ANKARA - Sociologist and historian Roger Griffin, known for his research on fascism, said that the emergence of a peace understanding between the Turkish and Kurdish peoples is vital not only for them but also for the world and humanity.
Sociologist and historian Professor Roger Griffin sent a message of support to the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) regarding the Peace and Democratic Society Process, which began with the call by Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan on 27 February. Griffin, known for his research and work on fascism, said that achieving peace between the Turkish and Kurdish peoples is of vital importance for all the peoples of the world.
Message of Griffin reads: “The modern world is awash with movements, politicians and cultural leaders who celebrate their kind, an imagined community united by mythical national, ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, biological, geographical or ideological qualities, at the expense of ‘humankind’. Selective kindness at the cost of structural unkindness. The ‘Other’ thus created through psychological projections is endowed by equally fictitious negative traits deemed harmful, degenerate, subhuman, and even demonicwhich justifies their social exclusion, their persecution, their torture, their murder.
As a result of this fundamentalist, Manichean mindset entire categories of humanity are continually being ‘othered’ and dehumanized in contemporary societies of rationalized and technocratic barbarity. Forces which ideally should work towards the global de-othering and humanization of society supposedly encoded in the NA of religious creeds such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Zarathustrianism, or of secular creeds such as socialism, communism, liberal democracy, and liberal nationalism become pathological. Instead of embracing life in all its complexity, richness and splendour, ‘good’ belief systems are perverted into the agents of discrimination and violence. Love morphs into hatred.
The many examples of retreat from global ideals of a common humanity, of a shared planet and of a communal biosphere are symptomatic of a mindset which Augustine of Hippo described as incurvatus. Better known as Saint Augustine, this Latin- and Berber-speaking Algerian, a late convert to Christianity, straddled the pagan and Christian, African and European worlds on the cusp of the invasion of Germanic tribes and the collapse of the Roman Empire. In reflecting on the general turning away from the values of Jesus Christ in his day he coined the term ‘incurved’ to evoke a state of beingturned back into oneself.
In the state of egotistic withdrawal from ‘goodness’ he observed all around him, idealism isincreasingly mischannelled into malignant causesand compassion reserved for selected groups within society. The ‘selective humanism’ that results, this ‘incurvation’, is manifested today in the countless episodes of hatred and violence that are blighting humanity at this crucial moment in our collectivestruggle for survival as a species.
But incurvation is a human, and hence a reversable process. With effort and encouragement, acceptance, compassion and love can release those trapped in a cycle of vengeance and violence out the tunnel vision that inflicts them. This is why the prospect of peace and understanding breaking out between the Turkish and Kurdish peoples and their leaders is so crucial, not just for Turks and Kurds -- whether in the Middle East or in their Diasporas --but for the entire global community, for humankind. It is both empirical proof and an inspiring symbol of the possibility that there is still time for our species to avoid self-inflicted societal and ecological catastrophes which will bring about the true ‘end of history’.
This is why all those charged with bringing about reconciliation between Turks and Kurds must been encouraged, cheered on, and celebrated to make them aware of the heroic, epic, task with which human history now charges them. They should be alive not only to their responsibility to their own loved ones, their own communities, their own states, and their own peoples, but to the whole of humanity, particularly wherever conflict, prejudice, and cynicism still reigns. It is a moment to counteract despair and bitterness with inspiration and forgiveness. It is a moment for humanity to hold its breath and HOPE.”
WHO IS ROGER GRIFFIN?
Born on 31 January 1948, Roger Griffin is a British modern historian and political theorist known for his work on fascism. A professor at Oxford Brookes University, Griffin has had a significant impact on international academia, particularly with his theory defining fascism as “palingenetic ultranationalism” — that is, the idea of a mythical “rebirth” of the nation. His doctoral thesis, completed at Oxford University, formed the basis for his 1991 book The Nature of Fascism, which became one of the fundamental reference works in the field. His research focuses not only on the nature of fascism but also on modern radicalism, fanaticism, terrorism, and the transformation of the individual into a “heroic self.” Honoured by various institutions for his scholarly contributions, Griffin is recognised as one of the leading thinkers who has made significant contributions to the understanding of contemporary political ideologies.