File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 566


Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 01:03:35 -0800
From: metin aktay <maktay-AT-superonline.com>
Subject: Re: PLC: Turkey Curiosity of Pat Sloane


Dear Stirling,

Thank you for your most thoughtful response to my admittedly patronising
post re your quipping rather than debating. That, sincerely, was the
issue which offended me, not your mentioning of past and present
atrocities committed by Turks.Yes, I was offended , but solely as a
fellow PhilLitCrit debater. I now stand corrected for I now understand
where you were coming from. 

I am here for my edification and you have helped. I admire you for being
able to turn my annoyance to an opportunity for edification.

And I thank you for the debate you have opened up re
re-contextualisation of history. The most salient example which comes to
my mind being the total whitewash given to the ostrich like actions of
western leaders between 1930-1940 as Hitler began and accelerated the
Holocaust. 

Another example which galls me to no end is that throughout the 70's the
world debated the veracity of the Holocaust and Germany made atoning
moves vis-a-vis Israel, while everyone dumped the boat people back into
the Pacific until nearly six million perished, if we are to believe the
newspaper accounts of the day.

Far be it from me, and believe me from the majority of the present day
population of the Republic of Turkey, to justify the Armenian massacres
of 1918 by the Kurds who in turn were ordered and aided and abetted by
the Ottoman Army. No detailed account of the Armenian insurgency
movement at the time can justify the atrocities and depravations the
Armenian women and children were subjected to in forced marches which
inevitably led to their being decimated by hunger, disease or Kurdish
tribesmen.

The Armenian Issue, I am ashamed to say, is not a present concern for
Turkey but the Kurdih Issue is, which really is The South-Eastern Turkey
Issue, for there are twelve million Kurds living in western Turkey,
happily and equally. Three Prime Ministers of Turkey since 1965 have
been of Kurdish descent. The issue is the three million Kurds living in
Southeastern Turkey, who make up at least 90% of the population there,
prey to all sorts of agitation by neighbouring factionalist governments
in Iraq and Syria, given the poverty level of SouthEastern Turkey. We
are at a loss in how to respond to Kurdish guerillas who routinely bomb
and maim villagers who do not support them and grossly maim and kill
schoolteachers and doctors and government bureaucrats in the region. 

I am sure that there are "crimes against humanity" committed by the
Turkish Army in the SouthEast which none of us condone. The problem is
that a solution has not been found yet to stop the Kurdish Separatists
from committing atrocities. The zeal of the Turkish parliament in
expelling the members of parliament who have aided these separatists did
not help either. A regional referandum is not feasible given the
incendiary nature of the region and of the neighbouring countries.
Whatever the real issue or its solution is, no Turk condones atrocities,
either by the Kurdish separatists or by the special forces fighting
them. Inquiries and court cases are regularly made and held and
offenders are routinely punished.

Stirling, we are at a loss in how to address the issue of SouthEastern
Turkey.
It is not easy to think solely philosophically with Saddam as your
neighbour waiting to pounce of any Kurdish autonomy.

The SouthEastern Turkey Issue, where almost all of our meager oil and
half our water is, is not one which lends itself to easy
contextualisation at present, let alone re-contextualisation at sometime
in the future.
 

Sincerely,


Metin Aktay



Stirling Newberry wrote:
> 
> At 1:06 PM -0800 11/10/97, metin aktay wrote:
> >> >>  In 1992, The World Jewish Congress honoured
> >> >>  Turkey as the only country in the world where Jews have lived in peace
> >> >>  as full citizens since the Spanish Diaspora of 1492.
> >
> >Stirling Newberry wrote:
> >
> >> The Turks had native minorities to massacre.
> >
> >
> >Dear Stirling,
> >
> 
> It is clear that you have taken offense, I am sorry to have offended you,
> but there is indeed a philosophical and literary point beneath the
> statement.
> 
> Recent events show that not all is well between the government and various
> Kurdish factions. This is not to pick one side over the other, merely that
> it serves to indicate that sectarian and ethnic violence is not something
> that is "in the past" anywhwere - but merely in remission so long as people
> choose not to divide people into "humans" and "non-humans". This would
> include the United States as much as any other country, and more than many
> of them.
> 
> One of the topics which has been introduced by others on this list is the
> subject of re-interpretation and rehistoricising of past events, including
> genocide. Mr. Sloane mentioned "Hitlers Willing Executioners" as an example
> of this, and pointed out that he had epistemlogical qualms with Goldhagen's
> position. The process of recontextualisation of the wars between The United
> States of America and the various nations which it conquered in its
> "Manifest Destiny" period, and the atrocities which arose out of those wars
> are also in the process of being altered. As recently as 35 years ago
> portraying the defeat of "indians" in the American "Western genre" was
> standard entertainment fare.
> 
> Literature is one of the places where societies and cultures "communalise"
> an experience. Each individual person has an inner expereience, but people
> being social animals, need the reinforcement that others feel as they do.
> Often the reverse is true: people do not hold a reaction to be a valid one
> until they meet someone with who has experienced it.
> 
> The focus on the recontextualisation of the survivors of such periods has
> obscured the other half of the process: that for each group that is target
> of genoiced, there is at least one which is the perpetrator. And often
> groups locked in genocidal struggles are both simultaneously. These groups
> cannot "contextualise" in the same way. Only recently has there been
> serious inquiry into what forces and events make it possible for a group to
> engage in this kind of behavior, how it selects the targets of its
> aggression, and how it rationalises the actions. The mechanisms of denial,
> shifting of responsibility or even glorification are all visible, often at
> the same time. Recently the leader of The People's Republic of China
> declared that the occupation of Tibet was the liberation of a million
> "slaves" equal in moral stature to the American Civil War. This process is
> also carried out by use of language and literature.
> 
> I find it ironic that a Jewish Organisation would give an award, not just
> for present achievement of balance, but for historical acheivement of
> balance, to a national entity which practiced many of the same atrocities
> against other groups that had been practiced against the Jews. The quip was
> much more directed at the narrowness of vision of the individuals giving
> the award, as anything else, *because it also engaged in the process of
> valuing some kinds of lives more than others*.
> 
> Stirling Newberry
> business: openmarket.com
> personal: allegro-AT-thecia.net
> War and Romance: http://www.thecia.net/users/allegro/public_html
> 
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