History is always a construction -- not necessarily a reconstruction. This construction makes sense, not when it fits the so-called obvious facts -- which are, by the way, established constructions -- but when it presents a whole, internally coherent, convincing story of what may have happened in the past. History is "his-story" -- a story written by a historian.
Up until modern days, Turkish people were taught of "the history of the republic," whereas it should have been taught as "a history of the republic."
How volatile, fragile and vulnerable this "a history of the republic" is!
Two months ago, I left Turkey for the longest vacation I had ever taken. I stayed in Israel-Palestine for most of this time, working on a documentary on the Turkish history of Jerusalem. Intentionally, I stopped reading and listening to Turkish news. I came back, loaded with tons of stories about Jerusalem, its history and its present, but I came back to find that the country I left two months ago was not there at all.
Those who live in this country may not feel how fast the history -- and thus the identity -- of this country is changing. What was unpronounceable two months ago is pronounceable today. I am referring to the intellectuals who launched a campaign of "a personal apologies to the awful experiences of the Armenians during the first decades of the 20th century."
I personally wouldn't sign that apology/document, but that is a new construction of our history that will certainly challenge the officially accepted version. Our history is changing!
Retired Gen. Veli Küçük, the man of conspiracies, the alleged founder of JİTEM, the seemingly key name of the Ergenekon terrorist organization, is complaining that the state he served for so long is conspiring against him. "I would never think that the state would conspire against its own citizens," he said in the court.
That is new history.
Two months ago, Tuncay Güney, a mysterious person who testified about the Ergenekon terrorist organization, was discredited as crazy; today, the police are opening "acid wells," where bodies of slaughtered Kurds may have been dumped. Two months ago, he was labeled as the prime conspirer; today, we know that he worked for the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and also -- it seems to me -- infiltrated JİTEM. Two months from now, we may be speaking of a secret intelligence war between MİT and JİTEM and we may learn of many more "Güneys" who live abroad on funds supplied by either one of these organizations.
The history of this country is being rewritten.
I wish this "revolution of historiography" was being realized under healthier conditions. The economic crisis banging on the doors, the political crisis which has been busying Ankara for the last two years, social schizophrenia reminding itself of domestic crimes and road-monsters, these all make the atmosphere for writing history an unhealthy one.
Yesterday, the prime minister criticized those intellectuals who had apologized. If his government had been in the days of the economic boom, he would have probably added that Turkey is a free country and that these intellectuals, though he did not agree with them, had the right to think incorrectly. But he didn't.
The day before yesterday, the Supreme Court of Appeals decided that the case which dealt with the attack on the Council of State should be heard as part of the Ergenekon case. Under normal conditions, the newspapers should have come out and questioned the earlier decision of the judges that discredited any relation between the two. But they couldn't.
Turkey is going through immense change. It is not changing just in the present, its past is being rewritten also. This should have been done under more peaceful and calmer conditions.
It is necessary to face the hallucinations of the past, but only if we have the courage and will to face the reality.
