milliyet.com/2002/01/09/guncel/gun00.html
At the Age of 22, he stood on trial with a 750 year jail term
His Dream convinced him to escape From Prison
A long tunnel is being carved for Taner Akcam. His friends warn him that “everybody
has heard about the plan”, so he decides not to break out of jail. Then his dream
changes his mind, so he escapes from jail.
LEFT IS RECKONING WITH ITS PAST – 1
Jan Dundar
When and how did you assume responsibility in (the organization called) Dev Yol?
I was 22 years old the fall of 1975. There was no organization nor the name Dev Yol.
I was doing my masters degree at the university (METU). I was also working as an
assistant. I will never forget; 7-8 of us were seated around a portable table,
discussing who should be the editor responsible of the new periodical that we planned to
publish with the name Devrimci Genclik (Revolutionary Youth). Everyone was looking
at the others. Who ever took the responsibility had to accept to jeopardize his future,
and at least being put in jail. I hate waiting. I could not resist, so I said “I
accept”.
What Happened When You Became the Manager (Editor) Responsible?
I was taken under custody 5 times. At the last instance, on March 10, 1976, they
did not release me. My life in prison was “torture” with international
standards. But, if I said this in Turkey, where major grievances happened every
day, people would make fun of me: Two days detention, hunger, sleeplessness, being taken
into a room every 2-3 hours to be intimidated and a slap in the face… (I know the
person who slapped my face. He was the same guy, who took me twice from in front of the Revolutionary
Youth Magazine to the police station in his Wolkswagen. He also questioned my friend
and my brother. His name is Kemal Yazicioglu.)
How Long Did You Remain in Jail?
I served for one year. They call prison “life school”. People who have never
served jail time are considered “donkey” (immature),
but who have served time twice are called “essoglu essek” (A
saying similar to fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me). I had
been under custody for short periods in the past. I lived a university life inside
prison, because the managers looked the other way for us to bring in books ‘in secret’. I
achieved a good size library with the Marxist classics and English books from METU
library. Daily exercises, group education sessions in the morning, free reading time in
the afternoons… (I think he is referring to left leaning
jail mates’ education which helped them gain solidarity. Later with adoption of
European style F-type prison cells, this was no more. Leftist prisoners took hunger
strike to protest the new system in the early 2000’s.) We had life
security, food, and reading opportunity inside prison. Most of my friends who came to
visit me, wished they would be jailed for these reasons.
How Was Life Outside (the Jail)?
Every day we faced death. We were unsure from which corner bullets would be fired at
us. (I agree with what he says. In those years ordinary citizens
did not have security either, mostly due to groups like Dev Sol, Dev Yol that the likes
of Taner Akcam founded. People worried if their children would come home safely from
school. Almost 100 people died each day in the years preceding the military intervention
of September 12 1980.) I can’t remember how many sleepless nights I spent
worrying if I would return home alive the next day… Most of us believed that we
would not live long. I remember speaking among ourselves how many years we wished
to live. My ideal was to live up to 27 years of age.
But Later You Escaped From Jail…
Total punishment for the combination of allegations against me was 750 years jail
time. With a group of friends we dug up a long tunnel from our cell to a different
building within the prison compound. We were going to jump to the highway from the
window of that building. I mentioned it to my friends outside and solicited their
help. But they said that our escape plan was spoken of even in the school
cafeteria, and that I would be killed while trying to escape. I feared that I might
be ‘ambushed’, and decided against escaping.
Here is the Dream that Changed my Life
What Made You Change Your Mind?
Due to a funny coincidence… One night in my dream, I saw laundry detergent. In our
prison room, there was a 40 year old night club owner. Because he was an admirer of
Yilmaz Guney (a leftist movie actor and film producer), he
was sharing the same room with the political prisoners. “Kenan abi, what is the
meaning of this dream?’ I asked him. ‘White is symbol of freedom, relief. You
will reach freedom’ he said. He was unaware of my escape plan. My dream and Kemal abi’s
interpretation of it changed my future. That night, on March 12, 1977 we escaped. Before
jumping to the street from the wood crafts building’s window, we wrote Nazim Hikmet’s
famous lines on the wall: “That wall, your wall… means nothing to us, nothing...”
Did You Immediately Leave the Country?
No, I lived in Ankara as a fugitive for 7 months. My experience tells me that
police raided houses at dawn. After a while I was unable to sleep at nights. In the
houses that I stayed, I was watching the street through the window all night long
imagining where to hide or how I would escape in case of a police raid. I could
sleep only at daytime. In the end, I felt like a burden on my friends, and decided to
escape to Germany.
An Organizer and Self Criticism
(I am guessing this paragraph is from the
interviewer Jan Dundar)
I was in the Ankara Mamak court room as a news commentator the day the case against
Dev-Yol started, 2 years after September 12 (1980) military intervention. The girl
sitting at the front row among the accused was my class mate from high school. Our eyes
met immediately.
She had seen the daylight 2 years after being imprisoned and was meeting a
familiar/friendly face. We could not salute each other out of fear, but smiled at
each other through our eyes… In the court room there were 574 accused with death
sentences for 186 of them.
***
Devrimci Yol (Revolutionary Path) was known as the “most massive (organized)
movement of the left”. However, this movement which had organized many students, and
formed struggle committees in many streets was dispersed in one day immediately after
the September 12 military intervention. Their leaders were imprisoned and their
sympathizers left the ranks.
What about the court case? You won’t believe it, but even though 20 years have
passed since then, Dev-Yol case is not finished yet. This historic case is expected
to come to an end at the end of this month after the last defense is completed.
***
Taner Akcam was in the brain team of that movement.
He is the son of writer Dursun Akcam…
He is the publishing manager of Devrimci Genclik (Revolutionary Youth) magazine… According
to the court case, “member of the organization’s executive committee”...
He was absent from the first day of the court case, because he had escaped outside
the country before the September 12 1980 military intervention. He had become
responsible for Dev-Yol’s Europe branch for sometime. After divorcing himself from the
political arena in 1987, he studied as a researcher in Hamburg Social Research
Institute.
I had called him for gathering information regarding the murder of Kursat Demiroglu
case that you will find in this series of articles. I found him in America. He
was a guest professor at the Sociology Department of Michigan University.
We started communicating through Internet messages.
While we were writing back and forth, the Dev-Yol court case came to its final phase.
Consequently, our “Internet conversation” turned to the years prior to 1980, the
revolutionary movement, Dev-Yol and general discussion of the situation of the left.
He preferred, instead to do a self criticism.
In his memoirs, unforgettable lessons can be found by a generation who remained
inside the country wondering about those outside and those who left the country
wondering about those inside.
The Generation of 68 Were Sexual Freedom fighters, We Were Prohibitionists
Taner Akcam commented that “Blue Collar culture killed sexual freedom” while
evaluating man-woman relations of the years prior to 1980.
How Were the Man-Woman relations among the leftist groups prior to 1980’s?
Gender freedom was one of the achievements of our elders of the 68 generation (those
who entered university in 1968) in Turkey as well as worldwide. They gave importance to
anti-authoritarian ethics like sitting in front of their parents with their legs crossed
(in Turkish culture this signals insolence) and smoking in front of them. They were
liberated enough not to expect marriage as pre-condition for sexual
intercourse. When I was a student at METU, student leaders as well as the students
walked hand in hand and kissed their girl friends. It was considered a natural
student life at the time…
But, when I became a Student in METU For instance, kissing became
taboo..?
As our movement expanded and we got to meet Turkish citizens, we started to own up to
the society’s ethical values. Actually, what I call “values” are “blue collar
culture”, “small city bourgeois culture”. Not among prominent “bourgeois
class, not in the villages (especially in our part of the country) there was no such “honor
policing”.
But the “movement” assumed such responsibility, didn’t it?
Actually, this was explained with “organizational reasons”. It was decided
for the organization to decide on relationships, since marriage could pose problems for
the organization for the organization’s secrecy. In the end, the organization
filled in the role of the parent to approve or disapprove marriages. The
organizations responsible members, decided who should marry whom. As a result the
organization outcasted living out of wedlock and in some universities they established
“virtue guards”.
How did you live among yourselves?
Let me explain it with a joke. First problems arose among “important personnel”
and their “meaningful partners or wives.” Some friends, as the struggle gained
ground, became “important personnel.” The weakest link of important personnel
became their “wives or their girl friends,” because these women were also fighters
on the ranks of revolutionaries. There was danger of police reaching the “important
personnel” by keeping these women under surveillance. In an effort to prevent the
exposure of important personnel, “important personnel’s wives” were forbidden from
actively participating in the movement. Important personnel’s wives were forced to sit
at home.
Revolutionary Women Were Referred to as “Sister” in the Campus Life
Yes, rising to high position for the women was difficult. Since masculine values
were appreciated in the movement, success for females only success came about through
replicating males and masculine activities. Any feminine quality was a hurdle in front
of success. Being feminine was not important, being a female “involved in fascist
struggle” was.
Were Those Who Rose up in the Ranks living in the Same Situation
This shoved variation from district to district. Among the “intellectual”
circles and establishments which started the movement relationships were not so
structured. As one moved down the echelon, relationships became more structured.
(Part 2)
milliyet.com/2002/01/10/guncel/gun00.html
We Felt the Heavy Slap of Reality in 1980
We did not Understand the September 12 Coup
“We did not realize the real dimensions of the Military Coup. We
did not even understand it” said Taner Akcam and continued to confide: “We wanted a
democratic Turkey, but our establishment rested on an Authoritarian Culture."
THE LEFT IS RECKONING WITH ITS PAST – 2
Jan Dundar
You Were a Refugee in Munich on September 12, 1980. How Did You Live After That?
All of my friends who were surrounding that table at the time in 1975, when I
promised to take the responsible editor position, were taken into custody with the
allegation of “being members of the executive committee of Dev Yol Center
Organization,” at the end of January 1981. From that group, I was the only person
outside jail…
I suffered from being the only founding member of Devrimci Yol (Revolutionary Path)
not in jail... I felt guilty of leading a free life far from danger, outside the
country.
Responsibility to gather the organization to continue our struggle rested on my
shoulders.
Kissinger said of Mubarak; “Mubarak is a good guy, but the shoes he is wearing in
the Middle East are too large for his feet.”
I was continuously repeating these words for myself…
We did not Understand the September 12 Military Intervention
What kind of a Struggle did you continue Outside the Country?
Our first task was to bring our friends who were not caught yet, to safety in Syria
or Europe. We were in a race with Turkish security forces. We got word that the
friends we contacted were killed or caught. My aim was, to form a group capable of
representing the organization and organize a meeting in Syria or Germany to discuss what
could be done.
What Were Your Expectations?
We did not realize the real dimensions of the Military Coup and the effects it had to
turn the establishment upside down. We did not realize that it was received positively
by the people. We did not even understand it… For this reason after we were
caught we said “We are not beaten yet. The military intervention happened not because
of the things we did but because of things we did not do.” We continued along the same
lines as usual and said: “Whatever we could not achieve (revolution on the basis of
armed struggle, forming a united left front, political party, etc.) before the Military
intervention, we have to do it to the best of our ability” and continued business as
usual. But what needed to be done was a serious evaluation and criticism of the era
before the September 12, 1980 military intervention.
“Democracy Problem”
So, What Needed To Be Done?
They were saying that “what needs to be done is to wait for the environment in
Turkey to thaw down and establish public opinion in Europe against human rights
violations in Turkey.” After discussions, a group of friends under my leadership
refused to accept the understanding to continue “as if nothing had happened,” and we
started to suggest a radical criticism of our past deeds.
What Were You Defending?
We were saying that the political goals that we set in front of us were wrong, we
were in the wrong path, the cooperation between many organizations — especially with
the PKK was meaningless, and we defended disbanning the understanding to solve problems
through terrorist methods. We started to do self criticism of our own organization and
its past, especially in the lines of the “democracy problem.”
What Do You Mean by “Democracy Problem”?
I was saying “Those who wish a democratic future for Turkey should accept a culture
matching their demands and start living by what they preach today.” I was
defending that not only within the organization, but also in our personal relations and
in our relations to the community, in all aspects of cultural life including gender
equality we should develop a democratic style.
I was saying ordinary things like; “Someone who has not absorbed democracy in his
own culture now, can not establish it tomorrow. There is no such tomorrow. If you
can’t live it now, you can’t establish tomorrow. We first have to live by what
we wish for ourselves, and organize that way.”
Were these Ideas Being Discussed in a Democratic Environment?
These were being voiced in resistance committees but did not become basic principles
of leftist organizations. There was a rather authoritarian culture in our leftist
organizations. This kind of activities revolved around “natural leaders.” There was
no chance of changing these leaders through democratic means. This was a never
changing caste system… For this reason organizations and their leaders would
never admit making mistakes. “Natural leaders” would establish the “new
truths” according to new conditions and continue to do what they know best. For
this reason there was a group of friends who wished to push me in the direction of
continued political activity with the understanding of “we may have made some
mistakes, but it is not important now; let us do the right thing from now on."
Why did you not wish this?
For one thing, I was too tired, for another, I was under the opinion that “If there
were some errors and if there was no establishment to hold people accountable for their
mistakes, I must ask myself for an evaluation.” I felt like I had to give an
account of our involvement with some leftist organizations and the PKK in the 1981-1984
adventure. If what we did during this interval was wrong, the responsible people
had to face the consequences. Continuing as if nothing happened would be a
repetition of Soviet Marxism that we criticized. Leaving “natural leadership”
in the years that I remained outside the country was one of the consequences. I refused
my friends’ offer “to continue as an organization.” In reality this would
achieve only our daily expenses(?). We did not have an establishment to organize
our dreams.
When did this “illusion” break up?
The business that we immersed ourselves with childish innocence and romanticism
received the “bitter slap of reality.” Most of the citizens supported the military
intervention. Our movement which had grown to successfully gain control of some
cities had completely lost its support of masses. There was no establishment to
organize the “dreams” that we had put in front of us. In short time I noticed
that we had assumed success for being “spoilt” by living in a comfortable
environment outside the country.
Why Was the Motion broken up so fast?
We were not an organization as suspected. We neither had central organization,
nor branches and not even membership principles. Even though tough Leninist ideologies
ruled in the highest leadership levels ours was a movement that anybody could join…
We were an Authoritative Movement Trying to Achieve
Democracy
Would it have been any different if you had become a political party?
If the imagined “ideal organization” could be organized could be founded,
especially the anti-fascist struggle could gain more serious positions. In reality,
revolutionary path did not actually know how to achieve what.
On one side there was the commitment of the 68 generation (those who entered
university in 1968) for their basic values like freedom and democracy and search for
developing democratic organizations among the community, on the other hand the thought
process used by the organization to protect itself was totalitarian. The movement
defined itself as “Marxist – Leninist”. This “ideology” and the understanding
of its party extension was central and authoritative. If this understanding founded a
party, it could not be any different than the existing examples of totalitarian examples
of known socialist historical experience.
Sham and Athens Offered Money and Weapons
We refused them both by saying; “If Syria wants democracy, let them provide it
for their own people.” In fact, these monies could be obtained to found an
organization which could create many problems for Turkey. We didn’t do these…
Turkish leftist organizations were not in collaboration with Syrian government until
Israel’s invasion of Beirut in 1982. They were collaborating with Palestinian
organizations who had shared Turkish leftists organizations among themselves. We
were under the impression that each Palestinian organization supported groups close to
their ideology. We discovered the truth later:
Palestinian organizations were being paid by the Arab States based on the number of
foreign organizations in their domain. For this reason, they were splitting the
Turkish organizations among themselves.
After 1982, Syria put aside the Palestinian organizations and contacted Turkish
organizations directly. Contact was established by a committee composed of Baas Party
and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials. I think they offered us money and weapons
much before they offered the same to PKK.
The Greek foreign ministry made the same offer to our friends.
The logic was the same: “Turkey was the watch dog of imperialism in the district”
and “anti-imperialist forces should act in unison."
We said ‘if Syria wants democracy let it provide democracy to her own citizens”.
We refused Syria and Greece’s offers. Actually, we could have taken their money and
created big problems for Turkey. We didn’t do it… For only one reason:
This would become a struggle between countries we could become a peon of a foreign
country. One cannot struggle for freedom in Turkey by the back up of a foreign
country. The country that defends you today, may sell you tomorrow… If you are
going to give a struggle for democracy, you should do it freely in your own country.
I will never forget, the sentence we used those days: “We feel most free in our own
country, its mountains and cities are where we hide."
We always told the story of the wolf, always hungry but free and that of the
domesticated dog who was well fed, but wore a collar.
Since those who embezzled the country’s coffers called us “traitors” we wish
these to be well known.
Our generation suffered a lot. The reason was, because we loved our country and our
people and most importantly our self respect.
Most fighters did not wish to stay outside the country and returned back. They
preferred to be in our country even though it meant they would be hungry or imprisoned
or condemned to death there.
They are real heroes, who sincerely loved our country.
(Part 3)
milliyet.com/2002/01/11/guncel/gun00.html
I had become a target because I had made public Apo’s political
murders
Cooperation with the PKK was a huge Mistake
A phone call came to Taner Akcam on 1986 February: ‘My best
friend Kursat was killed. What put me down was not the news of death… They had
shot Kursat instead of me. I decided to burn the bridges behind. I was
becoming an escapee in exile’
THE LEFT IS RECONCILING WITH ITS PAST – 3
JAN DUNDAR
J.D. When did your relationship with Apo begin?
T.A. I knew Apo from Ankara. We had worked together to organize the youth from
1973 to 1975 and had become administrators in the organization. We were
sympathizers of THKP – C (Translator’s note: Turkish People’s
Saviour Party – Cell: C is the direct translation. Fehriye Erdal, who shot one of the
Sabanci brothers was a member. In Turkey the joke in the 1980’s was that THKPC
was the meeting place for ugly girls). Apo used to tell us that Mahir Cayan’s
ideas could best be applied in Kurdistan. “Give up the big cities and come to
Kurdistan and let us organize the armed resistance there,” he used to say to
us. In those days, those who were active in the youth activities (Translator's note: youth activities in those days referred to 100
people being killed each day and parents not knowing if their children would come home
from school) like myself though he was a little “cuckoo.” The
organization that he founded and his relationships seemed “shady” to us, so we kept
our distance from him.
J.D. - Did you get in touch with him after the 12 September (Military Coup of
Kenan Evren)?
T.A. — I received a letter from him in the fall of 1980. This letter was the
beginning of the 3 year adventure that affects my life to date. In his letter, Apo
referred to the Turkish War of Independence “One of the first things M. Kemal did
after reaching Anatolia in 1919 was to contact Kurdish Tribal Leaders. The Turkish
War is a product of Kurdish - Turkish co-operation. Why cannot we repeat what our
forefathers achieved,” he was saying.
J.D. – How Did You Receive This Offer?
T.A. – In reality, it was a good offer in my opinion. Because, in those days
the general belief prevailing among the leftists was the lack of co-operation among
leftist organizations. We decided to form a joint front with the PKK against the
military coup and accept the collaboration of other leftist groups. Activities to
expose the Military Coup’s torture and terror would start in Europe and from there be
carried into Turkey.
J.D. – Later you met with Apo…
T.A. – Yes… In our long discussions with Apo, I had received a self
evaluation of PKK’s past practices. The facts that we both agreed were as the
left’s self criticism, we had published with both our signature and distributed in
leaflets as; “We who want democracy and freedom should apply it ourselves in our ranks
and for the people”. “We were not going to allow among our ranks any place for
accepted cultural behavior which produced terror and hierarchy, restricted freedom and
equality”.
J.D. – Did You Trust the PKK?
T.A. – We all had a question mark behind our minds, because the PKK had applied
unforgiving terror to many people from among their ranks and the common people, had
carried out a wipe out policy towards other left organizations. This terror policy
had turned the PKK into a “dark and questionable” organization among the Turkish and
Kurdish left organizations.
J.D. – When were your question marks answered?
T.A. – When the PKK started to apprehend people from its own ranks… These
people’s whereabouts were unknown. Our old worries about PKK started again. Apo
was not keeping his promises to us, and did not mind dynamiting the relationship he had
engaged with us. “Aside from clean up in the party ranks, I knew most of the
people who disappeared.”
J.D. – How Did You React?
T.A. – I wrote a very terse letter to Ocalan. I told him to set free the
people that he apprehended and that his attitude was against our mutual
declaration. If he refused, I wrote; we would openly stand against him and that we
would disown PKK in public. We halted all mutual activities that we were carrying out in
Europe against the Military Coup. But these did not have much effect on Apo. The
PKK carried out its clean-up operations to Europe. The first murder happened in
Russelsheim. Others followed. In 2 years they committed 20 political murders
among their ranks and among other leftist groups.
J.D. – Were You Targeted?
T.A. – Yes. The PKK blamed me for injecting “democracy poison” among the
leftist organizations and for organizing the “betrayal” and also for “backing up
traitors.” They campaigned against all of us, with me on first rank. Ocalan
started to target me and the organization that we operated together in his journal.
How Did I Burn the Ships?
J.D. – When Did You Leave the Movement?
T.A. - When internal bickering among the left organizations (of Turkey) heightened in
1984, I settled in Hamburg. I had been living my life through the income of the
organization (the Leftist Organisation called Dev Yol, for which
he was one of the founding members and served jail time for being so). I had
been to almost every city in Europe and the Middle East during the adventure of
1981-1984. I had started to hide in Germany as well. I was tired. I
needed time to think, but had no place to my name where I could hide my head. Where
was I going to sleep, what was I to eat and drink? In the eyes of most people I was
an “ex-leader”. I had to start a new life. But it is not as easy as it can
be written.
J. D. - Why was it not easy?
T.A. – You have to handle mundane daily chores like getting in line with alcoholics
and other outcasts in Social Welfare and Unemployment Office lines. A lot of my
friends were disgusted from this transition. It was not easy to be dependent on
social welfare for people like us, who were candidates to decide the fate of a country.
(We) had kept cities and districts (group of cities) under our control. It was
easier to act as if “the fight was going on”. I could start another
organization and use it as my life support. Some people did just that.
J.D. – What did you do?
T.A. – I moved near my dad. He suffered plenty from me (he
uses a word like sponging off from his dad). I found small jobs at
newspapers. And enrolled in university all over again with great thirst for
knowledge. Eventually, thanks to some students who knew me, I was able to enroll in
Oldenburg University as a guest lecturer on Turkey’s Economic History. But some news
that arrived in February 1986 upset everything.
IHDs (Human Rights Organizations) were
still born
In Turkey, the Left could not hold honorable stance towards the PKK. For this
reason the human rights organizations could never start off on the right foot.
Kursat was one of those honorable people who held a stance against any human rights
violations without holding an ideological grudge favoring the left.
Our defending Human rights against PKK as well as the government was not liked by the
mass known as “left”. Actually, they stood against me and us. For them PKK was
a fighter of independence and such things could happen…
The Left could Not hold an honorable stance towards the PKK.
For this reason the human rights organizations could never start off on the right
foot.
Similar situation happened in the Freedom and Solidarity Party, ODP. They are
all my friends. I remember begging them in 19915-96:
“You should direct the same criticism that you direct the government towards the
PKK as well. Apply what you are preaching. Stand against the PKK not from Kurdish
question but from human rights view”, I said. But this idea did not find many
supporters.
They Killed my Best Friend In Place of Me
It was February 1986. My brother had been under custody since 1981. Because
of all she had to endure my mom had paralysis on one side of her face. So, she came
to visit me in Germany. We were going to look into treatment methods.
I was changing my location continuously due to danger of PKK’s attack.
One day the phone rang. My mom answered it, “They want you” she said.
Kursat had been killed!.
He was my best friend.
It was not only the sorrow of his passing that put me down:
They had killed him because they could not find me. Later, I found out that I
was the real target from the members who left PKK.
I was responsible of Kursat’s death completely.
If we did not adventure with the PKK from 1981-84, none of this would have happened.
I have not gotten over the shock of losing Kursat.
Half of me died with him.
I had to finish the university life that I so much longed for. With my hands
trembling, I wrote that I would not lecture.
(I was becoming a) fugitive again… This time in the country that I had escaped in
search of freedom.
I was starting to escapee while still in exile.
The past was not setting me free and it would not.
Regular life style was not for me. I had to play catch again.
One year after Kursat’s slaying a friend of ours who had to carry a gun for
protection from PKK inadvertently shot and killed a close friend Aydin (Yavuz) Erol.
I knew Yavuz since 1960. We had grown up in the same street.
With his death, I had no reason left to continue political life. This meant new
clashes and new deaths.
This game had to end here.
And I did just that.
I submitted to Hamburg Social Research Institute a project titled; “Terror in
Turkey”. It was accepted and I started to work there.
My life changed drastically.
My life took many sharp turns with small coincidences. I consider myself very
lucky. My luck may change from now on, but I am over 27 at least. (Here he is
making reference to his earlier thought that he never thought he would turn 27 with such
hectic fighting plans.)
The interview goes on with his sayings against the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. A
few days later, Abdullah Ocalan replied in another newspaper story to Taner Akcam’s
allegations that Apo is half lunatic with words like; “With one foot on Erivan, the
other in the USA what kind of an idealist is he?”…
(Part 4)
milliyet.com/2002/01/12/guncel/gun00.html
We have to bury the hatchet
The Left carries dual standards in terms of terror. If we wish
to live together we need to do self criticism.
LEFT IS RECONCILING WITH ITS PAST – 4
Jan Dundar
J.D. - You are coming from a generation who lived terror as if it was a
normal way of life. How do you see terror now?
T. A. - I know the devastation terror has caused in my life. Imagine how
devastating it must have been on the community if it has done this much on an
individual. For this reason I believed, Turkey’s basic problem was to reconcile
with terrorism – I still do. A community used to solving its problems with terror
for centuries, is not only eating up its own children but is also devouring itself and
worst of all is creating a culture that accepts terror as normal and natural. This
is not restricted only to left. I am referring to our general basic communal
problem. In this country millions of people have been tortured and none of us have
walked the streets shouting “end terror”. We got used to terror so much that we
have become strange creatures who accept being terrorized and who ally terror.
J.D. – Why this acceptance?
T.A. – While solving its problems, Turkey is under the influence of a culture
reverting to terror readily… It comes from its history. It continues to this day,
but we cannot speak on it openly. It has created a communal trauma…
In societies where terror is widely used in solving social and political problems,
the prevailing feeling is not trusting the other.
Today, in Turkey, the relationship of the government towards its people, that of the
society’s organizations with each other is founded mainly on mistrust, fear and
suspicion. For example, with the military who sees itself as the defender of the
government being in first rank, all bureaucratic elites of Ankara govern the country
with its mistrust and suspicion of its citizens.
Those who call themselves “Kurds” are suspected for “dividing the country”,
those who say “I have Islamic belief” with the fear that he would bring “sheria
law”, and from lefts for bringing “communist dictatorship” of for “selling the
country” (Translator's note: Exactly!) and are not
trusted.
Everyone is Worried
J. D. - But this worry is not restricted only to government circles
T. A. – Of course… Citizens and groups they are affiliated with are looking
at each other with worry. They see the presence of the “others” as a potential
threat for their existence. Islamists towards laics, Alevis against Islamists, Turk
against Kurds are looking at each other as “not trustable element”.
The look of all Alevi, Sunni, Kurd, Turk, laics to one another is governed by their
mistrust, suspicion and worry of the other. Mistrust of each other is ingrained in
our social fiber. Everyone believes the other has a hidden agenda, that he is not
revealing. This hidden agenda, even though never mentioned by the other group, is
taken granted by their opponents. We hears sayings like; “Never mind that they
are asking freedom for Kurdish language, their real ambition is founding Kurdish state.”
“Never mind the Islamists are demanding the right for education with head cover, their
real aim is foundation of a sharia government.” “Never mind the left is asking for
human rights, their real desire is to kill national feelings.” etc.
We Cannot Reach Anywhere With Third World Country Semantics
The Left has to Turn
its face to West
Taner Akcam, who says that the anti-West attitude should be set aside said; “Turkey
needs a left which has taken free democratic human rights at its core”
J.D.- Can a new understanding cleansed off from authoritative tendencies,
dual standards, democratic and freedom be achieved among the Turkish Left?
T.A. – I do not know if the Turkish Left can renew itself this way. This is the
problem… Turkey’s success hinges on this. Turkey needs a left that has
cleansed off from authoritarian tradition, respectful of law, freedom lover, democratic,
accepting of human rights and putting human in the center. Turkey can only reach
the level it deserves in the world family, at time of globalizing, only by a left that
cleansed itself from ideological turf, bureaucratic and governmental tradition and that
redefined itself as freedom lover and democratic.
J.D. What is the Situation Now?
T.A. – Pitiful… We must clear one thing that if the country is brought to
this situation, it did not happen because of us lefties who were spit upon, and seen as
danger for 80 years. One of the reasons Turkey came here is not because of the
lefties of pre 1980’s, but because they were chopped off. A generation of
intellectuals and thinkers were annihilated. For 80 years, the country was governed
by a CHP who yearns for dictatorship and a right that sees lack of ideology and aim as
its principal value, who has turned theft into an art form. This duo who wipes out
its intellectuals, who robs the country’s assets by patriotism sayings and makes the
country in need of three cents, has established a strong bureaucratic caste in
Ankara. Now even though this skin does not wish, they are involuntarily pretending
to be doing reforms. The more they resist, the more they are slapped by the World
Bank and the IMF.
J.D. – But there is serious resistance in the left side towards globalization
and westernization?
T.A. - This is what unites the left with the skin in Ankara… The Left needs to
see this resemblance is stemming from anti-Western values and immediately recover
itself. We need to give up the statist – authoritative ideological tradition,
classic anti-West, anti-global, Third World Country mentality and take Western
connections at our center. A left that understood globalization, that criticizes it
from within can carry Turkey to the level of Europe and world.
How Can We Live Together?
J.D. – What does this ”terror trauma” yield?
T. A. – In the end, communities who mistrust and fear each other so much are held
together with MGK directives. (Milli Guvenlik Kurulu=National
Security Establishment – which has practically become defunct since this interview.)
There is fear of disintegration of the groups that I mentioned above, if there was
not this forced togetherness from top down.
Searching for shared values in order to live together and establishing social consensus
requires trust for one another. Suspicion and worry should be removed. We are lacking
trust. The “other” is not considered as someone to live together with, on the
contrary it is considered a dangerous item that needs ‘to be removed,' ‘its head is
to be crushed,’ and its strength is to be weakened.
Social peace is sacrificed due to this understanding.
J.D.- You said; “the basic problem is to reconcile with the culture of terror”.
How will this be achieved?
T.A. - What I mean here is not restricted to reconciliation with terror applied by the
Government in vertical fashion. I mean horizontal terror. We lefties, always discuss the
vertical terror brought upon by the government over society’s certain groups. But, we
have dual standards here. For example, the majority of the lefties and the Alevi
societies do not complain about the pressure the government applies on the Islamic
section. Under cover-up they even encourage it. Islamists support and applaud pressure
applied upon lefties and Kurds.
J.D. - How about the terror applied by certain castes of society on the others?
T.A. - There also exists a horizontal “selection” and double standard. Each power
house has a terrorist that he likes, admires, and understands:
The Islamist accepts the one who burns the hotel in Sivas.
Party leaders refer to the executioners of the unsolved murders as “young bullies who
shoot bullets for the country”. For the lefties and majority of the Kurdish people,
the political murders that the PKK commits have an “understandable” side. This is
the product of an understanding which holds a stance by looking at who is doing the
terror instead of standing against terror itself… If we are against the annihilation
of people due to their political beliefs, we have to take the same fight that we are
carrying against the military junta, and apply it against the PKK as well.
J. D. - You are saying that everyone has to do a self criticism.
T. A. - Definitely, yes… IF we want to live together, it is mandatory that, all castes
of society have to do this. Since we are not doing this, talking about this strong
pressure we are living in trauma as a society and we also are unable to create a “Turkiyelilik
kimligi” which could hold us altogether. (Translator's note:
He is not using Ataturk’s “Ne mutlu Turkum diyene” -- "happy is one
who is a Turk" -- concept, which as most of us understand, defines a people who
have gathered together under the Turkish flag and who wish to live in our country, and
are called Turkish. He prefers to use the term “Turkiyelilik” the term that Prof.
Baskin Oran is trying to popularize these days. The basic mistake here is Turkiye means
the land of the Turks. Turkiyeli means the people of the land of Turks. From his
perspective, he is assuming anyone who calls himself a Turk is ethnically a Turk. But,
in reality, most Turkish people differ from this perspective. Because we have all
realized that we have different ethnic backgrounds, some of us have different religions,
our facial features carry different compositions, but in our hearts we wish to remain
loyal to our flag and protect our current boundaries.)
The government’s apology to its citizens would be a great start but it would not be
enough. Each societal group has to enter similar self criticism towards the other.
Terror styles which took place in the past should be included in this self criticism.
There is no democracy and human rights culture
The main problem in our country is the lack of democracy culture… The fact that our
moral values towards human rights is very low… This is true both in the government and
in the left…
In both sides, human rights fell behind the government’s higher goals or the
organization’s interests, or socialism’s interests, etc. The other ideals far
outweighed human rights. A society that is fighting for human rights and democracy
should deal with this question with an open heart.
- THE END -
[Close]
