Today, everyone's social media accounts will be flooded with “awareness” messages. Blue lights will be turned on, fancy sentences will be uttered, and full-length photos will be shared. Today, however, I will tell you a true story of “awareness” behind those glittering office chambers, a story that is woven with a mother's stubbornness but hits the walls of arrogance.
The story began at a table in Beylikdüzü. At one end of the table was a mayor explaining what he was doing “as a favor” and at the other end was a rights defender who said, “We are not asking for a favor, we are asking for our constitutional rights.” That day I was told “No hard feelings“ sentence was actually the first brick that was laid between a city and its conscience.
What did we want?
Something very simple but vital: A breathing space for individuals with autism who are over 18 years old, out of school and trapped between four walls. A center that will cure the anxiety of families “what will happen to my child if I die?” to some extent.
So, what happened?
- Our requests for appointments are delayed by looking at the time,
- Being put on “blacklists” extending to neighboring municipalities after our justified criticisms,
- The deletion of our articles from local newspapers, embargoes and labeling...
But I didn't give up. With the persistence of a journalist and the patience of a mother, I made sure that the foundation of that project was laid. That building, which I was in elbow contact with from the architect to the worker, with the hope of families in every brick, rose. However, the political will chose to market that building not as a “rights center” but as a “birthday celebration area” on weekends. The spirit and purpose of the project and the labor of the families was betrayed.
At the point we have reached today; the representatives of the will that closed the doors to us that day and tried to silence our voices may be giving other tests today. As a human being, I wish a speedy recovery, but as a rights defender, I do not stop asking:
Why is that building still idle?
Those who tried to silence me forgot this: I get my power not from an office or a political party, but from the pure light in the eyes of my child with autism. As long as that light does not go out, my pen will not be silenced.
You continue to share awareness photos today. I will continue to ask at every council meeting, in every column and on every street corner until the door of that building is actually opened to the rightful owners.
It all started at that table on the last day of the Beylikdüzü Love Peace Celebrations. The mayor was waiting for me to bow to him gratefully as he explained what he was doing for children with autism in a “gracious” manner, as if he was giving from his pocket. As a journalist and a mother, the moment I said, “These are constitutional rights, not favors,” I was met with the famous “No offense.” That night was not just a debate for me, but the beginning of an organized “extermination” operation...
And what happened before that?
We went to the office. We had with us hundreds of questionnaires filled out by families in the region. We demanded a center for those “invisible” young people who were over 18 years old, who had graduated from school and were imprisoned within four walls, living a life of imprisonment at home with their mothers. What did the mayor do? He put words in our mouths, looked at his watch, said “I have a program to catch up with” and left. We didn't hear anything for 7 months! Until he was surprised to see us with a booth in the festival area and said, “Oh, there were these too!?”
Operation Begins: Blacklists and Deleted News
My stance at that table came at a heavy price. One morning I woke up and realized that I had been “tagged” among CHP municipalities. Our requests for vehicles from neighboring districts were being rejected, “Your mayor wrote a letter, it went to all municipalities, there is no help for this association” were flying through the air. It was not only a political embargo, but also my profession. I had to end my columnist job at the local newspaper I had worked for because some of the speeches were too much; not only that, all my news, interviews and history on the website were deleted after a certain period of time! They went so far as to erase the memory of a journalist.
“Election came, we were reminded of our project”
For 2 years, those doors that I could not get an appointment for a project suddenly opened when the election approached. I was shocked by that phone call from the special staff who said, “We discussed your project with the mayor, it is on our agenda.” We had a meeting in the Science Affairs additional service building and I put my soul into every brick, saying, “There can be no glass corridor, children with severe autism will be dangerous,” and “The sensory integration room should be over there.” The foundation was laid, the building rose. The families were still hopeless; “Ms. Dilek, we won't believe until we walk through that door,” they said.
Final Act “Birthday House” Insult
But one evening, a message was sent to our group: The mayor was touting our lifeblood center as “a place to celebrate birthdays on weekends”! The dream of a “home” where our children could go every day and feel a sense of belonging had been turned into a magazine item, a “social facility” accessory. We called it a protocol, we insisted on it, the chief of staff disappeared into thin air.
The cost?
While I was protesting with the families in front of that building, “Keep your promise!”, I came out a patient with a high risk of heart attack because of the terrible stress I was experiencing. With my child with autism by my side, and in front of me, an administration that would not compromise its arrogance...
Today, that building, the building they call the “Autism Activity Center”, which rose at my insistence, is also standing idle. As you can see, the elections have passed and the promises have gone to the dusty shelves.
I ask you now: Whose will superseded the rights of those children? What arrogance was so great that a mother had the stress of being sick with a high risk of heart attack? I will not let this case go.
The pride I feel in having scratched and clawed to get that building erected there, when it was not even on the municipality's agenda, cannot be measured by any political favor or applause, because this is a victory of pure advocacy, not for a mother's personal glory, but for the future of hundreds of children who share the same fate as her own child.
Those who made my struggle difficult, those who blacklisted me and tried to break my pen, actually witnessed in every brick of that building what an association president can achieve as the conscience of the society without any personal interest.
The price I paid to turn the light in my own child's eyes into a torch of hope for all children has turned the silhouette of that building into a badge of honor; neither embargoes nor silence will be enough to make us forget this concrete fact.
And I will continue to tell and write until the day that center is active...
With love