Gürbüz Özaltınlı
The Turkish original of this article was published as Paris’te terör ve ideoloji on 14th November 2015.
“With your wide, brightly lit boulevards, your smart homes, upmarket jeeps, tranquil, manicured parks, all your wealth that guarantees an excellent education, do you think you are goişng to be able to lead a safe and secure life?
“No, you cannot; you will not be allowed to do so. Because you have caused such immence global inequalities; because while a majority of humankind have been starving, you have been simply looked on; because you have retreated behind your closed doors; because you owe your comfort and luxury to that impoverished world which you would nevertheless hold in contempt as backward and primitive, there will of course be all kinds of prices to pay…”
If, with Paris wallowing in its own blood, I were to sit down to write an article, and these were the first words to come to my mind…
If at the same time I were to preface these sentences with a big “but,” and before that “but” I were to condemn all the violence with some pompous rhetoric… I know that there would be people who would appreciate it and agree with me.
But no, I cannot possibly be the person to string along some such phrases as the above after tens of people in Paris have been targeted by acts of blind terrorism. I wouldn’t want to be.
Why? Because the sentences in question do not capture any aspect of the truth in this or that way? No, that’s not the reason. Rather, it is because we are also selective in our approach to the truth. I wouldn’t write such sentences because our choices and what our gaze ends up seeing are more important than reality itself.
Such are these acts of violence, so removed from the values that make us human, so destructive and so nihilistic, that they do not — should not — allow us to expound on any cause-and-effect relationship. Regardless of what anybody might say in defence, to try to explain a movement that persists in ceaselessly murdering hundreds of people by reference to global injustices is bound to open a window of legitimacy, in normal human perceptions, for such massacres. Whether consciously or unconsciously, if what comes out of our mouth should grant these killers the slightest reasonableness, the tiniest impression of a search for justice, or any sort of entitlement to being understood, it is probably the case that we should begin by questioning our own minds. Contrary to what is commonly thought, such attempts at explaining causality preceded by a “but” preceded by “condemnations of violence” end up aligning us not in opposition to but on the side of violence.
It is through incredible pain and suffering, and by paying very heavy prices, that we have learned to construct justice, the search for which lies at the heart of the human adventure. Justice entails personal, individual responsibility. Justice entails a certain proportionality between crime and punishment. Above all justice entails mercy. These policies of mass murder, on the other hand, dispense with, turn upside down, and destroy all such concepts. They do not have anything to do with the world being an unjust place. They have everything to do with the notion of “justice” peculiar to the frame of mind that produces these acts being outside the sphere of humanity.
In all political behavior, in our outlook on democracy and human rights, in our position on (against) violence… Unlike what seems to be commonly believed, in all such matters, “ideology,” I am coming to think, is an enormously important factor. I also suspect that henceforth, we are much less likely to define and therefore trivialize ideology as a “derivative of material conditions,” and to resort to explanations on the level of “if the circumstances had been different, neither such ideologies or destructive radicalisms would exist.”
Here I would like to quote words from Halil Berktay that I wholly agree with: “It is totally wrong to assert that terrorism has no ideology. If you are trying to say that we should not be feeling ourselves close to this or that form of terrorism on grounds of any perceived ideological affinity, that instead we should be equally hostile to each and every one of them, fine, but then do say so, and you would be in the right and we would all agree with you. But please do not claim that terrorism has no ideology, for actually all terror does have an ideology behind it. In fact, it is far closer to the truth to say that without ideology, there would be no terror.” (Diyarbakır, Suruç, Ankara, Paris: Bir cehenneme uyanmak, 14 November; now also see the English translation, Diyarbakır, Suruç, Ankara, Paris: To wake up in hell, 20 November 2015.)
If you are not going to think it rude of me, I would like to recommend subjecting yourselves to a small test. Behold Paris, and then turn to look inside you. If the first thought that comes to your mind is on the order of “now, maybe, the West will come to its senses,” I think it is a comprehensive self-examination that you should undertake.
Just a suggestion made in all friendship.