A closer look at the record shop attackers

It is only possible for a person to be so full of revenge and hatred if they were raised in a family environment where a constant revenge and hatred atmosphere was fueled. Maybe their parents set their siblings at odds with each other, maybe they discriminated among them or maybe their father victimized and terrorized their mother. 

Either their parents spoiled these bullies and caused them to gain unfounded self-esteem or they continuously scolded them to make them feel they were useless. They, no doubt, in return, are practicing on their own children what they witnessed in their own families. If these bullies had sisters, they were tolerated more in the family compared to their sisters; they were blocked from developing their equality and justice perception since young ages. Even if they did not see discrimination against women in their families, they saw it in their extended families, in their neighborhoods, schools and television. 

Because the girls around them were raised inside the house and not allowed outside, every woman they saw outside was “loose” to them. Especially those who drank, who said what they thought and who worked to earn their living were straightforward “hell material.” They learned not to respect women at very early ages. 
In the environment of these bullies, maybe sexual orientations have always been a tool for mockery. They have excluded people of different sexual orientations, maybe have beaten them up. Because our country is rich in terms of its ethnic background, these bullies became masters in discriminatory behavior toward people of different backgrounds. They would not rent them houses, hire them, share the same social environments with them or shop from their stores. 

For those whose backgrounds they are unsure of, they made guesses based on their skin color and physical features and did not befriend those with a different accent or speech. 

They learned that generalization is the main factor of discrimination. They close an eye to the bad examples of their own segment and call them an exception when it is hard to neglect them. 

These bullies have never given up discrimination because whenever they discriminated, nobody stopped them. Because officials and security forces are also members of this society, they did not fall too far apart in the zone of discrimination. 

That white t-shirt-wearing man we saw in the footage of the raid is in his late 40s. That means that for 40 to 50 years, this society’s, this state’s public employees have facilitated them in their bullying efforts. 

These discriminatory bully types are not exceptions. In this country, every second certain people discriminate others, exclude them. They are sometimes landowners who would not hire Kurdish workers, sometimes local people chasing away Syrians from their town, sometimes a bar owner who does not let gays in and some other times they are these fake villains who do not want drinkers in their neighborhood. 

When we get to know them, actually, we see that they have always walked or been made to walk the same paths before they became what they are today.

Note: I made use of N. Ekrem Düzen’s book “Herkes İçin Kolay ve Pratik Ayrımcılık” (Easy and Practical Discrimination for Everyone). I recommend it to everybody.