In 1980, I was acting with the residue of the mass fear inflicted on the Turkish society with the mass imprisonment of intellectuals possessing somehow books considered “hazardous” by the emergency law commanders of the 1971 “coup by memorandum” period. Possessing a book considered “hazardous,” “dangerous” or simply “communist” just because it was written by a Russian, North Korean, by a citizen of any of the Warsaw Pact countries or simply by someone whose name might be considered to be Russian landed so many intellectuals behind bars in the post 1971 period, where they were subjected to such heinous methods of torture, that in 1980 private libraries were almost emptied and the toilets of houses were turned into Nazi gas chambers. This time to burn books…
How many such “hazardous” books I now have in my study room? One-hundred, 200 or more? I have no idea, but definitely there are many political and non-political books which, if the mentality of criminalizing books or worse banning books not yet published has risen from the grave, I either will have to spend considerable time trying to burn or if I decide I cannot go through such a trauma once again perhaps prefer to spend some time in one of the dungeons of this country which by that time would probably complete its transformation into a secular democratic republic into a theocratic democracy – how that will be achieved or sustained I have no idea.
For more: Theocratic democracy - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review
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