AN ANALYTICAL LOOK AT TRABZON PART 1
[After the killing of Dink]
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 6 2007
As soon as the murderer was identified, the media searched for images
of the perpetrator.
When a satellite television channel ran a video showing a wedding
party attended by the murderer, Ogun Samast, and described those
filmed along with Samast as being "crazy," the people living in the
Faroz district of Trabzon were also heard to voice their objection.
They were displeased to hear that their folk dancing, named after
their district, was thought to be an act of madness. The public heard
their objection at a press conference the day after Hrant Dink was
laid to rest. Certainly this tragedy struck all of us, but each had
a different way of relating to this assassination that shocked Turkey.
The Agos newspaper "family" obviously felt the most sorrow. What was
then happening in Trabzon?
As the Soviets died, the atmosphere changed in the city Trabzon had
to take a "vision-quest" for to take, like every other city, when the
advent of nation-states reduced both the physical geography in scale
and cultural climate in quality. Although the city once hosted tens of
diplomatic missions and financial centers, the cultural side of the
city would gradually become weaker, and it would later be replaced
with a sports team’s fantastic imprint on the whole country. With
this team being a constant topic of lively discussion across the city
under any circumstances, the city itself would unfortunately soon
be left in the background, and football would then become the sole
narrative. The bells would soon ring loudly… Who could possibly
know that statements from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that
ended the era of Cold War would become a nightmare for Trabzon?
The story of Trabzon begins to take a different course in 1989, when
the Soviet bloc disintegrated and the Sarp Gate was opened. In the
first place, the city begins to import cheap goods and the economy thus
becomes more successful. As commercial relations with the countries
that now form the Commonwealth of Independent States, which replaced
the Soviets, became stronger, the conduct of commercial life began
to dominate social interactions. The eastern Black Sea cities become
predominantly a victim of prostitution, namely the "Natashas," the
Russian prostitutes who later became a subject of academic debate. A
combination of over 10,000 cafes, bars and hotels became available
as places to make money. "The mafia-like formation of gangs was very
common in such places as cafes, bars and hotels. As there were fewer
people coming from northern countries, things began to fall apart. The
people working in those places began to challenge one another, and the
last five or six years saw tens of killings. When the flow of money
ended, all the people working in those places were left desperate. What
could they possibly do?" This was the worry raised by Hasan Kurt,
an author and owner of the Kuzey Express, a local newspaper.
The district of Comlekci is a part of the city that only needs to
be seen to have a perfect picture of what really happened over the
last two decades over here. The stores lined up on the street that
sell knick-knacks, with hotel rooms on top of them, tourists who
frequent cafes here and residents living in side streets. We are
speaking in a building converted from a church with Refik Gunaydýn,
the head district official. "Tourists bring money into the country,
as we know; these people are in reverse taking monthly amounts of
up to $400,000 abroad. I asked government officials to look into
such figures," he said. There were only five hotels in 1989 in this
oldest district of Trabzon; however, it now hosts 39 hotels and a
similar number of guest houses, too. "Today’s population in Comlekci
contains more people from the Commonwealth of Independent States,"
said Gunaydýn, who thinks that Trabzon was one of the most peaceful
cities of the country up until 1989. Gunaydýn had to issue a warning
at a meeting over recent events: "I don’t care about psychology; I
don’t care about sociology; do you really have the slightest idea of
what the hell is going on in this small district? Do you ever wonder
who knocks on my door in the dead of night? The situation here is
impossible to render understandable in analyses done from nice houses."
Let’s walk around Trabzon because there is no question that the recent
events are a by-product of the "environment." The subject matter of
this paper is largely about a group of people whose account for the
financial side to the killing is as simple as they say cold-bloodedly:
"It cost me YTL 500 to conduct this murder." Some of the similar
points between the two killings are as follows: Both murderers
are 17-year-olds, both frequented Internet cafes, the victims were
both non-Muslim, both victims were shot from behind, both murderers
revealed their intention to the public prior to the killings, both
murderers chanted victorious slogans after they shot the victims down,
and both young murderers have divorced parents.
Overwhelming and numbing unemployment, 250 Internet cafes that cannot
be brought under control, split families, aimless youth and local gangs
that try to pass themselves off as members of the mafia are all part
of what prepared the groundwork for such killings; however, they are
not sufficient in themselves to explain the "coincidences" mentioned
above. It is signaling a plain fact to us that such killings receive
the implicit support of a group of young local people since earlier
revelations from the murderer about his plans to kill a particular
person were not taken seriously enough to stop the murdering from
happening. The university also plays a crucial role.
The faculty of economics and administrative sciences of Karadeniz
Technical University hosts the most popular canteen in town. Erhan
Tuncel, who was arrested as the perpetrator, is still a student in the
faculty. It is obvious from the kind of students who look like party
animals that the canteen now hosts that for the most part students
here are rich enough to pay for their education. We afterward learnt
that this canteen holds a wide appeal for students from across the
city. A professor here at Karadeniz was complaining when he said
that students from the faculty have no access to panel discussions
or seminars that can be used to increase their awareness.
He further said that it is only the canteen where students are building
their immediate worlds, rendering themselves vulnerable to a variety
of different political tendencies.
Best-selling books at the university We throw a glance at a pile of
books put on display in a showcase just outside the dean’s office. At
first, we thought the books were written by professors here. A textbook
titled "Militant Democracy and International Terror" stands out. We are
not startled at all by what we see when we look at the best-sellers,
placed right outside the faculty: Soner Yalcýn’s "Mr. Pipe and His
Excellencies," the whole series of books by Osman Pamukoðlu — who was
a senior military commander in the army during the period of Feb. 28
chaos — lsuch as "Deep States" and "To Cross the Border in Þemdinli."
Eyup Aþýk, a former leading figure of the Motherland Party (ANAVATAN)
who is currently spending his political life with the True Path Party
(DYP), is the man who gave a job to the father of Ogun Samast, the
prime suspect in the murder of Hrant Dink, when he was the mayor
of Pelitli. Aþýk doesn’t think that Dink’s killing was only for
political reasons. "The bombing of McDonald’s is actually a matter
of having not the means to go there. It should not be viewed only
as anti-Americanism. One even has to pay to play for Pelitlispor;
one has to buy shoes, one has to buy soft drink to celebrate a game
after it is won. … But the structure of society cannot meet needs
like this," he said. Aþýk also argued that legal regulations are a
hindrance to police officers. He cannot help mentioning that two police
stations in Trabzon were closed for financial reasons. Aþýk thinks
it possible that there might be some forces behind those two young
murderers; however, he does not think it likely that they were foreign
intelligence agencies, such as the CIA or MOSSAD. Aþýk hopes that
the sorting out of the Dink assassination will help the whole country.
Fethi Yýlmaz, who has run the Trabzon magazine Kýyý since 1961, was
a neighbor to the murdered priest Andrea Santaro. "We would have tea
together. He was fluent in Turkish, even though he came from Italy.
He was a friend of ours. Perhaps our sorrow for his killing was
even greater than that of his Italian friends," said Yýlmaz. Yýlmaz
considers the likely reason behind the killing of Santaro to be his
having helped Russian women return to their home countries.
How many non-Muslims live in Trabzon? We asked this question in
an attempt to approach the situation from the point of view of
non-Muslims living in the city. We asked everyone, from all ideological
or sociological backgrounds in Trabzon, to be introduced to someone who
is not a Muslim. The group of people who received this request from us
included civil society members, journalists, leftist intellectuals,
businessmen and those with views both in favor and against dialogue:
In the end, nobody knew someone who was not a Muslim. The top civilian
authority here said Trabzon hosts 10 Catholics, or a total number
of 50 non-Muslims at the most. A former head of the local district
administrators’ association said he did not know any non-Muslims
himself. As a result, any answer to a question like "Were non-Muslims
in Trabzon provoked?" would remain nonsensical.
In the view of Hasan Kurt, it is more like an increased version of
hatred among groups that stemmed from the creation of a false enemy:
"I don’t think it likely that things are happening by coincidence.
Over the last decade, Trabzon has been provoked into believing that
the city was under the threat of Armenians, that the city was plagued
by missionaries, that there are efforts to create a newer version of
Pontus. My house is just next to the church building. I saw a couple
of women coming to the church every once in a while. There was only
a small group of people of 20 to 30 that used to come to the church.
The media is creating such a fuss over missionaries that it becomes
impossible to stop the formation of groupings. There is church
propaganda at unbelievable levels, but it remains unsuccessful in
attracting people to the church." Kurt then accused local papers
of creating false fears. "There are far more non-Muslims living in
Ýzmir and Bursa than there are here in Trabzon. This means that the
situation here is deliberately being created."
A change from the times of Evliya Celebi…
"It looks like the society is being fragmented," said Ahmet Þefik
Mollamehmetoðlu, who heads the Trabzon branch of the Journalists’
Association. Mollamehmetoðlu holds that there are efforts to
fit Trabzon in with a particular identity, just was the case with
Diyarbakir. "Trabzon is being pushed to a central position between two
opposites. Trabzon has the Caucasus and Chechnya in its background. I
think that all this might be related to a background of this kind."
Evliya Celebi wrote in his travel notes, titled "Seyahatname," that
the people of Trabzon take pleasure in traveling, wandering around,
cooking, and eating; are lighthearted and carefree, gentle and lovely;
and that their women are really beautiful. Although Trabzon people
retain such characteristics, it is not true today that they are
lighthearted and carefree. Trabzon can react promptly to an event
if it is about national characteristics. The main reason the PKK
as a separatist Kurdish terrorist organization cannot find a place
across the Black Sea region of Turkey is that although the demographic
structure is changing, the eastern Black Sea people retain a homogenous
population there. This is a city that hosts the kind of people who
are quite proud of their national affiliations, who are proud enough
to react violently to when there is an attack of any kind on their
national values, and whose connection to each other has eroded over
time due to poor urbanization policies. A teacher told us that in none
of his talks to prisoners here has he heard even a word of regret
about their criminal acts. All this aside, if it is a sign of high
security that a woman can remain out on the street late at night,
Trabzon must be counted as highly secure compared to other cities.
To be continued
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