"I will be very straightforward from the outset. I fear that (I wholeheartedly wish to be wrong), it is very possible that these murders will continue. Murders may take a different path targeting different people from different circles but, unfortunately, it seems that they will continue. It is really painful to say something like this. It hurts making such an annoying speculation. But unfortunately, three strong wake up calls were not enough for the Turkish society and the government to be alarmed and reflect upon what is going on in Turkey."
"My theory is very simple. What we are confronting in Turkey is a new phenomenon. We have gangs all over the country who are organized in a kind of al-Qaeda model, which means that they have unity of ideology (racist ultra-nationalism) but they are not directly connected to any one single center. They are open to manipulation and they are manipulated by some circles that have links with the illegal paramilitary groups.
These gangs are operating within and feed from an atmosphere of fear, hate and denial. To understand what exactly is going on in Turkey we need to look at the different layers, which are linked together and reinforce each other."
"First of all, we have a general atmosphere of fear created by many different political and bureaucratic circles and sometimes by the media. We also have a general atmosphere of denial and nonconfrontation. There are relentless hate speech campaigns reproduced everyday in Turkey."
"I will finish this hopelessly pessimistic article with a gloomy comment. If there is a serious danger in Turkey now it is not Islam or Sharia but it is extreme nationalism (From Turks and Kurds), racism, intolerance, xenophobia, hatred of other religions and you know what happens when they all come together. A quote from the Supreme Court of Canada: "the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers. It began with words. These are the chilling facts of history —the catastrophic effects of racism."
Culture of fear, hate and denial= Santoro, Dink, Malatya - Turkish Daily News May 11, 2007
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