“…I am at your service, General”
15 September 2011
This year, once again, the same stage will be re-built just after September 12 in this global capital city of culture. Everyone shall take their place! Capital will wear its gilded mask. Proving that arms and culture industries, financial city and capital of culture are just two faces of the same coin, Koç Holding will proudly present: “Anonymous”.
This time it seems to us a bit timid title, as if trying to hide because of embarrassment, like a reporter or like a confessor. The title of Biennial reminds of anonymous letters by unknown writers. This is why we set out to find a real letter with a signature and a name on it. It must have a name. It must be read and remembered. This letter has been signed by the paternal capital without any hesitation claiming to be the protector of culture and art while building the economic order of Turkey at the same time.
Here is the letter sent on October 3, 1980 to Kenan Evren by Vehbi Koç, the founder and owner of Koç Holding:
“The trials of arrested anarchists and criminals should not be prolonged and they must be penalized soon. For equipping and reinforcing the police organization, necessary laws and other means should be provided. The laws regulating the employer-employee relations should have minimum defect. The extreme actions taken by trade unions to overthrow Turkish State and destroy the economic order should be attentively taken into account. A part of workers have some expectations about union relations following the closure of DISK (Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Unions). Militant trade unionists intend to provoke these workers and to pursue their cause by penetrating into the manager cadres of the existing trade unions. The laws should be re-designed in view of this fact and necessary measures should be taken. It is certain that Communist Party, leftist organizations, Kurds, Armenians and some politicians will continue to pursue their malicious ends. It is very important to keep an eye on them and to prevent their attempts. I hope you and your friends succeed at your mission. Please be sure that I am always at your service."
This letter is the charter of exploitative order, the protocol of the fascist power and a death warrant for workers, students, artists and all the progressive powers of the country.
A power making the artists pay for a line of poetry, a paragraph of novel or a protest painting under torture, in prisons, which art can such a power support? Why does a company winning tenders of military defense when money that must be spent on art, education and health as in a welfare state flows into bombardment of bare mountains through sensational military operations support artists like us? Given that there is nobody who is not indebted to big capital groups working in cooperation with the state according to a research conducted in 1990s and that we even have children born indebted to these holdings, why does the Koç dynasty sponsor art and artist in this rose garden without any horns?
To make people forget is the most influential weapon of power. But we have never forgotten all those names. Neither those who had to pay the price for leading a human life nor those killing people to market life. In order to reveal the facts, please SCRATCH the gilt on the mask. It is the past, present and future of this country that you will see.
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