Mr. Öymen’s reading of history and his suggestion that its lessons should be applied to today’s circumstances illustrates once more the danger of hanging on to the 1930s. I’ve just re-read a scholarly account of the Dersim Rebellion and its aftermath to refresh my memory. It makes for very grim reading. The hard-line methods used then have caused lasting damage, even if at the time they may have appeared to serve a purpose within a particular historical setting.To show them today as an example of how to handle an internal conflict amounts to ignoring all the steps the international community has taken to try and protect populations from communal punishment. Mr. Öymen, in effect, brushes aside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements that have been introduced since World War II and praises iron-fist methods that make little distinction between civilians and militants.
Of course, one doesn’t have to go back to the 1930s to find one-sided interpretations of events. If today the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has a fight on its hands to win public opinion over to its democratic opening -- a challenge it is bravely taking on -- it is partly because until recently politicians and the mainstream media had ignored the human dimension of the Kurdish question and legitimate grievances.
Providing fair and accurate reporting in times of conflict is always tricky, and few media organizations fully succeed. You would be hard pressed to find coverage in the Western press that fully reflects the horrors of war in Afghanistan or Iraq, even if many brave reporters do an excellent job.
When the fighting is internal, as in the case of Turkey, and human losses are felt by both sides, the challenge is greater still. Until not so long ago, the mainstream press was still gleefully totting up numbers of militants killed during military operations in northern Iraq on its front pages, oblivious to the fact that the fighters had an extended family and friends here in Turkey and that each death, on either side, widened the societal gap.
The conflict was viewed only in black and white, with few shades of grey, through the prism of terrorism. Throughout the 1990s, most reporters who tried to show the impact the conflict was having on the population in the Southeast were accused of siding with the militants. Civil servants, while talking about unity, reacted as if they had been exiled to the steppes of Outer Mongolia whenever they were posted to the region.
It is therefore not surprising that many people in Turkey struggle today with new concepts of citizenship and notions of brotherhood and inclusiveness, especially since they have been told for so long that any softening up would lead to the division of the country. Ironically, it is very often the most nationalist who, while expressing concerns that the country is about to be divided, adopt a discourse of “us” and “them” that suggests the partition has already taken place in their minds.
Convincing people that Turkey will emerged strengthened -- not weakened -- from the process will take time. Implementing the government plan will be a long and difficult process. For part of the public, it will mean unlearning many of the truths they were told before they can move forward.
One quality I have often encountered in plentiful supply among ordinary people when I traveled around the country is common sense. I am therefore hopeful that the government’s constructive approach will replace policies of the past, and its plan will succeed. Nothing makes more sense than preventing unnecessary bloodshed.
Benzer Haberler 
