Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Ankara: Protestants, Collective Unconsciousness, Fundamentalist

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Ankara: Protestants, Collective Unconsciousness, Fundamentalist

    PROTESTANTS, COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS, FUNDAMENTALIST

    Today's Zaman
    09 October 2009, Friday

    We all are prisoners of our own preconceived perspectives. The stronger
    the prejudices we have, the thicker the walls of the prisons that
    hold us captive.

    When it comes to religions, unfortunately, these prisons are much
    more isolating than we can imagine. Protestants are one of the
    most stigmatized groups in Turkey. Having had the privilege of
    being their lawyer for many years, I believe I have gained a deeper
    understanding of the collective unconsciousness of the state elites
    in Turkey. They are the scapegoats for Turkish elites who are trying
    to escape from the burdens of our history. Without knowing history,
    we can never understand how this handful of Protestants turned into
    enemy No. 1 for state elites in Turkey. Just 3,000 or 4,000 Turkish
    Protestants have turned into one of the "internal enemies" of the
    Turkish state. Why? If 25 percent of your population was non-Muslim
    just 100 years ago and if they were "vaporized" for reasons you no
    longer remember, anything that reminds you of this past would of
    course trigger your unconscious fears.

    The fear of Protestant missionaries is a kind of phobia that shows
    us what is hidden in the unconscious side of our neurotic minds in
    Turkey. Can you imagine, this tiny group has been a constant item on
    the agenda of the National Security Council (MGK), which is dominated
    by soldiers who rule one of the biggest and strongest armies of the
    world? An elephant in fear of an ant is a depressive, deeply neurotic
    elephant, is it not?

    If you really want to understand Turkey, look at the situation of
    Protestants in Turkey. Recently, I realized that their situation also
    presents a golden opportunity to have a look at the outside world's
    prejudices against Turkey.

    On April 18, 2007, three Protestant missionaries were killed in
    Malatya, in eastern Turkey. This was not an ordinary murder. It was
    a horrific, barbaric, heinous crime. The victims were killed . As
    you can imagine, the incident attracted serious attention in both
    the national and international media. As the lawyer of the victims'
    families, I became the contact person for all media interviews. Right
    from the beginning, I realized that the persons interviewing me wanted
    to hear a certain story confirming some well-known patterns. Were
    the murderers fundamentalist Muslims? Did they do this for religious
    purposes? Did they belong to a Muslim community, and so on. Most of
    the reporters did not like what I told them. I tried to explain my
    understanding of the murder. The youngsters who committed the crime
    and were caught at the crime scene were members of ultra-nationalist
    groups and had some connection with some "deep state elements" in
    Turkey. My comments were disappointing for some reporters. They wanted
    to tell the world that Muslims were slaughtering Christians in Turkey.

    Actually, this was exactly what the deep state elements who
    masterminded this slaughter wanted to tell the world. They
    wanted to convince the world that as soon as a "pro-Islamic"
    government came to power in Turkey, "Muslim fundamentalists"
    started to kill Christians. Before the Protestants, Hrant Dink, an
    Armenian-Turkish journalist, and a Catholic priest, Father Andrea
    Santoro, were also killed by exactly the same type of murderer: young
    ultra-nationalists. When we argue this, some people claim that if it
    was the "deep state" behind these murders against Christians, then
    there must have been more murders. Actually, in my opinion this was
    the original plan of the deep state gang Ergenekon. After the Malatya
    massacre, the police prevented four other similar attempts against
    Protestant missionaries in different cities across Turkey. During
    the Ergenekon investigation, murder plots targeting Armenians and
    Alevis were also revealed. If the Ergenekon investigation goes
    deep enough, the gang's connection with these murders could be
    established. This is something I have been trying to explain from the
    very beginning. Ergenekon is modern Turkey's Committee of Union and
    Progress, which in the past committed atrocities against Christians
    in Turkey. Same mentality, same structure.

    I wrote all this because, here in New York, while I was trying to
    find out how the American media covered the Malatya massacre, I
    felt really angry. Some correspondents, including some of those who
    interviewed with me, had reported the incident as a textbook example
    of terrible prejudice. "Young Muslims killed Christians in Turkey." I
    watched some videos on the Internet; their interviews with me have
    been taken out completely.

    If Slobodan Milosevic massacred Bosnian Muslims for Christianity,
    yes than these ultra-nationalist youngsters killed Christians for
    Islam. Milosevic was an ultra-nationalist butcher exactly like the
    murderers of the Protestants in Malatya. By distorting these kinds of
    facts, believe me, you do not do anyone anywhere any good. You do not
    understand Turkey, you do not help Christians in Turkey and you are
    just sowing the seeds of discord between cultures and religions. You
    are just a prisoner of your own prejudices and trying to lock up
    everyone else there. Please do not do that!

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X