IVOS 2: ΚΕΙΜΕΝΑ,ΕΙΚΟΝΕΣ

(...) It is safe to assume that as Turkey opens up, similar stories from its darkest days (the “single party” dictatorship of 1925-50, and the later military coups) will be unearthed. And those who have praised these eras simply for their “secularism” will be embarrassed.  What really liberates a country is not mere secularism, after all.  It is liberalism, democracy and human rights. This week, two startling discoveries were made in two separate caves in southeastern Turkey. And both presented clues about a not-so-bight-bright era in the history of this county. The first discovery was in an area near Tunceli , which used to be a “forbidden zone” for the past 76 years. Journalists, headed by a group of villagers, entered the zone and headed to the caves in the Leç Stream valley. Soon, in one of the caves, they found many human bones, skulls and empty cartridge shells. Apparently, some people had been executed here. One of the villagers who headed the excavation,...

(...) Knowing the past is important to understand the current issues,  said Associate Professor Ahmet Demirel. “ Facing the reality of Dersim can contribute to the solution of the Kurdish problem ,” he said. “We have always looked at the issue as a public security issue and with that perspective it was impossible to solve it. On the contrary, this outlook made us come to the point of offering an apology. So we need to take a lesson from history not to repeat the mistakes that made us come to the point of apologizing .” (...)    Genie out of bottle on facing up the past   Friday, November 25, 2011 BARÇIN YİNANÇ ΤΟ ΚΕΙΜΕΝΟ ΤΗΣ  ΣΥΝΕΝΤΕΥΞΗΣ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΤΗΚΕ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΔΑ: ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s apology for the killings in Dersim has let the genie out of the bottle, says an academic, adding that other dark periods of Turkish history will come under scrutiny. While the realities about D...

Dersim 1937-“State Terrorism”: Daily Radikal has published various documents and photos showing that Atatürk ordered and oversaw the whole “operation.”  Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1) A dark episode in Turkish history     These days, the Turkish media is full of discussions about “what really happened” in Dersim in 1937 – an eastern province in which a “rebellion” was brutally crushed . The victims, whose numbers exceed 10,000 and included many women and children, are remembered with grief. Now Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the ever-venerated and never-questioned “father of all Turks,” is getting the questioning he deserves for the first time. Dersim, a tribal province of Alevi Kurds, was a “lawless” region even under the Ottomans, who did not interfere in the affairs of the local communities unless they created big problems for the center. The Turkish Republic that was founded in 1923, however, had its own version of the “mission civilisatrice,” or the self-dec...