Last week, the most striking aspect of the closing and re-opening of YouTube to Turkish web users was that every Turkish citizen was punished for a video that defamed Atatürk. It was lost to many that crime is individual and that, in modern law, individual transgressors and not the general public must be punished.
As with every artificial “crisis” in our country, last week’s “crisis” also involved many neglected factors. One such issue was how the government could close down YouTube, a website that is increasingly replacing conventional TV, with no effort. Moreover, it took a local court in İstanbul to decide in a way that fundamentally infringed on Turkish citizens’ freedom of information. It is evident how weak our freedom of information is and that it can be taken away from us by a simple court ruling followed by turning off a switch. I do not even want to talk about the inherent conflict between the decision to shut down YouTube and article 22, 25, and 26 of the Turkish Constitution guaranteeing freedom of information and freedom of thought.
Another unattended point was that we allowed ourselves to be angered by a person who demonstrably does not even have the maturity of a toddler. Who among us (at least those with some common sense and love for children) can argue that small kids must be beaten to death for their spoiled behavior or that one should burn down one’s house for that? The ban on YouTube, in that regard, was even more awkward than the temporary shutdowns exercised by the Higher Council of Radio and Television (Radyo Televizyon Üst Kurulu – RTÜK) until recently (!).
Another oddity in the public debates was that there were some who interpreted people’s desire to access YouTube as a desire to insult Atatürk. Atatürk is indeed a very sacred symbol for all Turks. We all indeed owe our very existence to Atatürk’s military and political genius. But we must also try to match Atatürk’s cool-headedness and prudence every now and then.
I would like to draw your attention to a point that was completely disregarded last week. Way before the defamatory videos of Atatürk came out, some Turkish citizens (!) uploaded videos of Hrant Dink’s murderer O.S. on YouTube. In these videos, O.S. was treated as a hero by the security forces, with his picture taken before one of Atatürk’s proverbs, “the soil of the homeland is sacred, it cannot be left to its own devices” (“vatan toprağı kutsaldır, kaderine terkedilemez”). A good deal of the time, tunes from Turkish folk songs that make us all go teary (especially those like me living abroad) were used as background music. The message conveyed was unquestionably this: “O.S. killed Hrant Dink for the ‘homeland’ and he is therefore our hero.”
There were tens of videos like the one described. I tried to raise the issue with YouTube, flagging all these videos as inappropriate “hate speech” (of course, nothing happened). Why did I take such an initiative? No, not only because I believed in Hrant Dink’s freedom of expression even though I fundamentally disagreed with him, but moreover, I fervently believed that legitimizing Dink’s murder through Atatürk’s symbol constituted the gravest insult to our Founding Father. For those of you who do not know how the story unfolded, those newspapers that agitated us for a week about the silly videos on YouTube did nothing about the O.S. videos.
Now let me ask you this: Which one is a greater insult to Atatürk? A video made by an immature character or videos by those who praise an action that runs the risk of destroying everything that Atatürk strove to build in Turkey? Which larger offense are we giving to Atatürk? By reacting in such an overblown manner to a video by a half-wit or by remaining silent against those who manipulate Atatürk to justify racist murders? Which one?
PS: Those who are unaware about my position on our problems with the Armenians are advised to refer to following pieces: ‘Soykırım-Trajedi-İki Yüzlülük Ekseninde Ermeni Meselesi,’ http://www.usakgundem.com/haber.php?id=7810 and ‘The Armenian Question Between Genocide, Tragedy, and Hypocrisy,’ http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=2313.
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Barın Kayaoğlu is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia and a regular contributor to the Journal of Turkish Weekly.
E-mail: kayaoglu@virginia.edu
[1] Translated by the author from the original “YouTube’u veya Atatürk’ü Savunmak,” Journal of Turkish Weekly Türkçe and USAK Stratejik Gündem, 14 March 2007; available from http://www.turkishweekly.net/turkce/yorum.php?id=383 and http://www.usakgundem.com/haber.php?id=10973.
