On the morning of August 16, 1984, Turkey awoke to one of its most significant traumas in the…

On the morning of August 16, 1984, Turkey awoke to one of its most significant traumas in the last 40 years. I vividly remember that morning. I was a faculty member at Hacettepe University's Faculty of Social and Administrative Sciences, still under the shadow of the September 12 military coup. A year earlier, Turgut Özal, one of Turkey's major economic reformers, had taken power with 45% of the vote, despite military opposition. That morning, we heard on TRT radio about attacks on the gendarmerie headquarters and public buildings in Eruh and Şemdinli, which resulted in the death of Gendarmerie Corporal Süleyman Aydın and many injuries. We were a generation that had not witnessed the Kurdish uprisings after the War of Independence, and that morning marked our realization of the Kurdish issue's transition to a terrorist dimension.