Turkey's Guernica
The Turkish military's attack on the Kurdish town of Uludere (Roboski in Turkish), in which 34 children were killed, evokes memories of the Spanish attack on the Basque town of Guernica in 1937, writes Cengiz Candar.
Just as Guernica was a symbol of the Spanish civil war, Roboski (Turkish Uludere) is bound to become a symbol of Turkey’s Kurdish problem.
Guernica was a small village in the Basque region of Spain. On April 26,1937, it was bombed by Franco’s forces in the Spanish civil war. Hundreds of innocent people were killed. What made Guernica unforgettable was no doubt Pablo Picasso’s timeless painting inspired by that event.
Thanks to Picasso, Guernica found its place in mankind’s awareness and its name remains a symbol of the tragedies of war. In time, it has come to symbolize anti-war and pro-peace ideologies.
The Roboski incident little resembles that in Guernica, but its symbolism for that time period in Turkey is much the same.
