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TURKEY, THE FIRST FASCIST STATE
www.ararat-center.org; www.ardarutyun.org; www.hayq.org
Nov 10, 2011
One of the consequences of the Armenian Genocide was the creation of
the first fascist state in Europe's periphery. The Republic of Turkey
had all the core characteristics inherent to fascism and Nazism. Below
the six main characteristics of Turkish fascism are identified:
1. Turkish chauvinism and genocidal policies. Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)
was formerly himself a member of the governing body of Committee of
Union and Progress (CUP), the political organization of murderous Young
Turks. Once in power, Ataturk and the Kemalists not only continued the
Armenian Genocide, but directed their tested policies of extermination
of an entire people against Greeks and other ethnic minorities. In
Eastern Armenia alone, the Kemalists destroyed 200,000 Armenians
(1920-1921), in Smyrna - 100,000 Greeks and Armenians (September
1922), in the Black Sea regions - about 300,000 Pontian Greeks
(1919-1923). They also continued the Genocide against the Assyrians,
of whom about 500,000 were annihilated by the Turkish forces from 1915
to 1923. Deportations, mass exterminations, political and cultural
repressions against the Kurds, the second largest ethnic group in
modern Turkey, began immediately after the Armenian Genocide and
continue to this day. All Kurdish attempts to protect their basic
national and human rights were brutally suppressed in 1925, 1927,
and 1937. In 1980s and 1990s, more than a million Kurds were deported
to large cities (during these deportations, according to various
estimates, two to three thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed).
Turkish chauvinism was legislatively approved in the Constitution
of 1937 under the auspicious name of "nationalism" (Milliyetcilik),
openly aiming to assimilate non-Turkic ethnic groups and legally
identifying them as Turks. The modern discipline of Holocaust and
Genocide Studies identifies the denial of genocide as an extension
of genocidal policies. Gregory Stanton, former President of the
International Association of Genocide Scholars, emphasizes that
"Denial is the final stage of genocide. It is a continuing attempt
to destroy the victim group psychologically and culturally, to deny
its members even the memory of the murders of their relatives. That
is what the Turkish government today is doing to Armenians around
the world." Elie Wiesel, the famous Holocaust survivor and political
activist, has repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to cover
up the Armenian genocide a double killing, since it strives to kill
the memory of the original atrocities. In contemporary democratic
Germany it is simply impossible to imagine a street or institution
named in honour of any of the leaders of the Third Reich - indeed it
is legally prohibited! Meanwhile, in "democratic" Turkey the leaders
of CUP, i.e. the criminal organizers and perpetrators of the Armenian
Genocide, are openly glorified.
"Democratic" Turkey also actively uses the infamous Article 301
of its Criminal Code ("insulting Turkishness", in 2008 changed to
"insulting the Turkish nation"). This law, among other things, makes
the recognition of the Armenian Genocide a crime. About 50 trials
have already been held based on this article.
2. Totalitarianism. Up to the late 1940s Turkey was a one-party
state. However, even today "democratic" Turkey periodically imposes
a ban on one political party or another (even those elected to
parliament), while its leaders are thrown in jail on trumped-up
political charges. The last of a series of such cases occurred in
December 2009, when the Turkish Constitutional Court banned the
pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which had 21 MPs. All
the property of DTP was confiscated by the state. Turkey's state
propaganda, all-inclusive revision and falsification of the Ottoman
and modern Turkish history through carefully controlled scholarship,
school curricula, and legally enforced taboos, including severe
restraints on free access to information and freedom of expression,
resulted in effective brainwashing of its own population.
3. Statism (etatism). The Turkish Constitution of 1937 strengthened
the regulatory role of the state not only in the economy, but also
in ideology.
4. Anti-communism. Ataturk, despite his friendship with the Soviet
Union, was a staunch anti-communist. The Communist Party of Turkey
has been banned since 1923 and remained illegal throughout its
whole history, having been routinely subjected to most brutal state
repressions.
5. Leaderism and the cult of personality. In Turkey, the cult of
Ataturk is still in full bloom. Statues and monuments of Ataturk are
installed in every city, his portraits are hung in all government and
administrative institutions, as well as in school classrooms, and his
portraits are on banknotes and coins of all denominations. Criticism
of his life activities and biography are criminalized and carrying
Ataturk as one's last name is banned.
6. Militarism and aggression. Turkey is one of the most militarized
countries on earth, with the eighth-largest army in the world and
second only to the United States in NATO. The decisive sway of the
Turkish military on domestic politics is well known: one only needs
to recall the three coups d'etat carried out by the Turkish army in
1960, 1971 and 1980, as well as the harsh ousting of Islamist Prime
Minister N. Erbakan from power in 1997 (incidentally, his ruling
"Welfare Party" was also banned).
In 1920, the first Republic of Armenia fell under the blows of
Kemalists. Indeed, the direct order that Karabekir-Pasha received
from Mustafa Kemal literally specified "to destroy Armenia morally and
physically." If the international community (alias "the great powers")
does not adequately characterize the fascist essence of the modern
Turkish state, this is simply because it has not been interested in
such an expose. Armenia's present security predicaments are a direct
result of crimes by Turkish fascism!
Attempts to rehabilitate Turkey without having it incur its due
responsibility - in particular, without the territorial restitutions
and other compensations to Armenia - can lead to new and repeated
genocides. This is the main conclusion that the international community
has yet to draw.
ARMEN AYVAZYAN, PhD
www.ararat-center.org; www.ardarutyun.org; www.hayq.org
Nov 10, 2011
One of the consequences of the Armenian Genocide was the creation of
the first fascist state in Europe's periphery. The Republic of Turkey
had all the core characteristics inherent to fascism and Nazism. Below
the six main characteristics of Turkish fascism are identified:
1. Turkish chauvinism and genocidal policies. Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)
was formerly himself a member of the governing body of Committee of
Union and Progress (CUP), the political organization of murderous Young
Turks. Once in power, Ataturk and the Kemalists not only continued the
Armenian Genocide, but directed their tested policies of extermination
of an entire people against Greeks and other ethnic minorities. In
Eastern Armenia alone, the Kemalists destroyed 200,000 Armenians
(1920-1921), in Smyrna - 100,000 Greeks and Armenians (September
1922), in the Black Sea regions - about 300,000 Pontian Greeks
(1919-1923). They also continued the Genocide against the Assyrians,
of whom about 500,000 were annihilated by the Turkish forces from 1915
to 1923. Deportations, mass exterminations, political and cultural
repressions against the Kurds, the second largest ethnic group in
modern Turkey, began immediately after the Armenian Genocide and
continue to this day. All Kurdish attempts to protect their basic
national and human rights were brutally suppressed in 1925, 1927,
and 1937. In 1980s and 1990s, more than a million Kurds were deported
to large cities (during these deportations, according to various
estimates, two to three thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed).
Turkish chauvinism was legislatively approved in the Constitution
of 1937 under the auspicious name of "nationalism" (Milliyetcilik),
openly aiming to assimilate non-Turkic ethnic groups and legally
identifying them as Turks. The modern discipline of Holocaust and
Genocide Studies identifies the denial of genocide as an extension
of genocidal policies. Gregory Stanton, former President of the
International Association of Genocide Scholars, emphasizes that
"Denial is the final stage of genocide. It is a continuing attempt
to destroy the victim group psychologically and culturally, to deny
its members even the memory of the murders of their relatives. That
is what the Turkish government today is doing to Armenians around
the world." Elie Wiesel, the famous Holocaust survivor and political
activist, has repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to cover
up the Armenian genocide a double killing, since it strives to kill
the memory of the original atrocities. In contemporary democratic
Germany it is simply impossible to imagine a street or institution
named in honour of any of the leaders of the Third Reich - indeed it
is legally prohibited! Meanwhile, in "democratic" Turkey the leaders
of CUP, i.e. the criminal organizers and perpetrators of the Armenian
Genocide, are openly glorified.
"Democratic" Turkey also actively uses the infamous Article 301
of its Criminal Code ("insulting Turkishness", in 2008 changed to
"insulting the Turkish nation"). This law, among other things, makes
the recognition of the Armenian Genocide a crime. About 50 trials
have already been held based on this article.
2. Totalitarianism. Up to the late 1940s Turkey was a one-party
state. However, even today "democratic" Turkey periodically imposes
a ban on one political party or another (even those elected to
parliament), while its leaders are thrown in jail on trumped-up
political charges. The last of a series of such cases occurred in
December 2009, when the Turkish Constitutional Court banned the
pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which had 21 MPs. All
the property of DTP was confiscated by the state. Turkey's state
propaganda, all-inclusive revision and falsification of the Ottoman
and modern Turkish history through carefully controlled scholarship,
school curricula, and legally enforced taboos, including severe
restraints on free access to information and freedom of expression,
resulted in effective brainwashing of its own population.
3. Statism (etatism). The Turkish Constitution of 1937 strengthened
the regulatory role of the state not only in the economy, but also
in ideology.
4. Anti-communism. Ataturk, despite his friendship with the Soviet
Union, was a staunch anti-communist. The Communist Party of Turkey
has been banned since 1923 and remained illegal throughout its
whole history, having been routinely subjected to most brutal state
repressions.
5. Leaderism and the cult of personality. In Turkey, the cult of
Ataturk is still in full bloom. Statues and monuments of Ataturk are
installed in every city, his portraits are hung in all government and
administrative institutions, as well as in school classrooms, and his
portraits are on banknotes and coins of all denominations. Criticism
of his life activities and biography are criminalized and carrying
Ataturk as one's last name is banned.
6. Militarism and aggression. Turkey is one of the most militarized
countries on earth, with the eighth-largest army in the world and
second only to the United States in NATO. The decisive sway of the
Turkish military on domestic politics is well known: one only needs
to recall the three coups d'etat carried out by the Turkish army in
1960, 1971 and 1980, as well as the harsh ousting of Islamist Prime
Minister N. Erbakan from power in 1997 (incidentally, his ruling
"Welfare Party" was also banned).
In 1920, the first Republic of Armenia fell under the blows of
Kemalists. Indeed, the direct order that Karabekir-Pasha received
from Mustafa Kemal literally specified "to destroy Armenia morally and
physically." If the international community (alias "the great powers")
does not adequately characterize the fascist essence of the modern
Turkish state, this is simply because it has not been interested in
such an expose. Armenia's present security predicaments are a direct
result of crimes by Turkish fascism!
Attempts to rehabilitate Turkey without having it incur its due
responsibility - in particular, without the territorial restitutions
and other compensations to Armenia - can lead to new and repeated
genocides. This is the main conclusion that the international community
has yet to draw.
ARMEN AYVAZYAN, PhD