Adana has its own bittersweet street stories that come from the very heart of life. You know how sometimes a single sentence can summarize the naked truths that volumes of political books cannot explain? “Gardaş, how can we die?” This simple but shocking question is not only a desperate cry, but also the first great warning of human psychology and the false attachments we are drawn to.
Politics can never be separated from people and the spirit of the street. An incident in the neighborhood can show us the true face of the biggest ruptures on the floor of parliament or in party buildings. Just like in the shocking story of two old friends from Adana, Mehmet Ali and Şahap...
A Desperate Tale of Two Friends (*)
They are two middle-aged best friends who have been beaten down by life, whose family ties are broken, who are crushed by debt and who seek solace in glasses and money in games of chance. When the world fails to smile on them, they decide to die together at the last stop of despair. But for them, death, like life, is a quest for ease. They want to find the most effortless, the most “free” way to die; thinking that poisoning is easy, they go and steal coal from somewhere. They bring theft, crime and simplicity into the business from the very beginning. But this mentality, which wants to leave life to games of chance and even death to ease, cannot even manage to poison themselves with the coal they steal.
As a last resort, they go to Adana's famous Çatalan Bridge. Before jumping into the dark waters of the Seyhan, they tie their hands together with a clothesline so that there is no turning back. Şahap is so convinced of the friend he has set out with and the decision they have made that he ties his own hand tightly and lets himself fall into the void. Mehmet Ali, on the other hand, has left his own rope loose; when his friend jumps, he clings to the bars of the bridge. His motive is a cunning that will go down in history: “If I hadn't jumped, I would have fallen on Shahab.” At the end of the day, that quest for easy profit and easy death ends in a great tragedy; Şahap goes to the ground and Mehmet Ali goes to prison for complicity in crime and assisting death.
The “loose rope” disease of politics
The rope that was left loose at the beginning of the Çatalan Bridge is the clearest picture of those “last minute backtracking”, “backdoor negotiations” and “quitting halfway” that we encounter today in politics, business life and big cause partnerships.
In politics, those who set out with you, those who shout “I would die for you” the loudest in the squares, are usually the ones who leave an “open door” through which they can always easily untie their own strings. Their arms are never really tied. The sincere people who get caught up in the enthusiasm of the slogans and tie their hands tightly (the Shahabs) sink into the cold waters, while the cunning figures who leave the rope loose (the Mehmet Alis) stay above the bridge. Moreover, they try to get away with it by looking down from above and explaining the suffering to society from their own perspective.
Yesterday's Companion, Today's Backstabber
This social disease brings an inevitable end to all structures centered on power and interests: Those who stood by you yesterday with the most fiery speeches may turn into “confessors”, “slanderers” or the first to denounce you when the wind turns against you or when it is time to pay the price. Because their concern is not the values they believe in, but the cunning of getting out of the current difficult situation. Politics is done with people who believe, but in any partnership where the strings are thought to be tight, everyone plays innocent until loyalty is truly tested.
Epilogue: With Whom to Walk This Path?
It should not be forgotten that every step of politics is the Çatalan Bridge and every corner is the cold waters of Seyhan. When walking on this slippery and deep road, the main issue is not who appears next to you, but on which moral principles that journey is built.
For individuals, for seats, or for momentary anger“I'll go to my death” will be the first to send you into solitude and wait safely on the shore. If the road is to be walked, one should rely not on the temporary enthusiasm of individuals, but on the unshakable stance of those who are willing to pay the price for the values they believe in. Because the ropes tied with self-interest will untie in the first storm; And the destinies that are bound by a principled stance and character cannot be separated by the collapse of bridges, nor can the currents of any river tear them apart.
(*) Author's Note: The tragic story of Şahap and Mehmet Ali on the Çatalan Bridge is completely true. This incident, which left a deep mark on the social memory of the period, was covered in full detail for a long time on the program Tatlı Sert with Müge Anlı and was on the public agenda.