WE WILL EITHER CHANGE, OR DROWN…

I wandered around, and came back. The same darkness again.

I tried to move forward, passing through doors one by one. Each one slammed in my face. As the days grew darker, so did I. Faces that looked alike, feelings that felt alike. And feelings that learned from each other, imitated each other.

By the way, hasn’t summer started yet? How strange, isn’t it? When it’s warm outside, but inside you feel colder and colder. Especially your heart. That vital organ that supplies the whole body with blood. When it stops, the whole system breaks down. Breathing becomes the hardest thing to do.

Have you ever tried holding your breath during the day? I sometimes try it when I have hiccups to make them go away. Even in that brief moment, my heart starts beating as if it’s going to jump out of my chest. It feels like I’ve been running for hours without stopping. Yet it’s only a few seconds. Nothing more.

But for some of us, there is something more. There are moments when the breath doesn’t come back.

We are drowning. Bodies are washing up on the shore.

A life ends with a single sentence in the autopsy report: “The cause of death was determined to be drowning (asphyxiation).” The file is closed. The files are closed. Three people, Güldeniz, Ahsen, and Talha, who died in the same way, a year apart, in the same place. Why was this pain endured? What caused this disappearance? Some people ask. But no one answers. A deafening silence engulfs the entire community.

They call it a ‘corpse.’ That is the word used to describe us after we die. If you want to be more polite, you can say ‘body.’ The fact that we were once alive is erased in an instant. We are remembered as objects that are transported from one place to another, buried, and hidden beneath the ground.

That is what we are. The only reality that can happen to any of us at any moment. While walking down the street. While eating. While driving. While swimming in the sea. While hugging our loved ones. And most of all, while working.

Workers…

For a pittance, they succumb to this broken system, regardless of the harshest conditions of seasons. They fall victim to precarious conditions so that others can line their pockets. Why? To feed themselves? That’s not even possible.

This system is drowning not only our bodies but also our memories. Twenty-nine years have passed since the night Kutlu Adalı was murdered… Not only the perpetrator but the system itself is being protected. Isn’t the murderer this system itself?

Sometimes I rummage through the archives. I glance through the pages of old newspaper. The problems are the same, the sentences are similar. It’s like déjà vu. A news story written yesterday seems like it happened today. We are condemned to tasteless meals that are reheated and served to us. Always the same pain, always the same dead end.

Nothing will change unless the system changes. This stench, this decay, is poisoning not only today but also the future. Especially the young. Those who are just starting out. Those who have become afraid to even hope. The only emotion the system offers is hopelessness.

Yet, none of us have the right to pave way for this. We have no right to remain silent, to get used to it, or to be part of this system.

Because we have no other choice.

We will either change, or drown.

This article was originally published on 08.07.2025

Source: WE WILL EITHER CHANGE, OR DROWN…