We are one less without you and the children of others

"There is room for everyone in great Turkey," he said, stressing that without Ahmet Yesevi, Hacı Bektaş, Pir Sultan and Hacı Bayram Veli, Turkey would be devoid of its true foundations. "Without Yunus Emre, Turkey is mute, and without Mevlana, it is spiritless. Closing its ears to Sabahat Akkiraz, Turkey lacks folk songs. Compositions that ignore Tatyos Efendi remain unfinished. Songs that do not pay homage to Ahmet Kaya, who wrote, ‘Farewell, My Two Eyes,' lack an essential quality. As one cannot imagine a Turkey without Mehmet Akif, a country with Nazım Hikmet is a deficient Turkey. You may or may not accept their ideas, but without Ahmed-i Hani or Said Nursi of Bitlis, Turkey's spirit is less," he said.

Referring in his speech to the people who physically or spiritually fell victim to the despotic mentality of the past, Erdoğan could not touch, for reasons understandable to us, on the people who currently live abroad as victims of the same despotism. For instance, he could well have mentioned Fethullah Gülen, who was denied a peaceful environment for living in his own country even though he is appreciated by anyone with common sense for his efforts to promote tolerance, dialogue and education projects. Yet, even if he did not name them, we know that Prime Minister Erdoğan aims, with his democratic initiative, to build a country where not only Gülen, who conducted works that merit a Nobel Peace Prize, but also our only Nobel prize-winning author, Orhan Pamuk, can live peacefully. The prime minister may not make due references to these distinguished people, but we will be extremely pleased if he acts in line with his splendid speech for the sake of this beautiful country and its inhabitants.

In my opinion, it was rather meaningful that Erdoğan's speech came after the funeral ceremonies of Ertuğrul Osmanoğlu, who was the last member of the Ottoman dynasty born in a palace and who was in exile for most of his life, and of Abdulmelik Fırat, who was sent, along with his family, from one exile to another in various places in Anatolia during the early years of the republic. We know that the Turkish nation has never denied the due respect to the distinguished people who were portrayed as scapegoats by a regime whose main characteristic was despotism during the early years of its establishment. Turkish people always held them in high esteem. This nation did not dispense with Nazım Hikmet or Necip Fazıl just because the regime did not like them. They did not close their ears to the compositions of Tatyos Efendi or to the ideas of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi. In a sense, this is what happens today as well. The great majority that forms the conscience of this country has not turned its back on Gülen just because a handful of despots nested within the state and the media do not like him. Rather, they visibly show that they embrace him strongly at every opportunity. It is for this reason that Erdoğan's words target not the sins of the nation but the never-ending sins of the despotic state and those who were at the helm of the state.

And that state, which in the past treated majestic values as "others," today continues to commit serious sins despite the presence of leaders like Erdoğan who are sensitive to people's values and feelings. It can easily expend its own citizens and the young people who are at its disposal with its practice of treating them as the "children of others." And it refrains from being called to account for the deaths of these young people.  Poor Ceylan, a 12-year-old child who worked as a shepherd in order to help her poor family in the village of Şenlik in Diyarbakır's Lice district, was torn to pieces by a mortar shell as she put her animals out to graze, but army officials did not bother to say, "We are sorry." Oddly, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) thinks that it can still hide behind certain justifications or pretexts in the face of this terrible death. However, a mortar shell that fell in a pasture in Tunceli is sufficient notice to highlight the responsibility of the TSK in such incidents.

While the sorrow we feel for the four young people who died in the explosion of a hand grenade whose pin had been pulled that had been handed over to a soldier by his commander as penalty in a military unit in Elazığ several weeks ago has not waned, we now feel shaken by the claims that two more soldiers were killed by their commanders. Suspicions about the death of Sgt. Ahmet Solgun -- who was said to have been shot accidentally in Cizre, according to an army statement -- increase every passing day, and his family and fiancée claim that he was killed by his commander. This is certainly a scandalous claim, but we cannot simply ignore it as one made by a mourning family. And we cannot let it go as it is.

Some people nested within the state, the judiciary and the army treated Nazım Hikmet and Said Nursi as enemies in the past, and today, some commanders can expend the children of this country easily, seeing them as the "children of others" and knowing that no one will call them to account for what they do.

And we do not feel the need to go into the murders committed in the name of counterterrorism and the ethnic terrorism created by the humiliation and discrimination waged by the despotism of the state. Erdoğan's speech is important in this respect, and the democratic initiative he has launched is not only necessary, but also compulsory so that these young people do not die.