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Hurriyet, Turkey
Nov 22 2011
A dark episode in Turkish history
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
These days, the Turkish media is full of discussions about `what
really happened' in Dersim in 1937 ` an eastern province in which a
`rebellion' was brutally crushed. The victims, whose numbers exceed
10,000 and included many women and children, are remembered with
grief. Now Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the ever-venerated and
never-questioned `father of all Turks,' is getting the questioning he
deserves for the first time.
Dersim, a tribal province of Alevi Kurds, was a `lawless' region even
under the Ottomans, who did not interfere in the affairs of the local
communities unless they created big problems for the center. The
Turkish Republic that was founded in 1923, however, had its own
version of the `mission civilisatrice,' or the self-declared right to
tame `uncivilized' peoples. Therefore, tension emerged in the 1930s
between the tribes of the region and the government in Ankara, which
wanted to impose `law and order,' including, of course, taxes.
Word has it that the first spark that lit the violence was the attempt
of a Turkish officer to rape the beautiful wife of a local chieftain
in March 1937. The chieftain killed the soldier, fled to the mountains
to avoid the army backlash and burned a bridge that was recently built
by the government for apparent military purposes. This incident was
regarded by Ankara as the beginning of a rebellion. Large numbers of
troops were deployed to the region, turning Dersim into a war zone.
In the following months, the city and the surrounding mountains turned
into a huge occupied territory, where the soldiers killed not just
armed rebels but also many non-combatants. War planes dropped bombs on
the population, and even poisonous gas was used. In his memoirs, the
late Ä°hsan Sabri Ã?aÄ?layangil, a former prime minister, wrote that
people who fled into caves were `gassed like rats.'
In brief, what happened in Dersim in 1937 is a perfect example of
`state terrorism' against a disobedient population. The closest
parallel I have in mind is the mass murder in Hama perpetrated in 1982
by the tyranny of Hafez al-Assad ` the father of Syria's current
tyrant. It is a horrendous episode that we Turks should be ashamed of.
But those who deserve the most shame are the ones who have knowingly
hidden the responsibility of the masterminds of the massacre: For
decades, they have said Atatürk was `unaware' of the operation against
Dersim as he was `too ill' at the time.
Indeed, not just the perpetrators but the tragedy itself has been
whitewashed. Today, you can't find the word Dersim on any Turkish map,
for the province was renamed by law as `Tunceli.' And when you use
Istanbul's second airport named after Sabiha Gökçen, the adopted
daughter of Atatürk, you can read on a plate that she was `Turkey's
first female war pilot.' They just don't tell you that she had tested
her bombing skills on nowhere other than Dersim.
But facts can't be hidden forever, and we owe their current resurgence
to an outlier in the arch-Kemalist CHP, or the Republican People's
Party's Hüseyin Aygün, a deputy from Tunceli, who dared to expose that
the emperor has no clothes. `It is impossible to think that Atatürk
was unaware of Dersim,' Aygün said. `Atatürk must be held
responsible.'
It took only a few days for prominent members of his party to protest
Aygün, and for his party's central committee to ask for his `defense.'
I will not be surprised if he gets excommunicated ` the CHP is a party
of Kemalist dogma, not reason.
But the genie is out of the bottle. Daily Radikal has published
various documents and photos showing that Atatürk ordered and oversaw
the whole `operation.' In just a few days, millions have realized that
the history of our Republic is much less clean than they used to
believe.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Nov 22 2011
A dark episode in Turkish history
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
These days, the Turkish media is full of discussions about `what
really happened' in Dersim in 1937 ` an eastern province in which a
`rebellion' was brutally crushed. The victims, whose numbers exceed
10,000 and included many women and children, are remembered with
grief. Now Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the ever-venerated and
never-questioned `father of all Turks,' is getting the questioning he
deserves for the first time.
Dersim, a tribal province of Alevi Kurds, was a `lawless' region even
under the Ottomans, who did not interfere in the affairs of the local
communities unless they created big problems for the center. The
Turkish Republic that was founded in 1923, however, had its own
version of the `mission civilisatrice,' or the self-declared right to
tame `uncivilized' peoples. Therefore, tension emerged in the 1930s
between the tribes of the region and the government in Ankara, which
wanted to impose `law and order,' including, of course, taxes.
Word has it that the first spark that lit the violence was the attempt
of a Turkish officer to rape the beautiful wife of a local chieftain
in March 1937. The chieftain killed the soldier, fled to the mountains
to avoid the army backlash and burned a bridge that was recently built
by the government for apparent military purposes. This incident was
regarded by Ankara as the beginning of a rebellion. Large numbers of
troops were deployed to the region, turning Dersim into a war zone.
In the following months, the city and the surrounding mountains turned
into a huge occupied territory, where the soldiers killed not just
armed rebels but also many non-combatants. War planes dropped bombs on
the population, and even poisonous gas was used. In his memoirs, the
late Ä°hsan Sabri Ã?aÄ?layangil, a former prime minister, wrote that
people who fled into caves were `gassed like rats.'
In brief, what happened in Dersim in 1937 is a perfect example of
`state terrorism' against a disobedient population. The closest
parallel I have in mind is the mass murder in Hama perpetrated in 1982
by the tyranny of Hafez al-Assad ` the father of Syria's current
tyrant. It is a horrendous episode that we Turks should be ashamed of.
But those who deserve the most shame are the ones who have knowingly
hidden the responsibility of the masterminds of the massacre: For
decades, they have said Atatürk was `unaware' of the operation against
Dersim as he was `too ill' at the time.
Indeed, not just the perpetrators but the tragedy itself has been
whitewashed. Today, you can't find the word Dersim on any Turkish map,
for the province was renamed by law as `Tunceli.' And when you use
Istanbul's second airport named after Sabiha Gökçen, the adopted
daughter of Atatürk, you can read on a plate that she was `Turkey's
first female war pilot.' They just don't tell you that she had tested
her bombing skills on nowhere other than Dersim.
But facts can't be hidden forever, and we owe their current resurgence
to an outlier in the arch-Kemalist CHP, or the Republican People's
Party's Hüseyin Aygün, a deputy from Tunceli, who dared to expose that
the emperor has no clothes. `It is impossible to think that Atatürk
was unaware of Dersim,' Aygün said. `Atatürk must be held
responsible.'
It took only a few days for prominent members of his party to protest
Aygün, and for his party's central committee to ask for his `defense.'
I will not be surprised if he gets excommunicated ` the CHP is a party
of Kemalist dogma, not reason.
But the genie is out of the bottle. Daily Radikal has published
various documents and photos showing that Atatürk ordered and oversaw
the whole `operation.' In just a few days, millions have realized that
the history of our Republic is much less clean than they used to
believe.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011