Of meetings

I spent the weekend in the Black Sea region to attend the Of Meetings, to which I was invited by Of District Governor Tuncay Somel. It is the season of festivals and festivities. In these festivals, families that have dispersed throughout the country in search of a better life and work conditions can come together for several days in a year. These festivals serve as a good opportunity to keep loyalty to one's home city alive. The content of these festivals, which must be completed before the start of Ramadan, has changed as well. Cultures intermingle in these festivals. Guests arrive from foreign countries, and local values go beyond local borders.

There were guests from Azerbaijan and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Of. A folklore ensemble from Şanlıurfa's Birecik district was welcomed warmly. To observe the coexistence of the Black Sea's horon and Şanlıurfa's halay is as natural as the wild character of the Black Sea. When people manage to follow the same rhythm with hands and feet, harmony increases. You express yourself and entertain at the same time. A cheerful community tells the same story with different figures. This should be the expression pouring out from the horon quickly arranged by three people who happen to come together as they are filling their cars at a gas station.

Ten years ago, I met a "Kurd" from Trabzon who was working as a döner seller in London. He had become a Kurd with the ingenuity and practicality specific to the Black Sea. He had gone to the UK to work. When he learned that Kurds were quickly given the right of asylum, he applied to the British authorities and told them that he was a Kurd. "Thank God, they did not ask whether I know Kurdish," he said. Speaking in a Black Sea accent, he managed to convince the British officials that he was a Kurd. At the same döner shop, a real Kurd from Siirt who completed his military service in Trabzon was working as a real political refugee. He would frequently tell us about his memories during his military service. He was quite impressed by the compassion the people feel toward the soldiers. "They would care for us as if we were their children," he said.

Turkey is a big country. It is both big and deep. This depth can be readily seen in every part of Turkey. The Black Sea is a place where people who can express themselves properly live. This capacity for expression is seen in many areas.

Ulvi Saran's book "Omuzumda Hemençe" left me quite impressed. Not only does the past of the Black Sea find room in this book, rich with detail, but also Turkey's recent past. Saran recorded the life of his father, a cleric who was born and grew up in Çaykara. When we look at the Turkey of the 1930s and 1940s from the details of the biography, we see it very differently. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to delve into a rich history from the individual story of a cleric from the Black Sea. As I traveled from Çaykara to Uzungöl, I managed to establish parallels with the places depicted in the lively language of this book and its stories.

Nevzat Yalçıntaş is a living history book. Listening to the Turkey of the 1970s from his narration is like putting the human factor into a cold chronology and going beyond what we know. What was the role of the ambitions and whims of people in the tragedy we experienced in the 1970s? These calculations were apparent in memories about Süleyman Demirel that I listened to.

Turkey is a big and deep country. The Black Sea tells this with its geography, structures and people. And this big and deep country is changing for the better and in a swift fashion at that.