DARKNESS MADE VISIBLE BY THE TURKISH ZOLA
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all, but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
John Milton
Paradise Lost
When Emile Zola published his historic letter, J’Accuse, addressed to the President of France, in L’Aurore newspaper on 13 January 1898, he was rich and famous. But that did not stop his mighty anger. Outraged by the travesty of justice that resulted in the false arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus, a loyal Jewish army officer, he appealed to the president and the nation for reason and justice to prevail.
Dreyfus was convicted by falsified evidence and forged documents, and was a scapegoat for the thoroughly corrupt French Army general staff. He had been imprisoned at a hell hole called Devil’s Island for three years when Zola wrote his letter. (1)
Zola did so for two reasons. First, to draw the public’s attention to the shameful miscarriage of justice. Second, to provoke his own arrest for libel so that new evidence could be introduced that would prove Dreyfus innocent. He succeeded on both counts. Dreyfus was cleared in 1899 and fully exonerated and reinstated in the French Army in 1906. Zola died under suspicious circumstances on 29 September 1902, “a moment in the history of human conscience,” as eulogized by Anatole France. (2)
On 29 September 2010, 108 years to the day after Zola’s death, the ongoing disaster called Turkey received yet another Pinochet-style shock in its struggle to retain its secularity. Hanefi Avcı, the head of the police department in the city of Eskişehir, was arrested 
for writing a best seller. His book laid bare the widely suspected fact that Turkey’s highest government institution’s—police, army, and judicial system—had been infiltrated and indeed subverted by a religious cemaat, the Fethullah Gülen movement. (3) Since Avcı himself was once an eager activist for Gülen’s cemaat, the book has a certain whiff of authenticity.
And yesterday, Avcı was arrested. The reason? The usual nonsense of the Ergenekon prosecutor. It seems that suddenly the previously highly esteemed police chief has connections with a terrorist organization. Was the terror organization the Gülen movement? Ha, ha, ha, no not quite. The Gülenista government of Turkey, also known as the AKP, paid no attention to the compelling information in Avcı’s book about their sugar daddy, Gülen. It decided on some other “terror group,” some socialist or maybe, horror of horrors, some communist operation. Another Alice-in-Wonderland group, cobbled together with false documents and bogus telephone conversations, using the latest listening and stealth technology provided by…guess who?
Avcı refused to file a petition suggested by his lawyer to demand release from prison pending presentation of formal charges. Like Zola, he wants to experience the whole disgusting mess called Turkish justice. He also refuses to speak to any judicial or prosecutorial officials that he suspects of being members of the Gülen cemaat. But Avcı says that he will talk, at his trial. Like Emile Zola, may he sing long and loud.
Hanefi Avcı, KORKMA!
Cem Ryan
Istanbul
NOTES:
1. An excellent summary of the Zola/Dreyfus affair by University of Georgia law professor Donald Wilkes can be found at:
For those interested in a dramatic representation of this incident see the stunning classic film (1937) The Life of Emile Zola:
2. “Il fut un moment de la conscience humaine.” Anatole France, 5 October 1902.
3. Gülen lives in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. It is well and widely known that his activities are aided, abetted, and otherwise supported by the United States government, in particular by the CIA. The latter’s officials were signatories to Gülen’s permanent residency application (“green card”), which he was granted in 2008. For more detailed information see ISLAM, SECULARISM, AND THE BATTLE FOR TURKEY’S FUTURE at: