Political violence in Turkey in the 1970s

Political violence in Turkey in the 1970s is presented as a continuing feature of everyday life, not as a campaign Kemal Basmacı joins or seeks to explain from within. He describes clashes between nationalist and communist factions, repeated killings and attacks, and a city whose residents attempt to keep out of politics while living under its threat. The violence intrudes on ordinary routines, from cautious journeys through Istanbul to the late television news watched during Kemal’s visits to the Keskin household.

Background and Scale

Kemal characterizes the street clashes between fervent nationalists and fervent communists as an extension of the Cold War. His account names no single organization as responsible for the conflict; instead, he describes an assortment of ruthless factions whose aims and affiliations seemed to him to have little in common with the lives of ordinary citizens.

The violence was recurrent and varied in form. People were murdered in the streets, coffeehouses were attacked with machine guns at night, and universities experienced takeovers and boycotts. Bombs went off and militants raided banks, while slogans repeatedly covered one another on city walls. The accumulation matters: the danger is described not as one isolated incident but as a condition that returned across public spaces and everyday news.

Ordinary Life Under Threat

Kemal says that, like most people in Istanbul, he had little interest in politics. He treats the conflict as a catastrophe ordinary citizens could not control, comparing their position to that of people facing an earthquake or flood. His practical response was to try to stay out of its way. When he asked Çetin Efendi to drive carefully, the request reflected that sense of exposure rather than political allegiance or understanding of the factions.

The danger also shaped family concern. After Kemal spent an evening eating with his mother and drinking, she noticed his restlessness and urged him to walk it off, but warned him not to go far because the streets were dangerous. Her caution places political violence within an intimate domestic scene: it governs how far someone might venture outside, even when the immediate purpose is simply to manage private distress.

News, Visits, and Private Time

Violence entered Kemal’s visits to the Keskin household through the television as well as through the streets. One March 1977 evening, the late news carried a succession of reports about bombs at political meetings and coffeehouses and opposition leaders shot dead. Feridun arrived very late to find Kemal still at the house, where the evening’s broadcast had continued while the family’s supper gathering stretched on. The public crisis and the private routine occupy the same evening without becoming the same story.

The household’s television made that overlap recurrent. During Kemal’s long visits, the family watched an assortment of programs and news; the broadcasts could include accounts of political events alongside entertainment and other public spectacles. Kemal’s visits were measured in hours and shaped by the television schedule, but his attention remained fixed on the people and rhythms of the household. Political violence therefore appears both as news shared across the country and as an external threat against which ordinary domestic life is maintained.

The Later Curfew and Narrative Significance

The account distinguishes the violence of the 1970s from the military coup of September 1980 and the curfew that followed. The curfew forced Kemal to leave the Keskin household before ten at night, cutting short visits that had become central to his life. This later restriction makes the pressure of state power newly concrete, but it is not presented as interchangeable with the earlier street clashes.

By placing political danger beside supper, family warnings, television, and travel through the city, the narrative registers its force through interruption and caution rather than through political participation. Kemal’s claim to stand apart from politics does not free him from its consequences: violence affects how safely people move, what they hear at home, and how long private gatherings can continue.