The possibility of coping with the past in Turkey: The Dersim 38 Tertele (massacre)

 The Turkish Republic, as a national state, has been successful in ignoring the sins of its past and has remained proud of its history until recent years. In this context, the past has been forgotten and past tragedies suppressed; it is even possible to say that this attitude of forbidding accurate historical remembrance became state policy.  However, as a result of identity struggles, it was revealed that the nation state has a dirty past.

In this study I will try to analyze the Dersim 38 Tertele (Massacre) that was planned and implemented by the state. The Dersim 38 Tertele is the biggest and dirtiest page of the Turkish Republic. According to army records, 14,000 people were killed and 12,000 people were forcibly evacuated out of the region. The government's intention all along was to destroy Dersim; every single man, woman and child in the region was either butchered or forcibly evacuated out of the region. In the early period of the national state, the Turkish Republic’s attitude to Dersim was to suppress and forget the massacre, even defining it as a rebellion. Although there is a determined state policy to ignore the Dersim 38, a speech made last month by a Dersim parliamentarian was reflected in the public sphere with a bang.  After 73 years it would be possible to speak about transitional justice. However, the Turkish state and all other responsible institutions do not keen to accept the Dersim people’s demands. In this presentation I will try to discuss how it can be possible to improve transitional justice for the Dersim 38 Tertele. If Turkey can cope with the Dersim 38 Tertele, it would be a model for all other dark pages of the Turkish Republic’s history.