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[halil]

The other’ and me


06.03.2009

Niyazi Kizilyurek

Hate towards strangers related to self-hatred

“One day after the war, Sekula, a Montenegrin and a Yugoslavian meets a Muslim Turk. Both were on the way to Mojkovoc from Akova. They did not know each other before. The intercity roads were stretching through woodlands where travellers were often ambushed. The Muslim man was happy to have a Montenegrin by his side. Sekula was also happy to travel with a Turk since he knew there were Turkish partisans in the area. Both were having a friendly conversation, offering each other cigarettes. It was very obvious that the Muslim was a humble family man. The journey through the woodlands bought the two strangers closer.” However Sekula began to feel uneasy about this closeness. Not harbouring any hostile feelings against a Turkish Muslims, not hating him, accepting him like anybody else makes him feel guilty inside. The rest of the story goes like this:

Desire to kill

“It is a hot summer’s day. Because the road was running by a stream in the woodlands, both travellers feel nice and cool. When they sit down somewhere to rest and eat Sekula takes off his gun. It is a beautiful gun and his intention is to pride himself a little bit. The Muslim man glares at the gun with appreciation and asks whether it is loaded. As Sekula says it is loaded, he notices that he can kill the Turk with a little movement of his finger. (He still has not made a decision yet). He points the gun at the Muslim and aims between his eyes saying ‘Yes it is loaded. And I can kill you if I want to.’ The Muslim man laughs and says the devil loads it and asks Sekula to put it down. All of a sudden Sekula notices his desire to kill his fellow traveller. If he lets this Turk live he would never cope with the shame and guilt. He acts as if it is an accident he shoots between the laughing eyes of the man.”

Kills because he can’t hate

The story above is taken from a book, ‘Land Without Justice’ by Milovan Djilas, who once was Tito’s supporter but turned against him later on his life. Famous social psychologist Arno Gruen among other things, examines the sources of violence and hate of the humans in his book ‘The Stranger Within Us’ and quotes this story from Djilas.
Examining the story Arno Gruen writes ‘The most striking thing about this story is that Sekula does not kill the Muslim stranger because he hates him, but because he cannot hate him.’ And he continues ‘Not being able to hate the Muslim created shame and guilt in him and as he kills him he kills the humanity within himself.’

The enemy within

Arno Gruen draws a conclusion from this story ‘Hate towards strangers is always related to self-hatred. If we want to understand why people make others suffer and to humiliate them we have to deal with what we discuss within ourselves. Because we need to seek the enemy we think we see in other people in ourselves first. We want to silence this part within us by destroying the stranger that reminds it to us. We can only keep our estranged part away from us in this way. In this way we can keep our stance.’ Yes, hating some can be thought to us but turning this piece of information into a fatal action becomes possible only if it is added to by the parts we hate in ourselves. Therefore what we hate in others is not detached from our self-hatred we do not want to face.

[Oracle]

The hateful inhumane acts that Turkey practices are a disgrace to mankind. They let civilisation down and reduce mortals to beasts.

Without the sort of behaviour Turkey exhibits, people would live in peace and improve their worldly lot rather than suffer the outrageous 'slings and arrows' of Turkish gluttonous desire to expand and perpetuate what it believes are "superior beings" ... Turks!

Unfortunately Turks are not strangers to our land and lives ....