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Voices from the Front


Auteur :
Éditeur : Palgrave Macmillan Date & Lieu : 2005, New York
Préface : Pages : 335
Traduction : ISBN : 1-4039-6120-4
Langue : AnglaisFormat : 140x230 mm
Thème : Mémoire

Présentation
Table des Matières Introduction Identité PDF
Voices from the Front

Voices from the front : Turkish soldiers on the war with the Kurdish guerrillas

[...] Everyone in Turkey has experienced similar instances, some more some less, with or without being aware of it. Albeit no reliable figures exist, since 1984— when the PKK declared guerrilla war against Turkey—an estimated 2.5 million young men have been sent to the Emergency Rule Zone for military service. Along with their families, the situation has already affected at least 15 million; when their close relatives and friends are added, nearly half of Turkey’s total 62 million population has been affected. Indeed, not even resorting to figures, just by simply looking around us, we can already sense or witness that the hearts of our relatives, neighbors, or friends beat for their sons, brothers, or loved ones who might at that moment be fighting somewhere in the Southeast.

We further know that for the last 15 years, whether we call it “war,” “low intensity conflict,” “combating terrorism,” or anything else, many people involved, including politicians, the military, human rights organizations, the United States of America and EU officials, journalists, writers, and experts, have been talking. Yet those who have been sent to the Southeast war zones of Uırnak, Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Siirt, Mardin, and so on, for military service are only allowed to speak while they are in the military, restrained by “the chain of order and command.”

A young soldier appears on TV: “We have come here to finish the goddamn terror. I would advise others to volunteer to come here. It is a very nice feeling to climb up on the mountains and fight the terrorists. We are a nation of martyrs, and many martyrs will come from among us during the summer operations.” A youth from the Eruh Commando Brigade addresses his girlfriend Şölen: “Wait for me, and don’t you forget.” The young privates from the Çanakkale 116th Gendarmerie Basic Training Regiment send messages to their families: “I have missed my family a lot,” “I expect my fiancée Derya to wait for me and I will wait for her,” “my mom and dad are waiting for me,” “my parents, my beloved ones: I am OK, don’t worry for me.” The anchor person from the national channel TGRT is excited: “Serving in such a place is an award!”

...


Table des Matières

Contents

Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Preface 1
1. I Came Back Without Having Seen the Enemy / 11
2. A Twenty-Year-Old Youngster is Going... / 15
3. I Became a Soldier with a Beard / 19
4. If Soldiers Had the Opportunity, They Would Run Away / 25
5. To Escape Military Service, You Need to Stay Away From Bread / 29
6. The Donkey Was Looking at Me . . . Should I Shoot Him Right Here? I Asked Myself... / 33
7. It Is Up to the Poor to Protect the Homeland; the Rich know How to Go About It... / 41
8. My Mother Asks, “Where Is Mus?” / 49
9. I Slapped him Twice; He could not Understand Why He was Being Beaten... / 61
10. “I Have to Control My Nerves” / 67
11. Time Doesn’t Pass There; It Is as if Time Has Frozen... / 77
12. The Greatest Advantage of the State Is to Send the Twenty-Year-Old Youth to the Region / 83
13. Another Reward for Being a Veteran Is that Nobody Lets You Marry Their Daughter / 91
14. At Least I Sort of Saved Myself / 97
15. On the One Hand, There Is Great Respect and Love, but on the Other, There Is Brutality / 105
16. 1313: The Number Inscribed on My Arm / 109
17. I Love All Human Beings; Even the Terrorists We Captured / 117
18. We Took Out the Powder from Our Bullets and Inscribed Our Remaining Days / 123
19. I, Too, Lived that Festive Day / 133
20. You Can’t Finish Your Military Service by Running Away from It; You Have to Go Through It / 139
21. Turkey’s Balances Are Disturbed / 145
22. If I Knew an Alternative for Evading Military Service, I Would Advise the Youth to Take It / 151
23. I Definitely Wouldn’t Send My Child into Military Service / 157
24. I Ordered the Soldier to Kill the Dog; There Was No Other Way / 165
25. What Would a Woman’s Voice Do There? You Hear It because You Are Lonely... / 173
26. I Became a Terrorist, Like They Said, a Real Terrorist... / 183
27. Our Nickname among the Terrorists Was “Battalion of Bastards” / 189
28. I Didn’t Live up to the Uniform I Wore / 199
29. They Call It the “Invisible Enemy”: My Only Fear Was the Landmine and I Stepped on One... / 205
30. I Was Frightened. Instantly, I Thought of Death, of Dying. / 213
31. We Kept Asking, “Why Us?” But then We Realized that There Was No Way Out... / 219
32. Real Military Service Starts Here / 229
33. We Should Be the Ones Who Sanctify Life, not Death! / 237
34. Soldiers are the Ones Experiencing This Pain, I Mean the Conscripted Privates... / 245
35. Mother, I Survived Another Day / 253
36. These Were Moments When We Missed Death / 261
37. Am I an Idiot? Are the People Who Go There Idiots? / 269
38. While Everybody Is Sunbathing and Enjoying Themselves, We Go into an Operation! / 275
39. They Called Me “The Old Soldier” / 281
40. No Blood-for-Blood / 287
41. I Don’t Even Own a Piece of Land as Big as This Ashtray; Which Land Am I Going to Defend? / 291
42. In Place of the Ones Who Cannot Talk / 301
43. Numbers... / 309

Index / 317




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