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Erdogan so deeply Islamized Turkey. Local man attacks Atatürk statue in Turkey’s southeast, says ‘no idol worshipping in Islam’

July 30, 2017 By administrator

Local man attacks Atatürk statueA local peddler attacked a statue of Atatürk in the Siverek district of the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa on July 30, saying that “idol worshipping had no place in Islam,” Doğan News Agency has reported.

The peddler, identified as Mehmet Malbora, climbed onto the pedestal of the statue in Siverek’s Cumhuriyet Square in the afternoon hours and began to damage it with a wooden sickle.

“There is no idol worshipping in Islam. Are those who protect the idol worshipping descendants of the Prophet?” he reportedly shouted.

Witnesses around the scene informed the police of the incident, and nearby district gendarmerie units also intervened to move Malbora, who was wearing a turban-like head covering, away from the statue.

Police then arrived at the scene and detained him, taking him to the district police headquarters for questioning.

July/30/2017

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ataturk, attacks, Local man, statue, Turkey

Turkey: Erdogan takes on Ataturk

April 12, 2017 By administrator

The presidential system Recep Tayyip Erdogan strives for will not just change Turkey’s political landscape. By tying in Islamic tradition, he becomes an opponent of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The caliph’s request was modest. He explained that on Fridays, he would like to wear a turban like the 15th century Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. He wanted to know whether the president had anything against it. The president, who had only been in office a few months, responded brusquely by telling the caliph that he should instead wear a frock coat, like a modern statesman. The president later declared that the caliphate was “nonsense.”

The scene described by the Turkish historian Sukru Hanioglu in his biography of the first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal – later known as Ataturk – is typical of the determined and harsh manner in which he opposed the religious and political traditions of the recently-collapsed Ottoman Empire. Ataturk also adamantly made the case for the dismissal of the imam assigned to the Turkish national assembly. “Things like prayers are not needed here,” was the president’s explanation for the proposal. Hanioglu writes that for the founder of modern Turkey, there was basically one religion – a secular one, the religion of the republic.

Painful reforms

A great part of the population had reservations about the changes. The educated urban elite may have applauded Ataturk’s reforms, but the traditional majority did not agree with him. The people did not like that the fact that one no longer swore by god in court but instead took an oath of honor. The Turkish justice system did away with all religious references within years and laicism was declared a basic principle of the Republic in 1937. People took offense to other reforms as well, like the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, the replacement of the fez with European hats, switching from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, the introduction of Sunday as a new weekly holiday instead of Friday and the implementation of women’s voting rights in 1934.

Ataturk, which means father of the Turks, went down in the history of the Turkish Republic as a modernizer – and he is still one of the most significant representatives of modernization even today, at least officially. But in truth, writes the historian Hanioglu, Ataturk and his comrades misjudged the reality of Turkish society. “The leadership of the early Republic criminally underestimated […] the powers of resistance of social networks in a Muslim society. Like many European intellectuals of the late 19th century and early 20th century, they were convinced – but in retrospect wrongly – of the idea that religion would soon be nothing more than a vague memory of the distant past.”

The opponent

If the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pushes through the proposed new presidential system, then he is doing so with Ataturk in mind, suspects Caner Aver, a geographer from the Center for Studies on Turkey and Integration at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Aver believes that Erdogan wants to go down as the most important Turkish statesman in history after Ataturk. And there is something else that compels him: “He wants absolute power and he needs a constitutional change for this. This is the only way the existing presidential system can be secured constitutionally.” It is fitting to him that Turkey will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2023, says Aver. “Then, Erdogan will be the great, strong man who has led Turkey out of the current domestic crisis – as well as the conflict with neighboring countries – and into the future.” It remains to be seen, however, whether this will actually happen, adds Aver.

In order to obtain sufficient support for the planned presidential system, Erdogan is appealing the majority of the population that has opposed Ataturk’s reforms for over a hundred years. This is also a reason why he resolutely pursues symbolic policies. He had a large mosque built on a hill above the Bosporus Strait. He hiked taxes on alcohol, banned its consumption near mosques and has made life difficult for bars and restaurants in European-dominated neighborhoods. He also lifted the headscarf ban in state institutions, such as universities, courts and parliament.

A vote on cultural identity

Ideologically, according to Caner Aver, Erdogan comes from a nationalist, conservative and religious background. “So if he achieves his goals, we will encounter such elements more often in the state institutions.” It is probably true that it is unlikely the country will actually become an Islamic republic, says Aver. “However, the nationalist, conservative and Islamic tone will be more strongly felt in institutions and possibly also in legislation, public life, the education system and in academic life.”

Erdogan wants to reorganize Turkey politically. He is using cultural means to achieve this transformation. By doing so, he defines himself as an ideological counterforce to Ataturk. According to the historian Hanioglu, Turkey was culturally modern only on the surface. Erdogan is taking advantage of the sleeping conservative potential in the country. The vote on the presidential system is thus also a vote on the cultural identity of the country.

Source: dw.com

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ataturk, Erdogan, Turkey

Hitler, Ataturk and the Turkish-German Relations by Edward Kanterian

July 10, 2016 By administrator

hitler ataturkThe following interview with Stefan Ihrig, author of Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler [Justify Genocide: Germany and the Armenians of Bismark Hitler], whose publication was held in December 2015, was conducted by Edward Kanterian, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent. Ihrig is a member of the Teachers College at Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

Edward Kanterian- Mr. Ihrig, we know that Mussolini was truly a model for Hitler. But much less known, Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, was another major source of inspiration for Hitler. You recently published a book that explores this topic. Why Hitler is it interested in Ataturk?

Stefan Ihrig- all goes back to the early 1920s; Germany was still reeling from the lost war and the fear of a punitive treaty imposed by the Agreement. In an atmosphere of nationalist depression, events began to move into Anatolia that inspired passion and dreams to German nationalists. Led by Mustafa Kemal, the Turks resisted “their” particular Versailles Treaty, the Treaty of Sevres. They faced the Agreement and the Greek army up to challenge their own government in Constantinople. What happened in Anatolia was like a dream come true for many in the nationalist Germany, and especially for the Nazis, who thought that Germany should copy what were the Kemalists. Hitler was much inspired by Ataturk and the idea of a ‘government of Ankara’ for its project to create a government against Munich, he would impose his coup of 1923. In retrospect Beerhall in 1933, he recalled Ataturk and the Kemalists as the ‘shining star’ in the dark 1920s the Nazis and Hitler, in a political sense, grew up with Turkey and Ataturk. It was a fascination that will never disappear and that turned into a kind of cult during the Third Reich.

EK: The main attraction was the fact that Ataturk had withstood the Entente?

If yes. Resist the Agreement and revise a peace treaty of Paris fascinated the Nazis. But that was not all. There was also the fact that Turkey was stripped of most of its minorities, first the Armenians during the First World War, and secondly, most Greeks by the population exchange the Treaty of Lausanne . And in the end, to the Nazis, what happened in Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s was a successful restructuring of the country to the nationalist and racial lines. For them it was an example of what a purely national state could succeed with a strong leader.

EK – Turkey who “got rid” of the Armenians was of course Turkey Turkish Young, whose regime ended in 1918 and in which Ataturk played only a minor role, she was going up the Nazi fascination young Turks? Can we think they were impressed by the design centric Turkish Turkish state Turkish Youth and Kemal, an opposite conception to the idea of multi-ethnic society which had hitherto existed in the Ottoman Empire? Is there a direct link between population policies and exclusion of Ataturk and those of the Nazis?

SI- The Young Turks did not matter much to the Nazis. But ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the Armenian Genocide before the War of Independence had been for the Nazis, a major precondition for the success of Ataturk in this war. And the expulsion of the Greeks was the vision of the Nazis, a second prerequisite for further success Turkey reconstruction on a national basis. Wholesale and somehow it was for the Nazis a whole provisions’. For them, it was important that ethnic minorities – those that they and other German nationalists saw as “the Jews” – are eliminated. In the vision of the New Turkey for the Nazis, this would not have been possible if Turkey had not stripped of minorities. In this way, the Nazis and other German nationalists were able to make Nova Turkey Ataturk, the idea of a racial ethnic full-scale reconstruction of a test that allowed them to measure the power of a new national state purged of minorities, a test that not only reaffirmed their own belief in the power of the states after ethnic cleansing, but taught different methods on how to do so.

EK: To what extent the ideology of Kemalist state she was an inspiration for the Nazis? Presumably they ignored the fact that Ataturk was the creation of a republic in which a parliament representing the people, was the main source of power?

The SI-Nazi vision of the New Turkey Ataturk was very selective. Almost everything found himself in conflict with the ideals and objectives Nazis was either mitigated or ignored. The emancipation of women was one of these points; it was mentioned, but it was considered unnecessary to linger. The rather peaceful foreign policy of Ataturk was deliberately misinterpreted. Regarding method of government, under Ataturk, the Nazis saw him as a strong leader supported by a single party, which for them was the only viable alternative to what they perceived as a decadent Western democracy.

EK: What was the position of the Nazis has vis-à-vis the “Armenian Question” in Turkey?

SI- In the discussion of the Turkish war of independence, the Armenians did not take a large square. Again, the Nazis had their own vision of the power and the time of Ataturk. Which exceeded in importance for them everything was Turkey after 1923, they were only to mono-ethnic paradise image. They simply refused to see them still remaining minorities such as the Kurds, and conflicts still existed within the Turkish state. What gave the Armenians, by cons, this importance in the Nazi speech on the New Turkey Ataturk was the specifically German tradition of seeing in them “the Jews of the East”.

EK: Can you give some examples of the manifestations of this vision of Armenians as the Jews of the East in the German discourse? Is that a fact emerged after World War II or were there before?

SI- This German tradition appeared in the late 19th century. At about the same time that appeared modern anti-Semitic racism, the perception of Armenians as racially similar or equivalent to the Jews of Central Europe, as they were described in the antisemitic discourse developed. In this perception, the Armenians were typically described as merchants exploiters enjoying the nice and hardworking Turkish population. This perception portrayed through the parasite, cheater, and non-productive Armenians. Armenians are in all kinds of crafts and trades – many of them, for example, are fermiers- was simply ignored in these speeches. In racial and racist literature increasingly large between the late 19th century until the 1930s, the Armenians were described as a parent or sister race of the Jews, often of them were said to be ” worse than the Jews. “ This creates a particular base course for the German perception of the 1915-1916 events, especially when we know the way things take history in Germany.

EK: That brings us to your last book you just finished, Justifying Genocide, to be published by Harvard University Press later this year. How did you decide to write this book?

SI- During my research on the Nazis and Turkey, I discovered that a great debate took place on the Armenian Genocide. This debate began in the early 1920s and it is totally forgotten today. But it was still one of the biggest debates on the genocide of the twentieth century. It was truly a debate on the “genocide” even before Raphael Lemkin coined the word has, because he was on the intent and scope of the “annihilation of a nation.” I tried to reconstruct this debate and why it lasted so long. Consider a discussion of four and a half years, including the first discussions after the war what had happened, the lively reception given to the Foreign Office documents published on the Armenian Genocide already in 1919, a heated exchange between those condemning what had happened, the “murder of a nation,” and the other denying it. In addition, there were murders, that of Talaat the first in 1921 and then those two prime Young Turks in 1922, all of which took place in Berlin and resumed extensively in the press of the time. Jai held to establish which came from the bottom of critical analysis employed in these discussions, and that is how I explored the German relations Ottoman Armenians since the late 1870. It appears, from the already time of Bismark, that Armenians suffered a foreign policy very cynical Germany [the real politik, already! ndt]. They were regularly sacrificed to allow Germany to obtain political advantages and a more favorable position in the Ottoman Empire. This continual sacrifice of another Christian people led a German discourse that justified the massacres already in the 1890s, and reached the tops with the propaganda of the Great War and the sickening justifications of the early 1920s.

EK: The rhetorical question Hitler “Who after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians”, asked in August 1939 in a speech on the war of annihilation that he would commit to the east, is well known. She suggested that Hitler was at least inspired by the Armenian Genocide. In your new book, you cling to demonstrate that the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide were linked far more than previously thought. Is it correct ?

SI- The ongoing debate on recognition and denial held the Armenian Genocide hostage for almost a century and has also led to reduced often to a footer mark in the history of accounts and analysis European and world of that time. But it was immensely important at this time, also, and perhaps particularly in Germany. Not only Germany was tied there as close as state and ally of the Ottoman, but it was the case of many people, diplomats, officers and soldiers. The fact that the Ottoman Empire had to this point concerned the German public and the German political sphere already before 1915 Germany joined the Armenian Genocide more. And finally the great debate on the genocide in Germany in the early 1920s brings this topic to a single decade of the rise to power of Hitler. The Armenian Genocide was chronologically and geographically closer to Germany and the Third Reich as is usually assumed; my book is an example in many aspects.

EK Few German historians worked on the Armenian Genocide. What could be the reasons?

SI- continuously is attributed to the subject of the difficulties and potential dangers. If you are a historian working on the Turkish and Ottoman history, you do not want to offend the people you need to reach your sources. Another reason is that many sources of German military archives were lost during World War II. Then there was the suspicion that many of the discussions on the Armenian Genocide and its links with Germany might be used to relativize the Holocaust. And finally, the official Turkish denial campaign has created a lasting impression or rather created confusion by suggesting that the subject is too difficult and unapproachable. However, in recent years many have worked on the German side, proposing new studies on particular aspects and also providing new evidence. I am sure that we will reach a critical mass in this area and that soon a broader reassessment of the Armenian Genocide will be made in history, German, European and world.

Edward Kanterian

October 30, 2015

Interview with Stefan Ihrig To Armenian Weekly

Translation Gilbert Béguian

Sunday, July 10, 2016,
Stéphane © armenews.com

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ataturk, german, hitler, relation, Turkish

Erdoğan admiration to Hitler and Atatürk in the Nazi imagination.

January 1, 2016 By administrator

Photo by / gagrulenet

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

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ataturk, Erdogan, hitler

“Turks fascism” Kurdish man forced to kiss Atatürk statue in southwest Turkey

September 8, 2015 By administrator

DHA photo

DHA photo

Turkish nationalists in the southwestern city of Manisa have forced a Kurdish man to kiss a statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as a “punishment” for a social media message he posted, Doğan News Agency reported on Sept. 8.

According to the report, the man, identified only as İbrahim Ç., shared a photo on Facebook of himself wearing the uniform of the peshmerga military force of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), alongside the message “It is an honor to wear this uniform.”

Many outraged Facebook users then shared the photo, claiming that he was a supporter of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has staged attacks and killed dozens of Turkish security forces since July 20.

After his post spread online, İbrahim Ç. was tracked down and attacked in the Kumluova district of Muğla province. A group of locals beat him and tore his clothes before forcing him to kiss a statue of Atatürk in the city.

The man, who was born in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, was injured and reportedly taken to hospital by gendarmie forces who arrived at the scene.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ataturk, fascism, Kurd, Turkey

Armenians and Greeks require the removal of the plaque dedicated to Atatürk Hyde Park Sydney (Australia)

March 28, 2015 By administrator

arton109599-480x377Armenians and Greeks protested according to the Greek Reporter Atatürk Memorial in Hyde Park in Sydney (Australia). The demonstration was called by Greek and Armenian organizations. It brings together hundreds of demonstrations that have called on the authorities of the city of Sydney to move the plaque dedicated to Atatürk. The media were also called to spread their protests. In a statement, the Armenian-Greek Collective says “Kemal Atatürk is responsible
Saturday28 March 2015 by Krikor Amirzayan / armenews

Filed Under: Articles, Genocide Tagged With: ataturk, removal, SYDNEY

Carson scraps plan for monument to Turkish president connected to Armenian Genocide

March 6, 2015 By administrator

Carson Mayore scraps plan for monument to Ataturk

Carson Mayore scraps plan for monument to Ataturk

Carson Mayor Jim Dear, who favored erecting a statue in the city of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of the Turkish Republic, bowed to public pressure and voted against the tribute to the leader connected to the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Dear received a $3,000 campaign contribution from the Turkish Coalition of California. (File photo by Robert Casillas/Daily Breeze)

By Sandy Mazza, Daily Breeze

Hundreds of protesters crowded Carson City Hall late Tuesday, calling Mayor Jim Dear’s plan to install a Civic Center monument to a man they hold responsible for the massacre of more than 1 million Armenians an affront to human rights.

Dear hatched the proposal with members of the Turkish community, who had already commissioned designs for the statue of the first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The mayor wanted to add the piece to the city’s International Sculpture Garden.

Dear, who accepted a $3,000 campaign contribution from the Turkish community last month, said he intended the garden on the grounds of Carson City Hall to be an artistic nod to world peace and democracy. City officials have sought sculpture donations of world leaders, and the Los Angeles Turkish American Association was excited to participate.

But before the City Council could give the project its blessing Tuesday night, furious protesters said it would be akin to erecting a statue of Adolf Hitler.

Glendale Mayor Zareh Sinanyan told council members he was shocked they would even consider such an offensive idea.

“Approximately half of Glendale residents are Armenian-American and survivors of the Armenian genocide,” Sinanyan said. “My namesake was born 80 kilometers outside of Constantinople and subjected to the horrible genocide of 1915 but managed to survive. That’s the only reason I’m here tonight.

“Don’t accept this gift.”

Extra Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies attended the meeting to maintain peace between the two groups, which alternately erupted in angry outbursts throughout the discussion. Dear and Councilman Albert Robles, who had supported the plans, backpedaled during the meeting and the idea ultimately was scrapped on a unanimous vote.

“I think the International Sculpture Garden, which was your idea Mayor Dear, is a great idea,” Robles said. “But the purpose of the garden was to bring positive and noteworthy coverage to the city of Carson. Not the type of coverage we’re receiving today, which is controversial and not positive.”

Representatives of the Turkish community argued passionately in favor of the monument, which was to consist of a series of nine plaques on pedestals lauding Ataturk, a man they likened to George Washington, as the founder of modern Turkey. It was to be the second installment in the International Sculpture Garden. Dear proposed the garden in 2010, and it currently has one statue — donated by the Republic of the Philippines — of Dr. Jose P. Rizal, a Filipino national hero.

Jack Hadjinian, the mayor of Montebello, told the council that Ataturk was responsible for killing several of his family members.

“How could you entertain the idea of erecting a monument of a man responsible for the decimation of my family?” Hadjinian asked. “It’s an insult to propose this in the city of Carson. I’m the great-grandchild of a genocide victim and the grandson of a genocide survivor.”

The government of Turkey denies that the systematic extermination of Armenians took place beginning in 1915, though leading historians call it one of the world’s first modern genocides.

At points during Tuesday’s meeting, Dear stopped to lecture the rowdy audience.

“If you have to heckle the speaker because you can’t resist it, then go outside and look at the monitor and heckle the monitor,” Dear told vocal audience members. “You will be ejected from this room if you argue with me.”

Raife Gulru Gezer, the consul general of Turkey in Los Angeles, pleaded with council members to accept the statue of Ataturk, whom she called “a great man, the father of modern Turkey.” She quoted Presidents Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy praising the leader.

A representative of the Los Angeles Turkish American Association, which helped fund the statue, told council members that Ataturk changed the course of the country from one of oppression to a democratic republic.

Under the Ottoman Empire “I could have been in hijab with no power, the fourth wife of a man, but the republic’s reforms gave me a life where I could be successful,” said the woman, who did not spell her name. “Should we hold (Ataturk) responsible for everything that went wrong in the world? He was on the cover of Time magazine three or four times.

“When you start with the ashes of an empire, you don’t become great in one day. The reforms he made set the foundation for a great society that I grew up in and that I’m totally indebted with, and that’s why I’m working on this project day and night and putting my money where my mouth is.”

Dear, who accepted the campaign donation from the Turkish Coalition of California political action committee, ultimately bowed to the pressure and joined his colleagues in rejecting the statue.

But the mayor, who will be leaving office soon to become city clerk, the position he captured in Tuesday’s election, said he would instead try to win support for a statue showing Armenian and Turkish figures shaking or holding hands.

“My dream is that future generations will be able to put their differences behind them,” Dear said, arguing for such a monument. “We have people in ISIS chopping off people’s heads. That’s the way of an uncivilized Middle Ages mentality. We have to move forward in life and teach our children that they have to get along.”

Filed Under: Genocide, News Tagged With: armenian genocide, ataturk, carson-city, monument, scraps

VIDEO Exposing Ataturk atrocity and how he created Zombi Turks episode #8

March 5, 2015 By administrator

Ataturk Zombi Turks

Ataturk Zombi Turks

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZDgzkeW9wE&list=UUlAvclylMUuDKHdGPtpafsQ

YouTube-gagrule

Filed Under: Genocide, News, Videos Tagged With: ataturk, atrocity, Turkey

The Carson City Council unanimously votes to NOT pass the bill to erect a statue of Ataturk #TurkeyFailed

March 4, 2015 By administrator

Carson City Council Unanimouly Rejects Ataturk Monument Measure

Carson City Council Unanimously Rejects Ataturk Monument Measure

 The Carson City Council unanimously votes to NOT pass the bill to erect a statue of Ataturk #TurkeyFailed

— AYF – Western US (@ayfwest) March 5, 2015

CARSON, Calif.—The City Council of City of Carson voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject a measure to erect a monument to Kemal Ataturk in the city, after lengthy debate during the regular city council session.

Hundreds opposing the measure, led by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Western US Central Committee, Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region, the Armenian Youth Federation and the American Hellenic Council flocked to the Carson City Hall, where a capacity crowd in the council chamber spilled outside to protest the measure.

Speaking against the monument were Glendale Mayor Zareh Sinanian, Montebello Mayor Jack Hadjinian, Glendale City Clerk Ardashes “Ardy” Kassakhian, Professor Levon Marashlian and the Vice Chairman of the American Hellenic Council Aris Anagnos. Although there were only six speakers permitted per side, there were 298 speaker cards submitted in opposition to the monument and 101 in favor.

California State Assemblymembers submitted a letter in opposition to the monument, which was presented at the meeting by a representative of Assemblymember and former Carson City Councilman Mike Gipson, and co-signed by Assemblymembers Adrin Nazarian, Katcho Achadjian, Scott Wilk and Mike Gatto.

The Turkish Consul General of Los Angeles Raife Gulru Gezer was one of the six speaking in favor of the monument. Carson Mayor Jim Dear, who initiated the monument proposal, in the end changed his vote.

Armenian press, including Asbarez, was not allowed to enter the City Council chamber. However, CNN Turk and ABC7 were allowed to cover the proceedings from inside the chamber.

Asbarez will have detailed coverage of the meeting in later editions.

 

Filed Under: Genocide, News Tagged With: #TurkeyFailed erect, ataturk, statue

From Atatürk to Erdoğan (II)

December 27, 2014 By administrator

411BY MUSTAFA AKYOL

The other day, an interesting email dropped into my inbox. It included a scanned page from the Los Angeles Examiner dated Aug. 1, 1926. One of the headlines was particularly notable, for it read: “Kemal Promises More Hangings of Political Antagonists in Turkey.” The “Kemal” in question was Turkey’s founder and first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was then busy with crushing the “conspirators” against his rule.

The paper quoted Atatürk (who was still called “Kemal Pasha” at the time) as saying: “I shall not stop until every guilty person, no matter how high his rank, has been hung from the gallows as a grim warning to all incipient plotters against the security of the Turkish Republic.”

These “plotters,” Mustafa Kemal explained, were of two kinds. One was “the group who combined religious fanaticism and ignorance with political imbecility.” Their main crime was staying loyal to the Caliph-Sultan, the very leader of the ancient regime that Ataturk did away with. “I crushed them with an iron hand,” Kemal Pasha proudly said to the Los Angeles Examiner reporter. “For example, [I] had over sixty of their leaders hanged at dawn.”

The second group of “plotters” consisted of the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, or the political party that dominated the final decade of the Ottoman Empire. Although these people “fought in our ranks” against the occupying powers, Kemal Pasha explained, once the country was saved, they turned subversive and turned treasonous by trying to assassinate him.

The treason in question was the so-called “Izmir Assassination,” which was an alleged plot to kill Mustafa Kemal in June 1926. Most historians accept that the failed plot was real, but the prosecution that came after turned into a witch-hunt. Almost twenty people were executed, while many others were jailed or sent into exile. Most were innocent. A conspiracy against the iron-fisted ruler, in other words, made his fist even more solid.

Throughout his era (1923-38), Atatürk ruled in the same manner, crushing many of his opponents by blaming them for high treason. What he failed to see was that so many “traitors” existed mainly because of the exclusive nature of his regime. To be sure, he acted with patriotic idealism, hoping to achieve the best for his nation. He just could not accept that conflicting visions for the nation could also be patriotic and legitimate.

Now, let’s fast forward from the 1920’s to today. President Tayyip Erdoğan is again speaking about the “traitors” to the nation, condemning their conspiracies, and even spearheading criminal cases that appear to be witch-hunts to many. Of course, times have changed for the better, thus no one is executed or exiled. Moreover, just like in Atatürk’s time, not every conspiracy Erdoğan complains about is totally imaginary —the “parallel state,” especially, is not just a myth.

But the deeper problem of the 1920’s is valid for the 2010’s, too: The regime is confronted by too many “traitors,” mainly because of its own exclusive nature. The masters of the regime cannot see this, because they have zero tolerance for self-criticism. Moreover, they believe that they are saving the nation from a centuries-old darkness and propelling it towards a golden future.  Therefore, they explain every resistance against their rule as an act of treason.

In other words, some things in Turkey never change, unfortunately. Very, very unfortunately.

December/27/2014

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ataturk, Erdogan, Political Antagonists

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