Once upon a time, an otherwise ordinary man rose to power. He masterfully manipulated his people’s hurt pride, their desire for vengeance, and their exasperation with economic crisis to garner public support and win elections. Once in power, he used referenda and legislation to gain control over the state and to eliminate or suppress the opposition. Huge investments in infrastructure benefited both his followers’ pocketbooks and the economic growth of the country, making him even more popular. He also managed to gain full control of the military by eliminating non-compliant high ranking officers.

As he amassed more power, this elected leader increasingly turned into a dictator. His propaganda machine used all available media of the time to create a cult of personality around “the leader” and to pump a chauvinistic nationalism into the society. This nationalist ideology rested on the superiority of his people vis-a-vis those who they branded as “untermensch” -the inferior people, the masses from the East. These “others” were instrumental in building national superiority, pride and unity; already existing prejudices against them were manipulated to political ends. Soon, these “others” were deemed a threat to the well being of the state; they were forced into exile or killed indiscriminately. They became victims of the leader’s grand plans of regional domination and his war machine.

Years later, when scholars would write about this period in history, one question would baffle them: Why did ordinary people keep silent? Why did they remain acquiescent in the atrocities carried out by the state? Maybe those who were a part of the war machine were just following orders, but why did the ordinary people support the violent victimization of fellow citizens who were singled out because of who they are? Did they not know about the atrocities? Was the state propaganda so successful to make mortal enemies out of fellow citizens? Were they afraid of the consequences of opposing the dictatorship? Did they feel any compassion at all?

I am not a historian who studies the Third Reich. I study modern Turkey. This is not a repeat of the well-known story of Hitler and Nazi Germany. This is what has been going on in Turkey since the general election in June that rocked the boat by denying President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) a majority in the parliament. Anti-Kurdish propaganda and escalated violence in the Kurdish populated Southeast started soon after the election. Any hopes that an AKP majority and AKP government after the snap election in November would bring stability to the region died quickly. A curfew was declared in Silvan the day after the November election and rolling curfews have become the norm for districts like Sur, Cizre, Silopi, and Nusaybin ever since. Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants have dug up trenches or built barricades in an attempt toward an urban uprising. They have declared self-governance, following the model in the de facto autonomous Kurdish region Rojava in Northern Syria. The Turkish state is terrorizing the whole population in the region in its struggle to deal with these militants.

Curfew has come to mean urban warfare and indiscriminate violence. Many residents had to flee their homes, economic activity simply ceased, schools were closed. Tanks in the street, snipers in public school windows, continuous gun fire has become the norm. Majority of the media is under government control and there is not much reporting about the region in the mainstream media except for the news about fallen military or police officers. Districts under curfew are strictly off limits to journalists. Still, shocking news find their way out of the region, such as those about a 3 month old baby getting killed in the arms of her 80 year old grandfather in the street or the mother who was killed by mortar fire as the family was having breakfast in their home. Shelled buildings in photos from the region look like they must be from today’s Syria or Beirut in the 1980s. In the age of Internet, governments cannot control the flow of information definitively. However, they can greatly influence how the information will be perceived by the public and Erdoğan’s AKP is a pro at this game.

A woman called into an entertainment show on a weekend night recently. She asked whether people outside the region knew what is going on in the Southeast. She wished children didn’t die and moms did not cry. She tried to give a glimpse of life in the curfew zones. Her words were deemed terrorism propaganda. Upon an avalanche of reactions and threats, the anchor of the show had to go on the nightly news to apologize. He apologized for allowing her to speak and for having the audience applaud her.

Pınar Tremblay has outlined,  the major reasons why people, including Kurds in the west, do not speak up against the violence in the Kurdish districts under curfew. I feel hopeless and I am in disbelief that a great majority of the people outside the region just do not to care. What is worse, they justify and applaud the indiscriminate violence. Many social media comments express hatred for all Kurds rather than any compassion for ordinary citizens who are caught in the crossfire. I feel alone in my despair when I read these online comments or when I watch the video of a young man talking about genocide on Kurds as a last resort. He uses the word genocide so casually, as if he is talking about beating the rival soccer team in next week’s game. He actually likens genocide to getting rid of the viruses that make your body sick. This is wrong, the thought of genocide, ethnic cleansing or mass killings should not occur so easily to a young person as a solution to a political problem.

Historian Robert Gellately has documented in his book “Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany” that ordinary Germans very well knew about the extent of the atrocities carried out by the Nazi government against the Jews and other singled out groups. If they did not denounce the Jews, they simply kept silent. For each Schindler, there were thousands who acquiesced. I am thinking about what is going on in the southeast of Turkey and I am thinking about the indiscriminate violence taking place. I simply do not want to be like one of those Germans who kept silent, who turned a blind eye. I don’t have any power to change the course of things but I need to say this for the record and in hopes that I am not alone in saying it: I OBJECT!

I object to the victimization of innocent people in the struggle between the AKP governed state and the PKK for the control over the region. I object to ordinary people losing their lives, livelihoods and homes in the crossfire and getting denied the littlest compassion because they are branded enemies of the state en masse. I object that ordinary citizens of this country are getting killed in their homes in the hands of the state. The PKK, being a terrorist organization, does not have any responsibility towards the people living in the region. But the Turkish state, being a state with organized military and police forces, should ensure the security and well being of its citizens rather than readily writing them off as casualties of an undeclared, unacknowledged war. May the children not die, may the mothers not cry. I object that the state and the people have become so intolerant that a call for compassion and understanding is branded terrorist propaganda that warrants a court case. My voice may be drowned in the hateful anti-Kurdish or nationalist chants of the majority, but I am saying it for the world to hear just the same: Ongoing state indiscriminate violence in Kurdish districts is wrong and I OBJECT!