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Monsters that remember: Tracing the story of the Workers' Monument in Tophane, İstanbul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Meltem Ahiska
Meltem Ahiska*
Affiliation:
>Boğaziçi University, Department of Sociology, 34342, Bebek-İstanbul, Turkey, ahiska@boun.edu.tr
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Abstract

This article focuses on a particular monument in Tophane, the Workers' Monument, which has been subjected to destructions ever since the time it was put in place in 1973 and which still stands in the same place as a crippled and unidentifiable body. Many people have referred to it as a “monster.” The term “monster” points to unacceptable forms of life, cast aside as “abnormal,” and can be of use in tracing how certain memories are crushed or abandoned and become aberrant. Thus, I argue that the story of the destruction of the Workers' Monument cannot be read independently of the performative command of the state, best observed in erecting Atatürk monuments all over the country as visual embodiments of power and furthermore securing and protecting them against destruction by the force of law. Monuments contribute to the closure of the past as a dead body. However, they also forge a regime of memory and desire that serves power. I dwell on the issue of monuments in Turkey in that interstice between life and death, that is, in their “monstrosity,” so as to reflect on what remains unrepresentable within the complex history—in other words, to reflect on the problem of power, history, and memory/counter-memory.

Keywords

Monumentmonsterrepresentationmemorycounter-memory
Type
Research Article
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 45: Special Issue on Turkishness and Its Discontents , Fall 2011 , pp. 9 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2011

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