436 Resisting Publics
of the suicide bomber,^28 highlighted readings of the situation that were
far from being equally audible. In a way, the statue embodied a broader
struggle over loyalties, though these were still very much limited to the
war-makers’ positions. The city mayor, both in his decision to build this
statue and in his attempt at justification following the controversy, tried to
subvert categories:
These days, human rights are our greatest need, all the people
(of Tunceli) are longing for it. We are proud to have this statue
erected.^29
The woman is a symbol of peace and tolerance. She consoli-
dates friendships ... We condemn violence. Why would we
raise a monument celebrating violence? [... Following the
suicide bombing on the Square of the Republic, everyone in
Tunceli were on the side of the security forces.] We even can-
celled weddings. But nobody records that we made these mar-
tyrs our martyrs!^30
By appealing to the higher principle of respect for human rights to
promote transformed conditions of coexistence between state agents and
Tunceli inhabitants, the mayor also failed to challenge the state order and
its use of violence. The statue should have been a central landmark in the
production of a public space where inhabitants would not be stigmatized
as “enemies,” as “terrorists” deprived of human rights; a space where living
together would have been possible.
n Tunceli, war deprived inhabitants of most of their landmarks. I
Moreover, while instilling fear and distrust among former friends or
neighbors, it made actual procedures of coexistence and interaction
nearly meaningless. As for the relations between inhabitants and state
security forces, (extreme) experiences like identity controls, trials, the
funeral of a guerrilla or attempts to get one’s son or daughter freed or at
least protected from torture, could have provided opportunities to argue
over principles of justice, to adjust rules of coexistence and categories
of identification at the margins. But, at the height of the conflict, these
were generally strangled by nonnegotiable procedures and silenced under
war-makers’ propaganda. The Turkish state and, at a smaller scale and