YOUNG TURKS DISCOVER A SUDDEN INTEREST IN MEIN KAMPF

Azg/arm
16 March 05

Mein Kampf is becoming the book of the month at the D&R bookshop at
the Migros shopping center in downtown Ankara. Adolf Hitler’s infamous
work is selling so fast it has entered the bestseller lists. Rukan
Binerbay, store manager, says he has sold at least 1,000 copies in the
past few weeks.

At the Remzi bookstore in the rival Armada shopping center, the book
has sold out. Manager Emre Demirok says it has been the third highest
seller in the past month.

Sales took off after a new edition was published at 5.90 liras a copy
($4.90, â=82¬3.50, £2.40).

But who is buying it? “Students, mainly. Young men. Turkish people
love this kind of stuff,” says Mr. Binerbay.

Perhaps they do, but booksellers and academics are puzzled by the
sudden popularity of Mein Kampf (in Turkish, Kavgam). In a country
with neither a deep reading culture nor a history of anti-Semitism,
but which does have a tastefor conspiracy theories, the phenomenon is
sparking debate and controversy.

The sudden success of the Nazi tract has alarmed Turkey’s small Jewish
community. While diplomats say it does not necessarily reflect an
awakeningof anti-Semitism, Silvio Ovadyo, a spokesman for Istanbul’s
Jewish community, says its new popularity may reflect the
anti-Semitism that features regularly in the extremist wing of
Turkey’s press. “This is an anti-Semitic book and, yes, we are
concerned about it,” he says.

There is also concern in Germany. The government of Bavaria, which
controls the copyright, goes to great lengths to suppress publication
of Mein Kampf around the world. “The availability and rising
popularity of this book in Turkey are matters of serious concern for
us,” says an official at the German embassy in Ankara. The issue looks
set to become a thorn in German-Turkish relations.

Ali Carkoglu, a political scientist at Sabanci University, cautions
that books can easily become bestsellers in Turkey with relatively low
sales. Akin Dirik, an official at the Turkish publishers’ union, adds
that the publishing industry cannot supply accurate sales
figures. Some estimate, however, thatmore than 100,000 copies of the
book are in Turkish are in print.

And it has clearly found an audience.

Tayfun Atay, an academic at Ankara University, says the book has long
enjoyed a “covert popularity among hard-line Turkish
nationalists”. But new readers may be motivated more by curiosity than
by any attraction to Hitler’s anti-Semitism and fanaticism. “They may
be curious about Hitler not becausehe is a hero but because he is an
anti-hero,” he suggests.

Mein Kampf’s popularity also coincides with the success of Turkey’s
current runaway bestseller, a novel called Metal Storm.

This depicts a US invasion of Turkey, and has tapped in to
anti-American feeling sparked by the Iraq war. US and Turkish
officials are currently engaged in a terse transatlantic exchange
about how deeply this feeling runs.

There is no doubt, too, some commentators say, that Turkey currently
feels vulnerable. Even though the country opens accession talks with
the European Union later this year, Dogu Ergil, who runs a think-tank
called the Center for the Research of Societal Problems, says many
Turks “know in their hearts” that many Europeans do not want them.

“This is a moment of convergence of these feelings which has turned
into a social phenomenon,” Mr. Ergil says, referring to Turks’ reading
habits. Mein Kampf readers “are searching for motivation, and here it
is, albeit in perverted form. The book is nonsense, and so is the
fear.”

By Vincent Boland in Ankara