Spreading our kindness 12,000 km further to Ecuador

Belgin Akaltan - belgin.akaltan@hdn.com.tr

Syrian baby Garam dies in Turkey. DHA Photo

I am challenging myself on whether I will be able to write some odd and complicated thoughts in an acceptable manner. I mean, in this extremely free environment of expression in Turkey, it should not be so hard.  

There was a woman; I cannot remember whether she was a journalist, a writer, an agriculture expert, a researcher… She said wherever she went in the world, she would immediately buy or borrow the clothes local women were wearing and put them on. She was pictured with Anatolian village women, looking like one of them. She said there was no need to explore any further because these clothes were proven to be the most efficient ones for these people for centuries. 

I thought this was just another eccentricity of a visiting foreigner. Why put on the “shalwar,” the extremely baggy trousers of the Anatolian women that are designed to desexualize them? 

Let me see if I can arrange these thoughts in my mind in this space. 

For a long time, Greek politicians in the past thrived on hostility. They spent loads of money to militarize their tiny islands, only a few swim strokes off Turkish coasts. It was an imaginary threat. They also used their membership in the EU to block Turkey’s accession, for years, until they were made to think better. 

I don’t think I will be able to pull this off. 

What I am trying to say is that there have always been imaginary, hostile, destructive but somehow popular policies. These baseless, false policies may turn into a bomb in wrong hands, inflicting so much damage that not only one generation but a couple of generations suffer. The dimension of the destruction is unimaginable. I will say only one word: Yugoslavia.  

Yeah, I know, I cannot explain it…

Let me try to oversimplify… The imagination, the ambitions, the false politics of one country does not only harm its own people and the integrity of the nation, but they are harmful for the region and even for entire continents, as in the current Syrian refugee crisis. 

One has to look into the roots of the problem first. For instance, ask this question: How did a relatively peaceful country like Syria turn into a war zone? How was it drawn into a civil war; how did this happen? Why would millions of peaceful people be forced to leave their countries, dying in dozens? 

Baby Garam, a one-year-old, died of cold and malnutrition in the southern province Adana’s Seyhan bus station wrapped in a blanket in a seat next to her mother. Baby Kudüs, 26-day-old, was found dead in bed at Adana’s Yüreğir, Akıncılar neighborhood in a building about to be demolished. Kevser Selamno, a 35-year-old mother of two, hung herself in her tent in Adana, in its Doğankent neighborhood. 

Not that I have grown insensitive, but my capacity as a human being and a mother is about to expire; just as my country’s capacity is… We no longer can host any more of these good people, the unfortunate people of Syria.    

What I mean to say is that any foreign solution, any foreign intervention for a local problem seems to end in mega disasters. Democracy does not come with American bombs. Stability does not come with Russian bombs either. It sure does not come with “train and equip” camps in neighboring countries. 

When “moderate Islamism” was found suitable for Turkey, with the thought that it would constitute “a good model;” experts warned that it was dangerously wrong. How many wars, how many deaths, suicide bombers, how many wrong decisions, how many millions of refugees did it have to take?  

The bodyguards of the president were involved in a scuffle with three women protestors in Ecuador... Cologne molesters collectively assaulted German women during New Year’s Eve celebrations… Can you see the evil we are spreading? 

If think-tank reports, feedback, suggestions of strategists, advisors and diplomats were of any good, there would not be so many problems in the world today.

I am out of space and I still have not made my point clear. As a last word: Foreign support, foreign intervention, foreign meddling into local affairs only results in globe-sized calamities…   

Wear the “shalwar” of local Anatolian women when in Anatolia and try to work from there… 


belgin.akaltan@hdn.com.tr 
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