By ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)
When they should call it love, they can’t.
Now, they’re calling it love instead of a CRIME!
They don’t even understand that they are “normalising” violence.
In fact, they’re justifying a murder…
They are giving out “hints” to other murderers, irresponsibly, recklessly, loutishly…
They want to legitimize violence by using love, just as they describe war as peace.
Their tongues hang out when trying to appease others, spilling rust and spewing out mould everywhere.
***
“My brothers and sisters, unless we can question the darkness that turned this baby into a murderer, we cannot achieve anything. Rakel Dink had said as she bid her husband farewell [Translator’s note: Rakel Dink is the wife of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian intellectual and editor-in-chief of Agosi, who was gunned down by a Turkish nationalist]
This is what we need to acknowledge as we try to understand, sense and comprehend a murder in a situation where words fall short, where eyes stare meaninglessly and in despair…
There’s “darkness”.
We must first question that darkness…
Beyond the judgements, curiosity and common reactions such as “who was he/she, what was it about, where was he/she from, why did it happen” we must first understand the darkness we have been pushed into.
We must recognize the darkness that grows where freedom, equality, will and civilization have been lost.
***
“Violence” does not emerge on its own!
It is learned.
They forget the violence they made us memorise as children; through museums, books, stories, ceremonies, speeches and their language… Those who “force” men to take arms and who teach them that it is “compulsory” to kill are now watching a murder in shock!
***
Those who remain silent over the words, “It is a woman’s duty to follow a man’s command” cannot have tears to shed for the murder of a girl.
That is the “darkness”!
Darkness is to be a guardian of morality against people’s sexual orientation!
It is to sanctify bigotry instead of science, modernity and absolute knowledge!
***
People are torn up in my homeland…
For they are without hope…
Our lives, our country and our future are in fragments…
Words have lost their meaning, and so have thoughts and knowledge…
A never-ending pain in our guts…
Neither the familiar mornings, nor the sincere friendships we have witnessed remain…
This state of constraint and uncertainty, of mediocrity, has scattered our personalities…
The smirking attitude of the protocol [Translator’s note: reference to politicians] at official spectacles of insolence has worn out our patience…
They are exercising “power” on all of us, every moment, everywhere,…
We are decaying and eroding…
Our voices do not echo in the colour of the streets…
Mothers do not smile, there is always worry in our hearts, always a sense of unease.
We are now anxious to run to the parks, to wander carelessly, to defend life, to live freedoms…
They are designing anger, murders and violence and they always have a reason.
That is the darkness!
***
“My brothers and sisters, unless we can question the darkness that turned this baby into a murderer, we cannot achieve anything.”
They kill a girl by hitting her on the head again and again…
It’s impossible, it can’t be, don’t believe it, the sun does not rise…
We bury the hearts of children in the ground…
We throw earth over their eyes…
We lay their bodies in darkness in the middle of this darkness…
“Love does not kill”
“It is not love that kills, it’s uneducated, selfish, mentally underdeveloped people who kill. The problem is not in love, the problem is with people who do not know how to love. Since its mostly men who carry out such brutal attacks, the problem lies in men who don’t know how to love…”
Ahmet Ümit | Our love is an Old Novel
“The final journey and the shame that made the pain worse” did not go unnoticed
I shared the experiences of a grieving son.
He had brought his father, who was receiving treatment in Istanbul, to Ercan [Tymbou] Airport via ambulance plane and struggled to go through the passport procedures for his intubated father.
He shared his feelings with us as his letter of complaint to the Police General Directorate remained unanswered.
What he went through was a true example of insensitivity…
The aggrieved citizen who penned the letter called yesterday, he told me that after my column was published in the newspaper, a high-ranking officer from the Police General Directorate had visited him and apologised in person.
“They told me they [the police] had watched the CCTV footage and confirmed my story; they told me that I was right to complain, that the incident had saddened them, and they apologised. They were extremely polite and they informed me that an inquiry would be launched into the incident.”
The sensitivity shown is important… I hope it will serve as a lesson, that public duties will be carried out with far greater responsibility, discipline and enthusiasm, and that humanity is not forgotten.
