Top articles
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Goddess Zilan. A Dive into PKK's Mythology
In the preceding article on the suicide attack of June 1996, the first committed by the PKK on Turkish soil, I focused on the fact itself, mainly using a set of press articles gathered at the time of the event. In 2015, almost twenty years after the suicide...
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Torrents of Tears
During the 90s, the war had entered everybody's life in Turkey, even for those living far away from the clashes; war had become an almost everyday “ground noise” made of signs and icons, at the least. It had taken away young men and sent back coffins....
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Ghost Villages (1)
Strange archaeology, strange places are these 3800 ghost villages in Turkish Kurdistan, emptied of their population, often burned by the "security forces" to compel the inhabitants to choose their side. A human and cultural disaster, a total political...
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What the Genocide Did to Turkey
Based on the hypothesis of the existence among the Turkish population of a generalized feeling of guilt, consecutive to the genocide of 1915, I reconsider here nationalism and the writing of history in Turkey (even in their excessive characters) as effects...
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Varto, 1996. Several Narratives for a Fictitious Assault
Varto is a little town of the Mush province, 30 miles north of the chief place, north-west of the lake of Van. Away from the main roads, it lies 4500 feet high on the first slopes of the Bingöl range (8000 ft) amidst a former Armenian country. According...
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From Iwojima to Gaziosmanpaşa, Images and Uses of the Flag
[Initially published on susam-sokak.fr, on June 25, 2011. Updated and translated in English, July 2020] The rebellion is (in) a foreign country. When the police successfully throws out opponents occupying a monument, or a district, they plant a flag,...
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Gender-Based Violence. About the Fate of Some Young Women
[Initially published in susam-sokak.fr on March 4, 2012] In July 2020, in the Aegean province of Mu ğ la, Pınar Gültekin, a 27-year-old woman, was beaten and strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend, Cemal Avcı, who then burned her body in a garbage bin...
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Ghost Villages (2) - Forced Migrations
Many of the young people of the "90s generation", the one that attended the Gezi movement, the one that revolts in the cities of the Southeast, the one that voted HDP in June 2015, have suffered, as children, the forced displacements of the years 1994-2000....
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Anatolia Settles in Town
[This paper was first published in French in susam-sokak.fr, on December 24, 2014 - https://www.susam-sokak.fr/2014/12/l-anatolie-en-ville.html] During the 1990s, Turkish daily newspapers sometimes presented on the front page a photograph taken in a very...
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The Woman in Black and her White Shadow
[Initially publis hed on susam-sokak.fr on April 2, 2011. Slightly modified and translated, June 2020] A person's attire can act as a banner. As at any Kurdish manifestation or feast I witnessed, when women suit up with traditional clothing in the colors...
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1996-1997 - Erdoğan, Erbakan and the Conquest of Constantinople
As I have shown in the previous article, the celebration of the Fetih gets a complex meaning during the 90s, since the anniversary also expresses a political claim on the part of the Islamist movement. With the victory of the Refah party in the 1994 municipal...
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The Göktepe Case and the Birth of a Civil Society in Turkey (1996-1997)
January 8 is the anniversary of the murder of Metin Göktepe. The 19th is the anniversary of the assassination of Hrant Dink (2007), an Armenian intellectual and journalist from Istanbul, director of the Agos newspaper. And the 24th is the day of the attack...
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Sivas, 1993 (2) - Was Aziz Nesin a Provocateur?
[This article is the continuation of "Sivas, 1993 (1) - Nationalism, or the Need for an Enemy". It was initially published in French on susam-sokak.fr, on June 15, 2017.] Everything was going rather gently. A dense public had come from all over the country,...
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Sivas, 1993 (1) - Nationalism, or the Need for an Enemy
One can successfully direct a mob against an "enemy" and incite it to commit murder, rape, loot, arson, provided that the "enemy" already exists in the conscience or even in the subconscious of any individual of the group. Hatred of the enemy must exist...
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Anatolian Tribes 2 - Mighty Aghas and Fallen Chiefs
[This article is the continuation of ” Anatolian Tribes, between Folklore and Politics" (link)] Some henchmen of the Bucak tribe, posing in the courtyard of Sedat Bucak's villa (Yeni Yüzyıl, November 13, 1996) The Bucak tribe of Siverek, a sub-prefecture...
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The War Against the Kurds – The “Special Forces” (1)
[This article was published in French on susam-sokak.fr, on May 27, 2013. http://www.susam-sokak.fr/article-esquisse-n-39-la-guerre-les-equipes-speciales-ozel-tim-118080292.html] In 1992, the war operations against Sırnak and other places, as well as...
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The War Against the Kurds - The Village Guards (1)
[This article was initially published on susam-sokak.fr, on March 29, 2014] By simply adding a few sentences to an almost obsolete law, the Özal government instilled into Turkish society paramilitary troops, whose status is unclear and whose numbers are...
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Crimea, Poland, and the Tatars
[This paper, slightly modified and translated in February 2022, was published in 1993 under this reference: COPEAUX Etienne, " De la mer Noire à la mer Baltique : la circulation des idées dans le 'triangle' Istanbul - Crimée - Pologne ", Cahiers d'études...
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Exhibiting Corpses
[Initially published on susam-sokak.fr on September 5, 2010. Revised and translated in July, 2020] In France, publishing a photograph of a corpse remains taboo. This is perhaps the reason why some images picked out of my corpus drew my attention. In the...
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The War Against the Kurds - The Village Guards (2)
This article is the second part o “The War Against the Kurds – The Village Guards” (https://susam-sokak-in-english.over-blog.com/2021/03/korucu.html) So unclear is the legal frame of these amateur units that an allegedly “popular” self-defense unit can...
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Accused of Blasphemy (2) - Oguz Atak
[ Published on susam-sokak.fr on January 14, 2013. Updated and translated in August 2020] This article is a continuation of “Accused of “blasphemy” (1) : Sevil Akdogan (link) Oguz Atak, a barman killed on May 5, 1997. Screenshot from TGRT Channel published...
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Ottoman Past and Hyper-Reactivity to History, 1996-1998
[Originally published in French on March 13, 2013, on susam-sokak.fr, under the title “Nous sommes les petits-enfants des Ottomans” https://www.susam-sokak.fr/article-esquisse-n-36-les-ottomans-ne-passeront-pas-116237146.html] An unimportant, rather pleasant...
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A Journey from Hadjin to Saimbeyli
or How the Anti-Armenian "Background Noise" Spreads in Turkey [This essay was initially published in French on susam-sokak.fr on March 4, 2016] Hadjin before the Genocide. Picture published on the website hadjin.com Hadjin, Hadjine , Hadschin, Hadjn or,...
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Three Moments of Stupefaction
Stupefaction: “The state of being strongly impressed by something unexpected or unusual” (“Stupefaction.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stupefaction . Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.) [This article was...
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Zilan, the First Woman Sacrificed by the PKK
On June 30, 1996, the PKK succeeded for the first time in a suicide attack in Tunceli, sacrificing one of its young female fighters whose nom de guerre, Zilan, refers to the massacres of 1930. Why this modus operandi? Why in Tunceli? And above all, why...