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Carnage in Mardin
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It was sad to follow TV reports from the southeastern Mardin province about carnage at a wedding ceremony in a small village in that region. Reports said 44 people, including the bride and the bridegroom, were killed in an attack by some masked gunmen, while most of the men of the village were village guards and were out in the fields to guard the village against a possible attack by the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, terrorist gang.
The gunmen reportedly killed scores of some and children in one room, then moved to another room of the same house, where men were reportedly performing evening prayers, and killed scores of men there.
Of course authorities, as expected, have started stressing that what happened at that village was an "exceptional" criminal case, that it was not a terrorist incident and that an investigation would soon establish the reason behind the carnage, though they suspected a blood-feud between the two families or that another family that also wanted to "buy" the bride for their son but was rejected by the girl’s family might have acted in vengeance.
Whatever the reason, what happened in that village in the Mardin province was not something confined to Turkey and such countries with incredible backward traditions. Perhaps not with similar primitive instinctive motivation but we see as well in societies with a far higher per capita income or more advanced democracy and definitely a far better education system that sometimes such heinous crimes are committed.
Sometimes mental disorder, often parental ignorance and insensitivity to the adolescent member of the family, and frequently worsening economic reasons, inability to pay debts and such "modern time failures" are cited as the prime reasons that lead individuals in modern societies to kill other people indiscriminately during a tantrum.
Yet, it is only in backward societies of the East where we still see outrageous "honor killings" or "blood feuds" to save the "honor and pride" of a family or a clan. No, don’t take seriously those racist evaluations by some "intellectuals" that in Turkey only among the ethnic Kurdish population we see such oddities. This is an illness of the feudal lifestyle that somehow could not be transformed "despite all efforts" during the republican era, and unfortunately feudalism is mostly seen in today’s Turkey in the ethnic Kurdish populated areas.
That is, the problem is not something confined to an ethnic group, but rather to continued primitive patriarchal feudal relations and lifestyle in parts of Turkey (and in many Eastern societies). Until this country and countries with similar residue of the backward feudal social fabric undertake radical reforms to promote the individual and place the individual before everything else, including the family, clan, religious sect or whatever; establish gender equality not only in words but also in actions; and undertake a comprehensive education drive, we are all doomed to suffer from this menace.
How many of us care about the "suicides" of young girls in eastern Turkey? Why do they "commit" suicide? How many of them "save" the honor of their families by murdering themselves? Do any of us care about the continued sale of "brides"?
Respect for gender equality
If women are something to be traded, why do we feel shocked reading reports of carnage from that Mardin village, all indicating that the murderers probably belonged to another family who wanted to "buy" the "bride" for their son but the family of the girl preferred to "sell" their daughter to someone else, perhaps for a better price? If in this country there are still feudal lords who own dozens of villages and hundreds of villagers and count the villagers as if they are counting their herds, the problem we are faced at that village in the Mardin province is something far graver than a mass murder. The mass murder is just one of the many symptoms of the gross primitivism and the gross negligence of current and past governments in answering the need of ending that primitive lifestyle in those regions.
It is sad, but even most of the deputies of the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, which claims to be supporting the rights and freedoms of the ethnic Kurdish population of the country, are themselves feudal landlords and are quite happy with the continuity of the backward feudal setup in that geography.
Of course authorities, as expected, have started stressing that what happened at that village was an "exceptional" criminal case, that it was not a terrorist incident and that an investigation would soon establish the reason behind the carnage, though they suspected a blood-feud between the two families or that another family that also wanted to "buy" the bride for their son but was rejected by the girl’s family might have acted in vengeance.
Whatever the reason, what happened in that village in the Mardin province was not something confined to Turkey and such countries with incredible backward traditions. Perhaps not with similar primitive instinctive motivation but we see as well in societies with a far higher per capita income or more advanced democracy and definitely a far better education system that sometimes such heinous crimes are committed.
Sometimes mental disorder, often parental ignorance and insensitivity to the adolescent member of the family, and frequently worsening economic reasons, inability to pay debts and such "modern time failures" are cited as the prime reasons that lead individuals in modern societies to kill other people indiscriminately during a tantrum.
Yet, it is only in backward societies of the East where we still see outrageous "honor killings" or "blood feuds" to save the "honor and pride" of a family or a clan. No, don’t take seriously those racist evaluations by some "intellectuals" that in Turkey only among the ethnic Kurdish population we see such oddities. This is an illness of the feudal lifestyle that somehow could not be transformed "despite all efforts" during the republican era, and unfortunately feudalism is mostly seen in today’s Turkey in the ethnic Kurdish populated areas.
That is, the problem is not something confined to an ethnic group, but rather to continued primitive patriarchal feudal relations and lifestyle in parts of Turkey (and in many Eastern societies). Until this country and countries with similar residue of the backward feudal social fabric undertake radical reforms to promote the individual and place the individual before everything else, including the family, clan, religious sect or whatever; establish gender equality not only in words but also in actions; and undertake a comprehensive education drive, we are all doomed to suffer from this menace.
How many of us care about the "suicides" of young girls in eastern Turkey? Why do they "commit" suicide? How many of them "save" the honor of their families by murdering themselves? Do any of us care about the continued sale of "brides"?
Respect for gender equality
If women are something to be traded, why do we feel shocked reading reports of carnage from that Mardin village, all indicating that the murderers probably belonged to another family who wanted to "buy" the "bride" for their son but the family of the girl preferred to "sell" their daughter to someone else, perhaps for a better price? If in this country there are still feudal lords who own dozens of villages and hundreds of villagers and count the villagers as if they are counting their herds, the problem we are faced at that village in the Mardin province is something far graver than a mass murder. The mass murder is just one of the many symptoms of the gross primitivism and the gross negligence of current and past governments in answering the need of ending that primitive lifestyle in those regions.
It is sad, but even most of the deputies of the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, which claims to be supporting the rights and freedoms of the ethnic Kurdish population of the country, are themselves feudal landlords and are quite happy with the continuity of the backward feudal setup in that geography.
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