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[Kikapu]

Yet another threat to the Turkish Republic: Pacifism
Saturday, May 31, 2008

Mustafa AKYOL

Are you familiar with Ms. Bülent Ersoy, the famous Turkish singer? Actually, once upon a time she was Mr. Ersoy, but she had a trans-gender operation in the early ‘80s and said goodbye to masculinity. Since then, she has gradually become one of the most popular divas of Turkey. I personally think that her music is hardly bearable, but millions of fellow Turks, apparently, disagree.

Anyway, recently Ms. Ersoy added to her fame by some controversial remarks about the ongoing war between the Turkish Armed Forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). That war has claimed more than 35,000 lives since 1984, and has boosted the nationalist feelings in Turkish society. More than 5,000 Turkish soldiers lost their lives, and their funerals have turned into demonstrations of hatred against the PKK and devotion to the state. Most families who lost their beloved sons during this bloody conflict used to say the traditional Turkish maxim, “Long live the homeland.” This implies that the survival of our homeland and our state is enough of a remedy to the tragedy of the individuals we lose.

Natural born soldiers?:

And that was precisely what Ms. Ersoy objected to. In a TV program aired last February, at a time when the Turkish military was carrying out an operation against PKK terrorists in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, she rejected the popular rhetoric about “martyrdom.” “Of course, the homeland is indivisible, but why are we sending these youths to death,” she asked, adding, “If I had a child, I would not send him to the grave for the war of other people.”

Those remarks had created not just a huge controversy at the time, but also led a prosecutor to file a case against the anti-war celebrity. And last week, Prosecutor Ali Çakır submitted his indictment against Ms. Ersoy to the Istanbul court. She is accused of “making the public feel cold about military service,” which is a crime in Turkey that will put you in jail for three years.

Does that law surprise you? Well, it is a fact of life for us, Turks. If we think that compulsory military service is a bad idea, or that if we reject to join the military for that we are pacifists, then we are in trouble. We are not supposed to either reject military service or to say anything negative about it.

The indictment of Prosecutor Çakır is a must-read to understand the mindset which enacts and executes these laws. He blames Ms. Ersoy for demoralizing the Turkish military “at a time when our soldiers were in a difficult situation, and the sensitivity of the Turkish nation was at its height.” He then moves on to explain what military service means for the Turkish volkgeist:

“Thanks to the importance and value that the Turkish nation has given to the military, in the public conscious it has been seen as equal with ‘the Hearth of the Prophet.’ The exuberance seen in the ceremonies that people hold before joining the military also shows how the society has embraced soldierhood… The sacredness given to the concepts of ‘veteranship’ and ‘martyrdom’ also reflect the same truth.”

Then, the prosecutor quotes an oft-repeated traditional maxim: “Every Turk is born a soldier.” And Ms. Ersoy’s “crime” is to suggest otherwise. Now the Turkish courts, who are famous for upholding “the state ideology” above anything else, will decide whether she really needs to be punished for her “unpatriotic” remarks.

The bizarreness of all this, I think, is most obvious. The Turkish Republic defines militarism as a principle that all citizens should agree with. It, furthermore, criminalizes pacifism. If you believe that violence of all sorts is evil, and that you should reject joining let alone praising the military, you might go to jail. The state has decided that all Turks are natural born soldiers – and they should better behave as such.

Everything for the State:

Another curious point in this state-imposed militarism is that it freely uses religious notions. The terms “veteran” (gazi) and “martyr” (şehid) that Prosecutor Çakır refers to in his indictment, and the Turkish Armed Forces proudly uses all the time, are religious concepts originating from the Koran. But isn’t our republic a very secular one which allows simply no trace of religion in the public square? And isn’t the Turkish Armed Forces the staunchest defender of that ardent form of laïcité? Then how they can justify themselves by referring to the “Hearth of the Prophet”?

These questions take us to the mother of all facts about the Turkish Republic: The highest principle it has is that everything, including religion, should serve itself. In the 1920s, it was Benito Mussolini who promoted the same principle though a popular slogan, "Everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." That idea, unbelievably, still lives on in Ankara. That’s why our “secular” state can be a great patron of religion if it helps its purposes. It, for example, sponsors the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which has absolute control on all mosques in the country. But if you take a different religious or secular view that contradicts with the official ideology, you are in trouble. Alas, had Turkey had a community of Mennonites, an American Protestant denomination that believe in absolute pacifism, all of them would be counted as criminals!

I don’t know whether Ms. Ersoy will really be sentenced for her thought crime. But the very fact that such a court case can be opened in the Turkey of 2008 is a tell-tale warning. This country desperately needs to de-militarize and democratize itself. The age of Mussolini is long gone, but we, unfortunately, are among the few nations who fail to realize that.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/arti ... sid=106017

[GAVCARoCOM]

i dont like to read all this . can you pls explain couple important lines with your words

[Kikapu]

i dont like to read all this . can you pls explain couple important lines with your words

NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!

[CanDiaz]

That's ok I read it. What a Bizarre looking fella! Thats put me off my chorizo & egg!

[smokely]

BULENT ERSOY is accused of “making the public feel cold about military service,” which is a crime in Turkey that will put you in jail for three years.


BUT;

Switzerland passed a law threatening prison for anyone denying that there had been a genocide of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915, and Mr. PERİNCEK was interrogated by the police.


SO ,


WHAT?

[smokely]

THE GOOD WİLL SOON BE RİGHT!!!