Catharsis

Turkey has really become a sui generis country. The resulting country was the nominalist projection of modern democracies. On the surface, everything was as it should have been, but in reality, society and the state bureaucracy were both dominated by an authoritarian mentality. In order to maintain this facade, the official ideology had to be blessed. By saying that Turkey was surrounded by enemies, the West was trying to divide us. There were many traitors inside the country who tried indoctrinating the people with Kemalism as the only cure against these threats. In order to make the scene more convincing, history had to be rewritten. Indeed, even many diplomats were able to realize what really happened to Armenians or what Kurds were going through much later on in their lives.

Today, the country is on the verge of a catharsis. More and more people are beginning to remember and talk. In this process, sincere confessions from bold people will be more effective than the most profound analyses. An article recently published by former Ambassador Temel İskit in his column in the Taraf newspaper, titled “Thoughts of a 72-year-old white Turk,” was a striking example of this frank comprehension. And the floor goes to him: “My generation and my close circle have lived for a long time in a problem-free Turkey. There was no Kurdish issue. There wasn't the Armenian Genocide either. We would scorn the East and attach greater importance to the West. Our greatest fear was from reactionaryism and communism.

 “We have been deceived for years. First, we were deceived by education. Then, by the Cold War.

“We first started to get the impression that something was being concealed from us. But we did not know what it was. It took time for us to understand that Turkey is not problem free but rife with many problems. When the world changed and we were now faced with our real problems, we were shocked. None of the old formulas were useful. Kemalism, socialism or nationalism could not solve our problems. Time was running out. Of course, it was not easy to accept that one has been deceived all through one's life.

“Initially, there was no Armenian issue. Then, our Western enemies created this genocide out of the blue. Then, the issue turned out to be the Armenians' backstabbing us and then self-defense in war conditions and then mutual conflict. Now, we are utterly amazed to see the pages of history that have been Photoshopped.

“The reverse happened with respect to reactionaryism. We have realized that the fear of Shariah instilled inside our hearts has no sound justification. We have understood that Islam is not dangerous as they taught, but a common value of our society. After seven years of government by a political party that is said to be ‘pro-Islamic,' we saw that Turkey has not become like Iran. We have observed how the fight against reactionaryism is used as a pretext for restricting liberties.

 “What shocked our generation the most was the Kurdish issue. For many years, we never realized that it existed. History consisted of Turkish history. Turkey belonged to Turks. There was no Kurd for us even when we were at the age of 40. There was separatist terror. First, they did not have their own language. Later, we learned that this was not the case. We learned that they existed long before Turks came to Anatolia.

 “But many of us could not abandon what they were parroting. They continue to argue that the issue would be settled if the PKK was destroyed. Most importantly, they refused to accept any damage to their unshakable belief that Turkey is owned by Turks.

 “My generation is the most conditioned part of society. We even consider ourselves responsible for conditioning the coming generations. The sacrosanct state, ideological secularism, unprivileged class-free masses, indivisible unity and the characteristics and supremacy of Turks have become part of our identity.

 “My generation has tried to maintain the problems instead of seeking solutions to them. The solution is now in your hands. We have done wrong to Turkey, but you should not do this.”

 These words do not come from an ordinary pen. İskit is a person who was inside the state for many years, speaking and producing policies on behalf of the state. For this reason, I think these sentences are considerably important not only for those foreign observers who have lent support to the authoritarian regimes fearing Islam, although they do not sufficiently know this country, but also for our secular modern friends who are the products of this land but who fail to know or understand this land or this society and who want to call soft fascism a “democratic republic.”