Praise be for 301 Times

Ferhat Tunç  / 31 Dez.2005

With the beginning of every new year, we desire that the facts we wish to change but fail would change like the numbers on calendar sheets. Just in a day, we live with the dream of being free from the negative situations we are in. Our hope is upon the “new”. A new love, a new job, happiness, comfort, peace, friendship, brotherhood, revolution, song, book and so goes on our expectations concerning the “new”. The numbers on calendar sheets change but the only thing that does not change is the life we live. And when we realize this, we find ourselves seized with the new hopes coming afterwards.

In the same way, we considered the process Turkey experiences on the way to The European Union as a magic wand that will completely change many things. However, many events witnessed in the year 2005 showed us that the changes made ould have no significance unless we reflected them to our own lives. In Turkey in which our men of letters and thought such as Nazım Hikmet, Aziz Nesin and Yaşar Kemal were judged and condemned merely because of their thoughts, we bid farewell to the year 2005 in the court rooms. Sometimes we were in the position of suspect with our friends by us, sometimes we stood towards the high tribune the public prosecutor and the judge sit together, behind which writes “Justice is the Foundation of Property”, again side by side with friends only because we expressed our thoughts.

The hearing room was crammed full. I hardly managed to find a place to stand in the already filled hearing room of the 1st Criminal Court of First Instance. Firstly, the policemen in charge wanted to eject me from the room by using force but realizing they would not be successful, they decided not to. I insistently desired to stay there and to hang together with the person being judged for his thought.

Yaşar Kemal was also there. In spite of his relatively old age, he was standing upright as a “suspect” and “standing in line” for freedom of thought. This educated, intellectual man of letters Turkey feels proud of was gracing the ones who defend freedom of thought without hesitating to express their thoughts, in the room in which Justice is supposedly delivered.

Also, Mehmet Uzun, Cem Özdemir, Feleknaz Uca and EU-Turkey Joint Parliament Committee Co-Chair Joost Lagendijk who was added to the list of the accused according to the Article 301 were abreast in the back line ....

Certainly, I am talking about the trial of Orhan Pamuk.

Seeing the crowd before the trial, I said “Praise be for 301 times!”. An event we are used to seeing in Turkey was being experienced again and witnessing such recurrences was, with the politest expression, “unpleasant”.

The faces of the visitors coming from various countries of the world and waiting afoot in the room (for lack of place to sit) was mirroring the restlessness of possible provocations rather than curiosity about the final decision. Indeed, they had entered the hearing room with the molestation of the ones who had been brought from Kayseri. Moreover, a group of provocators lead by the administrative board member of the “Jurists Union”, radical nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz was acting almost instigatively.

While the trial was continuing, nearly fifteen provocators, dressed with lawyer robes began to tease the European visitors by making rude remarks. When the degree of this verbal teasing began to increase gradually, I also had to intervene.

The saddening happenings after and during the trial showing that molestation, violence and lawlessness dwells in this very rooms instead of justice and peace are by all means unacceptable. Considering some of our European politician friends were teased, it is again understood that freedom of thought in Turkey has to pass through an excessively arduous process.

During the course of European Union, the number of such crude pictures emerging owing to the 301st Article and similar articles put into practice in the name of emancipation of thought and modernization are increasing incessantly with new trials. As it increases, it turns out to be a mangle besieging not only us but the European politicians as well. Although the case of Joost Lagendijk seems as the first instance of this development, the fact that it will not be the last is obvious. This process during which it is seen that the defendants of the status quo cannot tolerate freedom of thought worries the government depending on totally different reasons. On the one hand, Erdoğan –despite the fact that he was once condemned merely for reading a poem- does nothing at all for all the political power he has. Abdullah Gül, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the other hand, expresses his worry saying that the happenings would turn out to be a propaganda instrument similar as “The Midnight Express” eventually damaging the image of Turkey, and does not comment on the very enaction at all.

That I was judged due to an article I wrote with the ratification of Cemil Çiçek, the Minister of Justice of the AKP Government has a significance concerning the future situation of Turkey, which is far from being personal. I consider the attitude of Orhan Pamuk important and regard it as the proper attitude of an intellectual since it is a step taken to Turkey’s destruction of its own taboos and confrontation with its own history. As a matter of fact, the massacres occurred during different courses of our Republican history are undeniably unfolding day by day. This is the truth, and accepting this as a truth seems necessary for everyone. In this sense, why is Orhan Pamuk saying that “thirty thousand Kurds and a million of Armenians were killed” being labelled as a liar?....

 It is obvious that the 301st Article and similar ones that almost turned out to be a weapon in the hands of crude, denier, fascist and racist people do not comply with the standards of The European Union at all. It is undeniably necessary to eliminate these articles that restrict the extent of freedom of thought and speech as son as possible. Otherwise, Turkey’s becoming the biggest “thought crime” prison of the world is possible. Today, it is apparent that that the intellectuals of Turkey are exposed to a treatment as if they committed “301” indictable offences, is going to be a big source of “guiltiness” for Turkey in the future.

There surely happened pleasant things in the year 2005. I wish to welcome the new year sharing these with you. If we want to have our hopes grown and heighened, taking the first step to a 365 day marathon run we must make our decisions and speeches after considering them for not less than “301” times. Deducing right conclusions from our experiences, we must show effort to make the year 2006 a year of change, peace and brotherhood.

With hope and love....