{"id":53647,"date":"2014-01-08T07:40:05","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T07:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=53647"},"modified":"2017-03-27T17:01:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T16:01:13","slug":"turkey-ten-years-organized-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=53647","title":{"rendered":"Turkey: Ten years of organised ignorance"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ilip

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Philip Janek \/ Demotix)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat happened in Turkey during the last ten years?\u201d When the storm is over and if we wake up to a bright morning after it\u2019s all over, we will end up with that question at hand which could take another ten years to answer.<\/p>\n

One answer could commence as such: A leader came upon and he taught his people a template to think by repeating it over and over again. (The frequency and length of Prime Minister\u2019s speeches are not without cause. Their purpose is not to leave a space to think, therefore a chance to doubt for the people.)<\/p>\n

Around the leader an alignment was formed as it happens with all leaders. That working alliance matured, deepened and ornamented leader\u2019s modus operandi. That educated alliance, members of which were not worse than the average in society, wore the oppugning, vindictive, ambushing style and worked hard to provide an intellectual legitimation for the leader\u2019s template. (Those who wrote headlines such as \u201cthey were not arrested for their journalistic activities,\u201d journalists providing testimonials for KCK and Ergenekon cases for the judiciary which was already politicized, academicians feasting for \u201ccivil governance,\u201d attorneys dancing with jackals, artists using all forms of art, from poetry to music, to be included in the photo shot of good fortune. I\u2019m talking about a huge crowd.)<\/p>\n

Since the rest of the people who were not included in the leader\u2019s definition of \u201cmy citizens\u201d meaning \u201cthe real citizens,\u201d are considered non-human \u2013 therefore expelled from human status-, unlawful cruelty against those was accepted in the beginning, later totally ignored. Leader told \u201chis citizens\u201d not to consider the others, nor to feel remorse or feel for them, time and again.<\/p>\n

Leader told to \u201chis people\u201d that they were the ones who were done injustice in fact, he told that many times. He told that so many times that they finally believed in him. They wanted to believe, for humanity cannot accept harm for malfeasance. Malfeasance must have a \u201cgood\u201d reason, having something to do with benefaction, and grievance is always a good reason. At the end, party member \u201ccitizens\u201d started to see the killing of kids by ambition for power, that are as poor as themselves, as a conspiracy against them. (A nation who does not feel remorse after seeing the face of Ali Ismail Korkmaz, a youngster beaten to death by the police during Occupy Gezi, is seriously ill, is insane.)<\/p>\n

Leader did not only destroy justice but also the feeling of one. No one in this country can no longer relate a court of justice to jurisprudence, nobody can. Leader replaced the justice, which is supposed to be the basis of the estate with the love the masses felt for him. The behavior of the people in leader\u2019s rallies\/rites wearing shrouds and going crazy were not without reason; they sacrificed their physical and spiritual beings for the being of the leader. Leader was justice itself. As the concept of justice is related to God in ancient man\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

For the length of ten years, organized ignorance, in the form of crazy and colossal crowds, mounted over freedom of opinion, human values, conscience and common denominators of humanity. They had their leader shouting \u201cAhead!\u201d Numerous and grave human rights violations were experienced. It would take at least another ten years to account for those.<\/p>\n

When the current ten years are over and a new ten years period would start, it would be more difficult for us. We would ask \u201cwhat had happened?\u201d We would like to find out by thinking over. Whilst looking for a historical reason we would end up at September 12 coup d\u2019\u00e9tat. As we scratch the surface of history we would arrive at a point when \u201cDeniz and his friends\u201d were hanged, when in fact \u201ckindness\u201d was dangling on the gallows, in fact all were silent back then as well.<\/p>\n

Maybe we would go further back to the Dersim Massacre. Maybe further back. To 1915. Maybe further back in history to the time of Ottoman sultans who slayed their brothers\u2026 We would search for \u201cthe seed of malfeasance\u201d on this land, the first sin, the first womb of mercilessness. But it would still be very difficult to account for the last ten years. Because it is almost impossible to find a rational reason for organized ignorance, organized desire to not to think, organized unscrupulousness. If we finally decide to try those in the court of humanity, if we would have the power to do that, we then have the chore to find a courthouse big enough for all who started that system, for all who supported it and made it possible. That crowd is for sure very crowded.<\/p>\n

*The book Radical Malfeasance Problem in Hannah Arendt\u201d by Berrak Coskun, published by Ayrinti Publishers, inspires this article. With gratitude.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original\u00a0article in Turkish<\/a>\u00a0is published in Birg\u00fcn Daily on January 6th, 2014. Translated to English by\u00a0Stratos Moraitis<\/a>. The translation was originally published at The Globe Times<\/a> and is posted here with permission of the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat happened in Turkey during the last ten years?\u201d Ece Temelkuran explores the causes of the country’s last decade<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":48190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[581,5644,55],"tags":[4161,255,7355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53647"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88194,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53647\/revisions\/88194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}