In recent Turkish history, there is a significant difference when the 6-7 September events are compared to other similar ones. These events form another link in the chain of operations such as the Armenian deportation, the scaring off of other minorities, the population exchange with Greece, the scaring off campaign against the Jews in Thrace in 1934, and the wealth tax [raised especially from minorities] all of which were undertaken to Turkify Turkey. Yet, at the same time, there have been [in relation to the 6-7 September events] two lawsuits filed against the perpetrators, first at the martial law court and then at Yassiada [when the Democrat party leaders were tried], and the damage to those harmed by the plunder and destruction was at least partially compensated by the Turkish state. As a consequence, unlike the other scenes of the [Turkification] operation, Turkish official history has accepted this one as a mistake, somewhat tried some of its perpetrators, and the event has been noted in social memory as a shameful event.

We can regard the totally denialist stand against the claims of an “Armenian genocide” and the statement “we did not butcher them, they butchered us” as consequences of years of practice of historical denial. We can also state this as the mentality that thinks alike on the issue of the wealth tax with Şükrü Kaya, one of the architects of this confiscation, and finds such a measure justifiable as the meeting of the resource need of the Turkish state during World War II through war profiteers. Among the defenders of the state position, there are some who even today would defend the wealth tax as the right mode of resource use [by the state].

Yet the 6-7 September events are regarded, albeit in a low voice, as a mistake. Those who perceive events from the standpoint of the interests of the Turkish state do not want to own up to these events. Also, the type, source and organization of the provocation that triggered the events are based on undisputable evidence. Some of those who lived through the events are still alive, as are those who perpetrated them. Hence both the discussion of this attempt at a limited pogrom where the threat ‘now your possessions, then your life’ was freely used and the remembrance of our citizens who received material and spiritual wounds from these events is not of a caliber that would really shock the Turkish social consciousness.

In spite of all of this, however, not only have a handful of people who patrol Turkey like a motorized regiment and who have joined the current fashionable move by assuming the label of ‘Union of Turkish Civil Society Organizations’ upon themselves dare to raid the place where the photographs and documents of the 6-7 September events were exhibited and shout ‘either love or leave,’ but they also repeat the lie that ‘Ataturk’s home was bombed’ and insinuate that what was committed during the 6-7 September events was right. And it is at this point that we have to note that all excuses such as ignorance about the past, belief in the official view, succumbing to provocation have been exhausted and that a conscious racism has reared its head in its purest form. Yes, these people are unadulterated racists.

During the commemoration of the Holocaust in Germany, there are, even today, neo-Nazis who attempt to wreak havoc during an exhibit or a show on this topic and set fire to it. While they believe the Holocaust to be a righteous intervention, the historians of this milieu join in by putting out a series of denialist claims. They try to imply through claims that there were no gas chambers in the concentration camps, that the people who died were in the hundred of thousands rather than millions, that there was no genocide but instead a security precaution taken during a state of war. And they do this not only to cure the wound of Nazism that is still open in the German national consciousness, but because they still sustain their unadulterated racism. Not only are they anti-Semites, but they are also in a violent racist hatred against ‘those who do not belong to the white European civilization.’ They present denialism as the struggle to protect German national consciousness and honor against Zionist ideals. Nazi racism becomes differentiated from the love of the German nation, however, through the depth and intensity of the hatred of the other.

In Turkey today, there is, albeit in small numbers, a local Nazi formation. Perhaps this gang which has assumed the slogan of ‘Unity in Language, Thought and Action’ as their guide forms a small minority within the nationalist right. Yet, unfortunately, this local Nazism is not limited to the gang that sought for an opportunity to exhibit ‘a national bucking’ in order to assume leadership within the nationalist right, and that forced the Turkish Hearth Organizations [of the radical right] to issue a statement of disclaim any connection with it. It is much more widespread as a mentality.

The local Nazis do not only wear the masks of the [political] right. As necessary, some spew their racist hatred with their masks of the left. Here is an example: a brochure titled ‘Daughter and son of a Turk, protect your Turkishness!’ It is located in the main page of the internet site for the journal entitled the Turkish Left. The description of the map below complements the title: ‘There is no Kurdish problem, but a Kurdish invasion!’ Brochure commences with the sentence ‘Every Turk should only purchase goods from other Turks. Money given to a Kurd supports the PKK [Kurdish Liberation Organization].’ It declares that the Turk only expresses himself in the sphere of modern urban life and that villages at all times form the sphere of existence of Kurdism. It reminds people that every Turk has to talk Turkish with an Istanbul accent, that a Turk cannot ride in a minivan where Kurdish is spoken, and that he cannot shop from a store that sells Kurdish [music and video] cassettes. It emphasizes that Turks should own up to their cuisine, and that the Turkish palate is being replaced by Kurdish dishes. For, as we all know, ‘the Kurdish cuisine is as dangerous as all those McDonalds.’ And after stating that Turks should reproduce before all else, it argues that ‘every additional Turkish baby is a savior that would get us out of Ergenekon [mythical Turkish homeland].’

The mentality of this brochure is one and the same with the mentality raiding the 6-7 September events. And this mentality is not anything like fascism of the common variety, but simply the most direct expression of local Nazism. A person who is influential within local fascism expresses how this mentality maps out our future as follows: ‘There will be no civil war in Turkey as Turkey’s total national force will not let PKK conduct such a war. There can only be a ‘limited civil strife’ and under such a condition, the PKK and its supporters can be destroyed throughout Turkey, depending on the region, within between 48 to 72 hours. Yet there is still an environment where such developments are discussed, nationalist organizations are established, and tensions mount.’ The organizations Unit Akdag refers to in his piece in Yeni Cag had been employed in the past during the 6-7 September events. This is why these organizations are uncomfortable: what they have been up to was displayed at the exhibit raid. Those who raided the exhibit with shouts of ‘even though traitors never take a vacation, the patriots will never have their country, flag and honor trampled on,’ feel today toward the Kurds in Turkey to whom they easily attach the PKK label the racist hatred they felt toward the Greeks, Armenians and Jews yesterday.

And this is exactly why we have to confront our history. It is crucial that we confront not only those aspects of our history that would make us proud, but also those that should make us feel ashamed so that we not only feel ashamed, but at least this one time we, as the majority of society, can suppress, render ineffective this blood-filled madness.

Translated by Fatma Müge Göçek.
Radikal2 newspaper, September 11, 2005