Perhaps, a mother of a terrorist might be grieving for her child. But we don't like to be put in the same category as them." Mothers of soldiers do not like to be treated in the same manner as the mothers of those on the mountains. The words must have been spoken by the soldier's elder brother or perhaps his father or uncle. Could a mother utter those words? Could she say, "My sorrow is greater than the sorrow of others?" As I was watching all this, I recalled a poem I had written years ago: "Being a mother means understanding the pain of others." What this line tells us is still valid. A mother thinks differently because she is a mother.
While raising objections to equal treatment, the relatives of slain soldiers try to subordinate one pain to another. They establish a hierarchy of pain. It is not ethical to compare. How can one measure the magnitude of a pain unless he, too, suffers the same pain? Can we open up their hearts and see how great the pain is?
On the other hand, in his speech, the prime minister said, "Mothers do not have ideologies.” This was the reason why it was the most important speech in the history of the republic. It was this comparison where everyone who is thinking about this issue fails. For the last 30 years, we have all only looked at the deaths, not the sorrow felt about them. Our feelings shuttled between the barracks and the mountains. We did not have the courage to look at the hearts of the people left behind and the hearts of the people who were trying to hold on to our day-to-day lives. We did not witness what happened inside homes and did not experience the sleepless nights of the grief-stricken. In his speech, the prime minister showed that he had an eye that is bold enough to witness that sorrow.
For the first time, a prime minister offered to look at the families. "If there is a path that will lead to each other, this is it," he said.
Yes, we are to find a way; we will find it in the pure sorrow of the people left behind, not in the barracks or on the mountains. Politicians who are bold enough to look over the edge of this abyss, which is sure to be a difficult task, will etch their names in history. There are many examples around the world, like the politicians who boldly handled the most complicated clashes and untangled all the hard-knitted knots.
When I spoke to the Sabah newspaper two years ago I said in connection with conveying condolences to the families of those who died on the mountains: "A mother or a father does not care for the ideology of his child. When their child dies, they mourn for him or her. If only representatives of the AK Party, the Republican People's Party [CHP] and even the Nationalist Movement Party [MHP] could pay a visit of condolence to them. This should not be regarded as support for terrorism. It is important only in terms of sharing the sorrow of that family." The title of the interview stressed the MHP part of my words. In a sense, we are still at the same place. If the representatives of the MHP pay a visit of condolence to the families of the people who died on the mountains and try to understand the pain these families go through, this issue will automatically be settled. If the opposition does not do this and all the more, intends to destroy the intention to do so, then the ruling party should be more resolute and more sincere in its increased efforts. Yet, it is obvious that there is a greater effort that is visible.
It is difficult to conduct meetings with the families of martyrs. Even if you do this as a considerably tight-lipped and professional politician, the trauma and emotional burden of the families haunt you. Interior Minister Beşir Atalay has conducted many meetings during the last month, and the hardest of them were the ones with the families of martyrs. Everyone hearing the voice of the minister would understand this. He, too, acknowledged that the meetings were the hardest ones. It is hard and painful, but isn't it worthy to do it?
We need to create channels that will tell us that it is wrong to establish a hierarchy of pain or compare between sorrows. What are these? In the first place, the sincerity seen in the prime minister's speech should be translated into resoluteness. This is because death is a subject matter of fascism when its story is denied. The one who died becomes an object when s/he is deprived of his/her story, ties or past. A death is recorded as a figure in the losses section of our lives. Forty thousand deaths is only a figure. But the sorrow left behind by the 40,000 dead people is a key to settlement. This possibility, i.e., the pain that has accumulated in the hearts of the people left behind, should be sufficient to endow a politician with that resoluteness.
