Fırat, who said the revolutions realized in the 1920s caused trauma among the Turkish public as they were told to change their religion, language and dress overnight, continued to be at the center of heated debates in the Turkish media yesterday. Radikal's İsmet Berkan relates the eruption of a storm of debates over Fırat's remarks to a tendency in Turkey to dwell on the person who said something rather than what he/she said. "If we had taken a look at what was said first, we would have seen that Fırat's analysis was a very simple and even banal one for the Turkey of 2008," says Berkan, who agrees with Fırat about the traumatizing effect of the revolutions on Turkish society. However, he notes, the traumatic effect of the revolutions was seen in 1927 and several years following, and it is ridiculous to talk about the continuation of this effect to the year 2008, something which Fırat did not say or mean. When it is so obvious what Fırat meant with these remarks, Berkan questions why he has drawn so many negative reactions for uttering these remarks. In his view, the reason for this is nothing but a widespread tendency to engage in mind reading. "No one should blame another; everyone is reading each other's minds in this country. First, seculars read Fırat's mind and added some adjectives to his remarks, which he actually did not say, and wrongly interpreted his remarks as 'Atatürk revolutions traumatized people.' However, although it was certain that Fırat meant the Atatürk revolutions, it is not appropriate to put words in his mouth," explains Berkan.
Sabah's Emre Aköz, a sociologist, focuses on the correctness of Fırat's analysis of the traumatizing effect of the revolutions on the public. He says Fırat's analysis is only half correct because it is impossible to make such a generalization since Turkish society is not homogenous. "Turkish society is composed of classes and segments. While the changes called 'Atatürk revolutions' were hailed by a certain segment of society, they disturbed another segment and caused negative reactions," states Aköz. As an example, he cites the adoption of Latin letters to replace Arabic ones and says that this revolution traumatized the staff of publications the most because they had to throw all their clichés into the rubbish bin and get new ones; however, this revolution did not bring any changes for villagers, most of whom were illiterate at that time.
Bugün's Ahmet Taşgetiren complains about the limited understanding of freedom of expression among the segments of society that lashed out at Fırat for making the remarks in question. "Somebody voices his/her opinion, another person counters it. The scope of public debate is expanded in this way. Nobody has the right to judge another for his/her ideas. Criticizing someone like this is generally seen in the arena of psychological warfare," states Taşgetiren.
