In his article for Yeni Yaşam, poet and journalist Müslüm Yücel draws a compelling comparison between three landmark trials: the Dreyfus Affair, the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and the continued detention of Abdullah Öcalan. Yücel argues that while these cases span different continents and centuries, they share fundamental themes of isolation, injustice and societal transformation.
The Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906) exposed rampant anti-Semitism in France, culminating in the wrongful conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. His plight, marked by harsh imprisonment on Devil’s Island, was a significant factor in the emergence of modern Zionism and critiques of Western racism, as explored by Theodor Herzl and others. Similarly, Nelson Mandela’s 27-year imprisonment highlighted global struggles against apartheid and racial discrimination, challenging entrenched philosophical and racial prejudices.
Yücel positions Abdullah Öcalan’s case, which began in 1999 and continues today, as a contemporary echo of these historical injustices. Öcalan’s isolation reflects ongoing regional and political conflicts involving the Kurds. Through these cases, Yücel underscores the universal struggle for justice and the role of intellectual courage in confronting oppressive systems.
Below is the translation of Müslüm Yücel’s latest article for Yeni Yaşam Newspaper, published on Saturday:
The Dreyfus Case and Intellectuals
There are three major trials that have marked the century. The first is the Dreyfus case (1894-1906), the second is the Mandela case (1961-1990) and the third is the Öcalan case (1999-present). The factors that link Öcalan to Dreyfus and Mandela are not only the basic conditions (isolation, imprisonment, language, religion, nation, race, island, etc.) but also the transformations involved. Each of these three cases reveals something different: Dreyfus reveals Europe and America; Mandela reveals Africa, America and Europe; Öcalan reveals the Middle East, Europe and America. There are other massacres, genocides, revolutions and migrations, but these three cases are key. Theodor Herzl, who followed the Dreyfus case as a journalist, wrote a book called The Jewish State (1896). The title is significant: it does not refer to a Jewish state per se, but rather to the relationship between Jews and the states in which they live, and how they might adopt or integrate into those states. Herzl proposed solutions, embraced the idea of a state, and initially turned to the Ottoman Empire/Abdulhamid for support. The Mandela case globalised the fight against racism. To this day, Western philosophy, while spreading enlightenment to all, has not been free of racism; for example, David Hume believed that “negroes” were naturally inferior to whites and that no one but whites had created a civilised nation; Voltaire, Hegel and Kant held similar views. The Mandela case challenged this view. The factors that link Ocalan to Dreyfus and Mandela are not only the basic conditions (isolation, imprisonment, language, religion, nation, race, island, etc.) but also the transformations. Anyone who reads the writings on isolation carefully will notice these transformations. For all three, a historical, contemporary art of memory is at work, and there is a remarkable intellectual attitude to each.
The Dreyfus Case
Let’s start with Dreyfus. The French Intelligence Service seizes a document it believes to be related to espionage. The matter is passed to the General Staff, and without sufficient investigation, Dreyfus is arrested. The reasons behind his arrest are not only the document but also widespread anti-Semitism. The French press condemns Dreyfus for being Jewish, without evidence. The Jewish community outside the trial also suffers; Eduard Drumont’s La Libre Parole newspaper runs an anti-Semitic campaign. During the court proceedings, “forensic expert” Alphonse Bertillon examines Dreyfus’s handwriting: The analysis of handwriting, which is not a science but a form of “graphology”, turns into farce! Bertillon concludes that the notes attributed to Dreyfus, containing many syllables, have a series of similarities in pen strokes, implying that Dreyfus’s handwriting was being mimicked by someone else. The court accepts this. Added to this, Dreyfus’s knowledge of German leads to his conviction, his ranks are stripped, his sword is broken, and he is sent to Devil’s Island. These proceedings are supported by public displays to convey the message that “justice/ the state is on their side.” Passionate speeches are made in churches, and they have already betrayed Jesus!
Devil’s Island, from 1852 onwards, was an island where criminals were sent; it is very rainy, humid, and swampy, and is ironically called a “health island”: at one time, lepers were sent there, thus making the island synonymous with someone else’s health. Escape from Devil’s Island is impossible, and prisoners endure severe tortures; harsh working conditions and torture cause prisoners to die within a year. Those who attempt to escape fail, as the island’s surroundings are filled with sharks.
The Butterfly Novel
The first known account/novel about Devil’s Island is Papillon (Butterfly) by Henri Charrière (1906-1973), published in 1969 and later adapted into a film by Franklin V. Schaffner (1973). The novel is Charrière’s life story; he was imprisoned on the island for a crime he did not commit, planned his escape for 13 years, succeeded, and then wrote about his escape. In Papillon, our innocent heroes (played by Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman in the film) escape from the leper colony on a raft made from coconut palms. One of the film’s lines is: “You filthy bastards, I’m still here.” This implies that while the narrator has escaped, others remain trapped and are not free. During and before the novel’s time, the practices remained unchanged: prisoners who did not perform their assigned tasks were chained to their beds; severe isolation was enforced, with prisoners kept in a dark cell for six months to damage their senses. This often led to frequent illnesses. Prisoners, working barefoot in winter, suffered from ear infections, bronchitis, pneumonia, and other times from smallpox; smallpox is contagious, so prisoners kept their distance from each other, which turned into torture as prisoners were brought together to contract the disease.
When Dreyfus was brought there, lepers and other prisoners were separated, and a special hut was built for him. The staff were instructed: “It is forbidden to speak to Dreyfus.” This is a method of isolation. The individual will begin to talk to themselves. This damages the personality; talking to oneself between the ages of 2 and 7 is part of language acquisition, and an adult talking to themselves, especially in solitary confinement, is seen as a sign of the end of discovery, and the aim of power is: lose your words, lose your mind, lose your heart, I’ve placed a ghost by the wall, talk to it.
The global press was not indifferent to the case and the island. As noted in an examination by Ahmet Soysal, Turkish press member Hüseyin Cahit imagines Dreyfus at that time and describes him as “an innocent moaning on the bleak rock of Devil’s Island.” This suggests that there were intellectuals in Turkey at that time. The Republic is established, and Hüseyin Cahit translates Hitler’s Mein Kampf for Turkish-German friendship! This indicates that Turkish intellectuals are periodical.
Zola’s Courage
Dreyfus remains there for four years, maintaining his sanity by reading books, studying English, and engaging in mathematics; no close relatives, brothers, or wife are allowed to visit. His wife’s requests for visits are denied. Dreyfus writes letters but receives no replies; the letters he writes are also not given to him. Dreyfus’s case has inspired books (Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism; Zola’s J’accuse) and films (The Officer and the Spy, 2019), continuing to have an impact today.
During the Dreyfus case, intellectuals emerged: Émile Zola and Anatole France are the most prominent; also chemist Émile Duclaux, historian Gabriel Monod, and Ecole library director Lucien Herr. They are the ones who took the lead. Among them, Zola stands out during the trials; he is popular as a journalist but is not taken seriously in literary circles. For instance, after Baudelaire and Rimbaud, the walking god of French literature, Mallarmé, follows Zola, appreciates the courage shown regarding Dreyfus, but does not include himself among Dreyfus’s supporters and is uninterested in Zola’s novels, associating literature with poetry. Even when Zola’s Germinal was published, Mallarmé did not refer to it as a novel: “Our friend Zola has written a book,” he sneered dismissively. Zola was aware of this. From his first novel onwards, he restricted himself to one theme: corruption. According to him, politics had become corrupt. Corruption began with Louis Bonaparte; social life, sexuality, and then nature became corrupt, and everyone seems to be in a state of escape as Sartre said, bad faith has taken over, people have fled from what they are, from what they will be.
Zola does not have a technical perspective or emotional approach, but he stands out with his ideas, quickly taking his place, standing with the minority in a country where the majority is right, and he does not delay in taking a stance; in the Dreyfus case, Zola is the first name that comes to mind; he writes J’accuse, and when this text is published, he is lynched. There are street protests against him: “Death to the Jews!” The mob organized by the General Staff smashes his windows and prevents him from going out. He is arrested. In Arendt’s words, if Zola had not been arrested and had gone outside, “he would not have left the courtroom alive.”
The Socialist Position
Very few people supported Zola and his friends. Even Jean Jaurès, who was a leading figure in laying the foundations of today’s Socialist Party, lost the elections in 1898. Yet he didn’t complain about the loss, famously stating, “Bravery is to seek the truth and to shout it out loud.” The role of socialists is to stand against injustice and to support minorities. Jaurès wrote extensively on this basis and stood by Dreyfus. For Jaurès, supporting Dreyfus was synonymous with opposing nationalism. If socialists failed to side with the minority, then they too were nationalists. This is a rather pure form of democracy and socialism.
With the Dreyfus Affair, France was psychologically split in two: those who supported Dreyfus and those who opposed him. The opponents claimed to tolerate Jews but demanded that Jews be “people on the streets, but Jews at home.” Jews were understandably fearful; as Arendt puts it, they wanted to “remain Jewish” but also to convince others that they had “changed.” The reason for this was clear: their children’s future, their economic stability, and their social lives depended on it. As a result, they became what Bernard Lazare called “conscious pariahs.”
Jews were scattered across the world, with strong economies, but without a state to retreat to in times of crisis. Some Jews even had their children baptised, abandoning their faith, and did so with a certain brazenness. Thus, as Arendt noted, “being Jewish degenerated into a mere birth fact among assimilated Jews.” Some took pride in Benjamin Disraeli, who became the British Prime Minister (1874-1880), reading his novel “Alroy” (1830) and reminiscing about the great virtues they once possessed. In this sense, one significant figure that shouldn’t be overlooked is Marcel Proust. Like many Jewish families, Proust’s family was divided; his mother (Jeanne), he, and his brother (Robert) supported Dreyfus, while their father (Adrien) didn’t show the same commitment, perhaps for the sake of his children’s wellbeing. Proust himself was hesitant; while he signed a petition for Dreyfus, he didn’t participate in any activities. In his narrative, Dreyfus is like a ghost. Many characters are Dreyfus supporters, such as Princess Guermantes. But the only character who remains consistently pro-Dreyfus throughout the novel is Charles Swann, who dies in The Prisoner (1898) before witnessing Dreyfus’s freedom, with a grand but sorrowful funeral held for him. The most interesting character in the novel, however, is Saint-Loup. When M. de Guermantes learns that Saint-Loup was once a Dreyfus supporter, he is distressed, angered, and bewildered, ultimately concluding that he views his nephew as a young man who has gone astray and will not be surprised by anything he does until he reforms (Sodom and Gomorrah). By the end of the novel, however, Saint-Loup no longer holds this view; he has reformed. This is kept as a secret because his status in the military is at stake.
Proust, despite giving the Dreyfus Affair significant space in his narrative (which is crucial), enrages Arendt; it’s as if he wasn’t the person who criticised Stalin and Hitler. He uses expressions lacking in aesthetic sense: “Proust leads us through the labyrinth of social contacts and ambitions, following only the human capacity to love (as represented by Monsignor de Charlus’s perverse passion for Morel, the Jewish Swann’s burning devotion to his prostitute, and the author’s hopeless jealousy of Albertine, who personifies corruption in the novel)” (The Origins of Totalitarianism). And yet!
Proust constructs his work through the memory of time, which some critics believe was a way of defending his own life. In every paragraph of the novel, a metaphor of “search” stands out, and this can be summed up as a search for truth. Who is this? It is himself. As Deleuze puts it, this search is about seeking, interpreting, and deciphering the truth. Proust’s search is temporal, and the truth is always the truth of time. Just as lost time has its truth, so does the time that has been captured. Time, in order to gain visibility, “chases after bodies, seizing everybody it encounters and playing its magic lantern upon them” (Time Regained). But at the end of the search, Proust shows us that the Dreyfus Affair, the war, and everything beyond it, have profoundly changed society. This change is not a Bergsonian intuition but rather a race towards separation and the grave. For “when nothing remains from a distant past, after people have died and objects have been destroyed, only the scent and taste, more fragile but longer-lasting, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, will continue” (Swann’s Way). In short, this is France’s stance against isolation. (In the future, this issue will re-emerge when examining the Kurds’ stance against isolation.)
Kurdish Intellectuals
Ottoman intellectuals also supported Dreyfus. Articles on the case were published in Tanin and Servet-i Fünun, but the real work was done by Kurdish intellectuals, who were known as the masters or gentlemen of that era. The first name that comes to mind is İsmail Hakkı Babanzade.
İsmail Hakkı wrote articles in İkdam and Tanin newspapers. For a time, he was close to the Unionists and published articles in their Şura-yı Ümmet newspaper. However, he is better known for his writings in Roj-i Kurd and Kürd Teavün ve Terakki.
İsmail Hakkı and his close friend Ali Reşad wrote a book titled The Dreyfus Affair and Its Secret Causes, published in 1899, consisting of 420 pages. I should also mention the publisher of the book; it was printed by Şirket-i Mürettibiye Press, owned by Artin Asuduryan. This press published books in many languages (1,417 Turkish books in Arabic script), but like many others, Artin was arrested after the Tehcir Suresi was read in the mosques in April 1915, sent to Ayaş, and imprisoned. His story is interesting, and I might write about it one day.
The book by İsmail Hakkı and his associates was also published in modern Turkish script in 2013. The book’s message emphasizes that the Dreyfus Affair goes far beyond a legal or judicial matter: it is a social issue. The French government and military, according to the authors, have lost their conscience and social existence. Only a handful of civilized (intellectual) people have stood by Dreyfus. According to İsmail Hakkı, Dreyfus was condemned by the judges (hükkam), but these judges were themselves condemned by the spiritual sense of humanity and the “world’s thinking minds” (ezhan-ı müttefekiri-i dünya), making this case a matter of “human society,” a “unified entity,” and a “single body.” However, this situation has hurt both humanity and the individual, and no nation can claim justice, mercy, or compassion as their own exclusive traits; these are the common heritage of humanity.
Kurdish poet and journalist Müslüm Yücel was born in Urfa in 1969. He published his first poetry collection, ‘Kalbimizin Kuyusunda Kardeştir Yaralarımız’ (Our Wounds are Siblings in the Well of Our Hearts), in 1994, followed by “İpek Yolu” (Silk Road), “Ahuzin” and “Ölü Evi” (House of the Dead). Yücel began his career in journalism at the Yeni Ülke newspaper and later contributed to the Özgür Gündem, the Özgür Ülke and the Yeni Politika. He is also renowned for his research on topics such as the history of the Kurdish press, death and suicide among Kurds, and Kurdish imagery in literature and cinema. Follow him on Twitter
