The reason we call it a regime is because of a pattern. It’s a series of evils, oppressions, and persecutions that repeat, come one after the other at regular intervals, disappear as if they will never return, and then reappear, starting the cycle again. The stage is the “paradise homeland.” The main actors in this play are the representatives of the regime, the supporting actors are the opposition, bureaucracy, or, in other words, the state, and the extras are millions of people, individuals…
As I mentioned in a few other articles, in the past: like ducklings waking up to a new world every day, disconnected from reality, no, rather not wanting to see the truth; like a drug addict who prefers to live in a world of fantasies… People who delay life and seek happiness that doesn’t actually exist in material things, physically present but spiritually and mentally absent citizens…
Every year or two, the system sacrifices an innocent, sick, and unfortunate child. Every few months, we hear about the arrest of another journalist, whether we support them or not. After all, the journalists from the opposing neighborhoods and clans probably deserved it, right? Every three to five years, each other’s parliament members, the mayors of separatists, and almost every week, imagine, in such frequency, families associated with the Gülen Movement are “captured” in new camera-recorded raids. These news stories are sprinkled in between mafia assassinations and heroin trade news. People, those individuals, continue to bow to the system, thinking that their turn will never come in their small world. Like a ritual, the followers of a secret cult perform a political allegiance worship to their self-appointed gods, and as the ritual becomes more massive, enthusiasm naturally increases. Some are in a trance, others turn the wheels with the lust that comes from profiting, and the bodies of the innocent among them are like meat in the oil of these wheels. Faster, faster!
In the mid-1980s, my father’s Yeditepe Players staged “Durdurun Dünyayı İnecek Var” (Stop the World, I Want to Get Off) after “Kelebekler Özgürdür” (Butterflies are Free). It was a beautiful play that depicted the rise and fall of a corrupt politician. At that time, in our theater at the Kadıköy Public Education Center, the upper section of the hall called the balcony was not open to the audience. We couldn’t get enough of those block hazelnut chocolate bars from the nut shop across from Public Education, and sometimes, we would secretly buy “artiste” sandwiches from my father. I would watch the play, which was about to be completed for the umpteenth time, while eating my sandwiches or chocolates, even though my fingers would go numb from typing, and even the keyboard of the computer would be pressed in certain formations, depending on the person.
When I invited a good friend to the play, we would watch it from the balcony. The balcony was my kind of VIP area. It was my own place, a place where only I dominated in the theater. “Durdurun Dünyayı” was staged in such a time. If I had boarded a time machine and come to these days while watching the play, if I could have warned Yusuf Kerim, if I could have warned Kara Efe, if I could have warned Prof. Haluk Savas, if I could have warned Gökhan Acikkollu, the innocents who died in Meriç and Ege, if I could have warned Berkin, Ethem, those who were tortured or disappeared for writing their thoughts, if I could have warned them…
It feels very strange when I think about it, but people were somewhere in the middle of the food chain, you know. In addition to their pitiful position, they had big brains, thumbs, and the ability to stand on two feet, and perhaps more importantly than these, they broke through with unity, almost controlling nature and the laws of physics. I think this doesn’t work uniquely in Turkey! In other words, while living together in society provides advantages to people in the rest of the world, in Turkey, where they cannot transition from being a tribe digging each other’s wells to becoming a society, they act in the most irrational way, like a nuclear power that thinks it will win a thermonuclear war. The deep fault lines within the society make every individual even more powerless against this unjust, oppressive, corrupt state. Those who cannot learn from the pitiful pathology they are experiencing, continue to make the same mistakes and expect different results, like ducklings. Unfortunately, the ability Einstein considered a sign of intelligence, “learning from your mistakes,” does not seem to work in Turkish society.
The ones who died in the paradise homeland are gone, those who suffered and were subjected to persecution have remained with their experiences or left. Like many others, I have written many articles about those who have gone. Even though my fingers go numb from writing, and even the keyboard of the computer seems to start noticing what is happening due to the way it is pressed, compared to some humanoids, people in Turkey continue their rampage persistently. As we warned them, they shout “traitor!” They label us as “terrorists” when we ask for mercy. When we ask for compassion, they brand us as “FETÖ members.” They push down those who cry, those who mourn, those who supplicate, those who call for reason, those who beg, as if they were pushing them off a cliff in the virtual world created by their drug-induced intoxication, thinking that they live in it. The suffering path created by tears and tyranny ends only when you stop breathing. Then, they call this country a “paradise homeland”!
I’m not talking about something political here. There’s no ideology in what I’m saying. My intention is not to indoctrinate you. Some sentences may confuse you, but I have no hidden agenda, deviously aiming to harm you. The only thing I’m calling for is for the oppression to finally end.
How many more innocent children must die for you to understand? Is there a single peaceful society in history created by tears and tyranny? We will all live in this world for a limited time, and then we will die and turn to dust. What is this hatred, this endless and ceaseless cruelty? What is this war, this struggle? In order for you to find peace, you won’t begrudge others their peace. The paradise of your country does not depend on its geography, seas, forests, air, or water! In a place where people do not treat each other like human beings, they cannot find paradise before they die. You had left them only one death to take refuge in. I think you are determined to shape your own fate with this oppression and brutality! Because you will not be spared because you do not spare. You will not be at ease because you do not show mercy. You will not see your children at peace because of your cruelty.
However, as those with hearts know, life has quite simple foundations!
The homeland could have been a paradise, if you were not like this!
