‘Europeans should be ashamed to look in the mirror’

Turkey’s EU accession process has provided greater margin for free expression. As part of a group that has transcended the «Kemalists vs Islamists» stereotype, do you hope that the Turkish intelligentsia, overcoming reactionary forces, will lay the foundations for an open, pluralistic society? No rights are won without struggles and hardships. Rights won without pain remain weak. What we are experiencing is nothing more than the price we have to pay to have a democratic Turkey. We will succeed. No one should doubt that. What makes me sad is not the difficulties, but the indifference and hypocrisy of «modern civilization» (a term used by the Kemalists, indicating progress), that we are struggling to acquire. The European Union is not following the struggle, not even from a distance. It has turned its back on us; it is not interested. It has thrown away the carrot and is using only the stick. It is not even showing us a glimmer at the end of the tunnel. Europeans should be ashamed to look in the mirror. In Cyprus, the Turks voted «yes» (to the Annan plan) and were left outside. The Greeks voted «no» and joined the EU. We can’t explain that to anyone in Turkey. On its own it is enough to trap us Turkish democrats between the fascists and the ignorant masses. The EU has left us out in the cold. It should be ashamed. The fascists and masses haven’t killed us, but the EU’s stance will. Naturally, the Armenian diaspora had a lot to with the nationalist fiasco. Not to mention some of its members, who claim the only thing that interests them is to make Turks say the word «genocide.» You are very bitter toward the EU. Yet it is thanks to the EU’s reforms that you are able to express yourself more freely today. Isn’t it logical, after all, for the EU to expect Turkey to respect international law and the treaties? Your question displays the typical attitude of a European, a foreigner in today’s Turkey. If you hit a child every day, you’ll spoil it just as much as if you buy it a toy car every day. If in every document the EU invents a new condition for Turkey’s membership, it isn’t doing it because it thinks the 2001-2004 reforms were insufficient, but because it doesn’t want to deal with Turkey before it «digests» the former communist countries. Moreover it doesn’t want to oppose pressure from Europe’s people who have been terrorized by Islamophobia. In Turkey the equivalent of that Islamophobia is the so-called «Sevres paranoia.» That is the fear that foreigners and minorities are conspiring to divide the country. For all those reasons, the EU is now using the Cypriot Republic, as it used Greece in the past, until the Greek political leadership realized the stupidity of it. What about Dink? Will his death give courage to the liberal Turks against the «forces of darkness»? Undoubtedly. Hrant is a martyr; he has become a legend. Legends and myths are an ancient source of inspiration for people’s struggles. In Turkey, where being an Armenian is worse than being homosexual, 100,000 people shouted «We are all Armenians.» The antithesis «We are all Samast» (the killer’s name) is ridiculous. Don’t worry, societies don’t go backward. When a society reaches a particular level of development, at some point it throws off the yoke that is pulling it backward, and continues from the point of progress it has reached. Turkey even threw off fascism, on September 12, 1980. That was extreme and very well organized. Greece threw off the fascism of 1967-1974. Today we have transcended the levels of freedom we had in 1979. Would anyone then have shouted «We are all Armenians»? Or to seek compensation or the punishment of his torturer on the basis of Strasbourg legislation? Or say that Turkey should be the midwife in the birth of a Kurdistan in northern Iraq? All these freedoms are enshrined in the reaction to fascism of 1980. So today, a more democratic Turkey will be born as a reaction to the latent fascism. But to get to that paradise we have to get through the hell of 2007. Are you worried about your own personal safety? Who is to blame for the attempt to create a climate of fear and what can be done? Fear can’t save you from death. Today’s terrorism isn’t from the masses. Turkey experienced the same during the 1940s, but the current racist tendencies differ from the racism of World War II that originated in Nazis’ sense of power. The root of today’s racism is fear. Globalization threatens Turkey’s national identity, as in the European Union (the French and Dutch voted against the European Constitution). If the political parties – particularly Deniz Baykal’s Republican People’s Party – did not use fear to get votes, the masses’ nervousness would not terrorize the country. If those parties did not use fear to take votes away from the ruling party, if they had not been terrorized by organizations that swear on the Koran to kill and be killed in the struggle, they would have faced justice. If the laws had been implemented on all those who tore up on camera the report on minority rights we released in October 2004, no one would have been able to kill Hrant. Professor Kaboglu (author of the report) and I lodged a number of suits, but all were rejected. I ask you to conclude where these terrorists draw the courage for their actions. Turkey is a very complex country due to it Ottoman past. There is a chasm between the wealthy, educated elite and the masses. What do you envision for Turkey’s future? Turkey made spectacular reforms between 2001 and 2004. The current nationalist outpouring is the reaction to those changes. It will pass. I only hope the state authorities implement the laws, something which they will be forced to do when they panic. I only hope there will be no deaths before then. Patience and persistence are needed. The current reforms are a second «revolution from above» after Kemal Ataturk’s reforms. Revolutions from above change the laws overnight but not attitudes. That is the country’s problem. As long as the EU remains indifferent, we will have difficulties.