Hatred and Rebellion

Dear Readers,

In today's article, I want to share with you some excerpts from my own life, as well as a reality of Turkey. Wishing you blessed Ramadan days…

INTRODUCTION

I had been living in Paris since 1985. I was a successful engineer and network software specialist.

In those years, individual computers released by IBM and Compaq were just beginning to find application in workplaces. Although computers promised great things, employers were understandably cautious. It was difficult to continue daily tasks with the classic system, meaning rooms and shelves full of files, but eventually, after some effort, the desired results were achieved. There was an understanding that computers were invented only for children's games like "Atari." They served no other purpose.

DUSTY FILES IN THE ARCHIVE

Imagine, you go to the police, asking for a petition from ten years ago to be found. The police give you an appointment for a week, and for a week, they almost individually examine the files on dusty shelves placed in dozens of labyrinths underground to find your petition (or fail to find it).

Archive files on dusty shelves

However, the purpose of new-generation desktop computers was to load information stored in dusty files into computers in companies and government offices, and to enable information sharing among employees by connecting computers in a network. It was at such a critical time that I started working with computers (1985).

Laptops did not exist yet. Desktop computers had very small memories. When I first started working, the "hard disk" or memory of IBM XT brand desktop computers was around 10 MB.

I would like to give you an example: In those years (1985), IBM produced the most powerful computer in the world. The computer was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 250 kg, and cost around 150,000 dollars. Do you know how much memory this colossal computer had? 1 GB.

For comparison, I want to give an example: My current iPhone has 128 GB of memory and weighs 133 grams. I can easily say this: The total memory of all computers in the world in 1985 was not even as much as today's single iPhone. Isn't it strange? From where to where…

FAREWELL TO EUROPE

Why did I write all this? At the company I worked for, I was subjected to blatant discrimination, perhaps because I was Muslim or from the Middle East. This was certainly influenced by Algeria's declaration of independence from France in 1962, and the way Algerian immigrants, fleeing Algeria, awkwardly filled the streets of Paris. There wasn't a single Algerian employee at my workplace. Portuguese people took on roles like doorman or cleaner.

Of course, I was not aware of this internal conflict and historical reckoning. I learned this: Reading books or watching movies is insufficient to understand hatred and discrimination; a person can only learn hatred and discrimination by experiencing it.

I was the most diligent and successful employee in the company, but after 7 years, there was no progress in my career. My anger grew when I realized the reason was discrimination.

One of my sisters lived in Belgium and the other in Germany. The situation was not much different there. In Belgium, hatred for Congolese (former colony) and Moroccans; in Germany, hatred for Turks was strongly rooted.

One day I made up my mind: I would leave France, or rather, Europe.

I made my preparations. In March 1992, I went to Berkeley, California. I started preparing for exams like TOEFL/GMAT required by universities.

DEATH RUN

In California, temperatures range between 25-30 degrees Celsius all year round.

It was a mild April day. I had rented a single-room student accommodation near the Berkeley University campus. I had no car or bicycle. In America, being without a car means making life a thousand times harder. I had applied for a driver's license and was waiting for my driving test. Thus, I had to walk to distant markets for shopping.

I had finished shopping and was walking home, a bag in one hand and my shopping bag in the other. I entered a narrow street.

From a distance, I saw a Black crowd approaching, their shouts and yells shaking the ground. They had sticks, knives, iron bars, and chains in their hands. They were breaking the windows of parked cars and throwing flammable materials inside. As the cars caught fire, their hysterical shouts grew stronger, and they became more aggressive. They were chanting "Death to Whites," but I didn't understand this. Since I didn't know the reason for the incident, I reasoned that it must be a neighborhood brawl.

Riot in Los Angeles and the Bay Area

The hysterical crowd was rapidly approaching me. While I was comforting myself, thinking, "I'm a foreigner, they won't do anything to me!", one of them pointed at me and said something to his friends, and a group started running towards me, swinging their chains and sticks. I realized the seriousness of the situation at that moment. I threw my shopping bag aside and started running. I entered an alley. They were still chasing me and shouting. I kept running. I went in and out of several alleys. I found myself in front of the Berkeley Public Library.

There was a crowd of white people in front of the library. They were all in a panic to get into the library. I mingled among them. The doors closed.

The interesting thing was that the library police officer was a Black woman. She was fat and moved with difficulty. As she tried to close the doors from behind, the Black people who were chasing me were pushing against the door with their shoulders, trying to prevent it. We helped the police and closed the door. A white woman was screaming in a tearful voice: "They will burn us here!"

She wasn't wrong. A few minutes later, the crowd surrounded the library, breaking windows and throwing Molotov cocktails (homemade incendiary devices) inside.

The library was divided into sections. The side adjacent to the street was the reading room. There weren't many books. There wasn't a big fire. If the books had caught fire, we would have had no escape. At the very least, we would have suffocated to death from the smoke.

Gunshots filled the air. We would later learn that the police and soldiers were firing at the demonstrators indiscriminately. A few hours later, the area around the library calmed down.

Ambulances were carrying the injured or dead. I wanted to go out and go home as soon as possible. The library attendant prevented me from leaving:

"Sir, there is a curfew."

I didn't understand what the attendant was saying because it was the first time I had heard the pronunciation "körfiyu." Finally, I thought to ask:

"Please, can you write the word 'körfiyu'? I am a foreigner!"

The lady wrote the word "Curfew" on a piece of paper. I took out my dictionary. The explanation was: (Curfew: A ban on going out into the streets).

Apparently, there were serious events outside. We were not allowed to go out. They kept us waiting until midnight. When news came that the events were under control, we were released. I quickly went home and locked myself in my room. I had neither a television nor a computer.

Riot and looting

In the morning, I bought breakfast from a coffee and sandwich stand, along with copies of the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle newspapers, and returned to my room. The newspaper pages were filled with grave events in Los Angeles and the Bay Area (San Francisco, Palo Alto, Stanford, Napa, Oakland, Berkeley). Only then could I understand the seriousness of the situation. 64 people had died, and over 1 billion dollars in damage had occurred. If I hadn't been smart enough to run away, the Black attackers would have gleefully killed or lynched me as a "White."

What a contrast, my God! The Black people who would have killed me would never have known that, as a socialist, I wholeheartedly rejected the colonization and impoverishment of African countries, and that I had even watched the TV series "Kunta Kinte" (1977), an adaptation of a novel by the famous author Alex Haley, which depicted the painful history of slavery for Black people in America, almost in tears. Poor Mücahit! He would have bid farewell to this world at the hands of the Black people for whom he had grieved in his mind and heart for years, before even completing a week in America.

RODNEY KING

Rodney King

Rodney was born in 1965 in Sacramento, the capital of California. He spent his childhood in Altadena. He lost his father at 19. He joined Black gang groups. In 1989, he robbed a Korean's store. He severely injured the store owner with an iron bar. He was caught. He spent a year in prison. He was released in 1990. Rodney married and had a daughter.

Everything started on March 3, 1991. Rodney was speeding in his car (188 km/h). Police officers caught Rodney on the road. Rodney was intoxicated. He was taken out of his car. An alcohol test was performed. When the information came that he had spent a year in prison, four white police officers beat Rodney to death. A white man named George Holliday recorded what was happening from his apartment balcony and distributed the films he shot to the local press. These images appeared not only in the US press but also in the world press. Rodney gained worldwide fame.

The moment Rodney King was lynched by White police officers

A lawsuit was filed against the four white police officers. The trial lasted a year. In April 1992, the jury acquitted the four white police officers. That's when the rebellion began.

Rodney King being lynched

The riot lasted six days. 64 people died, 2383 were injured, and 7000 businesses were set on fire. Among the dead were 2 Koreans, 28 Latinos, 15 Whites, and 28 Blacks.

(Note: Sometimes the words Latino and Hispanic are confused. Latino is used for those coming from Latin America. Hispanic, on the other hand, has a broader usage, referring to all Spanish speakers.)

The army intervened and brought the riot under control.

What happened, happened. The four police officers were retried. The trial lasted a year. In the trial held in April 1993, two police officers received sentences, and two were released. The Los Angeles City Council paid Rodney King 3.8 million dollars in compensation in 1994.

THE REAL REASON FOR THE EVENTS

From 1980 onwards, Koreans migrated to California in droves. Their first settlement was the city of Los Angeles. They were unrivaled in operating small grocery stores. Soon, a Korean grocery store opened at every point in the city center. There were almost no unemployed Koreans among the immigrants. They were hardworking. However, Black people gave the impression of being a useless community. Neither construction work, nor cleaning jobs, nor factories, nor trade… Perhaps they carried within them a reaction brought about by years of slavery to white people. They wandered aimlessly, mostly forming gangs, raiding the Korean grocery stores they hated, and collecting protection money.

A Korean operating his own grocery store in Los Angeles

Latinos (i.e., Mexicans) were also lazy and sluggish. Another event lay in their subconscious. California was part of Mexico until 1850. White people forcibly made California a state and incorporated it into the US borders. For Latinos, California was their own land, meaning "land stolen by Whites." They carried a deep hatred for Whites for over a century. (I would witness the same situation in Texas.)

For the reasons I mentioned, Black people and Latinos hated Whites, and also perceived the successful Koreans in business as enemies.

From 1980 onwards, ethnic polarization emerged in the Los Angeles area: On one side, working, business-owning, and responsible Whites and Koreans; on the other side, Latinos and Blacks who had made idleness a habit.

When the jury acquitted the four white police officers in the trial held in April 1992, a year after Rodney King's arrest, Black people and Latinos united and set fire to the workplaces of Koreans and Whites. Rodney King's case was merely an excuse.

Rodney King entered the pool in front of his house after consuming excessive alcohol and cocaine on June 17, 2012, and died by drowning. After his death, his daughter Lora King established a foundation in her father's name, striving to build a bridge of peace between whites and blacks.

CITY OF OAKLAND

The city of Oakland is 5-10 km away from the city of Berkeley. Half of its population consists of Black people and Latinos. However, 95% of Berkeley's population is White. Therefore, on the day of the incident, Black people and Latinos gathered in Oakland, attacked Berkeley, and set fire to the workplaces of Whites. The Black group that chased me had also walked from Oakland.

The city of Oakland has historical significance for Black people. Black people adhering to Marxist-Leninist ideology founded the "Black Panther" organization in Oakland in October 1966, which would shake the USA. In a short time, branches of the organization opened all over the USA. The Black Panther organization adopted armed struggle. It received great support from Algeria. Over time, the organization weakened and lost its importance due to its internal conflicts.

A group of armed Black Panther members in Oakland

I would like to add a note: Today's US Vice President Kamala Harris was born in Oakland on October 20, 1964. She is brave enough to say, "The traces of the Black Panther organization are in my heart." Her mother belongs to the Tamil ethnic group, which terrorized Sri Lanka for years. Her father is a Jamaican Black man. She grew up adhering to Hinduism. She entered politics while serving as the Attorney General of California. I would also like to remind you that she became the politician who most vocalized and brought to the agenda the Uyghur Genocide, which even most Turks often remained silent about.

        Kamala Harris

MAY 1, 1976

In our childhood, May 1st was celebrated as "Spring Festival." It was a holiday. We usually went to Kağızman or Ishak Pasha Palace by bus, sang songs on the way, and had a good time.

The year was 1976. I was a senior student at Kabataş Erkek Lisesi. DİSK decided to celebrate May 1st as Labor and Workers' Day for the first time in 50 years in Taksim Square.

In that huge high school, we were three Kurdish students: Myself, my classmate from Siverek and from the Rızgari group, Mehmet Uzun (I don't know his relation to the writer Mehmet Uzun), and my distant relative from Van, Mehmet Mızrak. Mehmet Uzun was the most politically active among us. Once, he secretly gave me the Rızgari magazine, which was first published on March 21, 1976, and took it back a few days later to give to another friend.

May 1, 1976, was a Saturday. Mehmet Uzun, Mehmet Mızrak, and I went to the Diyarbakır Student Dormitory together. In other places further away, other groups were also holding banners and gathering, chanting slogans.

It was time to start the march. An older man, 8-10 years our senior, wearing a Lenin-esque hat, climbed onto a high spot and shouted with all his might:

"Comrades! To raise the banner of struggle for Workers, Laborers, and Peasants on the illuminated path of Mao Zedong, we will march to Taksim Square. Our route and destination are to reach Taksim by crossing the Unkapanı bridge. Forward!"

I leaned into Mehmet Uzun's ear:

"Who is this?"

"İzzet Tırpan. From Iğdır!"

I heard the name İzzet Tırpan for the first time that day. The strange thing was that we belonged to the same tribe and were relatives. Of course, I would learn these facts in later years.

The cortege formed by the Maoist organizations, in which I inadvertently took part, started marching but was not allowed into Taksim Square. There was a fierce fight between DİSK's stick-wielding security forces and Maoist militants, and their entry into the square was prevented. So, it was not our fate to see Taksim Square that day.

MAY 1, 1977

The year is 1977. I am a student at Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Sadi Balamir, his brother İhsan Balamir, and I were living together in a small room in an old Greek woman's house in Erenköy. All three of us were ITU students. Since the Dean of the Electrical Engineering Faculty was killed by fascist forces, the ITU Senate closed the entire university for 1 year. We spent most of our time in associations like DHKD and IGD in Aksaray.

Then May 1st arrived. Weeks before, a war of words began between Maoist organizations and DİSK, which sympathized with the Communist Party of Turkey. The Maoists declared and wrote with great determination that they would be in Taksim Square; in response, DİSK and the Rally Organizing Committee issued harsh statements saying, "We will not let Maoist provocateurs into Taksim." Mutual exchanges and challenges continued until May 1st.

On May 1st, the three friends joined the cortege of the DHKD association, sympathizers of the Freedom Road movement, gathered in Beşiktaş. Most of them were young people from the Serhat Region, and we knew each other. The most magnificent and crowded cortege was DEV-SOL. The presence of DEV-GENÇ in Istanbul was almost non-existent.

We started advancing on İnönü Street, which goes around the back of İnönü Stadium and leads to Taksim Square. The weather was beautiful, people were enthusiastic, and there was an extraordinary crowd. The cortege was moving almost step by step. The square was packed, speeches had begun, but our cortege was still near the ITU Gümüşsuyu Campus. Finally, when we reached the square, it was almost 7:00 PM. DİSK Chairman Kemal Türkler was giving the closing speech. İhsan Balamir warned Sadi and me:

"Let's go down Kazancı Yokuşu and reach Karaköy pier before the crowd disperses!"

We pushed through the crowd towards Kazancı Yokuşu, next to the Intercontinental (today The Marmara Hotel) hotel.

Just then, gunshots started coming from the direction of the Water Administration Building (where Taksim Mosque is today). Then gunshots erupted from everywhere. The crowd surged back and forth like a sea caught in a storm. The three of us ran towards the Atatürk Cultural Center, turned left, and stopped near the Taşkışla Campus, trying to understand what was happening.

Everyone was saying the same thing: "Maoists tried to force their way into Taksim Square from İstiklal Street. An armed clash broke out. The crowd panicked."

We walked to Kadıköy Pier, but we kept cursing the provocateur (!) Maoists.

When the newspapers the next day reported the news as a reckoning between left-wing groups, we all believed this scenario for weeks. 34 people had died. 28 people died from being crushed or suffocated, 5 from gunshot wounds, and 1 from being run over by an armored vehicle. If we had gone towards Kazancı Yokuşu 2-3 minutes earlier, we would probably have been among those crushed.

Later, we would learn with great sadness that our esteemed fellow townsman Kenan Çatak had been martyred by being crushed in Kazancı Yokuşu. May God have mercy on him! We commemorate the deceased once again with mercy!

The late Kenan Çatak

The May 1, 1977 incident became a turning point among left-wing groups in Turkey. The left, which had previously shown an intertwined and mixed appearance, was sharply divided into two: Maoists and Soviet sympathizers. There was also an Enver Hoxhaist, or Albanian-sympathizing, group like the People's Liberation movement, but they also felt closer to the Maoist segment.

My expectation, and the expectation of those who organized this provocation, was that after so many deaths, in the days following this event, there would be large fires, clashes with law enforcement, and more deaths, just as happened in Los Angeles. A few days later, everything fell silent. The reason for this was that the class struggle and ethnic tension in Turkey were not at a level that would lead to a civil war or great chaos.

As young people, we hoped that "a revolution in Turkey was imminent," but we would realize that this was a fantasy. The reason was that the working class in Turkey did not truly fit the definition of a working class. A peasant and artisan mentality prevailed. A worker who was fired could continue his life as an artisan in a short time, meaning he would not starve to death. Moreover, the TÜRK-İŞ Union, which was larger than DİSK, did not participate in the May 1st Rally. You can imagine the rest!

But the Alevi-Sunni tension continued as a legacy of centuries and deepened. Those who wanted to stir up trouble in Turkey abandoned class and ethnic games and resorted to sectarian incitement. And they succeeded…

MARAŞ MASSACRE

The "Maraş Massacre" was a massacre committed against Alevi citizens in Kahramanmaraş between December 19 and December 26, 1978. According to official figures, 120 people were killed during the seven-day events. Over 200 Alevi homes were burned, and nearly 100 workplaces were destroyed. The incident was Alevi-Sunni, meaning sectarian, in focus.

Alevi massacre in Maraş

ÇORUM MASSACRE

The "Çorum Massacre" was a massacre committed against Alevi citizens in Çorum between May and July 1980. 57 people were killed. After this event, the September 12 Military Coup became inevitable (!).

COMPARISON OF THE USA AND TURKEY

There was no religious conflict in the Los Angeles events. 30% of the South Korean population is Christian. Those who migrated to the USA were also Christian Koreans. Whites, Blacks, and Latinos were also Christians. In other words, the Los Angeles events were not caused by religious or sectarian tension, as in Maraş and Çorum. The problem was economic and psychological. Koreans and Whites were business owners; Latinos and Blacks had chosen "voluntary" unemployment. This situation was neither ethnic nor a religious conflict, but it was not truly a CLASS struggle either.

We could have made the "class struggle" determination if the situation had been like this: Latinos and Blacks were looking for jobs but couldn't find them, or working Latinos and Blacks were being paid low wages. No! Latinos and Blacks hated working. There was no employer-employee conflict. Koreans operated small family grocery stores. They were artisans. There was economic inequality, but one of the parties, namely Latinos and Blacks, had already accepted this. Even if you offered them work, they wouldn't accept it.

A situation similar to Los Angeles never occurred in Turkey. On the contrary, ethnic and religious (or sectarian) conflicts came to the forefront. When we analyze and evaluate ethnic and sectarian conflicts, we clearly see this: Turkey has the power to overcome ethnic conflicts peacefully, but the Alevi-Sunni conflict has kept Anatolia on edge since the time of Yavuz Sultan Selim, hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. The slogan "Alevi-Sunni are brothers" sounds pleasant, but historical facts remind us that this is different.

Turkey is proving with the decisions it has taken that it has the will and power to overcome ethnic tension in the near future.

The "Optional Course in Mother Tongue" application, which is normal to experience difficulties in practice because it is the first step taken in the history of the Republic, i.e., in 100 years, will continue its path by closing its deficiencies and gaining strength in the coming years, and will contribute to the fair resolution of an important problem. The reporting of difficulties experienced in each province by Non-Governmental Organizations at the end of this year and finding solutions together with the Ministry of National Education will further facilitate the process, thus Turkey will produce a solution appropriate to its own social reality.

However, in order to minimize the Alevi-Sunni tension that will inevitably arise in the coming years, Turkey must already pursue a policy based on genuine religious and sectarian equality and brotherhood.

In conclusion, I would like to state this: The danger awaiting Turkey in the future is neither class struggle nor ethnic war. The Alevi-Sunni distinction and hidden sectarian tension are Turkey's weakest points in social and political terms.

ANECDOTE… ANECDOTE… ANECDOTE…

THE BET

The year is 1977. Sırrı Atalay, CHP Senator from Kars, is the President of the Senate, and Kemal Güven, CHP Deputy from Kars, is the Speaker of the Parliament. Both are close friends with Hamit Hun.

One day, as Hamit Hun was sitting in a tea house in Iğdır, chatting with his friends, a waiter approached him,

"Uncle Hamit, there's an important phone call!"

Hamit Hun rarely receives such calls. He panics, wondering if something happened to his family at home.

He grabs the receiver:

"Hello! It's Hamit!"

"Ooooh! We finally found you, Mr. Hamit. This is Sırrı Atalay!"

"Wow! Wow! What a surprise!"

"Hamit, Kemal (Güven) and I made a bet about what Hamit Hun is doing right now. I said, Hamit is currently chatting with his friends in a tea house. Kemal said, Hamit is currently eating lamb in a village."

"How did you guess I was in this tea house?"

"We wore out the girl at the telephone exchange. We called 10 different tea houses before. No problem! I won the bet! I'm so happy!"

"Mr. Sırrı, I'm not happy! I wish Mr. Kemal had won the bet!"

TELEGRAM

Oh, young people! You are so lucky that you haven't encountered a piece of paper called a "telegram." Let me give you an example from the 1970s. In those years, mobile phones didn't exist. The rotary dial phones you see in old Turkish movies were only in a few houses. That's why important news was sent by telegram.

Sending a telegram was expensive. Since you paid according to the number of letters, you had to write very short sentences. As a rule, only capital letters were used. Also, there were many spelling errors. So much so that the person reading the telegram could interpret the text in many ways. The "period" sign was not used to separate sentences; instead, "STOP" was written, but this word was not included in the price.

For example, you send a telegram like this: "SUAT GELİYOR STOP" (SUAT IS COMING STOP)

The other party might receive a telegram like this: "USTA DELİYOR STOP" (MASTER IS DRILLING STOP)

Try to make sense of that!!

Hamit Hun had a very dear friend named Sebahattin Bey (Özsu), who was the Regional Director of DSİ (State Hydraulic Works). He was generous and open-handed. He was loved by the people of Kars and Iğdır. He even relied on his friends and at one point became a candidate for CHP Deputy from Kars but lost in the primary election.

Every time he came to Iğdır, he would definitely find Hamit Hun and his friends and treat them to a feast from his own pocket. That's why Hamit Hun eagerly awaited Sebahattin Bey's arrival in Iğdır.

As Hamit Hun was walking in the city center, the postman caught up with him and handed him a telegram. Telegrams very rarely brought good news. He opened the telegram, fearing, "Are our children asking for money again?" When he learned it was from Sebahattin Bey, he was very happy. The telegram, which he read with difficulty, said: "YARIN GELİYORUM STOP SALIKLI GÖLE STOP" (I AM COMING TOMORROW STOP HEALTHY LAKE STOP)

Hamit Hun interpreted the text according to himself: "I am coming tomorrow. Also inform our friends. I will treat you to a feast at Balıklı Göl (Fish Lake)."

Hamit Hun eagerly awaited the next day. He gathered his like-minded friends and waited for Sebahattin Bey, who was traveling in his private car, to arrive. Sebahattin Bey reached Iğdır around noon. Hamit Hun and his friends happily greeted Sebahattin Bey, offered him a refreshing tea, but they had no intention of delaying too long.

Hamit Hun started the conversation:

"Did you get the lamb?"

"What lamb?"

"Surely you're not thinking of feeding us fish?"

"What fish?"

"I'm talking about Balıklı Göl…"

"Balıklı Göl???"

"You sent a telegram, didn't you?"

"Yes!"

"You wrote BALIKLI GÖLE in the telegram, didn't you?"

"I wrote this in the telegram: YARIN GELİYORUM STOP SAĞLIKLA GÜLE GÜLE STOP. But to make it cheaper, I only wrote one 'GÜLE'."

A disappointed Hamit Hun spoke with difficulty:

"You should have written nothing at all to make it cheaper!"