The testimony
Diyarbakir, a normal day without a future
There are no credible television channels reporting about the region. While the children start breakfast, I check my Iphone. I find a lot of messages from Western friends. They write to me: "How are you? Are you OK?" I feel from the messages that something happened
The alarm sounded as usual at 7:30. I woke the children up and ran to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Normally, while I prepare breakfast, I watch the news on TV. That was before the closure of the Kurdish TV channel and other alternative media channels. There are no credible television channels reporting about the region. So today, my birds and turtles keep me company, instead of the TV. When children start breakfast, I check my Iphone. I find a lot of messages from Western friends. They write to me: “How are you? Are you OK?” I feel from the messages that something has happened in my town or my country.
I turn the TV on right away, and I try the CNN Turkish channel. I try to understand what happened. There is a lot of publicity on Turkish CNN. I was sure that something had happened but I could not find what it was on the Turkish media. A man on the Turkish CNN shouted, “Aaauuu …. Tttttooo … ..shooooooooowww “. It was a TV spot.
With these yells in the background, I read at the bottom of the screen, written in lower case, that the co-chairs of HDP (People’s Democratic Party) Demirtas, Figen Yüksekdag, and HDP congressmen Ferhat Encü, Selma Irmak, Aycan Irmez, Leyla Birlik, Abdullah Zeydan, Idris Baluken, Sirri Süreyya Onder, Ziya Pir, Nursel Aydogan, Gülser Yildirim were arrested overnight. I yelled “Ohh no!” My son asked me, “Mom, what happened?” “The police arrested them,” I replied. Then my little son asked: “Even Uncle Osman, uncle Ahmet and aunt Meral were arrested?” They are other HDP congressmen and family friends. I answered to my son: “no … for now.” The co-chairs representatives of Turkey’s third party were arrested, but advertising continues to occupy TV time. A new ad says: “Gold means investing in the future. Invest in gold, invest in your future.”
I start to laugh hysterically. Do we have a future in Turkey? Suddenly, there was a big roar. The windows of my house shake. I jump on my feet, leave the table and open the door to look out. I try to imagine what happened behind the smoke. My face gets covered on white dust. I tell the kids not to worry. The oldest says: “Mom, it was a bomb.” I say: “Maybe it was a serious car accident.” He says: “No mom, it was a bomb. It’s the same bomb that had exploded close to home, it is the same sound.” In late March, a bomb exploded near our house. The children were home alone. I was at a meeting with Selahattin Demirtas at Ankara’s Parliament building. Even my husband was out of the house. When the furniture and windows trembled, the children had thought of an earthquake. They ran out of the house and sought shelter with the neighbors. The TV is still on. Now they are reporting news about traffic in Istanbul. I’m still trying to figure out where the bomb went off. But there is no internet. They have shut the network again. By chance, I learn from friends that the bomb exploded in Baglar, a district of Diyarbakir. I try to reach an aunt who lives in that neighborhood. At the same time, the school bus arrives to take the children to school. After they left, I thought, “Why did I send them to school?” I called the bus driver but he does not pick up the phone. I cannot reach him. Now, the voice on TV screams: “The weather forecast courtesy … of a heating company, which warms you and your house.”
In fact we and our houses we are freezing. Nothing can heat this country anymore.
While I was thinking that I needed to go downtown, my mother called me begging me not to go.
She said that all roads leading downtown were closed. Right then, the voice returned: “… don’t watch, do something,” and again: “… AAAAUUU .TTTTTOOOOOO .SHOOOOOOWWWW … ‘”.
Originally published at http://ilmanifesto.info/diyarbakir-un-normale-giorno-senza-futuro/ on 2016-11-09