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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Sept 19 2012
Any ideas about the meaning of war?
CENGÄ°Z AKTAR
A young and dynamic Turkey is counting body bags. It looks as though
it wants more fighting and blood.
No war-fatigue yet. Apparently it won't be easy to remove violence
from these lands. Cruelty has infiltrated into every aspect of life
and taken the state, politics, society and even our homes hostage. A
recent example is the frantic call spearheaded by an extreme-right
political party for the re-establishment of the death penalty, the
apex of state violence which otherwise has proven to be totally
useless in preventing crime.
The `easy' talk about violence and warfare has always forced me to
reflect. What could be the reason for such an indifference to violent
discourse and the broad usage of war-related idioms? What is the root
cause of the familiarity with violence and warfare? How was violence
and warfare treated among communities preceding us?
The history of man is also the history of warfare. Reportedly, within
the 5,600 years since the invention of the Sumerian script there has
only been a total of 300 years of peace. At least 200 of those
peaceful years fell in the Pax Romana period. There have been 14,000
wars and 3 billion dead in the recorded history of Western
civilization alone.
War does not only result in the loss of human lives, it is also the
most expensive and destructive of human acts. Looking for solutions to
end warfare has also determined the way different communities interact
with each other. The gist of this relentless search for a remedy
amounts to trying to find a way to maintain differences without
claiming lives. Such a search has been on the agenda since the
existence of mankind. The vast majority of the anthropological
accounts focus on this.
Lapse of memory and denial
Our neighbor Europe adopted the motto `War, never again!' only after
two of the bloodiest wars in history, in which millions died. A total
of 60 percent of the casualties in World War II were civilian because
of the genocide campaign against the Jews. With negligible exceptions,
all societies have been subject to devastating wars on the European
continent. Nearly 70 years have passed since the end of the last one.
In the meantime, work based on memories of those years was produced on
the continent; history textbooks, magazines and books have covered the
violence that man has perpetrated against his fellow human beings.
Despite this horrifying record, no one is able today to guarantee that
there will be no more war on the continent. Man forgets. As for the
new generations who have never experienced war, peace does not mean
anything.
Unlike Europe, Turkey has not experienced catastrophic warfare on its
territory. It remained neutral in World War II. The memories of
warfare on this land are in the distant past. Most of the lands where
warfare was extensive are now part of other states. Deadly casualties
including civilian victims are not comparable to those in Europe. Last
but not least, the non-Muslim and the Dersim Alevi `folders' have been
deleted from Turkey's `hard disc.'
Memories of the Balkan War and World War I where many Ottoman citizens
lost their lives are a century old. Most of the battles took place on
fronts that are no longer a part of Turkish territory. Ottoman Muslims
who had to take refuge in Anatolia have erased the bad memories for
the sake of assimilation in their new home.
The battles that directly concern Anatolia are the Battle of
Dardanelles, the battles on the Eastern Front and the War of
Independence. The number of casualties in the Dardanelles was 58,000
(plus 20,000 who died of illness) rather than the exaggerated 250,000.
The number of dead in the War of Independence was around 10,000.
Historians note that with the exception of the SarıkamıÅ? disaster,
there is no legitimate data on the military and civilian casualties
for the Eastern Front. But it should be noted that in any case, the
total number of civilian casualties in six provinces (Bitlis,
Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Harput [ElazıÄ?], Sivas and Van) murdered out of
vengeance by the Armenians could not have been 500,000, a number that
is greater than the total Muslim population living there in the late
1910s.
Thus in the end remains only the ghost of awful ethnic cleansing
campaigns, which have been erased from societal memory. And ghosts are
insufficient in grasping warfare. Unless we confront the unspeakable
injustices that non-Muslims, Alevis and more recently Kurds have had
to suffer, war means nothing more than a computer game. The country
will remain hostage to violence and warfare, yet Turkey's antidote to
this issue is producing work based on a collective memory.
For now, Turkey's war consciousness is defined by an arrogant
discourse, a lack of compassion in hearts and indifference in minds.
Action is limited to the eastern parts and most of the dead are Kurds
or sons, husbands or brothers of others anyhow. War has not touched
Turkey yet. God forbid!
Sept 19 2012
Any ideas about the meaning of war?
CENGÄ°Z AKTAR
A young and dynamic Turkey is counting body bags. It looks as though
it wants more fighting and blood.
No war-fatigue yet. Apparently it won't be easy to remove violence
from these lands. Cruelty has infiltrated into every aspect of life
and taken the state, politics, society and even our homes hostage. A
recent example is the frantic call spearheaded by an extreme-right
political party for the re-establishment of the death penalty, the
apex of state violence which otherwise has proven to be totally
useless in preventing crime.
The `easy' talk about violence and warfare has always forced me to
reflect. What could be the reason for such an indifference to violent
discourse and the broad usage of war-related idioms? What is the root
cause of the familiarity with violence and warfare? How was violence
and warfare treated among communities preceding us?
The history of man is also the history of warfare. Reportedly, within
the 5,600 years since the invention of the Sumerian script there has
only been a total of 300 years of peace. At least 200 of those
peaceful years fell in the Pax Romana period. There have been 14,000
wars and 3 billion dead in the recorded history of Western
civilization alone.
War does not only result in the loss of human lives, it is also the
most expensive and destructive of human acts. Looking for solutions to
end warfare has also determined the way different communities interact
with each other. The gist of this relentless search for a remedy
amounts to trying to find a way to maintain differences without
claiming lives. Such a search has been on the agenda since the
existence of mankind. The vast majority of the anthropological
accounts focus on this.
Lapse of memory and denial
Our neighbor Europe adopted the motto `War, never again!' only after
two of the bloodiest wars in history, in which millions died. A total
of 60 percent of the casualties in World War II were civilian because
of the genocide campaign against the Jews. With negligible exceptions,
all societies have been subject to devastating wars on the European
continent. Nearly 70 years have passed since the end of the last one.
In the meantime, work based on memories of those years was produced on
the continent; history textbooks, magazines and books have covered the
violence that man has perpetrated against his fellow human beings.
Despite this horrifying record, no one is able today to guarantee that
there will be no more war on the continent. Man forgets. As for the
new generations who have never experienced war, peace does not mean
anything.
Unlike Europe, Turkey has not experienced catastrophic warfare on its
territory. It remained neutral in World War II. The memories of
warfare on this land are in the distant past. Most of the lands where
warfare was extensive are now part of other states. Deadly casualties
including civilian victims are not comparable to those in Europe. Last
but not least, the non-Muslim and the Dersim Alevi `folders' have been
deleted from Turkey's `hard disc.'
Memories of the Balkan War and World War I where many Ottoman citizens
lost their lives are a century old. Most of the battles took place on
fronts that are no longer a part of Turkish territory. Ottoman Muslims
who had to take refuge in Anatolia have erased the bad memories for
the sake of assimilation in their new home.
The battles that directly concern Anatolia are the Battle of
Dardanelles, the battles on the Eastern Front and the War of
Independence. The number of casualties in the Dardanelles was 58,000
(plus 20,000 who died of illness) rather than the exaggerated 250,000.
The number of dead in the War of Independence was around 10,000.
Historians note that with the exception of the SarıkamıÅ? disaster,
there is no legitimate data on the military and civilian casualties
for the Eastern Front. But it should be noted that in any case, the
total number of civilian casualties in six provinces (Bitlis,
Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Harput [ElazıÄ?], Sivas and Van) murdered out of
vengeance by the Armenians could not have been 500,000, a number that
is greater than the total Muslim population living there in the late
1910s.
Thus in the end remains only the ghost of awful ethnic cleansing
campaigns, which have been erased from societal memory. And ghosts are
insufficient in grasping warfare. Unless we confront the unspeakable
injustices that non-Muslims, Alevis and more recently Kurds have had
to suffer, war means nothing more than a computer game. The country
will remain hostage to violence and warfare, yet Turkey's antidote to
this issue is producing work based on a collective memory.
For now, Turkey's war consciousness is defined by an arrogant
discourse, a lack of compassion in hearts and indifference in minds.
Action is limited to the eastern parts and most of the dead are Kurds
or sons, husbands or brothers of others anyhow. War has not touched
Turkey yet. God forbid!