illustration / gagrulenet
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as Today’s Zaman reported, “has said the implementation of a presidential system while remaining a unitary state is possible, showing Hitler’s Germany as an example.” He underlined that “when you look at Hitler’s Germany, you can see [that it is possible]. You can see examples in other countries as well.”
Gregory H. Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, identified eight stages of the Holocaust. compare and contrast these to the Turkish context for similarities and dissimilarities.
1. Classification: “Distinguish people into ‘us and them’.”
2. Symbolization: “When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups.”
3. Dehumanization: “One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases.”
4. Organization: “Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility.”
5. Polarization: “Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda.”
6. Preparation: “Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. … Their property is expropriated.”
7. Extermination begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called ‘genocide’.”
8. Denial: “The perpetrators of genocide … deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes.”
Some of these have been already perpetrated by the AKP regime against Kurd. We can never know how far they intend to go. Yet, Erdoğan’s mention of Hitler should alarm democrats.
Read More: Turkey Atatürk in the Nazi imagination http://wp.me/p2E179-6rE