The 22nd of the Covering Turkey meetings for foreign media representatives working in Turkey aiming to provide them with a better understanding of Turkey, was held on December 13. The keynote speaker was Cafer Solgun, who is the Chairman of Yüzleşme Derneği (Organization of Researching Social Events and Confrontation) and is known for his book Dersim Dersim.

The author started his speech saying “One of the most important matters of confrontation in Turkey is Dersim massacre”. He emphasized that in order to analyze what happened in Dersim, it is crucial to know the historical background and the period up until that day and stated that 1924 Constitution determined the policies of the Republic against its own citizens. He said: “This constitution determined Muslims in Turkey as Sunni and the population of Turkey as Turk.”

“Dersim was not a Revolt against the State”

Solgun stated that the official historians have committed Dersim to memories as a revolt against the state however it is not possible to talk about a revolt and that the state acted with the aim of erasing Dersim from the map. He also emphasized that Dersim has always been defined as a “a source of trouble” in all historical documents and in nearly all reports of bureaucrats at that time.

After stating that there was an extensive operation in the region in 1938 including the villages that are in cooperation with the state and that the survivors were exiled, Solgun finished his speech saying: “Dersim is the most blooded case of the Republic’s modernization process, and confronting this fact will open the door for facing other dark pages.”

The meeting ended with a Q and A session with the journalists, upon a question about the apology issued by Prime Minister Erdoğan, Cafer Solgun said: “I am happy with the apology of Erdoğan because apologizing never existed in our state tradition including the Ottoman times. According to this mentality, the state makes no mistakes, it has always been regarded as infallible. In this regard, the apology of the state is an important step but we expect this attitude to continue.”