The truth is, I have always believed, both as a politician and as a writer, that our struggle must be carried out on two levels. The first is an intellectual struggle fought in the field of language, an area that naturally includes literature. We do this in order to reclaim the concepts of peace, democracy, and human rights, concepts that are being eroded day by day, caught as they are within the insincere boundaries of governments and institutional politics. It is said these concepts are what differentiate the developed world from oppressive regimes, West from East, yet in Western governments they are all too often sacrificed at the altar of political and economic interests. This is precisely what lies at the heart of the political crises raging throughout the world as I write.
Today we find ourselves grappling with a political discourse twisted beyond recognition, with political demands forcefully silenced in the name of peace and stability, and regimes that rig elections and trample on civil liberties labeled as “developing democracies.” Some may think it naive to turn our attention to the role of literature in the midst of such troubles. I would beg to differ. Literature—the art form that arguably comprises the backbone of any culture—not only remains at the vanguard of critical thinking but also serves as a catalyst for the thoughts and feelings that in turn create political change. Let us not forget that as long as we continue to breathe life into words, those words will not abandon us.
We must restore to literature its transformative role. We have the capability to create a new language around the concepts of peace, democracy, and human rights, and the values inherent to each. But to do so, political activism alone is not enough: We must also engage intellectually and artistically. And so it is by discovering a new way of speaking that we can combat the rise of populism in developed countries, and the authoritarian regimes that are increasing in both number and severity throughout the rest of the world. Yet if we are sincere in our mission, we must also start by being honest with ourselves. For it is not just government policies that are to blame for the crisis of democracy, but societies themselves, which are insufficiently organized and therefore unable to balance the power of governments.
In many countries today, and especially in the Middle East, the constraints of gender, religion, and ethnic identities weigh heavily upon us. As a means of survival, we become withdrawn. Shackled by society, we begin to isolate ourselves. What we need are new forms of struggle that allow us to tear down the walls that hold us in. Yet it is impossible for us to decide alone just how this new method of resistance should take shape.
Creativity is a collaborative process. Throughout history, the fight for justice and equality owes its innovation to the interaction of ideas, emotions, and collective action. In other words, it is the deeds of men and women, unafraid to make sacrifices for the sake of progressive politics and receptive to new ideas, that have changed the world. Despite the issues that face us today, democracy remains alive and well in many countries. And those institutions responsible for keeping democracy alive, that foster peace and protect human rights, did not arise spontaneously. They were built on a history of social struggle rife with sacrifice and negotiation. Just as the women’s movement has faced numerous pressures throughout history as it transformed from one wave to the next, and just as the civil rights movement paid dearly to dismantle racially discriminatory policies, those people under authoritarian regimes today are paying a high price, too, for freedom and democracy. It is up to us to create a new path founded on a nonviolent belief in civil resistance, which does not hesitate to make sacrifices in the fight against oppressive policies. And so, too, must we create a universal language of politics that will speak to the hearts and minds of those living both in the developed world and under authoritarian regimes. I truly believe that it will be the women, the young, and the oppressed people of both the East and the West who will lead the fight to end injustice and inequality and be the creators of this new language.
This book is a collection of stories about everyday people, written by a politician fighting for freedom and equality, after being unjustly imprisoned by an authoritarian regime. It contains short fragments from my own past, which have resurfaced in my memory while I’ve been here in prison. Most politicians believe they speak great truths with their lengthy, grandiose statements. I, on the other hand, have always believed in the power of human stories. I am trapped inside these four walls, but I know that there are thousands of Demirtaşes right now, working the fields. Demirtaş is down in the mines, at the factories. He is in lecture halls, in the squares, at the rallies. He is on the construction sites, at strikes, in the resistance. He has just been fired. Demirtaş is unemployed and poor. He is young, he is a woman, he is a child. He is Turkish, he is Kurdish, he is Circassian. He is Alawite. He is Sunni. No matter who he is, his spirits remain high, his hope intact. What lies at the heart of my relationship with politics is not lofty ideals or abstractions, but ordinary people: ordinary people who are capable of changing the world.
Selahattin Demirtaş
Edirne High-Security Prison, Turkey
August 17, 2018
THE MAN INSIDE
Our prison courtyard is little more than a concrete pen, only four meters wide and eight long. At the same time, it’s endless. You could walk it from morning to night without ever getting anywhere. Only two of us occupy this courtyard: myself and my fellow MP, Abdullah Zeydan. But that doesn’t mean it’s ours alone. This is a communal space, after all, and so we’re obliged to honor the rights of the ants and the spiders with which we share it. They are the ones who act like they own the place, as if the prison had been built on top of their nests, and they wouldn’t be wrong about that. Still, Abdullah and I are perfect gentlemen and, all things considered, the atmosphere is one of mutual respect.
The collective struggle of the ants is a sight to behold. With spirit and purpose, the entire colony strives toward the same goal, quietly building a glorious life for themselves in a gloomy corner of the prison courtyard. The spiders, on the other hand, are a different beast altogether. They don’t do much of anything. And they’re not exactly social creatures either. Try to engage one in conversation and he’ll soon lose the thread. Or, rather, he won’t actually lose it; he’ll just run off with it and use it to spin his own web.
And then there are the sparrows. A pair of them settled beneath the eaves of the prison roof to build their nest. For days they flew back and forth, straw and twigs in their beaks. Needless to say, it was the female who did most of the work. The male could occasionally be seen strutting about with a twig or two, but for the most part, he’d be preening himself on the barbed wire at the entrance to their nest. I shouldn’t be too hard on him though, perhaps he was just doing his job.
It took them almost ten days to build their home. We helped as much as we could, leaving bread crumbs and water out for them on the window ledge. One day, the female sparrow flew over to me and said, “Abi, God bless you. If it were up to that worthless man of mine, we’d have gone hungry long ago. I’d have had to put food on the table besides everything else.”
Taken aback, I asked her, “Are you talking to me, bacı?”
“I am,” she replied. “So you can understand me?”
I nodded, scarcely able to believe my ears. It seems I hadn’t entirely forgotten “bird speak,” that gibberish we used as kids.
“Don’t mention it, ma’am. With all the building and moving, we didn’t want to have you worrying about food, too,” I said. “Just let us know if you ever need anything. After all, we’re neighbors now.”
“Thanks, abi,” she said. And at that very moment, the male sparrow emerged from the nest.
“Who you talking to, woman?”
“Oh, no one,” she called back. “I was just thanking our neighbor for the food.”
“Get inside!” he screeched. Deciding it was best to let this one slide, the female sparrow retreated into the nest; it was
n’t worth the effort. Her mate glared at me menacingly.
“What do you want? Something I can do for you?”
“No, abi, I was just asking your wife if you needed—”
“If you have something to say,” he snapped, “you say it to me, okay?”
“Okay, abi, have a good day now,” I said, closing the window.
A few days later, we discovered that the female sparrow was about to become a mother: She had laid two eggs in her nest. Our neighbors would be having twins; not identical, but twins all the same. I hope they don’t take after their father, I thought. Actually, raw eggs are forbidden here in prison. Cooked ones are fine, but then they don’t hatch. It just goes to show: They can ban anything they like, life will always prevail, even in here. It was now clear that our lady friend had been expecting chicks the whole time she was building that nest. Meanwhile her mate had done nothing but swagger around with a scowl on his face.
One morning I woke to a clamor coming from the sparrows’ nest. The door to the courtyard had yet to be opened. We have a better view of the nest from our cell anyway, so I got up and walked over to the window to see what was going on. The shouts rose to a deafening pitch.
“Please, not the tear gas!” a voice cried out. From the commotion, you’d have thought the riot police had come to break up a protest. Four male sparrows had surrounded the nest. They chirped aggressively at our neighbors, who were putting up a desperate fight to protect their home.
As far as I could make out, these newcomers were inspectors from the Department of Nesting Code Enforcement.
“Look here!” one of them shouted, his tone official. From his puffed-up feathers, he seemed to be the one in charge. “You built this nest without a permit! No ifs or buts about it. Either we tear it down now or we’ll be back to seize one of those chicks as a fine!” he threatened, gesturing toward the eggs.
“That’s right,” the other three echoed. “No ifs or buts about it!”
Wings raised in defiance, the female sparrow blocked the entrance to the nest.
“Take my home? Take my baby? Over my dead body!”
“Yes, over her dead body!” her mate chimed in, though it was unclear whether he was protesting or asking for a favor.
The chief and his demolition team were closing in on the nest.
“I won’t tell you again,” the chief said. “Either you obey the law or I throw you both in prison.”
At these words, the couple turned to me. Our eyes met. They seemed to be asking, “What do you think, neighbor? What should we do now?” I looked at them as if to say, “Well, if you ask me, I’d say don’t back down.”
“I’ll never surrender, no matter what!” the female sparrow declared.
“That’s my girl!” the male added, more assertively this time. “Don’t you ever surrender, no matter what!”
Then, just like that, the female launched herself at the inspectors.
Pandemonium erupted within the barbed-wire of the prison yard. A lone female sparrow standing up to four state officials! As this extraordinary feat of resistance unfolded, her partner hopped about nervously on the sidelines. “Please, kind sir,” he groveled, “please, would you stop? Wait a minute, sir, there’s no need for a fuss. Two chicks is one too many for us anyway.”
At this, the female sparrow shot him a withering glance and he shrank deep into his feathers. I’m not exaggerating: She stood her ground for a good ten minutes until she had single-handedly chased off those four state officials, showing astounding resolve in the face of attack and successfully protecting her eggs and nest. Meanwhile, my fellow male had gone back to his usual ways. Now he was glaring at me.
“Don’t you look at me like that, Hamza,” I said (I’d decided to call him Hamza, by the way). “First things first: Kill the man inside you, my friend, that’s what you’ve got to do.”
Hamza’s blank stare said nothing. And to this day, he’s still keeping quiet on the matter. Should there be any further developments, though, I’ll be sure to write and let you know.
SEHER
On the night before bayram, Seher made henna paste. Her little sisters had drawn red circles on their palms and gloved their hands in old socks, then curled up on the mattress she’d laid out for them on the floor. After she had hennaed her own hands, Seher joined them. Pınar and Kader were too excited to sleep. Pınar couldn’t stop thinking about her new dress and delighted at the thought of herself in it—the first new dress she had ever owned. Until then, she had always made do with Kader’s hand-me-downs. Kader had a new pair of shoes for bayram and was no less excited than Pınar. They lay awake, giggling under the quilt late into the night, paying no heed to their abla’s stern words. They knew perfectly well that Seher was only bluffing since she could never truly be angry with them. Seher held them until, exhausted, they had both fallen asleep.
Something else kept Seher awake that night. Earlier in the day, at the end of their shift, she and Hayri had made plans to meet at a local café. Hayri and Seher worked together at the same textile factory, and as it was the eve of bayram, they’d been let out of work early. As they were leaving, Hayri had approached her and bashfully asked her on a date. The truth was, Seher had been expecting this. They had been stealing glances at each other for some time and were already the subject of gossip at work. Their colleagues were quick to pick up on such things.
At twenty-two, Seher, along with everyone else, thought her chances of marriage were almost behind her, and she was beginning to worry about being left on the shelf. Other girls her age had married before they had even turned eighteen and were already having children. A few suitors had asked for Seher’s hand, but she had managed to convince her family they weren’t a good match. Now, though, she had fallen for Hayri. Tall, with wavy hair and full lips, he could even be considered handsome. They had been working together for almost eight months; Hayri had been hired after completing his military service, while Seher had been at the factory for four years.
The sisters woke early to cheerful commotion as the family threw themselves into the day. Seher’s father, Gani, her brother Hâdi, three years her senior, and her fifteen-year-old brother, Engin, left for the mosque for bayram prayers. As soon as they were gone, Pınar and Kader ran to the bathroom to wash the dried henna from their hands. Only the thrill of a festive bayram morning could put children in such good spirits at this early hour. After scrubbing her own hands, Seher made sure her sisters’ hands, now stained red as pomegranates, were good and clean, too. Seher breathed in the familiar scent of henna before kissing their tiny palms.
Their mother, Sultan, was busy in the kitchen preparing breakfast for when the men of the house returned from the mosque. As Seher helped her mother, the little ones rushed off to don their bayram outfits. The mattresses in both rooms were put away and the meal laid out on the floor. It was only during bayram that the family sat down together for breakfast, and once the men had returned, everyone exchanged holiday greetings. First each of them kissed the hand of Gani Baba. He embraced only Pınar and Kader, though, before giving them their bayram spending money. Then the children kissed their mother’s hand, and she in turn hugged them warmly and smothered them in kisses. As the brothers and sisters threw their arms around one another, Pınar and Kader managed to wrangle some more money out of their eldest brother, Hâdi. Although she knew it made him squirm, Seher hugged and kissed her little brother, Engin, too. Usually he would have made a fuss, but it was bayram, and it was his Seher Abla who was doing the kissing. Engin adored his older sister, and she doted on him in return. And though he was too old for it, she took out her purse and gave him some bayram spending money. At first Engin refused to take it, but Seher insisted until he relented, returning her affection. The whole family then sat down to eat, brimming with talk and excitement.
By the afternoon, the traditional bayram visits with the neighbors were over and the men had all left, eac
h going about his own business. In just three hours it would be time for Seher’s date with Hayri, but she still hadn’t told her mother of her plans. While Sultan Ana was devoted to all of her children, Seher held a special place in her heart. She wasn’t only her daughter, she was her friend and confidante, too, and Sultan Ana was much easier on her than on her other children. And so when Seher finally told her mother she was going out, she did not object. She didn’t ask any questions, though she knew her daughter well enough to guess. She only told her to be careful.
Seher and Hayri were to meet at the café across from the Adana Courthouse. As Seher walked in, she saw Hayri sitting alone at a table. “Welcome, and happy bayram,” he said, standing up and taking her hand.
“Thank you, and happy bayram to you, too,” she replied, a tremble in her voice. She had broken into a nervous sweat. It was the first time she’d been on a date and she had no idea what to say or do. For years, her life had consisted of nothing but the monotony of work and domestic life. Sometimes the girls in the factory would speak of such things as dating, but experiencing it herself was altogether different. Unlike Seher, Hayri seemed calm and collected. He kept the conversation turning until Seher’s pounding heart settled back in her chest. They talked about their families and their pasts, and Seher soon grew more comfortable. She felt safe, as if she and Hayri had known each other for years. This was mostly due to Hayri. The more he talked, the more he entranced her. He clearly knew what he was doing. It was only to be expected; Hayri was, after all, a man. He had probably been out with other girls before. But right now it was her he was charming, and that was all that mattered. When he spoke, Hayri lowered his head, giving Seher the chance to take a long look at him. By the time they left the café two hours later, she could barely feel the ground beneath her feet. So this, she thought, must be love. As she made her way back to her home in Şakirpaşa, all she could think of was Hayri.
Dawn Page 2
