The right and fitting word

For some time I have been deliberately trying to refrain from writing articles that contain "the Kurdish problem", "PKK", "KCK" or "BDP". Not because I think the words have run out on these subjects; on the contrary, I know that the words will never run out. Moreover, we are all seeing and living through the fact that those who try to bring words to an end are trying to drag us terribly to the shores they want.

The place where words end is the place where we surrender to our archaic feelings that we cannot control.

And our feelings that we cannot control, be assured, turn into energies that some people can convert into dark operations.

Words are always needed, but sometimes it is also possible to put forth the most beautiful word by being silent. There are places where ending speech and falling silent, not in order to surrender to those who claim our feelings but in order to increase the value of the word, is more beneficial and says more. In a place where every word uttered, regardless of its content, is coded and classified as a "friend's word" and an "enemy's word," no one is left in any state to listen to anything from anyone.

If the voice that appeals to conscience has become inaudible, one should not do injustice to the word either. In an environment where conscience is disabled and only the opportunities it creates are looked at, releasing words irresponsibly into the open can also become dangerous. A word criticizing one side can be used shamelessly to justify everything of the other side, including its injustices, or, in a less bad possibility, is not even heard at all as an "enemy's word." Pure speech itself can become a fitna.

Yet especially on the Kurdish question we want what we write and draw to serve a better understanding of the matter and a rapprochement between the parties, an understanding. Surely on both sides there are those whose conscience is sound, whose senses are not dulled, whose hearts and minds are sound. Unfortunately, it is not these who control the process.

There is a problem of "not understanding one another," but the overwhelming majority does not complain about this situation. In a way everyone loves their own "misunderstanding", their own prejudice, their own spite, their own hatred, in fact, in Ali Shariati's expression, their own dungeon. Because they are not aware that they are inside a dungeon. That dungeon, which strips a person of humanity, seems to people like a garden of paradise, it seems.

It is not for nothing that the Exalted Book says, "We have made fair-seeming to everyone the path they have set upon." Though the same Exalted Book continues to address, with the best of words, minds whose paths have been made fair-seeming to their own selves. It does address them, but it leaves the choice to the human being.

As for us, we have no ability to find the most beautiful and most fitting word and to say it to one another at fitting times in fitting ways. Nor do we have the concern of seeking that beautiful and true word. We value the word only to the extent that it gives an opportunity to establish superiority over others. Yet the "beautiful word" is especially "what is common among us, the common word that our conscience will recognize when it sees it."

The true word ceases to be "true" when it is uttered at unfitting times to unfitting persons. Very true words are flying through the air at very wrong times, and when they land on their addressee they turn the conscience barren, whereas there is a fitting place and time where those words too would fall like mercy.

No word can make up either for the pain or for the wrongness of people at Uludere, on the border, in pursuit of their bread, losing their lives under bombs raining on their heads. In truth, this incident has shown the ugly and merciless face of war in a way better than a thousand words.

The parties who prefer war have nowhere to run from responsibility for this incident. Still less do they have any word that would appeal to a pure conscience. That is, depending on how much each of them wanted the war... As for the state, even though it will not bring back those who are gone nor make up for the mistake, what is fitting at this stage is to embrace the mourning of the dead, to complete the investigation urgently and punish those responsible, to apologize on behalf of the state and the government, and to compensate for the damages.

For those who died in the incident I wish God's mercy, and for their relatives condolences and patience.