Tweet
‘Death Wells’ and the Suppression of Truth
‘Death Wells’ and the Suppression of Truth
By Ayse Gunaysu • on April 27, 2009 •
All suppressed truths become poisonous.
— Friedrich Nietzsche in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The Armenian Weekly
April 2009 Magazine
Suppressed truth poisons the suppressor; it also poisons those who are deprived of the knowledge of the truth. Not only that, but suppressed truth poisons the entire environment in which both the suppressor and those who are subjected to that suppression live. So, it poisons everything.
Nearly a century after the genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians/Syriacs, as well as other Christian peoples of Asia Minor, Turkey is still being poisoned by the suppression of the truth. And because the suppressed truth concerns a crime, because the suppressors are those in power, and because those deprived of the truth are the whole nation, it is the very future of that nation that is also poisoned.
If you are a ruler suppressing a truth, you have to suppress those who seek the truth as well. The poison feeds you with self-glorification in order to evade guilt, hatred to justify your lying, and cruelty to sustain the lie at all costs.
Bits of truth may be known to some of the people you rule. So you either have to make them join your self-deception—by offering excuses for the crime you committed to persuade them that there was no other choice—or declare them traitors and carry on an endless war against those who resist persuasion.
But people tend to be persuaded. In Turkey, the great majority of people sincerely believe that if it is a question of life or death for the “fatherland,” then the state machinery may rightfully resort to unlawful methods—that the so-called “national interests” justify all means. This is how the suppressed truth and the methods of that suppression poison minds, generation after generation; and how in the referendum two years after the military takeover of 1980, 92 percent of the voters endorsed the new constitution legitimizing the military dictatorship and elected the leader of the coup, Kenan Evren, as president.
Very recently, excavations began in Silopi, Sirnak (at the facilities of Turkey’s national pipeline corporation, Botas) to investigate allegations that in the 1990’s the bodies of those who went missing while under the custody of security forces had been dumped there. So far, some bones, hair, and pieces of clothing have been found—what was left after the clean-up—and sent to a forensic laboratory for analysis. The excavations continued in Cizre, again a district of Sirnak. In connection with the findings, several people were arrested, including a colonel, which is a very extraordinary case in Turkey.
Sirnak is one of the places that has suffered the most from the suspension of rule of law for the sake of the “unity of Turkey.”
And it is the same place where, 94 years ago, masses of mostly Assyrians/Syriacs, but Armenians as well, though in smaller number, were either massacred outright or driven on foot to the mountains, where death was certain as a result of starvation, destitution, and exposure to harsh weather without any shelter. This was what happened in many places to the Armenians throughout Asia Minor during that reign of terror.
Now the “death wells” represent the continuation of the bloodshed and suppressed truths. After 94 years there are still unburied dead bodies to be searched through excavations.
There is a case in Turkey, popularly known as the Ergenekon case, where suspects of plotting in favor of a military coup are being tried. The defendants include ultra-nationalist retired military officials such as Veli Kucuk, whom Hrant Dink had pointed out as a threat to his life, and activists such as Kemal Kerincsiz, a leading figure in violent public protests against people contradicting anti-Armenian sentiments.
However, the investigation seems to focus more on the illegal organizations acting against the government than on the crimes committed in the Kurdish provinces in the southeast—which represents the direct legacy of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.
Besides, to a great extent we owe this breakthrough in the prosecution of criminals within the state machinery to the AKP Islamist government’s struggle for survival in the face of the military’s longstanding power—which has as its ideological foundations authoritarian, anti-democratic, and racist secularism. This struggle between two powers, neither of which can have anything to do with the ideals of a really pluralistic way of life, leaves true dissidents in a position of continuously wavering between supporting the AK Party’s steps for relative transparency and resolutely opposing its display of typical Turkish-Islamic synthesis ideology. So, within the context of the Ergenekon case, although every little step to throw light on the antidemocratic, ultra-nationalist, and militaristic schemes in Turkey deserves full support, there is still very little to rejoice.
That may sound overly pessimistic, but as long as Turkey goes on suppressing the truth, no real progress can be made.
The genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire is the foremost truth that should be acknowledged; and it will be the key for the denial, for the renouncement of a system, that presupposes and imposes presupposition of this country to be the homeland of Sunni Turks only. However, in reality, it’s simultaneously the other way round: As long as this system prevails, no acknowledgement of genocide is possible. Here we reach a point representing all the complexity and potentiality of life—a point where any progress towards shaking the ideological and ontological foundations of the system will be a step forward in the long, stumbling process of approaching the acknowledgement of the genocide by the state and by the Turkish public.
Yes, “All suppressed truths become poisonous,” said Nietzsche many, many years ago, but he continued: “—And let everything break up—which can be broken up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built!”
This is the only way that will bring justice to our lives—I mean recognizing the damage done and making amends; I mean honoring the memory of the victims and at least try to share the unsharable pain inflicted on the grandchildren of the victims; I mean displaying a will, a willingness, a readiness to conceive the unconceivable catastrophe that in 1915 fell upon the most talented, most skilled, most enlightened, and most industrious nation in Asia Minor.
By Ayse Gunaysu • on April 27, 2009 •
All suppressed truths become poisonous.
— Friedrich Nietzsche in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The Armenian Weekly
April 2009 Magazine
Suppressed truth poisons the suppressor; it also poisons those who are deprived of the knowledge of the truth. Not only that, but suppressed truth poisons the entire environment in which both the suppressor and those who are subjected to that suppression live. So, it poisons everything.
Nearly a century after the genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians/Syriacs, as well as other Christian peoples of Asia Minor, Turkey is still being poisoned by the suppression of the truth. And because the suppressed truth concerns a crime, because the suppressors are those in power, and because those deprived of the truth are the whole nation, it is the very future of that nation that is also poisoned.
If you are a ruler suppressing a truth, you have to suppress those who seek the truth as well. The poison feeds you with self-glorification in order to evade guilt, hatred to justify your lying, and cruelty to sustain the lie at all costs.
Bits of truth may be known to some of the people you rule. So you either have to make them join your self-deception—by offering excuses for the crime you committed to persuade them that there was no other choice—or declare them traitors and carry on an endless war against those who resist persuasion.
But people tend to be persuaded. In Turkey, the great majority of people sincerely believe that if it is a question of life or death for the “fatherland,” then the state machinery may rightfully resort to unlawful methods—that the so-called “national interests” justify all means. This is how the suppressed truth and the methods of that suppression poison minds, generation after generation; and how in the referendum two years after the military takeover of 1980, 92 percent of the voters endorsed the new constitution legitimizing the military dictatorship and elected the leader of the coup, Kenan Evren, as president.
Very recently, excavations began in Silopi, Sirnak (at the facilities of Turkey’s national pipeline corporation, Botas) to investigate allegations that in the 1990’s the bodies of those who went missing while under the custody of security forces had been dumped there. So far, some bones, hair, and pieces of clothing have been found—what was left after the clean-up—and sent to a forensic laboratory for analysis. The excavations continued in Cizre, again a district of Sirnak. In connection with the findings, several people were arrested, including a colonel, which is a very extraordinary case in Turkey.
Sirnak is one of the places that has suffered the most from the suspension of rule of law for the sake of the “unity of Turkey.”
And it is the same place where, 94 years ago, masses of mostly Assyrians/Syriacs, but Armenians as well, though in smaller number, were either massacred outright or driven on foot to the mountains, where death was certain as a result of starvation, destitution, and exposure to harsh weather without any shelter. This was what happened in many places to the Armenians throughout Asia Minor during that reign of terror.
Now the “death wells” represent the continuation of the bloodshed and suppressed truths. After 94 years there are still unburied dead bodies to be searched through excavations.
There is a case in Turkey, popularly known as the Ergenekon case, where suspects of plotting in favor of a military coup are being tried. The defendants include ultra-nationalist retired military officials such as Veli Kucuk, whom Hrant Dink had pointed out as a threat to his life, and activists such as Kemal Kerincsiz, a leading figure in violent public protests against people contradicting anti-Armenian sentiments.
However, the investigation seems to focus more on the illegal organizations acting against the government than on the crimes committed in the Kurdish provinces in the southeast—which represents the direct legacy of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.
Besides, to a great extent we owe this breakthrough in the prosecution of criminals within the state machinery to the AKP Islamist government’s struggle for survival in the face of the military’s longstanding power—which has as its ideological foundations authoritarian, anti-democratic, and racist secularism. This struggle between two powers, neither of which can have anything to do with the ideals of a really pluralistic way of life, leaves true dissidents in a position of continuously wavering between supporting the AK Party’s steps for relative transparency and resolutely opposing its display of typical Turkish-Islamic synthesis ideology. So, within the context of the Ergenekon case, although every little step to throw light on the antidemocratic, ultra-nationalist, and militaristic schemes in Turkey deserves full support, there is still very little to rejoice.
That may sound overly pessimistic, but as long as Turkey goes on suppressing the truth, no real progress can be made.
The genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire is the foremost truth that should be acknowledged; and it will be the key for the denial, for the renouncement of a system, that presupposes and imposes presupposition of this country to be the homeland of Sunni Turks only. However, in reality, it’s simultaneously the other way round: As long as this system prevails, no acknowledgement of genocide is possible. Here we reach a point representing all the complexity and potentiality of life—a point where any progress towards shaking the ideological and ontological foundations of the system will be a step forward in the long, stumbling process of approaching the acknowledgement of the genocide by the state and by the Turkish public.
Yes, “All suppressed truths become poisonous,” said Nietzsche many, many years ago, but he continued: “—And let everything break up—which can be broken up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built!”
This is the only way that will bring justice to our lives—I mean recognizing the damage done and making amends; I mean honoring the memory of the victims and at least try to share the unsharable pain inflicted on the grandchildren of the victims; I mean displaying a will, a willingness, a readiness to conceive the unconceivable catastrophe that in 1915 fell upon the most talented, most skilled, most enlightened, and most industrious nation in Asia Minor.