Same past, different narrations

The presentation is based on the PhD project dealing with remembrance of 1980 military coup d'etat in Turkey. On 12^th of September 1980 in regard to stop increasing opposition of left movement, military realized a coup in Turkey. Hundreds of rebellions were executed, thousands were tortured in military prisons, many were arrested for years and many took refuge in European countries. The research aims to understand how the same past of military coup d'etat is being reconstructed by victims of military coup d'etat who continued to live in Turkey and exiles who moved in Germany. Within last two years I conducted 18 interviews in Germany and Turkey with the 'victims' who are still active in political movements. Additionally I participated in different activities on September the 12^th of different political organizations. These commemorations give me the possibility of locating biographical narratives within the collectivity which at the end will help to analyze the collective memory of the rebellions. The research, shows that, as argued by Halbwachs' theory of collective memory and remembrance practices, individuals tend to remember the past within surroundings of their present needs and believes. Besides these multiplicity and differences in remembering process (or in opposite mostly similarities) the other important finding of this research which should be emphasized is the remembrance of exiles in Germany. Exiles have experienced both violence of September the 12^th and the phenomenon of being asylum seeker. We may assume that their memories of military coup d'etat would be even stronger since it is one of the basic reason of their migration and so to say part of their identity as refugees. I will try to discuss in my presentation how memory is being reconstructed by individuals and groups to meet the needs of present in the case of September the 12^th.