Again, today, Orhan surprised me with his column. So right, so human, so on the target.
No sensational news, only facts.
For sure, a person with a heart on the right place! And we use that expression in the Netherlands, the heart on the right place for people who are opening their mind, without any fear.
Below the first part of the column of this brave person.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz
We have a phrase in Turkish, “felaket tellalı,” which can be translated literally into English as “scaremonger.” For the last three months I have been acting like a “felaket tellalı” about the situation in Turkey. Actually not only I but a lot of other columnists and intellectuals are behaving like this as well. Are we exaggerating situations, are we too negative, or are we suffering from the grip of collective neurosis? There might be many things, but I think we all focus on all these negative things to prevent the worst from happening. The other thing is that when the things happen, which we do not want to mention (for sake of not being stigmatized as paranoid or as conspiracy theorists), most of the time it is too late to react against them. For some, the Santoro, Dink and Malatya murders came as “big surprises,” but actually they were not! Before these incidents happened there had been many reactions towards what these victims represented in the Turkish society, but for most people these signs were invisible! We all have our own “selective perception,” and we tend to ignore the “signs” if they do not indicate an immediate danger for us.
There have been operations against some neo-fascist “civil society” organizations in Turkey for a while. We have known of these organizations and their connections for some time. They take oaths on guns, declare they know all “traitors,” and keep long lists of these people. In terms of their ideology and world view, these organizations are quite similar to the neo-fascist and skinhead movements in Europe. But have you ever heard of any of these neo-fascist organizations in Europe being set up and run by retired high-ranking army officers? This is happening in Turkey now. A retired captain was caught in a home with 27 hand grenades in his possession. And we continue our lives as if these things are not happening in Turkey. We can only see the tip of the iceberg.
Continue reading here.
