The heartless ones of Turkey, the heart of a heartless world

They are trying to strike Turkey at the point where it is most ambitious, at the side where it shines most to the world.

They are trying to nullify the epic of humanity it has displayed in recent years. For the last 8 years Turkey has been putting on a performance in humanitarian aid and policy that sets an example for the whole world.

It is true, it is not the richest country in the world, but it is the most generous country in the world. Not only with its state, but with its society, its people, its civil society organizations, its communities.

In today's merciless world, oppression has become blatant. Turkey has become the refuge of a world that has lost its compassion, the heart of a heartless world. However great the oppression, people say that if Turkey exists, there is hope. Like a place of manifestation of God's mercy, Turkey, with its state and its nation, opened its arms to those who took refuge, tried to bind the wounds that were opened, and consoled for the losses. In this state Turkey was exalted and grew. But while giving, God blessed its earnings. It earned while giving. It is partly through the grace and blessing of this that it has come close to the shore of safety out of so many ordeals.

At the same time, Turkey with this generosity has troubled the conscience of some. Those who put forward a thousand and one excuses for not extending a helping hand to those in need are, do not think otherwise, not very pleased with these humanitarian policies of Turkey. Well, there are also those who feel gratitude to Turkey out of the fear that, if Turkey did not receive them, the waves of migration would reach them. But there are also plenty who covet the status Turkey has gained in recent years through this humanitarian politics.

"Just as they themselves do not spend, they are also disturbed by your spending." Because your spending reminds them that they too should spend, and because it tells them that the poor have a right over their own wealth, and this is disturbing enough.

The hospitality shown by both the state and the Turkish people toward the 3.5 million Syrians Turkey has hosted for the last eight years is a genuine source of pride for Turkey throughout the world. It is an epic national merit. The way this phenomenon, which in another society could of course have caused very deep sociological and political problems, has been lived in Turkey is a story of real success and national virtue.

But some find precisely this story of national virtue too much for Turkey. They are trying to strike Turkey at this strongest, brightest, most valuable side.

Two days ago we saw what kind of disaster the racist provocations launched recently by those acting with precisely this intent could have led to. When completely baseless rumor, that "Syrians harassed a little girl in Küçükçekmece," was spread irresponsibly on social media by prominent names who had even served as deputies, like a lustful invitation to lynching, a full social catastrophe was nearly experienced.

Even the realization that the incident was completely baseless did not prevent racist hate speech from being displayed on social media in a burst of reckless enthusiasm.

The keywords of all hate expressions have now become "hookah" and "beaches." In the photograph in which hatred of Syrians has frozen in the racist's mind, these two elements are fixed and the others variable.

While the campaigns of these Klu Klux Klan-wannabe racists, who are far from the spirit, honor, dignity and patriotism of Turkishness, go on on social media, a Syrian student, the writer Mahmut Hacali, sent a very meaningful series of tweets from @mahmuthacali, especially to those who speak of them not fleeing the war but going to their country to fight. I relay it verbatim, without interfering with his style:

"We Syrians are not cowards, so far we have 1 million martyrs, 2 million wounded, more than 1 million detainees, the rest are refugees anyway, what more can we do?

You say fight but there are no weapons, besides our own state is killing us!!, and not just any way, against unarmed people, they kill us with aircraft. You say fight, but whom are we going to fight!! Are we going to fight Assad, Russia, Iran, the ABD, Israel, and the Arabs??!!

Man, there are no weapons, no power in our hands.. come on, how are we going to fight??!! Those who lost their jobs, homes, children, families and money left the country and became refugees..

Right now Syrians are in a struggle for life, if he leaves here he will go to death, my brother.

Send away the ones who cause the problem, who act as hoodlums and the agitators sent by Assad, if you say all Syrians are like that, you will have taken on the sin of the whole people. Assad is sending his men to Turkey, they are provoking so that the Turkish nation will rise up against Syrians.

We know this, we know how to show respect. We are not going to do evil in return for hospitality. Let us go after the people who cause the strife. We had already seen how worthily the Turkish nation has hosted. We will not sell out for a few pennies.

* We know love of homeland, as we fought in Çanakkale, at the Siege of Kut al-Amara and in Libya beside Gazi Mustafa Atatürk.

* We are not after your bread, we will not take your place at the workplace, as you have embraced us, we love you and Turkey.

* We will not do evil to you, to your nation, to your land and to your people.

* Let us all together find out from among ourselves what the aims of the people who cause the strife are"

* These series of messages received many positive and negative comments. One of the positive comments apologized very sincerely on behalf of our citizens who have forced him to speak this way.

Our friend İsmail Kılıçarslan gave the most striking possible answer to precisely this feeling: "...let's say he went back to his country to fight. Whom will he fight? This is a civil war, man. Are you aware that you are saying 'why don't you fight?' to a man who has refused to fight his neighbor, his brother, his acquaintance? Despite this, this country has given close to 1 million dead, close to 2 million wounded, more than 1 million detained in 8 years. Are you crazy, man?"

For example, while "my soldier" is being martyred, I cannot tolerate these people smoking "hookah" and having fun on the beaches "in my country," "in my homeland." Doesn't the very way in which the racist person appropriates "Mehmetçik" and "homeland" by saying "my" in this manner sufficiently show how far he is from both Mehmetçik and the ideal of the homeland?

The crime of racism and hatred they commit is so grave that it actually makes them lose the right to possess even a handspan of land in this world.

Ultimately, what makes the homeland a homeland is, before everything, its human and spiritual values. It is the martyrs' blood, which watered these lands in order to stand by the oppressed, for i'lây-i kelimetullah, that made the land a homeland. On the homeland watered by the blood of these martyrs, stray racist weeds do not stop sprouting..