Independent Communication Network's (BİA) project advisor, journalist Nadire Mater's latest book "Street Is Beautiful: What Happened In 68?" (Sokak Güzeldir: 68'de Ne Oldu?) places personal testimonials of the uprising on a solid background of the period in Turkey as well as around the world.
The book -released by Metis Publishing House- includes in-depth reviews with 21 of the youth movement's leading figures as well as informative essays on the cultural, economic and political developments of the time.
Full of detailed side notes, little known photographs and with a through bibliography, Mater's book provides a concise account of 1968, the events leading to it and those that followed.
The youth and student leaders interviewed in the book are as follows: Bozkurt Nuhoğlu, Kemal Bingöllü, Uğur Cilasun, Ruhi Koç, Osman Saffet Arolat, Çimen Keskin, Çetin Uygur, Haydar İlker, Hikmet Bozçalı, Jülide (Zaim) Aral, Selçuk Şahin Polat, Işık Alumur, Esra Koç, Şahin Alpay, Mustafa İlker Gürkan, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, Neşe Erdilek, Sait Kozacıoğlu, Mustafa Lütfi Kıyıcı, Oral Çalışlar and Hatice Yaşar.
The interviews begin with the occupation of the Istanbul University by students and chronologically progress, bringing together experiences from Trabzon and Ankara.
The relationship of the movement in Turkey with the uprising in Europe, student movement's evolution into a revolutionary movement, their relation with the labor movement, the establishment's reaction, fascist attacks and the issue of armed struggle, divided opinions, the influence of the Kurdish struggle, the criticism of affiliations with the army and the relation with Kemalizm are discussed by the very people who participated and shaped it.
Mater also questions the "male" character of 68.
Following the interviews are essays. Barış Alp Özden contributes with "Economic and Social Indicators in the World and in Turkey in 1960s" and Ümit Fırat with "The Beginning of the Modern Kurdish Politics in Turkey: Revolutionary East Cultural Associations".
Furthermore, The Turkish Labor Party (TİP), Turkey's National Youth Association-Turkey's National Student Federation (TMGT-TMTF), Federation of Clubs of Thought (FKF), Revolutionary Youth (DEV-GENÇ), Ant magazine, Aydınlık and Kurtuluş, Turkey's People's Liberation Army (THKO), Turkey's People's Liberation Party-Front (THKP-C), Turkey's Revolutionary Workers Peasants Party (TİİKP), Turkey's Communist Party- Marxist Leninist (TKP-ML) and Turkey's Workers Peasants Liberation Army (TİKKO) are featured in different encyclopedic essays.
Mater's "Voices from the front / Turkish soldiers on the war with the Kurdish guerrillas", -which included first hand testimonials of ordinary soldiers who took part in the decades long campaign against the PKK- appeared in 1999 and had been taken to court. Both she and her publisher Semih Sökmen were accused of insulting the military. They were acquitted in 2001. The incident became one of the symbols of the struggle for the freedom of expression in Turkey. The book was translated into German, Finnish, English, Italian and Greek and was given numerous awards.(EÜ/AGÜ)
