https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4020-2945
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ABSTRACT
This article examines 64 autobiographical narratives written by erstwhile political prisoners who were forced to cohabitate with their adversaries in post-1980 coup military prisons of Turkey in the mixing-for-peace (karıştır-barıştır) program. Tracing these narratives published between 1988 and 2019, it argues that there are three recurrent versions of remembering the enemy: ‘the unjust’ is utilized in the identity reformulation of right-wing Ülkücü militants whereas ‘the miserable fascist’ reaffirmed the leftists’ superior self-image vis-à-vis the right-wingers. While these two are predominantly entrenched in far-right and far-left memory camps, remembering the enemy as ‘the fellow victim’ provides a case of multidirectional memory as it was expressed by both left-wing and right-wing political figures to narrativize their break from radicalism and to whitewash their responsibility in the past violence. This tripartite division in remembering the enemy suggests the addition of a radical/centrist axis to the conventional left/right axis for a more comprehensive understanding of post-coup memory in Turkey.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the insightful comments of İlker Aytürk, Meral Uğur Çınar, Bilal İnci, and the anonymous reviewers of Turkish Studies on the previous drafts of this article. This article is based on my dissertation research at Bilkent University.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Günay, Mamak (1980–1982), 129–30.
2 Ibid., 130–31.
3 Öztepe, 12 Eylül’den Sonra Mamak, 21.
4 Okuyan, O Yıllar, 112–3.
5 Güven, Adalar Adalılar, 78.
6 D’Orsi, “Touching History,” 19.
7 Başkan, “At the Crossroads.”
8 Bakiner, “Is Turkey,” 2.
9 These narratives were selected from a larger data set of my Ph.D. research. The dataset consists of 167 books that include 344 prison narratives of the 1980 military coup.
10 Günay-Erkol and Şenol-Sert, “From Competitive,” 3.
11 Özyürek, “Public Memory.”
12 Jovchelovitch, “Narrative, Memory and Social Representations,” 445.
13 Tilly, “Afterword,” 253.
14 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 3.
15 Ibid.
16 Burke, Varieties of Cultural History, 55–6; Smith and Watson, Reading Autobiography, 18.
17 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 4–5.
18 See for example, Olick and Robbins, “Social Memory.”
19 See for example, Talbot et al. “Affirmation and Resistance,” 225–6.
20 See for example, Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 49; Schudson, “Dynamics of Distortion,” 351; and Lowenthal, Foreign Country, 305.
21 Wilson and Ross, “The Identity Function,” 139.
22 Ricoeur, “Narrative Identity,” 73.
23 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 217–8.
24 Propp, Morphology of a Folktale, 21.
25 Barker, Making Enemies, 5.
26 Murer, “Constructing the Enemy-Other.”
27 Gunter, “Political Instability”; Mardin, “Youth and Violence”; and Sayari, “Political Violence and Terrorism.”
28 Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, “Meclis Araştırma Komisyonu Raporu,” 747–8.
29 The National Security Council, 12 September in Turkey, 254.
30 Although I preserve my doubts on the mixing-for-peace program being uniquely a Turkish practice, the closest case I could find is the coexistence of IRA prisoners with the Ulster loyalists in Long Kesh Prison during the Troubles. However, they were never held in same wards and cells. Whereas in Turkey, there is news about the reinstallation of the mixing-for-peace in Turkish prisons where Kurdish insurgents, leftist extremists, putschist Gulenists, and the ISIS members were held in the same wards. For the recent allegations see, “12 Eylül uygulaması ‘Karıştır barıştır’ yine devrede.”
31 See Çölaşan, “Milliyet, Mamak Cezaevi’nde.”
32 Bora, “Türkiye Solunda,” 847, 868.
33 Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan, Yusuf Aslan were executed, Mahir Çayan and his comrades were killed in armed combat, and İbrahim Kaypakkaya was tortured to death. For the legacy of previous generation of leftists on the generation of 1970s, see Ersan, 1970’lerde Türkiye Solu, 15–58.
34 Samim, “The Tragedy,” 61.
35 Mavioğlu, Asılmayıp Beslenenler, 233.
36 Ibid., 234.
37 Babacan, Yıldızla Yaşayanlar, 101; Arikan, Büyük Tutsaklık, 106.
38 Çelik, Tek Yola Sığmayan Devrim, 120.
39 Çalışlar, 12 Mart’tan, 39.
40 Memişoğlu, Kivamini Tutturamaduk, 131.
41 Günay, Mamak (1980–1982), 136–7.
42 Oza, En Uzun Eylül, 69.
43 Babacan, Yıldızla Yaşayanlar, 100.
44 Ibid., 156.
45 Ibid., 69.
46 Ibid., 168.
47 Çelik, Tek Yola Sığmayan Devrim, 119.
48 Çalışlar, 12 Mart’tan, 64; Alişanoğlu, Netekim, 146; Uruş, 12 Sanık, 106; Gevher, Mamak, 109–10.
49 Yurtsever, Yükseliş ve Düşüş, 318; Aydınoğlu, Türkiye Solu, 402.
50 See, for example, Müftüoğlu, Geçmişi Aşabilmek.
51 See Aytürk, “Yetmişli Yıllarda Ülkücü Hareket.”
52 Landau, “The Nationalist Action Party.”
53 Gourisse, “The Nationalist Action Party.”
54 See Arpacı, Taşmedrese Sohbetleri.
55 The phrase was a reference to the story of the iniquitous incarceration of Biblical Joseph who continued to spread God’s word in prison.
56 For a compilation of Ülkücü writings on prison and earlier usage of ‘the just and the unjust’ dichotomy, see Öznur, Ülkücü Hareket, especially the final chapter ‘Cezaevleri ve Ülkücü Hareket.’
57 Bahadır, 12 Eylül ve Ülkücüler, 31.
58 Öztepe, 12 Eylül’den Sonra, 137.
59 Ibid., 21.
60 Bahadır, 12 Eylül ve Ülkücüler, 261.
61 Ibid., 180, 189, 252; Akabe, Cezaevi Taşmedrese Yusufiye, 7.
62 Bahadır, 12 Eylül ve Ülkücüler, 85.
63 See Kürşat, 12 Eylül Zindanlarında.
64 Cengiz, Kapıaltı, 36; Küçükizsiz, Ülkücülerin Çilesi, 163.
65 Açba, Mamak Zulüm Kalesi, 106; Toksoy, Dördüncü Cemre, 38.
66 Açba, Mamak Zulüm Kalesi, 106.
67 In this regard, Zihni Açba is an exceptional figure who was elected to the parliament in 2015 as a MHP representative. Still, his views draw apart from the party’s headquarters in 2017 as he opposed the presidential system and resigned from his duties in the constitutional committee. He did not run in the elections next year. See ‘MHP’li Vekil Zihni Açba.’
68 Harris, “Military Coups.”
69 Another way of surpassing the threshold was to form electoral alliances. In 1991 general elections, a far-right alliance with nationalist and Islamist components gathered under the Welfare Party and successfully entered the parliament with 16.9% vote.
70 For some, this shift occurred on a more profound basis. See Göle, “Toward an Autonomization.”
71 Ahmad, Modern Turkey, 188.
72 Heper, “The State.”
73 Ergil, “Indentity Crises.”
74 For some, the MHP ‘had given up its identity to become respectful in the eyes of the governing ossified military-bureaucratic elite.’ See Yavuz, “The Politics of Fear.”
75 Indeed, the recruits of the Ülkücü Movement in metropolitan areas shared a similar reflex against social inequality with the recruits of the leftist factions. See Bora and Can, Devlet Ocak Dergah, 65–9.
76 Yazıcıoğlu, 12 Eylül Günleri, 44.
77 Ibid., 68–9.
78 Ibid.
79 Müftüoğlu, Copların Askerleri, 18.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid., 20.
82 Ibid., 21.
83 Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği, 177.
84 Öztunç, Ülkücüler 12 Eylül’ü Anlatıyor, 220.
85 İçmeli, Kırık Kurşun, 123.
86 Şenliler, Mamak Cezaevi Günlüğü, 32, 69.
87 Ibid., 6, 9, 11-12.
88 Külünk, Büyük Anadolu Aklı, 135.
89 Güven, Adalar Adalılar, 78.
90 Akyıldız and Bora argue that the 1970s were treated as ‘a dark age’ in the Ülkücü memory which hinders the possibility of coming to terms with the violent past. See Akyıldız and Bora, “Siyasal Hafıza.”
91 Ayata, “Emergence of Identity.”
92 Çoklar’s memoir lacks a date of publication. According to information available online, it was published in 2013. See “Gazeteci İsa Aydın’ın.”
93 Aydın, 12 Eylül, 21, 55.
94 Ibid., 90, 100.
95 Ibid., 47.
96 Ibid., 45.
97 Livilik, Ülkücünün İmtihanı, 203.
98 Stern, Remembering Pinochet’s Chile, 103.
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Gökhan Şensönmez
Gökhan Şensönmez is a Ph.D. Candidate at Bilkent University. His doctoral research focuses on the carceral memory of the 1980 military coup in Turkey.