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TURKISH GOVERNMENT CATCHES SAME OLD ILLNESS
Today's Zaman (Turkey)
February 17, 2014 Monday
by LALE KEMAL
The Turkish state's ideology is based on preventing its citizens
from discussing matters freely in a democratic manner, despite some
attempts in the past decade to reverse this course of state mentality.
Starting in primary school, Turkish pupils are discouraged
from challenging differing ideas and are encouraged to learn by
memorization. The Turkish establishment, backed by a militaristic
mindset, has succeeded in maintaining its power at the expense of its
citizens' freedom by making them obedient to its repressive ideology.
Those challenging the state's repressive ideology were frequently
silenced through different means, including extrajudicial killings.
Retired Col. Cemal Temizoz and five others are finally facing criminal
charges for being responsible for the extrajudicial killings of more
than 20,000 Turkish Kurds between 1993 and 1995 in the southeastern
township of Cizre.
Thousands of others, be they leftists, Kurds, or conservatives --
irrespective of their different ideologies -- were tortured at various
jails or hanged during and after the 1980 military coup. Hundreds of
others were sacked from the fiercely secularist Turkish Armed Forces
(TSK) during the Feb. 28, 1997 postmodern coup on the grounds that
they were practicing their Muslim religion, and they were denied jobs
afterwards in private and government institutions.
A state-imposed repressive ideology resulted, among other things,
in a poverty of ideas in Turkey.
If Turks from every walk of life, i.e., politicians and intellectuals,
as well as ordinary people, frequently accuse each other of treason,
this is inherited from the repressive state ideology.
"We immediately label the opposition with having committed an act
of treason. Our language in debating issues is very harsh; this
language does not deal with understanding, debating and compromise. We
immediately jump on this 'magical concept' of treason," says historian
Ahmet Demirel in his article published in the Taraf daily on Feb. 16.
Inciting hatred among those with different ideologies or religions
is also common in Turkey, where the majority Sunni Muslim population
lives with a sizeable number of Alevis, Turkish Kurds and a small
number of Greeks and Armenians.
Sowing the seeds of hatred among differing sects or religions has
served to keep the repressive state ideology intact.
Take, for example, the Sunni majority ideology of denigrating the
Alevis or the deep state link to the murder of Turkish Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, who was branded an enemy of Turkey
for his claims that the Ottoman Turks committed genocide against the
Armenians in 1915.
Dink was also known for his efforts to achieve reconciliation between
Turks and Armenians and his advocacy of human and minority rights in
Turkey, but he was prosecuted for violating the infamous Article 301
of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and "denigrating Turkishness."
A teenager was put in prison for Dink's murder, but others accused of
having a role in the plot that culminated in Dink's assassination,
including a colonel and a senior police officer, have been brought
under state protection and have escaped investigation.
The recent controversy surrounding an attack on a headscarved woman
in Istanbul and her testimony stands as a typical example of how
governments can abuse the sentiments of Turkey's practicing Muslims
to create support for their propaganda on a specific issue. Despite
government claims that a headscarved woman was attacked in front of
Istanbul's Kabatas pier by Gezi Park protesters at the height of the
anti-government protests last June, it was recently revealed that
apparently she was not, in fact, attacked.
Many months after the incident, private television station Kanal D
aired security camera footage last week that suggests that there was
no physical attack on the woman who claimed at the time that she and
her baby were attacked by up to 100 protesters for wearing a headscarf.
This event reminded me of similar psychological propaganda warfare that
the Turkish military used to resort to in order to justify its claims
prior to its Feb. 28 postmodern coup that, for instance, the government
at the time intended to change the nation's secular character.
Professor Umit Cizre from Istanbul-based Sehir University makes
an accurate diagnosis of what I describe as the ruling Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) catching the same old illness, in her
article published on Feb. 13 on the Open Democracy website:
"Secondly, not unlike the Kemalist, non-Kemalist or centrist politics
since the very beginning (of the republic), the troubling features of
Erdogan's [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan] AKP [AK Party]
are rooted not in 'Islamism,' but in some fundamental structural and
cultural flaws and deep-seated undemocratic habits and traditions of
the regime entrenched in the decades since independence."
Referring to several reforms initiated by the AK Party, such as curbing
the military's power in politics, she, adds, "To be fair, however,
there are some novel sources of the AKP's anti-statist reforms that
we have not really experienced before."
But Cizre also underlines the state of Turkish politics: "Coupled
with a political tradition which allows for few true meeting points
and consensus-seeking mechanisms between the opposing parties,
all political actors are boxed into a 'white or black' demagoguery,
resulting in an authoritarian stance, a kind of 'pragmatism' as a
disguise for a distinct poverty of ideas together with an isolation
from reality."
From: Baghdasarian
Today's Zaman (Turkey)
February 17, 2014 Monday
by LALE KEMAL
The Turkish state's ideology is based on preventing its citizens
from discussing matters freely in a democratic manner, despite some
attempts in the past decade to reverse this course of state mentality.
Starting in primary school, Turkish pupils are discouraged
from challenging differing ideas and are encouraged to learn by
memorization. The Turkish establishment, backed by a militaristic
mindset, has succeeded in maintaining its power at the expense of its
citizens' freedom by making them obedient to its repressive ideology.
Those challenging the state's repressive ideology were frequently
silenced through different means, including extrajudicial killings.
Retired Col. Cemal Temizoz and five others are finally facing criminal
charges for being responsible for the extrajudicial killings of more
than 20,000 Turkish Kurds between 1993 and 1995 in the southeastern
township of Cizre.
Thousands of others, be they leftists, Kurds, or conservatives --
irrespective of their different ideologies -- were tortured at various
jails or hanged during and after the 1980 military coup. Hundreds of
others were sacked from the fiercely secularist Turkish Armed Forces
(TSK) during the Feb. 28, 1997 postmodern coup on the grounds that
they were practicing their Muslim religion, and they were denied jobs
afterwards in private and government institutions.
A state-imposed repressive ideology resulted, among other things,
in a poverty of ideas in Turkey.
If Turks from every walk of life, i.e., politicians and intellectuals,
as well as ordinary people, frequently accuse each other of treason,
this is inherited from the repressive state ideology.
"We immediately label the opposition with having committed an act
of treason. Our language in debating issues is very harsh; this
language does not deal with understanding, debating and compromise. We
immediately jump on this 'magical concept' of treason," says historian
Ahmet Demirel in his article published in the Taraf daily on Feb. 16.
Inciting hatred among those with different ideologies or religions
is also common in Turkey, where the majority Sunni Muslim population
lives with a sizeable number of Alevis, Turkish Kurds and a small
number of Greeks and Armenians.
Sowing the seeds of hatred among differing sects or religions has
served to keep the repressive state ideology intact.
Take, for example, the Sunni majority ideology of denigrating the
Alevis or the deep state link to the murder of Turkish Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, who was branded an enemy of Turkey
for his claims that the Ottoman Turks committed genocide against the
Armenians in 1915.
Dink was also known for his efforts to achieve reconciliation between
Turks and Armenians and his advocacy of human and minority rights in
Turkey, but he was prosecuted for violating the infamous Article 301
of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and "denigrating Turkishness."
A teenager was put in prison for Dink's murder, but others accused of
having a role in the plot that culminated in Dink's assassination,
including a colonel and a senior police officer, have been brought
under state protection and have escaped investigation.
The recent controversy surrounding an attack on a headscarved woman
in Istanbul and her testimony stands as a typical example of how
governments can abuse the sentiments of Turkey's practicing Muslims
to create support for their propaganda on a specific issue. Despite
government claims that a headscarved woman was attacked in front of
Istanbul's Kabatas pier by Gezi Park protesters at the height of the
anti-government protests last June, it was recently revealed that
apparently she was not, in fact, attacked.
Many months after the incident, private television station Kanal D
aired security camera footage last week that suggests that there was
no physical attack on the woman who claimed at the time that she and
her baby were attacked by up to 100 protesters for wearing a headscarf.
This event reminded me of similar psychological propaganda warfare that
the Turkish military used to resort to in order to justify its claims
prior to its Feb. 28 postmodern coup that, for instance, the government
at the time intended to change the nation's secular character.
Professor Umit Cizre from Istanbul-based Sehir University makes
an accurate diagnosis of what I describe as the ruling Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) catching the same old illness, in her
article published on Feb. 13 on the Open Democracy website:
"Secondly, not unlike the Kemalist, non-Kemalist or centrist politics
since the very beginning (of the republic), the troubling features of
Erdogan's [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan] AKP [AK Party]
are rooted not in 'Islamism,' but in some fundamental structural and
cultural flaws and deep-seated undemocratic habits and traditions of
the regime entrenched in the decades since independence."
Referring to several reforms initiated by the AK Party, such as curbing
the military's power in politics, she, adds, "To be fair, however,
there are some novel sources of the AKP's anti-statist reforms that
we have not really experienced before."
But Cizre also underlines the state of Turkish politics: "Coupled
with a political tradition which allows for few true meeting points
and consensus-seeking mechanisms between the opposing parties,
all political actors are boxed into a 'white or black' demagoguery,
resulting in an authoritarian stance, a kind of 'pragmatism' as a
disguise for a distinct poverty of ideas together with an isolation
from reality."
From: Baghdasarian