into
Turkish. The Turkish state, reluctant in all situations to mention
the word of Kurd, began to call the Kurdish people "mountain Turks."
In other words, the creation of a modern and homogenous Turkish
state has not only suppressed the ethnic and cultural differences in
the Anatolia but also the traditional political and administrative
organization of the society.
In such a furious climate, there were not so many voices that could
talk in favor of the Kurds.
For instance, Ismail Beþikci was the first, and for a long time,
the only Turkish intellectual to publicly criticize Turkey's official
ideology and politics for being considerably harmful vis-a-vis Kurds.
The price he paid for his moral and intellectual courage and conviction
was high: All his books were banned after he spent more than 10 years
writing them and for defending the Kurdish cause.
Even today, opinions critical of the strongly nationalistic line
are regularly prosecuted. For example, the famous Article 301 of the
Turkish penal code, which is perceived as being contrary to ideas of
freedom of speech, states: "A person who explicitly insults being a
Turk, the Republic, or Turkish Grand National Assembly, the penalty
to be imposed shall be imprisonment for a term of six months to three
years," and, "When insulting being a Turk is committed by a Turkish
citizen in a foreign country, the penalty to be imposed shall be
increased by one third."
It also states: "Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall
not constitute a crime."
Some critical voices say that Turkey may abandon or modify Article 301,
after the embarrassment suffered by high-profile cases.
Nationalists within the judicial system who are not inclined to
work for an EU accession process have used Article 301 to initiate
trials against people like Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan
Pamuk, the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, and the late Hrant Dink. In
an interview, Pamuk stated: "Thirty-thousand Kurds and a million
Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody dares to talk about
it." Professor Shafak wrote a book dealing with the Armenian Genocide
entitled "The Bastard of Istanbul." In this regard, the destiny of
Hrant Dink was the most tragic one.
Hrant Dink, who was editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian
newspaper Agos, was best known for his opinions on methods toward a
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and on human and minority rights in
Turkey, with a special emphasis on the rights of the Armenian minority.
He was often critical of both Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide
and of the Armenian Diaspora's campaign for its international
recognition. Regarding his statements, Dink was prosecuted three
times for denigrating Turkishness and received numerous death threats
from Turkish nationalists who accused him of treachery. Hrant Dink
was assassinated in Istanbul on January 19, 2007, allegedly by Ogun
Samast, an ultra-nationalist Turk.
The need of humanism
In October 2005, the European Union opened membership talks with
Turkey, the first time a predominately Muslim nation has been
considered for inclusion in the European confederation. Turkey's
bid to join the European Union turned a corner with the opening of
the long-awaited accession negotiations. The terms of accession and
Turkey's long-term prospects for EU membership remain unclear.
As a response to the process of accession, Ankara has in recent
years implemented political and economic reforms intended to appease
EU members opposed to its inclusion. But these reforms have been
considered inadequate for Turkey's EU accession as many people continue
to distrust the commitment of the Turkish state to democracy and human
rights and its ability to reach European standards in issues such as
gender equality, political freedom, religious freedom, and minority
rights, especially regarding the Kurdish population, non-Muslims,
particularly Christians, journalists, and homosexuals.
Today, Turkey is going through a very sensitive period in its
history. More than any other country in the Middle East, it needs the
assistance of democratic nations to manage this fragile transitory
phase of its historical and political existence. Let us paraphrase
Martin Luther King and say the people of Turkey have a dream; the
dream of a nation where Ismail Beþikci is not obliged to spend 10
years of his life in prison for defending the Kurdish cause; a nation
where Orhan Pamuk one more time stays in his beloved Istanbul to
create his masterworks; a nation where Hrant Dink has come back to
life and writes freely in his Agos; a nation where the language and
culture of others are recognized and promoted; and a nation where
even the case of the PKK is considered a human affair and solved
through peaceful methods. The new Turkish nation is a multicultural
and multiethnic nation that is no longer intimated by its past, as
the past is informed and recognized. In the new nation, humanism is
the most important guideline of society.
--Boundary_(ID_SnqCslNaJpS1r0FNBCn+ug)--