Forgotten Hope Public Forum
Off-Topic => Off-Topic => Topic started by: Turkish007 on 17-04-2014, 08:04:28
-
Hello guys,
So recently I have thought of making a simple book which gathers the memories of the veterans of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. First of all, we have a lot of men who have served in the south-east of Turkey since 1984 (which is the start of the conflict). The cashier in the grocer, the vice principal in our school, even my neighbor has some experience from their service. All I have to do is to interview the veterans, gather and put the dialogues in order, and send it to print. I can also do the page alignment and cover, I have all these opportunities to make it an actual book (but I wont register it and there wont be a lot of copies, it will be something like a personal project)
But then I came up to a tight situation. I allready read a lot of books and websites on the subject, and know a lot about it. So I couldnt come up with any questions. So I was gonna ask, what would you, -a normal person found in every society, with a curiosity on military and war history- like to know about the conflict? If it were you to speak personally, what would you ask them?
So basically I am asking for question ideas. It could be anything, anything ranging from life in outposts to operations in North Iraq...
I think this project of mine will turn out to be awesome and its products will be really good! Thank you for your help! :)
-
How did the recruitment work? I know Turkey has military service but were the men to be sent to the conflict zone based on volunteers?
If they were volunteers, what was their reason for going?
I guess overall stories on battles/combat/odd encounters would be interesting as well.
-
What are the odds? Not half an hour ago I was walking home from down town and thought about gathering (WWII though) memories from my relatives and then any other surviving (sane) WWII vets in this region.
Strange world, huh? ;D
-
How did the recruitment work? I know Turkey has military service but were the men to be sent to the conflict zone based on volunteers?
If they were volunteers, what was their reason for going?
I guess overall stories on battles/combat/odd encounters would be interesting as well.
Thanks for the ideas! I noted them down :)
What are the odds? Not half an hour ago I was walking home from down town and thought about gathering (WWII though) memories from my relatives and then any other surviving (sane) WWII vets in this region.
Strange world, huh? ;D
Oh wow, these kind of coincidences never cease to amaze me ;D
-
What are the odds? Not half an hour ago I was walking home from down town and thought about gathering (WWII though) memories from my relatives and then any other surviving (sane) WWII vets in this region.
Strange world, huh? ;D
I can just suggest to do this. Especially when you have relatives. I actually did a video interview with my grandfather. Partly about WW2, but pretty much with him telling stories of his life. I am feeling very satisfied that I have done this.
ontopic:
How were the living circumstances, the comradeship, the overall mood in the army?
What did your family think about you being fighting? Have they been supportive towards you, or did they dislike what you are doing?
Did your point of view on the conflict change when you became part of it? If yes, in which way?
Did you ever feel like fighting people that could as well be your friends or have you always viewed them as fierce enemy?
Have you made any defining experience from the time that you will not forget?
How have you been since you retired from the army/stopped fighting? Did your situation improve and how difficult was it to get back to the jobmarket and a regular life for you?
Do you think that the time and experience overall had a positive impact on you as a person?
----
That's what comes to my mind right now.
-
How were the living circumstances, the comradeship, the overall mood in the army?
What did your family think about you being fighting? Have they been supportive towards you, or did they dislike what you are doing?
Did your point of view on the conflict change when you became part of it? If yes, in which way?
Did you ever feel like fighting people that could as well be your friends or have you always viewed them as fierce enemy?
Have you made any defining experience from the time that you will not forget?
How have you been since you retired from the army/stopped fighting? Did your situation improve and how difficult was it to get back to the jobmarket and a regular life for you?
Do you think that the time and experience overall had a positive impact on you as a person?
----
That's what comes to my mind right now.
Some precious stuff you have in your mind! These are also very quality questions. Also noted down, thank you :)
-
Best advise I can give you is to let your stuff read by a non-Turkish and non-Kurdish scholar, or by both Turkish and Kurdish scholars, so as to keep your writings as objective as possible.
Writing about conflicts, especially the more recent ones, will always produce bias and it would be great if you succeed in diminishing it to the max.
-
Your are right, Slayer. I thought a lot on this. Some books got banned in the 80's because they sounded so biased, and that's something I really want to avoid.
I dont want to make a pro-Turkish or pro-Kurdish book out of this project. I will make sure to trash the biased parts of the interviews and include a few words on how I wanted to make an objective book and how the book does not represent my or anyone's view of politics and the conflict in the foreword. It is a delicate thing, but I will hopefully manage to balance it.
-
Good goal you've got there. Good luck on the project and keep in mind that in spite of your efforts, some people will always view your book as biased simply because you are Turkish.
-
In my opinion, you shouldn't censor parts of the interviews just to avoid bias. Every person you interview is likely to have a bias one way or the other. Just have the sections with your own text be factual and analytic and add footnotes to the interviewees stories.
Something like this:
"...we killed a total of 50 hostiles in that battle[1]..."
[1] Official records indicate only 20
Doing things like that would give the reader perspective on how the people "on the ground" might have experienced things differently than those sitting back home.
-
In my opinion, you shouldn't censor parts of the interviews just to avoid bias. Every person you interview is likely to have a bias one way or the other. Just have the sections with your own text be factual and analytic and add footnotes to the interviewees stories.
Something like this:
"...we killed a total of 50 hostiles in that battle[1]..."
[1] Official records indicate only 20
Doing things like that would give the reader perspective on how the people "on the ground" might have experienced things differently than those sitting back home.
But I cant access the military records? How can I know how many casualties the militants gave? And they also escape with the bodies, the exact number is not known, it can only be estimated. Therefore, its impossible.
-
In the introduction of the book, state that the numbers and general stories told are from subjective point of views and that you can not check how much truth is in it. That you are only showing the personal impressions of the people but can not guarantee there are no historical inaccuracies. You can suggest the reader to look at it objectively and that everyone needs to judge the impressions for him- or herself. Then you don't need to cut things out and simply have the impressions of the people in your book, while you stay as neutral as possible as an author, which is important. I strongly suggest to not edit the interviews to cut out stuff that is possibly biased.
-
If you will do research besides the interviews, you might add connotations where the numbers or facts are in doubt (like on Wikipedia: "This article is disputed" or "This article has issues").
-
I see. These are some important statements that I will consider.
-
The problem, which i can already see, is that this book is already about the turk side of the story. Unless you find Kurds who fought at that war then its obvious who the book will be supporting.
-
Why? There is a similiar book I have called "Mehmedin Kitabı" (translates into: Mehmed's Book- Mehmed is sth like Tommy, Doughboy, etc.. used for Turks) It only tells the stories of Turkish side, but its prefectly balanced and is not biased. I truly believe that this book will be objective because all the men I will be interviewing are smart people and they can understand that this book needs to be objective. Also, its "Turk", not "turk".
-
Its a war, even if someone is the brightest match in the bunch he fights for a reason and believes in a cause. In order to kill someone, something that is illogical in normal world, you need to have certain instincts driven by beliefs which you cannot turn off by being smart. Some of the masterminds of the holocaust and the Nazi war machine were extremely smart.
As for that book, its unbiased for you, from your point of view. Ask a Kurd about it and he will say that its all turk lies, or perhaps it could be that you are right and its unbiased. Still unless you ask someone from the other side you cant be certain.
What i mean to say is that historians who have studied well more than you and have had far more experience on such topics than you, fail to accomplish complete lack of bias. Perhaps it would be easier to gather the memoirs and as already mentioned have citations showing official figures.
Maybe what would be best is if you could find both Kurds and turks who fought on the same battle and show the different views on the battle.
-
Bouras, start capitalizing the t. Turks or not, whatever they did, should still be treated the same way. I note that you capitalize the nazis, which is...confusing. Also you're saying his book would be biased if not for the Kurd point of view and yet you're biased against Turks. ;D It's saying more about you than about Turks, imo.
(Disclaimer: just calling for mutual respect)
-
I never said i was not biased against turks. Not the point though.
You can either gather memoirs for Turkish folks to read and enjoy or try and show both sides which is the mid point and could lead to a broader audience, but simply stating that you are unbiased cannot make you unbiased. Besides you said this will be a personal project anyways so it doesn't really matter whether or not you are supporting one or another side. All it matters is gathering the stories and having them for future study.
-
I do agree on Bouras' point, though. Just saying it isn't biased doesn't make it objectively true.
-
How can talking about the life in outposts, what they do during combat, when these happened, etc... be biased? Im not doing neither Turkish or Kurdish propaganda.
And find me an ex-terrorist if it is that easy for you, will you Bouras?
-
Because at that outpost an RPG or an IED blew up your buddy Hassan. Because during combat your bro from bootcamp, Mustafa could have gotten his head blown by a 7.62 round. That makes you pretty biased against the enemy who did it.
According to turkish intelligence we help the Kurds so, heck, who knows might be easy.
But protip: Try jails or relatives who might have heard second hand accounts. Again though that is too much of a hassle for a personal project with limited budget.
-
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I'm not saying you're doing anyone's propaganda. I'm just saying both views are better than just one.
Although you are indeed just working on a personal project so that doesn't matter so much.
-
Because at that outpost an RPG or an IED blew up your buddy Hassan. Because during combat your bro from bootcamp, Mustafa could have gotten his head blown by a 7.62 round. That makes you pretty biased against the enemy who did it.
According to turkish intelligence we help the Kurds so, heck, who knows might be easy.
But protip: Try jails or relatives who might have heard second hand accounts. Again though that is too much of a hassle for a personal project with limited budget.
First of all, the opposite could happen too. For example, the similiar book I read had some soldiers saying "Why the hell are we even fighting? Lets just give them the soil, we are dying for nothing!"
Secondly, Erdogan allready gave amnesty to PKK members in prison.
As my final note, I will not go all the way to Diyarbakir and check prison cells or mingle inside a cave in mount Gabar looking for donkeys with AK's just because a Hellenic version of Jackie Chan told me to do so.
The book will be biased if it is destined to be, but I will do my best to keep any political views out of it. Period.
Now, back to topic. Any other questions that might lead to interesting answers?
-
A Hellenic version of Jackie Chan.
My new description, thanks mate.
-
No problem, sounds pretty authentic :P ;D
-
Ask about what they think about Kurdish people?
About that bias thing. Well, I still never get into my mind about differing point of views of the Partisans.
Yes, attacking while hiding in civilian disguise is plainly coward act. No matter who did that, the Talibs, Iraqi insurgents, Al Qaeda, nor the WW2 national loyalists and anti-Nazis. Now that's pretty neutral, because you don't distinguish the party, be it terrorist organization or just a group of anti-Nazis. But the Jews and other minorities might bring a lot of points to counter that argument, with some background stories. That background story is what you are going to write there.
But, the Nazi, like Al-Qaeda don't distinguish their target, and are hell bent on achieving their objective: murdering every people who disagree with them. The innocents are legitimate target for them, this is why we consider their method to be evil. You cannot be fair to them, but you can at least be fair to the nation of Germany, who elected the Austrian to the office.
People have different attitude towards clever tactics. Some say it is cowardice, some say it is brilliance. If PKK can slips a bomb through heavily guarded installations, it is either that. If you, being a Turk, telling too much story about the Kurds to avoid being accused favoritism, you might be seen as a traitor, sympathizer, etc. So bias or not, it depends on the readers.