“During the Dreyfus Affair, many people preferred their own prejudices and fears over the innocence of a man… When society judges a person based on inherent characteristics or beliefs, it actually reveals its own weaknesses and ignorance.”
What Proust said may seem simple and familiar, but it actually opens up very important things. Indeed, he has said only one thing over thousands of lines. And in his narrative about consciousness, he always shows people’s entire meanings through their thoughts on the Dreyfus Affair. Because even if it doesn’t seem so, people’s thoughts change according to the course of the case. Throughout the case, there are certain agitators who are very consistent in their evil and are always racist opponents of Dreyfus; but there are other people who only defend the thought they need. For example, suddenly everyone in society becomes an opponent of Dreyfus, and then they hide that they are not racist. Or when other things happen in the case, that is, when being an opponent no longer makes them look good, they hide their racism. And Proust learns people’s ulterior motives throughout his life by the way they view this case. In fact, Proust is also a racist: But he does not separate people by their race, he classifies them by whether they are racist or not. Because this second similarity creates kinships that transcend even blood and time. Therefore, this second anecdote will seem familiar to you in certain aspects.
“According to the narration of Ebu’l-Ferec Isfahanî, when a man from Beni Suleym wanted to marry his daughter to a non-Arab, Muhammed Ibn-i Beşir El-Harici went to the judge and complained. After the judge ordered the couple to divorce, he had the non-Arab Muslim whipped, his hair and beard cut, and paraded him around the city to disgrace him.” (Mevdudî)
Thus, the members of this “class” are as old as human history, and they do not discriminate based on language, religion, or race when it comes to someone who wants to join them in being racist. Therefore, no one should actually talk about being racist. Because there is no such thing as race, there is no such thing. Then today in Turkey, the real questions should return to the initial questions: What are the weaknesses of these people? What do they really need and want? Is racism in Turkey indexed to the dollar for some people? Or more accurately, under what conditions do people hide their racism? Under what conditions is it easy to say these things? These questions lead us to the final anecdote: When an Australian anatomist, August Voigt, asked a member of a Japanese delegation who came to Berlin in 1932 to observe the Nazi movement about his thoughts on this movement, the Japanese delegate reportedly replied: “This movement is extraordinary. We would have liked to do something similar in Japan, but unfortunately, we don’t have Jews in our country.” This anecdote expresses many things.
So no one should complain. Not because racism cannot be changed, but because it is not the primary cause and can be divided into other fundamental desires. Although it was known until the 19th century, the idea of the nation played no role; it was not the Franks who taught the East this idea, but the idea that it “could be useful.” Therefore, when the need arose, everyone began to invent it retrospectively. A century ago, an Algerian girl could have sought asylum in Turkey from France. Today, she looks at this with suspicion. Because opposition to an idea is always done through its weakest or worst adherents. Malcolm X’s house was also burned in 1929 and 1965.
No one should complain. Everyone should know their surroundings and introduce themselves to their surroundings. No one can change anyone else. These have never been teachable things. And a person derives their strength only from truths. Today, those who cause Syrian children to hide at home in fear as if from a bomb in Turkey should not doubt that they are not safe on our streets. They will neither be able to do injustice nor be wronged. Because we do not have the right to forgive the guilty.
