We are ready to ‘challenge terror,’ what about you?

We are ready to ‘challenge terror,’ what about you?

I’ve been looking at my empty screen for an hour. I have been searching, flicking through, reading and researching so that I can write a piece which will have hope in it, a little optimism, something of a bright side. 

I could not find any. 

Our general mood, for months, has been: “We are fed up. We are convening an extraordinary meeting. We are crying for our children. We are waving them goodbye to eternity. We condemn it. We are canceling. We are postponing…”

All of these cancelations and postponements are true for our future plans and our happiness also. Together with our plans, our souls are shattering also. 

Nowadays, everybody is too exhausted to do any work, to dream, even to wake up in the morning. Long-term projects are only well wishes. Every plan tends to be included in the “twilight world” category. We are bound to start with the introduction of, “until that time, we do not really know what the situation in the country will be…”

Our future has been snatched from us, big time. We are not quite fully aware of this. 

In this deep depression, we are trying to entertain ourselves with tiny candy bars. We watch entertainment shows, matches… We focus on the information that only the “neighbor of our sister-in-law who is close to a politician” has heard or with theories like “actually because of a reason that nobody knows everything will be solved soon…”

I indeed argue that terror should not stop our lives. I think and believe that everybody should continue with their work and life without being exhausted, without postponing, without giving up and actually with more enthusiasm than in the past. I want to look at terror’s face and laugh aloud. 

But, I am a comedy writer. You are a bank employee, a carpenter, an artist, a shopkeeper, a lawyer… In other words, you and me, we can continue not committing any crimes and paying our taxes and go on with our normal livers by straining our psychological boundaries, by using the last traces of our serotonin stocks plentifully.  

Yes, but, what about the responsible people, the officials, whose job is to protect us from terror and violence?

Shouldn’t they do something else, something different than what we do? 

If script writers encounter a dramatic fall in the ratings of a TV serial they have written, even in such an insignificant failure for the country and the world, those writers pay a price. Maybe an editor is assigned above them or maybe they would lose their jobs altogether. 

Each authority, each kind of power, brings responsibility and risk. 

What I am saying is that if every passing day is worse than the previous… then it is okay for us to “learn to live with terror and to laugh aloud in the face of terror.” Okay. We can do that.

What will YOU do, brothers? Tell us that…


Plans to get out of here and the EU 

This tendency was already present before the last attack in Ankara; however, after Sunday, March 13, it accelerated.

The citizens of this country are afraid. People have been making alternate plans in recent months about what may or may not happen in the future. Unfortunately people are in search of residence and working permits in foreign countries. 

Some consultant firms are now focusing on this field. 

In five-star hotels, seminars and publicity meetings are held, especially on the conditions of buying property and obtaining a residence permit in countries such as Spain and Greece. Expert companies which process these procedures have now been formed. 

Those who have a few bucks are now consulting banks on how they could deposit it in a bank abroad. 

When we consider the anxiety the merciless attack on Sunday has created and the possibility of the economy slowing down, these plans may well not be limited to only the socioeconomically “lucky” segments but spread to all the population. 

In this case, do you think the European Union would grant us the opportunity to travel without a visa?