INTRODUCTION

We would like to present some selected passages form a conference talk titled "The Issue of Tortue and Palestine" that was given by the esteemed thinker Salih Mirzabeyoglu in Istanbul 22 years ago. As you obviously see here, today there is almost nothing different than the time it was given in terms of the key aspects of events and their meanings.

Monthly Furkan

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Torture… As everybody knows, torture means -no need of ability in expression- giving physical pain in rough meaning; beyond this physical pain, there is sometimes more painful psychological pain, this and that… I intentionally take it as a legal subject. The issue has some aspects relating to law, International Law as you will see when we come to the subject of Palestine. The subjects I have told since the beginning of my speech are the elements which are necessary to evaluate the topics, I warn you again.

“Assembly under the command of nation, government under the command of assembly, execution under the command of government”… It is the natural reasoning of a state. You remember the “backward state pyramid” detection; the one my Master stated… It is like that: Execution, government dependent on execution, assembly -herd!- dependent on government and nation dependent on assembly… When we look in this framework, there comes out really ridiculous results about torture issue. When you look through the detection of “backward state pyramid”, the execution and arbitrariness of execution means indirect domination to its higher authority, to the place where the higher authority is based, to the government, to assembly and nation. In this sense, we have a weird thing; in a place where there are torture claims, the government officers say that there is no torture!... The man is not beware that the torturer is down on his pack!.. Could I explain? I want to take especially the lawyer’s attention to this amusingness; rather than defending whether there is torture or not, he will understand that the incident means downing on his own pack in legal meaning. Backward state pyramid… Could you get it? And there comes out such an issue: If I act according to a law code which says “the man who acts in this way can be tortured in that way”, and if there is such a law code, the torture –be careful, we are talking about an issue- is legal... There is an amusingness here; on the one hand the man says that he is against torture -torture is forbidden-, on the other hand he does not confront the case of torture. A little while ago I told you that our method is by way of obviousness… Just now I am asking you:

- “Is there torture in Turkey, or not?”

Give direct answer!... (Voices of “there is!”)… This is a fact that everybody knows obviously… And the man says unblushingly that:

- “If there is one who is agonized, let him prove it!”

Beside the ones who proved it, let’s tell them:

- “Come and I will show you how a torture that cannot be proved is applied!”

There comes out a corruption here: When the man sits on his balcony, he sees the people down as an object, stuff... For him the people below are not different from a dead cat or dog!.. Kind of the men in Rome who watch the fight of gladiators in the arena from their comfortable chairs!.. Can I explain?

If you pay attention to this deliberateness about torture, -I am talking in such an obvious way-, if there is a law code such "torture can be applied", nobody can say that “torture is contradictory to law”, it is concurrent with law… Then the issue comes to this point: Is this law a good one?.. Can you see where the issues come to? “Is this law a good one then?”... When we ask this question, such a detection appears before us: The difference between law and fact, text and spirit, legislation and practice extends in the whole world today... Many constitutions in the world are completely for show; and the regime they define has no relation with the one inside the country; constitution is such a cloak that hides the existing regime… And here the case comes to this point; today nowhere in the world, the constitution is concurrent with the fact… As a result, the reason of this –when we make reasoning- comes out with the cause “Necessity of Absolute Idea”… Could I explain? There cannot be a law practiced by groping!.. As once stated, Roman Law serves for the materialist conception; so Germans wanted a special general law unique to Germans to be developed… I want to inform you that today this unlawfulness in the world exists in the natural form of law! The natural explanation of this: It can be seen when you conduct this to the end: ethic does not occur... If the law is coagulation of ethic, if it is the incident of attaching ethic to the sanctions, ethic does not occur; where ethic does not occur, it is natural that law does not occur… The fact that ethic does not occur means the people have lost their dominations representing “how” attitude of spirit towards objects and incidents… The result leads to the cause of “Necessity of Absolute Idea”. We have to address here to the ones who yell against torture: When you are objecting to torture today, if you are objecting due to its contradiction to law, let us inform you that, we directly object to the existing law… To all of the existing laws!.. We are the ones who know the answer of “Which law?”!..

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I warn the young lawyers about a subject: Although they talk about a law so-called Nations Law, there is not such a law… They should advance upon this… There is not a law where there is not sanction... I am telling this directly on the case of Palestine; I am just coming there... United Nations Organization… The first item of their aims:

- “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

We have a comment here: If we take into account that the agreement entered into force on October 24^th, 1945, we can understand that since that date this organization has done nothing but only stated their sorrow here and there. How can it be useful? Other than being a market place of big states, beyond scratching neck against them, especially against them, proving the existence is not possible. The role of the big states in United Nations is not different from the reflection of that; it is enough to see it in Security Council's institution and decision making process... Now I want you to pay very close attention:

The council consists of 15 members and 5 of them are permanent members… United States, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, People’s Republic of China, France and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics… All the rest countries are selected for this Council membership for 2 years… What does the permanent member privilege mean? And all decisions except for the issues of method are made by the affirmative votes of 9 members including the votes of all the permanent members. So, one of the permanent members of Security Council can use his veto right and can prevent the decision on a subject not suiting his book. As the states are called by their regimes, we can call the United Nations Organization as “Dictatorship of Pigs”.

Why I get the subject to the United Nations is because of the fact that the states except for these 5 states form the majority... Here a rag for you – flag; love of country and nation… Apart from that, in the debate between Eastern and Western Blocks, the role of them is being pariah. We can express it clearly… We can express it without caring about the scumbag reporters (snitchers) coming here to listen to us among you; the issue ultimately comes to the matter of independence… How independent are you?.. Be careful, I am always on the cause of Palestine and the issue will come to that point… Why did I tell you about the position of “United Nations Permanent Council Members”, this and that? Because of that: Today, America is the elder brother of Israel and Turkey is in the cradle of America… And you are condemning Israeli soldiers of breaking arms and legs of Palestinian young people with stones in Palestine… How long?.. I want to make your pain permanent and make you have conscious of this… As I quoted the wisdom of Hazret-i Ebubekir; “the one who cries shall cry, the one who does not cry shall pretend to cry”, the ones that experience it shall experience, the ones who do not experience it shall find ways to experience it… Make sense of this expression:

- “Allah who takes revenge of the criminals, appoint us in this revenge!”

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I told you that there is not an international law; I am taking attention of lawyers... Let me give an example: There are some cases like mutual agreements; the powerful states always derive profit in this kind of agreements, their votes are valid... Let’s look at the issue of international "territorial waters"; I stated a little while ago that I would go through association of ideas... Think about the territorial waters; whether to expand their limits or not… The great states want the limits of territorial waters to be narrow, because they are powerful, and the narrower territorial waters the more easily they can enter the parts in the status of international waters… For general regulations, always the ones they want are realized; I want to inform about that... The work for the slimy states – I am trifling with your honor -, is only the parasite lives in the places where the balance of powers intersects… You know we are always talking about Palestine, here it is, do not expect more than that; some kind of condemnations, formal condemnations, so-called condemnations for form’s sake… Anyway, the happenings in Palestine or anywhere are because of us, because of our coming to no good.

Now I want to take your attention on another amusingness… You know the situation of people starving in Africa... Then a singer is coming out and collecting aid and money; and it is called aid for African people… You think that here is a humanly feeling, don’t you? We do not say that the aid shall not be collected… Notice that we do not say that aid shall not be collected, but the truth is that:

- “Till today humanism has been a system superseding religion or it has continued its existence by taking the support of any religion. According to my belief, humanism became so successful in the eras when the religion was powerful!”

Do you notice?.. I am reading this cause of “humanism” from a Westerner’s book… Humanism underlies in the natural structure of religion… And he goes on:

- “Humanism without religion or the humanism which had opposed the belief of that time became destructive; because no new system could be established instead of the values it had destructed!"

An example for this kind of humanism is the approach to those homosexuals… You know that there is a new trend, the humanist (!) approach for them; kindly!.. Why I came to this subject: You know that today in various parts of the world we are hearing some condemnation voices about the events in Palestine… The West, who ruined Africa, becomes the good guy now when they send four trucks of food there, it is like that… But the truth is different: He takes the food from my house with a cauldron but then he gives it to me back with a spoon… And it turns out to be aid for Africa, support for Palestine.

In this context, apart from the humanism tricks, I want to state the fact underlying the issue: we see the West, the crime of West at the fingerprints on Palestinian corpses… I would like to prove it, too... In the International Law there is an article called “most favored nation status”; the most favored… The man who had written the textbook in my hand made the event so confusing in an attempt to seem scholar; this is the weakness of the circle that consider themselves scholar… I’ll explain it to you in a very simple way… Now, there are two nations; A and B nations… These two nations make a mutual agreement and one of the articles mentions “most favored nation” status… Let’s say that A is the most favored nation… State B made an agreement with State C and State C had more advantages than State A; in this case State A can make use of the rights which State C benefits from… Let's follow from the book now:

- “The origin of the most favored nation status is the European Public Law. Indeed, not only did the developed states of Europe dominate several countries of several continents, but also they invented the method of ‘the most favored nation status’ in the agreements not to fall behind the other states in terms of exploiting other countries and nations.”

Before this issue, let me tell you something so that you will not see the agreements superficially… For instance, when Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent granted capitulations to France, it was our powerful era, it was useful for us, but as the things reversed these capitulations turned against us…

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Now, Palestine cause… In the framework of Palestine Liberation Organization… I am reading from a book:

- “Until the Six Day War in June 1967, political attack of Zionism compelled the real owners of these territories to shelter in refugee camps by enabling the Israeli regime settle on Palestinian territories. From that time all the Near East has entered the stormy region. The attack was directed to the heart of Egypt… But a national disaster to which Palestinian people were subjected paved the way for an armed national independence movement; this movement pioneered the Arab national movements to gain a revolutionary character.”

There is a matter of delicacy here: “pioneered to gain a revolutionary character”… This is one of the events you can remember easily; “leftist Muslims and rightist Falangists did something!... Because the attack comes from the West and because an Islamic system insight cannot be developed, some kind of organizations appear suddeny as a reaction to the West, and these organizations are Marxist ones as a solution to express themselves... Let me say, these are not Marxist in origin, these are Marxists as a reaction… Because they messed up Islam with racism in Turkey (Turk-Islam synthesis foolishness), it is like some men in the Eastern region, who shifted toward Marxism in order to object the injustices which stem from the regime… Could I explain? We see the same thing in Palestine movement today; when it turns out to be a public movement, Islamic intentions in their origins come to the fore.

Muslim World’s weakness of idea can be seen by itself in the context of what I told… It is like the fact in Afghanistan –or Pakistan- that Muslims were organized as “Muslim Marxists”, because there was not any system and they felt the necessity of carrying out their movement based on a system, and they were sheltered under Marxism… More different kinds of it appear now: After the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, although the Muslims there could not define an exact Islamic identity, they were the ones with Islamic intention this time but could not tell what to want or what to say, they only fought… If you remember I told you something a little while ago; “there is not any example in the world today to show you or idealize!”… And in the picture, I showed you where the pain of the young man is today: Means (gun) is on the one hand, idea is on the other hand… When the dose of idea starts to diminish in a movement and when the movement makes itself a purpose, that movement becomes meaningless

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Pay very close attention to my word; The one who suggests that “Zionism’s attack overshadows Nazi massacres in terms of ethical responsibility" is the very historian Toynbee... What happened here? After the television channels showed Israeli soldiers breaking the bones of young Palestinian people with stones for three days, on the other channel they showed a film called “Cruelty on Jewish” in order to pacify the tension of our people… That crooked newspaper’s hoax as “reactionary movement is rising again!”…

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Yes… I read here, you see; it says “Zionism’s attack overshadows Nazi massacres in terms of ethical responsibility"… Imagine this kind of events giggling his conscience… This faculty of “conscience”, however tiny it is, no matter what happens, sometimes makes the one pained... And in this framework, there is a letter from one of the Jewish the first to settle in Palestine expressing his sorrow about the things made there… From the letter Nathan Chofshi sent to the editorial writer of News Jewish News-letter newspaper in December, 1959:

- “Only us, the early Jewish settled in Palestine can tell you what is happening here; as the witnesses of war only we can tell you how we, the Jewish, compelled the Arabs to leave their villages, their cities. Some of them were banished by force of arms; and we separated some of them from their land by lies, deceiving with empty promises. We can show Yafa, Lida and Akra as an example of places where the Arabs left in this way… There is Arab people here who have lived on their land for 1300 years; now we have come and made these poor Arabs immigrants. As if that was not enough, we are still daring to deceive them, slander them and blacken their names. Instead of getting ashamed what we did, and instead of doing something to diminish the effect of our bad deeds, and instead of helping these poor immigrants, we enjoy and even boast with our terrible actions!”

This issue reminds me of something: Today, when 3 or 5 technicians of England in Libya are threatened to be taken hostage, England stands up quickly… For the sake of “Security of the citizens of Great Britain"... You know the incident of Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General of the United Nations: They accused him of being a Nazi war criminal, something like that... Then, who is the war criminal of the people killed in Palestine?.. What about the countries whose 30-40 thousands of citizens were killed at one time?.. Who is following this?.... Why does nobody stand behind the people killed in Afghanistan?.. While a torture and massacre is being applied against Palestinian people today, where are the war criminals of these?..

We were telling about “United Nations Organization”… I was reading you the announcement of Palestine Liberation Organization a little while ago; it says that “None of the decisions made by United Nations can be practiced because of America’s veto”… As I said “Dictatorship of Pigs”…

Pay attention, -the ones having a little conscience cannot stand it-, the famous Jewish psychologist Erich Fromm says:

- “It is often said that Arabs ran away, they gave their land voluntarily and so they were responsible for losing their homes. In Public International Law there is another principle which is as true as others; according to this, citizens of a country do not lose their properties or citizenship rights; and Palestinian Arabs deserve this right more than the Jewish..."

Etc., etc.; it goes on like this… I am not in a position to flatter you but just call on you to take your responsibility. I told you the words of Yaser Arafat:

- “Today Palestinians remember Abdulhamid with gratitude!”

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1988

SOURCE: Salih Mirzabeyoglu, The Three Lights / Talk-Conference, IBDA Publications, Istanbul 1996, pp. 67-98