you reap what you sow
ps: this was written for my school's newspaper. but i could not publish it, even though it is one of the softest artciles i have written about this issue!! see this fucking country!
“YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW”
I don’t even know how to start writing this article, because I was planning on writing an article about our school’s overseas performance this year, but something happened when I was about to interview the applicants who got rejected. It was a conversation between me and another student while eating lunch in the dining hall.
It was very disturbing that I still feel irritated. At the beginning I did not know that it would turn into such a path, or I would have avoided it in the first place. But, unfortunately I was in the discussion and had to carry it on until class bell rung. I don’t even remember how it all started since I am still shocked about what that person said.
It was about racism, and how so-called “nationalism” in Turkey, was close to racism. My idea, or the stuff I was defending, was that different languages, cultures, traditions were necessary for an enriched society, and he was saying that: “for stability there must be cultural unity” afterwards to make it clearer would went further and said, “there must be only one language and one culture in this country”. At the beginning it was all calm and in a civilized manner of discussion, even though the discussion manner did not change later on the ideas he had, and did not feel anything wrong about declaring them explicitly would soon made me feel like I was in a torture and I was being tortured by him. Every word that got out of his mouth became a big, sharp spear and hit me in the heart. It was torturous and unbearable to listen to him saying those cruel and wild things.
After we talked how military has big role, in fact a huge impact on Turkey’s policies and everything related. “We need a strong army in order to be able to defend our country against our enemies” said, he. But not even thinking about how much damage the military coups (1960, 1970, 1980, and even 1997) have done to Turkey and the people of Turkey; by taking the democracy from the people, by worsening the bad image of Turkey abroad, by executing many and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people, by destroying economy, by respecting no human rights or anything even close to this. Not mentioning these things he counter-attacked claiming that those military coup d’états were for the good of the country. And I don’t understand in what ways. Maybe those overthrows of the legal governments my militaristic dictators integrated Turkey with Western World, civilized it, made great progresses on human rights related issues that have been a major problem in this country since from the founding of the country, I really don’t know in what ways they have benefited Turkey other than strengthening military’s role even in daily life, but that was what he said to disprove my claim that they have harmed this country the most.
While listening to him, I was preparing some questions to ask him, this way I would see his approach to democracy and human rights clearly. Then I asked, “What do you think of Hitler’s atrocities against humanity, but the Jews in particular?”, “well, that is a totally different topic.” he replied. I made my statement clearer by “well but he was trying to get rid of the Jews, and the ones who he thought were inferior to Great Aryan Race (blonde, tall, and blue-eyed ones, though he was not like that himself), including Gypsies, Homosexuals and even the Polish. His aim was to create a great empire that would “last a thousand years” as he said to is followers. Do you see that he tried to create a cultural unity, too, by destroying and killing anything, or anybody that was different from the form he wanted it to be? So, is that not almost the same thing with what you have just said about “cultural unity”?” he did not have a concrete answer for this, and I asked another question, “what if the people, with all minorities including the Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, and many others say that we don’t want to be Turkified? What if they say, ok we are citizens of the Republic of Turkey but we are what we are with our identity, it could be the Kurds or any other minority, what are you going to do in that case?” He thought for some time, but did not answer.
I had had one more question to ask and to understand how he saw the world and how his mentality and perception of the world was, and that question was the hardest question for me to ask, but it was, as much as I understood from the way he answered it, easy for him. “So would you do what Hitler did? Would you force people to be all the same, to make them accept Turkishness?” and afterwards came the horrible, terrible answer, I did not expect I would receive, “Well is there is no any other way…hmm…they should either leave country or become one of us, b becoming a Turk” I could not believe what I was hearing. But that is the fact currently I Turkey that our young minds are entangled with. Such a big pity, that a student, that has been chosen to study in this wonderful school that gives them all opportunities, and he does not even know, understands the importance of respecting other people and their cultures.
Now I see the big destruction of those coups that blocked the road of Turkey to become a modern democracy and as I saw the results. A society, which cannot bear any differences to flourish or just squeeze anybody, anything that is different, I don’t think, is destined to live long. As it is the biggest fear of the so-called protectors “military” of this country. But if they continue to plant those harmful ideas, views in the young, innocent minds of our youth, our future, then the future of this country will be black, and the life-time will be short.
Well, I wish, I could do something to prevent this kind of things from happening, since I know it will cost lots of lives and lots of other things if that guy and the ones like him continue to grow up and get the important position in the society without changing their minds bout human rights, democracy, and humanity itself. The people who share the same ideas with him should not forget this country was founded by the help of the minory(ies) that he want to destroy now. Instead of being grateful, protecting them, giving more rights to them, you try to destroy them there will always be problems such as; PKK.
The only solution to solve problems in a country like Turkey is Democracy; nothing other than Democracy will be able to solve our problems as a country but just worsening it, as it has done for last 83 years. So let’s hope that there won’t be any other heroic “military coup”, as he described it, in future and also that the democratic progression will go on, and soon we will be done with our interior problems and just focus on democratic and economic progression.
“YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW”
I don’t even know how to start writing this article, because I was planning on writing an article about our school’s overseas performance this year, but something happened when I was about to interview the applicants who got rejected. It was a conversation between me and another student while eating lunch in the dining hall.
It was very disturbing that I still feel irritated. At the beginning I did not know that it would turn into such a path, or I would have avoided it in the first place. But, unfortunately I was in the discussion and had to carry it on until class bell rung. I don’t even remember how it all started since I am still shocked about what that person said.
It was about racism, and how so-called “nationalism” in Turkey, was close to racism. My idea, or the stuff I was defending, was that different languages, cultures, traditions were necessary for an enriched society, and he was saying that: “for stability there must be cultural unity” afterwards to make it clearer would went further and said, “there must be only one language and one culture in this country”. At the beginning it was all calm and in a civilized manner of discussion, even though the discussion manner did not change later on the ideas he had, and did not feel anything wrong about declaring them explicitly would soon made me feel like I was in a torture and I was being tortured by him. Every word that got out of his mouth became a big, sharp spear and hit me in the heart. It was torturous and unbearable to listen to him saying those cruel and wild things.
After we talked how military has big role, in fact a huge impact on Turkey’s policies and everything related. “We need a strong army in order to be able to defend our country against our enemies” said, he. But not even thinking about how much damage the military coups (1960, 1970, 1980, and even 1997) have done to Turkey and the people of Turkey; by taking the democracy from the people, by worsening the bad image of Turkey abroad, by executing many and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people, by destroying economy, by respecting no human rights or anything even close to this. Not mentioning these things he counter-attacked claiming that those military coup d’états were for the good of the country. And I don’t understand in what ways. Maybe those overthrows of the legal governments my militaristic dictators integrated Turkey with Western World, civilized it, made great progresses on human rights related issues that have been a major problem in this country since from the founding of the country, I really don’t know in what ways they have benefited Turkey other than strengthening military’s role even in daily life, but that was what he said to disprove my claim that they have harmed this country the most.
While listening to him, I was preparing some questions to ask him, this way I would see his approach to democracy and human rights clearly. Then I asked, “What do you think of Hitler’s atrocities against humanity, but the Jews in particular?”, “well, that is a totally different topic.” he replied. I made my statement clearer by “well but he was trying to get rid of the Jews, and the ones who he thought were inferior to Great Aryan Race (blonde, tall, and blue-eyed ones, though he was not like that himself), including Gypsies, Homosexuals and even the Polish. His aim was to create a great empire that would “last a thousand years” as he said to is followers. Do you see that he tried to create a cultural unity, too, by destroying and killing anything, or anybody that was different from the form he wanted it to be? So, is that not almost the same thing with what you have just said about “cultural unity”?” he did not have a concrete answer for this, and I asked another question, “what if the people, with all minorities including the Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, and many others say that we don’t want to be Turkified? What if they say, ok we are citizens of the Republic of Turkey but we are what we are with our identity, it could be the Kurds or any other minority, what are you going to do in that case?” He thought for some time, but did not answer.
I had had one more question to ask and to understand how he saw the world and how his mentality and perception of the world was, and that question was the hardest question for me to ask, but it was, as much as I understood from the way he answered it, easy for him. “So would you do what Hitler did? Would you force people to be all the same, to make them accept Turkishness?” and afterwards came the horrible, terrible answer, I did not expect I would receive, “Well is there is no any other way…hmm…they should either leave country or become one of us, b becoming a Turk” I could not believe what I was hearing. But that is the fact currently I Turkey that our young minds are entangled with. Such a big pity, that a student, that has been chosen to study in this wonderful school that gives them all opportunities, and he does not even know, understands the importance of respecting other people and their cultures.
Now I see the big destruction of those coups that blocked the road of Turkey to become a modern democracy and as I saw the results. A society, which cannot bear any differences to flourish or just squeeze anybody, anything that is different, I don’t think, is destined to live long. As it is the biggest fear of the so-called protectors “military” of this country. But if they continue to plant those harmful ideas, views in the young, innocent minds of our youth, our future, then the future of this country will be black, and the life-time will be short.
Well, I wish, I could do something to prevent this kind of things from happening, since I know it will cost lots of lives and lots of other things if that guy and the ones like him continue to grow up and get the important position in the society without changing their minds bout human rights, democracy, and humanity itself. The people who share the same ideas with him should not forget this country was founded by the help of the minory(ies) that he want to destroy now. Instead of being grateful, protecting them, giving more rights to them, you try to destroy them there will always be problems such as; PKK.
The only solution to solve problems in a country like Turkey is Democracy; nothing other than Democracy will be able to solve our problems as a country but just worsening it, as it has done for last 83 years. So let’s hope that there won’t be any other heroic “military coup”, as he described it, in future and also that the democratic progression will go on, and soon we will be done with our interior problems and just focus on democratic and economic progression.
posted by tari ronahi at 9:25 AM
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