Tunceli or Dersim?

It is time to look at the Tunceli/Dersim debate to see where having opinions without knowledge, and acting on anti-Republican prejudices instead of material reality, leads a person.

During the Ottoman era, a much larger geography than today's Tunceli was referred to as Dersim. With the law passed in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) in 1935, the administrative area covered by Dersim was reduced, and the newly created province was named Tunceli.

Why do some individuals, institutions, and certain political parties use the word Dersim in recent times for the province known as Tunceli since 1935? What kind of message is intended by saying Dersim? Before moving on to the content of the Dersim agenda of the ethnic separatist segment and the dimensions of the bill they want to present to Turkey through Dersim, let us take a brief historical tour.

In the Turkey of the 1930s, following the War of Independence, the Republic had largely completed its institutionalization with the establishment process. A national state model based on a national economy was adopted. An independent, non-aligned, and peaceful foreign policy was being pursued. Along with an ambitious development drive, a total mobilization for education was launched. Ankara was determined to make its administrative and legal authority valid throughout the country. It was intended that the consciousness of citizenship would replace tribal and communal affiliation.

Having suppressed the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925 and the Ararat rebellion in 1930, the Republic could not tolerate local power centers that would oppose Ankara's authority. Therefore, the Republic's intervention in Dersim, which was sociologically living in the feudal era and politically did not accept Ankara's control, was a historical inevitability.

The primary advantage of Dersim, which had lived as a kind of confederation of tribes since the Ottoman era, was its nature. This rugged geography, which wrapped around Dersim like armor, had not given way to the Ottomans. Despite various military operations and countless advisory delegations, the Ottomans could not establish their rule over Dersim. The fact that the people of the surrounding provinces, who made their living from agriculture and animal husbandry and were outside the collective discipline of feudalism and free from the tribal caste, suffered from the looting raids of Dersim is another dimension of the matter.

The memoirs of a captain who participated in the Dersim Operation conducted under the command of Neşet Pasha on the eve of the 1908 Second Constitutional Era contain interesting information about the sociological structure of the region at the beginning of the last century. The memoirs, dating back 30 years before the 1937-1938 Dersim operation, mention Seyyid Rıza, who was considered the most influential tribal leader and almost the ruler of the region. A pacification operation was organized by the order of the Sultan due to the tribal raids and looting carried out in the surrounding provinces. The young captain writes that the operation, carried out with 1 division of soldiers consisting of 13 infantry battalions, half of which were reserves, 3 mountain batteries, and the Hamidiye Cavalry Regiment, was unsuccessful. (Brigadier General Ziya Yergök - From Harbiye to Dersim, Remzi Kitabevi)

After the liquidation of the multi-national, multi-religious, and multi-legal Ottoman Empire, it was impossible for Dersim to continue as a parallel state in the Republican era as it had in the Ottoman era.

We explained above that the new province, whose administrative borders were narrowed by the law discussed and passed in the TBMM in 1935, was named Tunceli. In order for the region, where the sociology of the feudal era was experienced, to meet with Republican values, the method of persuasion would first be attempted. When the feudal caste, which did not want to lose its privileges, refused to accept Ankara's authority, the clash between the Republic and feudalism, and between democracy and tribal hierarchy, became inevitable.

What happened in 1937-1938 was the liquidation of the tribal structure that resisted the regime and responded with arms, by using force. The Republic had to use force to break the resistance of the feudal caste, a legacy of the Middle Ages, against the regime. After suppressing the regional resistance, the Republic implemented exile for the leaders of the feudal hierarchy to neutralize the sociological basis of possible future uprisings.

The pains experienced in 1937-1938, the family tragedies passed down from generation to generation, and the emotional migration stories have undoubtedly affected subsequent generations and will form the subconscious of the selected trauma constructed by imperial centers and placed in front of today's Turkey.

The liquidation of feudalism and the confederation of warlords with the entry of Republican authority and Republican institutions into Dersim should be evaluated as a progressive step from a Marxist perspective. Dialectically, it is the turning of the wheel of history forward. When looking at the issue from political and sociological perspectives, it will be seen that the elimination of local feudal resistances against the central state's revolutionary breakthroughs aimed at catching up with the contemporary world was necessary.

What is strange is that this process, which is the liquidation of an outdated structure by the Republic, is being turned upside down by some circles who define themselves as revolutionary and socialist. Such people characterize the Republican administration as genocidal and murderous, and they exonerate the leaders of the ethno-feudal uprising as the oppressed of the regime.

After recalling that the attempt by the previous term mayor of Tunceli Municipality, Maçoğlu, to take down the "Tunceli Municipality" sign and hang a "Dersim Municipality" sign resulted in failure due to state intervention, let us bring the subject to the present day.

It should be known that the use of the word and sign of Dersim instead of Tunceli on social media during the term of the DEM Party mayor, in violation of the law, stems from an intent that goes far beyond an innocent attitude.

Let us state it clearly. The insistence on Dersim is nothing more than a reflection of a separatist mindset that openly challenges the Republic of Turkey and the current legal legislation.