{"id":281640,"date":"2026-01-18T08:52:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T08:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/?p=281640"},"modified":"2026-01-18T08:53:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T08:53:02","slug":"invisible-borders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/invisible-borders\/","title":{"rendered":"Invisible Borders"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say look for the prescription in dialogue.
\nMaybe that's why the roads first lead to the story of a friend.
\nThat's how my path started.
\nEverything was fine in the apartment.
\nOr so I thought.
\nI was a child.
\nI understood when I grew up:
\nThat all was not well in the apartment...
\nAnd my \u201cother\u201d<\/strong> that I am.
\nIt was the 90s.
\nThis was Hrant's homeland.
\nWe lived in a complex of blocks of twenty flats each.
\nWe were in number 6.
\nNext apartment 7: Armenian Faruk uncles.
\nOur houses were next to each other.
\nWall to wall, back to back.
\nIt was as if it was not a choice but a necessity.
\nOr the silent architecture of a truth.
\nUncle Faruk was a carpenter.
\nLet me say that sentence too, just for completeness:
\n\u201cArmenians are craftsmen, very good craftsmen.\u201d<\/em>
\nThere were twenty apartments in our block.
\nThe distribution was again unfair:
\nOne Alevi, one Armenian, the rest eighteen Sunnis.
\nWe had borders.
\nBoundaries strictly enforced by our parents.
\nBoundaries that we are not supposed to cross, that we are supposed to know, that we are expected to feel.
\nOur house had an L-shaped living room.
\nOne half of L was ours, the other half was not.
\nIt was the guest room.
\nThere was no door, no glass.
\nBut there was an invisible border.
\nMy mother forbade us to go from the living room to the guest area.
\nIt was not necessary.
\nBecause that border was already felt, even if it was invisible to the eye.
\nInvisible borders
\nIt was everywhere.
\nWe were Alevis.
\nBut there were others who were subjected to more severe limitations:
\nOur Armenian neighbor.
\nUncle Faruk tried to protect the borders.
\nBut the eldest son loved a girl.
\nHe was way out of line.
\nAfter long struggles, they got the girl.
\nBut every love had a price in this land.
\nThe price was clear.
\nDefeated.
\nAccepted.
\nThe family surname was changed.
\nArmenian surnames were erased by court decisions.
\nIt was replaced by a Turkish surname.
\nIt was not enough.
\n\u201cNo Armenians.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cLet him be a Muslim too.\u201d<\/em>
\nIt's done.
\nI don't know what an Armenian family went through over the years.
\nBut I think the fear is that the children \u201chas be has Turk\u201d<\/strong> he already had them named.
\nIt was not enough.
\nFear grew.
\nProblems have grown.
\nSurnames have changed.
\nThe children became Muslims.
\nListen to the folk song Sar\u0131 Gelin (Yellow Bride), which is originally Armenian, from this perspective.
\nWe moved out of there after eight or ten years.
\nWhere to?
\nTo an Alevi neighborhood a kilometer up the road.
\nWe were able to go.
\nThey had to stay.
\nWe needed an Armenian neighborhood.
\nIt did not exist.
\nYears have passed.
\nIt's still in front of my eyes:
\nUncle Faruk's wife and my mother whispering, trying not to let us hear them.
\nI would miss most of them.
\nBut I never missed your tears.
\n\u201cOthers\u201d<\/strong> they were mostly good people.
\nBut the one who lives in the same apartment as us \u201cothers\u201d<\/strong>nin,
\nWho could tell us what happened outside the apartment?
\nAnd again years passed.
\nWhat happened?
\nHrant Dink was murdered.
\nToday is January 19th.
\nAlevis were massacred in Sivas.
\nAnd many more things happened.
\nI can't even begin to describe it.
\nNow in our house we break pomegranates every December 21st.
\nWhen it is time for Ashura, you cannot make Ashura without pomegranates.
\nMaybe that's why...
\nThe pain of still invisible borders is felt most acutely in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong> Names and locations have been changed.
\nI have filtered what a friend of mine told me through a conversation.<\/p>\n

Love.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now in our house, every December 21, we break pomegranates. When it is time for Ashura, you cannot make Ashura without pomegranates. Maybe that's why... The pain of still invisible borders is felt most in the kitchen.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":281641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[286],"tags":[289],"class_list":{"0":"post-281640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-yazarlar","8":"tag-manset"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281642,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281640\/revisions\/281642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}