State and Civilian Violence Against “Dangerous” Others

Abstract

The lynch regime in Turkey is an instance where lynches and vigilantism form two parts of a single mechanism, where they almost complete each other hand in hand with state terror. The perpetrators are not prosecuted according to the law because the people being attacked are described as traitors, enemies, and provocateurs by both state representatives and within the dominant nationalistic discourse. In incidents of lynching or assassination, the perpetrators are portrayed as sensitive citizens acting from righteous motivations who have somehow been provoked. In this depiction, provocation is as inevitable as are natural disasters. When treated like this, the lynching is not scandalized but normalized. I speak of a lynch regime because of the systematic, institutionalized use of this lynching discourse.

The original version of this chapter was revised: Authors’ affiliations have been swapped. The erratum to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76705-5_28