About Dersim while Dersim archives are being opened

This process is going on. As for the General Staff’s sending the archive regarding the events in Dersim in 1938 to a parliamentary research commission, it is a new and an important step.

The genie is out of the bottle. However, the subjects or victims of this confrontation have been carrying on with certain stances, which make no contribution to historical process of confrontation; and, at times, even obstructing the process.

The Kurds are experiencing the relief of blaming the state for all bad things that occurred in the past.

It is still very hard to mention both the involvement of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in violations and also people who were killed within the scope of executions within the PKK.

The words and evaluations of Halil Berktay about the Taksim Square Massacre of May 1, 1977, led to new indignation among leftist groups and communities.

The Alevi community’s political support for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) is still going on, and the fact that the CHP is still keeping silent although the issue of confrontation with Dersim was carried to Parliament hasn’t cause any kind of backlash among Alevi citizens.

This position of the aggrieved is generally explained with reference to the Stockholm Syndrome, and it isn’t hard to claim that that this syndrome will be affecting the Alevi community for many years. Kids born after the military operation in Dersim were named Kemal by the residents there.

The fact that in the aftermath of the military operation the residents of Dersim named their kids Kemal can’t be explained with reference to their admiration for Mustafa Kemal…

Maybe this fact might be explained with reference to the fear in their minds caused by the military operation. CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu is an Alevi from Dersim, and the residents of Dersim allege that he is originally a member of a Kurdish tribe. But so far he has avoided confirming this claim. Kılıçdaroğlu considers what was done to his people and family as “an inevitable result of revolution” and recommends that his people forget about those incidents. He tells his people, “Let’s forget about it.” However, those incidents in the past are what made the existence of the contemporary CHP possible.

Dersim is where the CHP’s paradigm emerged. Therefore, neither Kılıçdaroğlu nor his party want a real confrontation with this paradigm because they know that the CHP would almost vanish if such a thing happened.

Today, a majority of CHP deputies still believe that the Dersim incident was a civilization project and a social engineering project. According to those deputies, the tragedy of the lost girls of Dersim, who were given to military officers after their heads were shaved, is nothing but a first step in a civilization and a modern life that started from scratch.

Since the 2000s, the process of change and democratization in Turkey has been determined via a new attitude and a new consideration about history and memory.

The policy restructured itself through this reckoning and confrontation, and it became quite renewed.

The intellectuals of the Islamic community adopted a very notable attitude in this issue. They have driven the policy of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) onto the path of change and democracy.

Now while the AK Party is moving on the way that it knew, the main opposition party, the CHP, is trying to escape from this ominous past by staying on the path that it knew and never wanted to leave. In the course of the debate over Dersim and Sabiha Gökçe two years ago, I wrote that I wasn’t going to use that airport until its name was changed. Then all hell breaks loose!

Mrs. Sabiha is a woman who voluntarily went to Dersim and participated in the bombing operation as a pilot. This decision of mine was a radical one. However, none of the Alevis reacted. They not only avoided opposing the name of the airport but also our Kurdish ittihatçı (supporters of the Committee of Union and Progress) were the ones who made the greatest criticism of my decision.

To be honest, I reconsidered this decision of mine and decided it was useless and again started to use Sabiha Gökçen Airport to get to İstanbul.

Last week the federation of Alevi Associations protested in front of Sabiha Gökçen Airport with the same demand.

However, this isn’t enough. If we want this airport’s name to be changed, what we should do is not to use the planes arriving in and departing from this airport until its name is changed.