My heart is heavy today. It has been for a while. Not because of an unfortunate development in my life, or in the lives of my family and friends. It is due rather to an ongoing accumulation inside that red ticking box of mine of the terrifying news from South Sudan, Chibok, Nigeria, Lahore, Pakistan, Southern Asia, Africa at large, Latin America, the Caribbean, Turkey, Germany and the United States. Coming to terms with the extent of violence that has occurred and keep occurring hasn’t been possible for me this time. Then again, I often get this way: become non-functional, if I let too much sorrow from around me seep through me. This time, I had to let it bleed to a poem attempt.
what’s the matter with the world today?
it is not one sweetest Malala only to feel forlorn
nor a love-filled Farzana helpless outside her unborn
the countless still remaining ageless nameless and faceless
halved alive after witnessing butchery of their newborns
or etched to the bones with their hunters so sadistic
their supplies had mercy to end it all at last
i think of
schools
babies
scorched dispensable innocents in sky-high districts
in routine safe A to B B to A making-a-living-transits
walking explosives under modesty cloaks in pregnancy disguise
the piloting sons their heroes they may not even a second despise
for mauling to their stone-aged lairs more and more younger child brides
i think of
schools
babies
papas selling infant daughters
mamas in silence guilty standing by
brothers uncles nephews proud to lend a capable hand
a bowed head from in-lawed blood-seekers no longer a demand
What Nazım Hikmet, the world-renowned exilic poet and thinker of Turkey stresses in his call for collective strength in harmony, is as follows: “If you don’t, I don’t, we don’t blaze, how can the darkness emanate light?”
Nazım’s invitation, to me, is one to awareness – a timeless gift to generations to come. If they were to be willing to listen to it, of course. No different than what John Lennon intended with his song, “Imagine”:
The following lyrics – in sync with the rest of the song, seem self-explanatory:
“[…]
Imagine there is no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
living life in peace […]”
These remarkable visionary individuals are no longer among us. We, however, are. I, for one, have found my niche in the sharing of my awareness for this vital thought processing among the living: love for world peace – one I have been yearning for very long. It came to me thanks to the World Healing World Peace Poetry Anthology 2014 initiative by Inner Child Press.
Please know I am writing about this marvelous project not at all because I happen to have a submission of my own. I don’t. I won’t. If I had or were to plan to do so, I would have to step back. Here, I mean. For I have strict self-imposed rules regarding self-promotion. And, you all know how I treat my own work contribution – as you have seen my quite subdued announcement of my poems in an anthology by another publisher.
The conceptualization of world peace by the Inner Child Press is simply me finding home. Through collective poetry creation in order to attract attention across the world, spanning over the boundaries of countries. What a thought! In order to lend a long overdue balance against the power of violence – a trait of our world that has enjoyed dominance for way too long. But, that, is a learned trait. How can it stand – we may respond with a false sense of confidence – against the strength of love, an inborn asset of each human being? It can. It unfortunately can. And it does. It has. It will. As long as we keep letting it.
Two days ago, some countries acknowledged, some others rejected once more the United Nations International Women’s Day (IWD). Cultural entities around the world coincided their fertile grounds for violence against women with the supposed celebrationof their female populations. South Africa and India became two of the most adored objects of the media, Celebrating International Women’s Day due to “recent cases of violence against women” on their soil.
In the honor of IWD, seven injustices women around the world meet became newsworthy yet once again. Among them, China, India and Afghanistan attained considerable attention. Sex-selective abortion and infanticide brought China and India to the news, while Afghanistan, this time, competed in the list due to its lack of education rights for its females. Lesser crimes against women in relatively wide-spread coverage included no rights to drive in Saudi Arabia, far fewer rights in divorce in Egypt, restricted land ownership in Lesotho, media coverage discrepancies in Latin America and gender pay gap in the United States.
With a substantial leap from concerns over equal pay for both sexes, selected world media leaders took us to a brief tour in one of the exclusive districts of Istanbul, in quest of a public gallery constructed in commemoration of IWD following the increase in “honor killings” of women in Turkey. The displays consist of newspaper clips of stories of women murdered by the men of their families, i.e. husbands, divorced husbands, fathers, father-in-laws, brothers, brother-in-laws, uncles, etc. A large banner reading “There is no excuse for violence against a woman” functions as the onset of the news program, Beyoğlu’nda ‘Kadına şiddetin bahanesi yoktur’ sergisi.
At the risk of being ridiculed – in view of the above-mentioned violence’s scope, I claim that even one hand constitutes a brutal act when used to slap someone regardless of that strike’s force. So is using pepper spray on unarmed, non-violent, nonthreatening, defenseless people, as the following video, Kadınlar gününde kadına biber gazı documents. The clip makes history on Turkish lands since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – on International Women’s Day, nonetheless. For, the Islamist Erdoğan administration uses police to stop women in Hatay, Turkey with pepper spray from voicing their demands for anti-violence against women in a peaceful walk.
An image from a critically-claimed cinematic production, “Osama” enters the memory:
Wasn’t it mere water, after all, that the Talibani had used on women to dissolve their quest for work to survive in their man-less households? Before ordering their murders without trial on the slightest suspense of their “misbehavior”? On behalf of Islam?
Let us have a quick fact-check against the backlash of at least a few of the relevant teachings of the Kur’an regarding some of the hereby summarized crimes against women: Driving? There is – as to be expected – no mention of it. It, thus, has no connection to Islam when Saudi Arabia or elsewhere is concerned. Rights in divorce? Equal for both genders, with a clause to more heavily support the woman; especially, if she is expecting or already a parent. Right for education? Equal for both genders.
Celebrating women? What an impossible feat as long as distortions, misinterpretations, misconstructions, de-constructions, or reconstructions of religious texts reign over humanity when at least the three “main” world faiths are concerned!
Against the backlash of sickening shouts of joy by numerous Taleban followers during the execution-style shooting of a man amid a forced crowd – point-blank in the head – onto the ground where a headless corps lies and a girl screams while being flocked face down in dirt, all for a so-called lesson by a group of armed men, Malala Yousafzai’s voice rises in confidence: “They cannot stop me. I will get my education. If it is in home, school or any place.” All, in the video below. The man’s head’s image revokes that of the imagined one of Malala in her school bus several months ago.
A statement from Seneca sums up the now widespread news on the cowardice behind the Talebani shooting of Malala in the head and chest: “All cruelty springs from weakness (Seneca’s Morals).”
No, oh no! It is not at all my intent to re-visit that low moment in Malala’s life beyond these words of reminder of her trauma. For it is, rather, sharing of the most recent, joyous news that is most deserving of her strength: Being discharged from the hospital after her life-threatening wounds, having risen above the impact of the cowardly act by a shooter from the realms of ultra-conservative Islam as well as that of all its representatives. Malala leaves hospital and addresses the world as the symbol of courage.
Various media speculations guide the reader and/or viewer to the potentiality of a plot behind the shooting of Malala, to which – among many others – “The assassination of Malala’s character,” an arab news article, responds. Not being a political scientist of profession, of greater importance, though, not ever having cared for the value of any political structure at the level, let alone, above that of the human being, I, with my reflections today, am in obvious act of detest when the cowardice of the ultra-conservative Muslims is concerned – may they hide behind the name “Taleban” or under any other title.
The fact remains the one and the same: Malala wanted to have education be open to her and knew too well that the Koran did not ban her from pursuing it. Talebani shooters had to face growing fear on account of her “act” of a learned individual: A passion to live under her terms; that is, to lead a life within her rights as a human being. But also for being educated enough to know that the Holy Book of Islam she believed in was in support of her pursuit when it came to equal rights for education for Muslim boys as well as girls anywhere in the world.
Plutarch is claimed to have said the following regards education: “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” How relevant of a statement of wisdom when our days are taken into consideration in view of the mind (intended singularity) of the Taleban followers as opposed to that of Malala…
You, dear reader, may – in the words of Gandhi always possess passion and courage for education and thus, “[l]ive as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Kazım Koyuncu (1971-2005), "Hayde"
A folk-rock singer and song writer with work in a number of languages spoken along the northeastern Black Sea coast of Turkey, as well as the language of Laz.
World Healing World Peace
If you consider to “become a Sponsor of the World Healing ~ World Peace 2014 initiative […] to help the world move toward the Active Consciousness of World Healing ~ World Peace […] simply includ[e] the Icon and the Web Link on your Web Site or Blog.”
hülyaswritings 