Some people will say that it is several thousand kilometers, some will say several decades, but if you asked this question of those who are in the habit of thinking with their hearts, their answer would be that nowadays Oslo and Selendi are intermingled.In Oslo, a 63-year-old Turkish grandmother suffered a heart attack, and when her son-in law called the emergency line, medical dispatchers reportedly called police because he yelled at them. Instead of paramedics, police arrived at the house and handcuffed the family members. Their desperate efforts in asking help for their mother were not paid heed and the Turkish grandmother lost her life.
Some people in Norway may think that if the family had not been incomprehensible in a panic and had been able to act calmly and unemotionally like a Norwegian, then there would be no problem. So they blame the family.
Just as some people in Turkey, commenting on the events in Selendi, put the blame on the Roma population.
Violence erupted in Selendi after a dispute between a man of Roma origin and locals of Turkish ethnicity. Eventually some members of the Roma population were forced to leave the town.
A Roma man residing in Selendi was told to leave a coffeehouse. When the man insisted that he had every right to stay, the coffeehouse owner and several other customers beat him. Some sources, however, claim that hostilities erupted after the man wanted to smoke in the coffeehouse. Whatever the reason, the Turks and the Roma population clashed, and in the end, more than 1,000 locals set tents and shanty houses belonging to the Roma ablaze.
What’s interesting is the statement of Erdoğan Şener, the head of the Akhisar Contemporary Roma Association. He said that discrimination against the Roma increased after the government held a series of workshops to address issues facing the Roma. After launching the Kurdish initiative and a series of workshops with the purpose of recognizing and finding solutions to problems faced by the Alevi community, the government decided to convene its first Roma workshop. According to Şener, the mindset in Selendi was, “The Kurds uprose, and the Roma will do the same; let’s not let them into our cafés.”
Here at this point, Selendi and Oslo intermingled once more. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu stated that the incident in Oslo was unacceptable, that it was his ministry’s responsibility to protect the rights of every Turkish citizen around the world and that in this case, not only were the rights of Turkish citizens disregarded but also universal human rights. The statement was correct, but unfortunately we have not heard such a strong voice regarding Selendi. Faruk Çelik, the coordinator of the Roma workshops, said: “We should not put the blame on all Selendi residents. The incidents in Selendi have a background. … What we are working on is not an initiative. If the state fails to take the necessary steps for the Roma, we will experience similar incidents in the future. Roma people are disadvantaged in society.”
Turkey, which has the right to oppose any kind of discrimination toward its citizens abroad, should be able to do the same when it comes to discrimination within the country. Trying to find excuses for internal problems does not help defend the rights of Turkish citizens in abroad.
Once the genie is out of the bottle, as in the Kurdish initiative, the Roma workshop and the Alevi initiative, the issue must be finished up quickly and astutely, otherwise the separation in the society could increase and the rumors in Selendi about the would-be uprising of the Roma might spread.
This is why these kinds of events should only be motivation for the government to finish its work and to create new institutions and structures to answer the needs of society, establishing independent and effective bodies which will monitor discrimination in society.
Otherwise Oslo and Selendi will really be quite far from each other.v
