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Palgrave Macmillan

Voices from the Front

Turkish Soldiers on the War with the Kurdish Guerrillas

  • Book
  • © 1998

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Authors:
  1. Nadire Mater
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Table of contents (43 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-10
    Download chapter PDF

  2. I Came Back Without Having Seen the Enemy

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 11-14

  3. A Twenty-Year-Old Youngster is Going …

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 15-18

  4. I Became a Soldier with a Beard

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 19-23

  5. If Soldiers had the Opportunity, They Would Run Away

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 25-28

  6. To Escape Military Service, You Need to Stay Away from Bread

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 29-31

  7. The Donkey Was Looking at Me … Should I Shoot Him Right Here? I Asked Myself …

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 33-39

  8. It Is Up to the Poor to Protect the Homeland; the Rich know How to Go About It …

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 41-48

  9. My Mother Asks, “Where is Muş?”

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 49-59

  10. I Slapped him Twice; He could not Understand Why He was Being Beaten …

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 61-66

  11. “I Have to Control My Nerves”

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 67-75

  12. Time Doesn’t Pass There; It Is as if Time Has Frozen …

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 77-81

  13. The Greatest Advantage of the State Is to Send the Twenty-Year-Old Youth to the Region

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 83-89

  14. Another Reward for Being a Veteran Is that Nobody Lets You Marry Their Daughter

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 91-95

  15. At Least I Sort of Saved Myself

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 97-103

  16. On the One Hand, There Is Great Respect and Love, but on the Other, There Is Brutality

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 105-108

  17. 1313: The Number Inscribed on my Arm

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 109-115

  18. I Love All Human Beings; Even the Terrorists We Captured

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 117-122

  19. We Took Out the Powder from Our Bullets and Inscribed Our Remaining Days

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 123-131

  20. I, Too, Lived that Festive Day

    • Nadire Mater
    Pages 133-138
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Keywords

About this book

These riveting first-hand accounts of Turkish soldiers who have fought in the nasty internal war against the Kurds speak to universals: the shock of entering military life and the traumas of warfare; the changes in personality and relations with family and friends, the lingering emotional effects of violence, and the difficulties in returning to the 'real world', to borrow a phrase from Vietnam vets. Corruption, disillusionment and despair alternate with the small victories of humanity overcoming hellish conditions. Mater's reportage is in the best tradition of revealing the surreal, illuminating the universal truth of war's devastation. At a time when American troops are again caught in a vicious insurgency, the Kurdish issue has high visibility, and Turkey is a major actor in the Middle East, the experiences of these former soldiers resonate.

Reviews

'Voices from the Front is a rich tapestry of oral testimonies that defy easy categorization. While some former Turkish soldiers embrace the war on Kurdish guerrillas as patriotic adventure, others detest the discipline, boredom, filth, and fear. They, too, are victims of militarism and machismo. Mater, a famed journalist and peace activist, conveys their stories with great integrity and courage. '

- James Ron, Canada Research Chair in Conflict and Human Rights, McGill University, and author of Frontiers and Ghettos: State Violence in Serbia and Israel

'Voices from the Front bears the extraordinary stories soldiers brought back with them, with the power of Michael Herr's Dispatches. It provides remarkable insight into today's Turkey and is a brave, disturbing and uncompromising look at the war the world missed but that is all too typical of modern warfare.

- Rohan Jayasekera , Index on Censorship

About the author

NADIRE MATER is a leading Turkish journalist who has frequently covered children's rights, human rights, women's rights, minorities and freedom of expression issues.

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