BEKIR COSKUN: WE NEED TO ASK: ARE WE THE REAL MURDERERS?

Hurriyet, Turkey
April 20 2007

This is a difficult column for me to write. The Malatya murders are
neither the first nor the last of their type. So maybe someone needs
to look back, and ask: "Is it we who are the murderers?"

It is difficult to recall anything said during our school days by our
Turkish elders about peace and love. But there’s a lot I recall being
said about three pointed javelins. And castles made from skulls. We
were always told about the Ottoman’s state order, and about where the
stability and continuation of the Ottomans derived from: the pasha
would tie his siblings to the caste vaults, and cut off their heads.

These stories were told to us with great pride, and thus we would
repeat them in pride to others…….

*

Pushing aside history for a moment though, we have a culture that
believes in letting blood flow, like when we are born, and when we get
out first diploma. Even people who get their first driving licenses
get told "…..make a sacrifice, at least a rooster if nothing
else." And of course, there was always the greatest show of belief,
the sacrificing of the lamb in the backyard of the house.

*

We all know the three men whose throats were cut in Malatya were
neither the first, nor will they be the last. Because the children of
this society have grown up hearing up the length of swords in schools,
seeing the lambs slaughtered in the backyards, and hearing the stories
of Ottoman skulls.

No one has ever taught them simply: "First, be human." Just as
we saw when the chants of "We are all Armenian" arose after Hrant
Dink’s funeral, those who have try to cry out "First, be human,"
have been labeled as "aetheists and traitors" by others. We need to
ask ourselves then, is it we ourselves who are the murderers, and
not just the handful of youngsters who carried out what they have
been taught in this society?