December 10th: The Other of the Other

Today is December 10th. Human Rights Day.
Have we ever wondered why this day exists?
Wasn't what we call rights already innate?
So how did the right become something that needs to be celebrated and constantly reminded of?
Perhaps the answer is very simple:
Because as human beings, we most often forget each other's - or rather the other's - rights.
And often those who say they are most exposed to it...
Yes, exactly those who say “I have been marginalized”.
Those who feel themselves to be the other, who claim to be the other, who say they have been excluded for years, who think they have been wronged...
Sometimes with a look, sometimes with a disdainful smile, sometimes by making fun of a dialect, sometimes by making fun of a belief, a name, a sect and declaring someone else the other...
I mean ordinary people.
Isn't it sad?
There are few things in this world as tragic as the transformation of the oppressed into the oppressor.
Recently, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Özer's words were on the agenda:
“We fought together against Shah Ismail at Chaldiran.”
Now let us pause and think:
Is this just a historical reference?
Or does it revive a great wound, a collective trauma that Alevis still carry?
The irony starts right here:
Because this is coming from the mouth of a person who for years has been belittled for his accent, ridiculed for his accent, and despised for the language he speaks, and with that despised accent... How sad...
Of course, Özer's sentences are just one example - the tip of the iceberg.
Because it is not only him; many people who are expected to speak about rights and justice with their titles, knowledge and positions can unwittingly - or quite consciously - become the perpetrators of a new marginalization.
Because even being the other in this country has classes.
Some are born other, some get closer to the powerful to make them forget their otherness, and some look for opportunities to create more others.
In this multi-identity, multi-painful geography, everyone has touched someone else's history; sometimes they have wounded, sometimes they have been wounded.
But the most dangerous is the one who forgets his own wound and walks with a spear into someone else's wound.
The ancient truth of political history is this:
When the other merges, it becomes dangerous; when the other merges with the powerful, it first disappears in its own mirror.
Indeed, there are countless examples of this in the world.
Many politicians who took refuge in the shadow of power, who sided with the government by denying the suffering of their own people, ended up alienating both their own base and the government and sunk into the darkness of history.
Of course, it is not destiny to be the other, but it is a responsibility to remember.
Identity requires not only belonging but also confrontation.
The one who cannot face his own pain denies the pain of others.
He who does not understand his own otherness condemns others to a harsher otherness.
Because the marginalized often turns into a bigger marginalizer when they gain power.
This is not a story unique to us. Geography changes, language changes, clothes change, but the weave of pain remains the same color and tone.
Sometimes even the same language, the same history, the same culture is not an obstacle to being the other. When power and authority take over, excuses are created to create the other. You take away the rights of those you walk together with, you try to silence their voices, you consider their existence a threat; because power first makes us forget, then it separates us, and finally it breaks up the “us” and creates a new “other” out of it.
Indeed, how many revolutionary movements, born to be the voice of the poor, the miners, the farmers and the peoples, did not suppress their own opposition and comrades when they took power?
Those who sang the same anthem yesterday first silenced those closest to them when they gained some power.
Those who set out for freedom began to produce oppression not when they achieved freedom, but when they tasted power.
Because the greatest irony of history is this:
The hand that resisted the oppressor yesterday can even drown its own voice when it meets power today. A little power first targets criticism; it considers even the slightest objection within itself as a threat.
The evolution of the demand for freedom into oppression when it turns into power is the never-ending cycle of humanity.
Those who seek justice when they are oppressed are often the last to realize that they are oppressors...
And today is December 10th. On this day of human rights, we must ask ourselves the biggest question:
Can we, who yesterday were right-seekers, become right-grabbers today?
History has shown that oppression reveals the character not only of those in power but also of those who approach power.
The real issue is not to ask for rights, but to be true to them when you have them.