So What Is the Moral of This Story?

There is a Netflix series that has recently drawn a great deal of comment on social media as well: “The Club” (Kulüp). Through the stories of Sephardic Jewish Matilda and her daughter Raşel, who live around Beyoğlu in 1950s Istanbul, the series focuses on events surrounding the lives of non-Muslims living in Istanbul. The series is also considered noteworthy for opening a space for confronting the sad events of 6–7 September 1955 in our country.

The series tells once again, through the eyes of the people who lived through these events, how the dominant ideology of the period turned a blind eye to, or even caused, the lynching of those who were not its own. It is a fact that the lynching a community suffers because of its beliefs or identity opens deep wounds in these people for years. As a result, many of them had to leave the land they regarded as their homeland.

The events began with the spread of news that Atatürk’s house in Thessaloniki had been bombed, followed by looting and destruction carried out by people brought in from outside the city, especially to Istanbul. Shortly afterwards it was claimed that the person who planted the bomb at Atatürk’s house in Thessaloniki was Oktay Engin, a political science student at the University of Thessaloniki, born in Komotini and a Western Thrace Turk, and that he worked for MİT. Although a case was brought against him as the instigator of the bombing and he was convicted, Engin was smuggled to Türkiye and granted citizenship by the Menderes government. Oktay Engin was later recruited into police intelligence and rose within the state as far as the post of provincial governor.

Years later, after retiring as a full general from the Secretariat General of the National Security Council, Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu would tell journalist Fatih Güllapoğlu: “The events of 6–7 September were a Special Warfare operation. And it was a magnificent organisation. It achieved its goal.”

While looking into the series, which has also attracted the interest of young people, I came across an observation by journalist Can Dündar. Dündar says: “The Club series taught two things anew”:

1. How even the best-known page of our history has been made to be forgotten,

2. How important a tool television is in reminding especially the young generation of those pages.

With the release of The Club, apart from economic expectations, the aim may also have been to raise public awareness of events that took place in the past. However, in works on historical subjects with a social dimension, the intended outcome must be carefully calculated. Society can sometimes look at even matters that are plain in all their reality with an emotional or partisan eye.

Series like “The Club” can be a step towards making the young generation take an interest in past events. But when dealing with historical events full of pain and grief, the effects these subjects will leave on society must also be carefully assessed.

In a society whose nerve endings have been thoroughly overstimulated and which has become almost desensitised, it must be carefully considered that the intended message will not always be perceived correctly by its recipients. For this reason, not only may the desired result not be achieved, but sometimes adverse or unexpected effects may arise. In a completely polarised society that harbours hostile feelings towards those who are not its own, this step, taken to foster empathy, may also backfire.

After all, there is a sizeable audience that watches historical series with sword and axe in hand and a shield made from the lid of a household pot. While one hopes to create awareness in society, the scenes in the series may also cause certain fascist feelings to rise further among people who have been thoroughly polarised.

Taking certain steps to confront the suffering of history is very important. For example, the kneeling of German Chancellor Willy Brandt to ask forgiveness, 25 years after the crimes committed by the Nazi regime, broke a taboo. But at a time when a government that feeds entirely on the polarisation of society is pursuing its policies at full speed, one must be selective and sensitive in the messages conveyed through popular broadcasts.

For this reason, such steps must have a purpose, a moral. While on the subject, I cannot help recalling a saying of Taptuk Emre in the series “Yunus Emre: The Journey of Love”: “After all, can there be a story without a moral?”

So what is the moral of the story told in “The Club”?