His short speech created an effect that hundreds of books and thousands of articles could not have produced in explaining the single party mentality. Öymen did one more thing. He got really angry when posters depicting him with a Hitler moustache were put up on the streets in Tunceli and retaliated, asking, “Was Atatürk a fascist too?” This outburst opened up the Atatürk period to debate once again.Neşe Düzel from the Taraf daily made a stimulating contribution to the debate with interviews, published in the daily over the course of three days she conducted with historian Professor Cemil Koçak and journalist Taha Akyol. I recommend that readers read Akyol’s book “But Which Atatürk” and Koçak’s book “The Past Can Be Cleansed with Care.”
When you read these interviews you come to the bitter realization that for years there has been a desire to bring up generations that depended on rote learning in schools. We understand once again that dogmas and taboos were poured into heads like concrete.
Breaking learned habits and accepting facts are not easy. That is why a wide group of people called the “secularist segment” do no want to accept the accusations being mentioned in the Ergenekon case. They insistently ask, “How could such distinguished individuals who are being presented as suspects have carried out the attack against the Council of State and the Cumhuriyet daily?”
Think about Alevi citizens. They were constantly exalted as being the strongest factors of the regime, but organizations within the state had made plans to assassinate their leaders. And what about the truth underlying the Dersim Rebellion? Even we, as older people, did not know the inhumane and barbaric dimensions of the massacre.
Historian Koçak is breaking one of the most common learned notions. He says, “Atatürk never said the ‘military should not interfere in politics.’ That is a fabrication. Atatürk wouldn’t be able to say that. He would have to first take off his own uniform to be able to say such a thing. And that time no one could remove their uniform because the entire power struggle for rule was being pursued within and by way of the army. All of them were active duty officers. They sat in the headquarters when they wanted and came to Parliament whenever they wanted. None of them were former military officers.
“For example, Mustafa Kemal, he was both the president and an active duty officer. He was paid by the General Staff, in other words, by the National Defense Ministry. It was the same for others. None of them were retired military officers. Here is something that is never talked about. Atatürk retired from the military in 1927. They took off their uniforms together with İsmet Pasha of their own accord. They applied to the Defense Ministry saying ‘We want our retirement pension,’ and their connection with the military ended at that moment.
“It is a fact that the regime during the Atatürk and İnönü periods that lasted until 1945 was essentially dependant on the military. As the president both Atatürk and İnönü directly assigned military generals, and these generals did not change for years.”
Fevzi Çakmak was the chief of General Staff for exactly 23 years. What does that explain? How many of us knew that before today? To be able to understand past coups, military interventions, e-memorandums and current memorandums, appendixes and bags full of documents we must know the truth about the period leading up to 1946.
The pro-junta mentality does not value other individuals. For them, there is no one else that can be trusted except for themselves. They suffer from paranoia in the name of protecting and exalting the state. Since people are insignificant, it becomes legitimate to torture and abuse your own citizens. The problem is that in the age we are living in, individuals are a priority.
A minority trapped in a time warp that is convinced it does not need to give an account to anyone is resisting this huge humanitarian wave. These people are trying to keep a regime that depends on the military standing.
Benzer Haberler 
