THE VIOLENCE OF HISTORY, IN PICTURES
By Steve Kettmann The New York Times
International Herald Tribune, France
Sept 27 2005
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2005
ISTANBUL Tucked away for more than 40 years, the 120 black-and-white
photographs that were on display in a gallery here recently have the
stark appearance and potential emotional impact of evidence presented
in a legal proceeding.
And that, it turns out, is what they are.
One image shows a mob outside a row of stores, with some people
watching passively and others cheering as a shop is ransacked. A
young man stands with his fist raised in the air, as if he is
egging on the vandals; his other hand rests passively on his hip,
suggesting nonchalance. A boy stares up numbly, as if looking in
vain for answers. Above him, a man in the shell of the shop’s wrecked
building heaves a baby carriage to the street below.
Fifty years ago this month, erroneous reports spread that Greeks had
set fire to the childhood home of Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s
founder, in Salonika, Greece. The rumors prompted an angry mob to
converge on Taksim Square in Istanbul for an anti-foreigner pogrom
that left thousands of houses and many hundreds of shops destroyed.
Gallery officials said that about a dozen people were killed, but
the death toll has never been confirmed because of official secrecy.
Cemeteries were desecrated, dozens of churches were burned and many
schools were plundered.
Fahri Coker, a former assistant military prosecutor, served as a
legal adviser to the investigation of the events of Sept. 6-7, 1955,
an inquiry that historians describe as a whitewash. Coker had 250
photographs that had been taken by foreign news photographers and
government employees, and even a few by Ara Guler, one of Turkey’s
leading photographers. Coker held on to the pictures and left word that
they could be displayed only after his death, which occurred in 2001.
To mark the 50-year anniversary of the long night of violence, Karsi,
a gallery in the Beyoglu neighborhood, where the pogrom occurred,
organized an exhibition of the photos to open on Sept. 6. Although
curators were no doubt aware that the pictures would arouse strong
feelings, given the emotion surrounding historical discussions in
Turkey, they were surprised by the passions unleashed by the show.
The opening was disrupted by a group of nationalists who entered the
gallery, carrying a Turkish flag. Chanting slogans like “Turkey,
love it or leave it!” they vandalized some of the photographs and
tossed others out the window. They also threw eggs at the pictures.
“We left it that way, but unfortunately, after a few days it started
to smell,” Ozkan Taner, one of the gallery’s directors, said of the
exhibition, which the gallery then cleaned and restored, putting it
back on display until it closed this week.
News of the attacks spread quickly, and attendance was heavy, exceeding
expectations. On a recent day, dozens of people crowded into the
gallery to study the images. The pictures, as might be expected,
showed faces riven by anger and fear, but the photos were also packed
with small surprises.
One centered on the monument at the center of Taksim Square, so crowded
with young protesters that some were falling off as others rose to take
their places. At the top of the image, a small group was working to
hoist the Turkish flag, while a young man in a crisp, clean suit held
a small portrait of Ataturk over his head. But away from the monument,
the people in the crowd turning to face the photographer had blank,
uncertain expressions, as if they were as unnerved by the outpouring
as many of the gallery’s visitors were.
In the beginning, the photo exhibition was hailed as a major step
forward for a country that is trying to show a more democratic face
in preparation for possible membership in the European Union.
“For the first time in the history of Turkey, a shameful happening
has been brought out into the open,” said Ishak Alaton, chairman of
the board of Alarko Holdings and a leader of Turkey’s tiny Jewish
population. “Sept. 6, 1955, was our Kristallnacht.”
Ozcan Yurdalan, a freelance photographer who denounced the attacks
on the exhibition, said that the straightforward documentary style
of the photographs had made them more disturbing.
“They show directly what they saw in life,” he said. “If you take
straight photographs, they show the reality – the faces of the people,
some fearful, some thinking, ‘Yeah, we are doing something well
against our enemy.”‘
He added, “The pictures showed me this is not the past. We are still
living in the same condition today. I am ashamed of that, and also
very fearful.”
Greek-Turkish tensions over the future of Cyprus were running high
in 1955, and the future of Cyprus remains unresolved, threatening to
hold up Turkey’s bid to join the EU. More broadly, Western ideas of
the role of dissent have been limited in Turkey.
A best-selling novelist, Orhan Pamuk, has been charged with
public denigrating of Turkish identity for telling a newspaper:
“Thirty-thousand Kurds were killed here, one million Armenians as
well. And almost no one talks about it.”
Mehmet Guleryuz, an Abstract Expressionist-style painter who helped
organize a protest against the attack on the exhibition, said: “We’re
going through sensitive times. We have to have the ability to open
up hidden parts of our history and deal with it. We have to have the
ability to argue.”