The same stage is set up every year.
\nSoft piano music on television screens...
\nJewelry store advertisements
\n\u201cMother's right is unpaid\u201d slogans...
\nSocial media posts...
\nProtocol messages<\/p>\n
Then for one day motherhood is blessed.<\/p>\n
But there are such mothers in the memory of this country;
\nwhat happened to their children is still unexplained.<\/p>\n
This is where Turkey's biggest moral breakdown begins.<\/p>\n
Because motherhood is not loved in this country; the idea of motherhood is romanticized.
\nThe mother is glorified as long as she is a symbol of sacrifice, silence and endurance.
\nBut things change when a mother comes out and starts holding the state to account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moment he says, \u201dWhere is my child?\"<\/p>\n
That mother is no longer the \u201choly mother\u201d applauded on the screens.
\nSuddenly it becomes \u201cdisturbing\u201d.
\nSuddenly it's \u201cpolitical\u201d.
\nSuddenly it becomes a memory that needs to be silenced.<\/p>\n
This is precisely why the Saturday Mothers are the biggest mirror of conscience in this country.<\/p>\n
Because they are not just relatives of the disappeared.
\nThey are living witnesses to the dark pages that the state wants to make us forget.<\/p>\n
Since 1995...<\/p>\n
They have been sitting in the same square for over thirty years.<\/p>\n
Imagine a country:
\nGovernments change.
\nParties are changing.
\nPoliticians are changing.
\nThe headlines are changing.
\nBut the mothers' question remains the same:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is my child?\u201d<\/p>\n
And what's scarier is this:<\/p>\n
This country has not been able to give a convincing answer to this question for thirty years.<\/p>\n
Mother Berfo was one of the heaviest symbols of this great silence.<\/p>\n
He died at 105.<\/p>\n
He spent the last years of a century of life searching for his son's bones.<\/p>\n
Cemil K\u0131rbay\u0131r was disappeared in custody during the 1980 coup d'\u00e9tat.<\/p>\n
Mother Berfo said the same sentence for years:<\/p>\n
\u201cFind my son's bones before I die.\u201d<\/p>\n
This sentence is actually a regime analysis on its own.<\/p>\n
Because imagine a state;
\na mother doesn't even get a grave.<\/p>\n
Mother Berfo asked for a post,
\nwhat a fortune,
\nwhat a privilege<\/p>\n
He only asked for the right to mourn.<\/p>\n
But in Turkey, even mourning is not fully recognized for some mothers.<\/p>\n
That is why Mother's Day is not just an emotional day here.
\nIt is a political litmus paper.<\/p>\n
The true character of a society;
\nnot how many poems he wrote to their mother,
\nhow he treats suffering mothers.<\/p>\n
And Turkey has failed this test for years.<\/p>\n
Mothers Reminded What the State Wanted to Forget<\/strong><\/p>\n Memory has never been an innocent issue in Turkey.<\/p>\n In this country, forgetting is often a state policy. This is precisely why the struggle of the Saturday Mothers for more than thirty years is not only an \u201caction of the relatives of the disappeared\u201d. Because it was not just about the missing people.<\/p>\n Issue; Throughout the 90s, this country lived with unsolved murders, disappearances in custody and shadowy relations. But the mothers' lives did not continue.<\/p>\n For a mother, time stops where her child disappears.<\/p>\n This is why the Saturday Mothers have been sitting with the same photographs for years. Turkey thought it was moving forward. But an old pain still lingered in Galatasaray Square.<\/p>\n And this was the thing that spoiled the modernization fairy tale of this country the most.<\/p>\n Because no \u201cgreat state\u201d narrative, The rulers were disturbed by this.<\/p>\n Because even the silence of the Saturday Mothers was incriminating.<\/p>\n They were not shouting a slogan. And yet they were batoned for years.<\/p>\n In which normal country in the world are 70-80 year old mothers greeted with a police barrier?<\/p>\n Which state perceives a threat from women who demand a grave?<\/p>\n This is exactly where the issue starts.<\/p>\n Because the state mind in Turkey has often been afraid of the truth.<\/p>\n The most naked version of the truth was on the faces of mothers.<\/p>\n On Mother Berfo's face...<\/p>\n In Emine Ocak's hands<\/p>\n In the silence of the women who sat in that square for years...<\/p>\n They reminded this country:<\/p>\n A state is measured not only by its borders but also by its conscience.<\/p>\n And if you can't answer a mother's request for a grave; Today, on Mother's Day, the screens will once again be filled with emotional commercials.<\/p>\n Maybe politicians will share photos with mothers. But first this country has to answer this question:<\/p>\n If motherhood was so sacred, Why is their suffering always treated as a security issue?<\/p>\n Why did this country choose to silence crying mothers instead of listening to them?<\/p>\n Because the problem in Turkey is not only the darkness of the past; And societies that cannot confront cannot progress morally.<\/p>\n That is why the Saturday Mothers are not only looking for the missing.<\/p>\n They are actually looking for the conscience that this country has lost.<\/p>\n A Country in Debt to Mother Berfo <\/strong>This country spent another Mother's Day in debt to Mother Berfo. Because the issue is not only about the pain of the past; To be able to tell a mother the truth...<\/p>\n To be able to point to a grave...<\/p>\n You go in front of a community: But Turkey could not do this.<\/p>\n Because in this country, denial has often been preferred over confrontation. And mothers paid the highest price for this.<\/p>\n The story of the Saturday Mothers is actually the story of democracy in Turkey. Because a democratic state is a state that can explain the disappearance of its citizens. For years, Turkey did the opposite.<\/p>\n He silenced those who spoke about the disappeared. But they failed to calculate one thing:<\/p>\n Some pains grow the more they are repressed.<\/p>\n This is why Mother Berfo's sentence still echoes in the conscience of this country:<\/p>\n \u201cFind my son's bones before I die.\u201d<\/p>\n Caution.<\/p>\n There is no anger in this sentence. There is only the effort to remain human.<\/p>\n And therein lies perhaps Turkey's greatest tragedy:<\/p>\n The fact that even such a humanitarian request has gone unanswered for years...<\/p>\n Today, when we look back, we see this very clearly:<\/p>\n The Saturday Mothers were actually the moral anchor of this country.<\/p>\n Politics has drifted. But those mothers stayed in the same place.<\/p>\n In the same square That is why their silence was more meaningful than the loud speeches of many politicians.<\/p>\n Because sometimes the truth does not shout. Galatasaray Square has done exactly that for years.<\/p>\n He kept the memory on hold against this country's desire to forget.<\/p>\n And this was perhaps Turkey's biggest fear:<\/p>\n People who do not forget<\/p>\n Because if it is forgotten, the order will continue. Today, on Mother's Day, everyone will say beautiful sentences about motherhood.<\/p>\n But this country first has to answer this: Why did a mother have to search for her child's grave for thirty years? Why has even the most basic right of a mother become a political crisis? Why has even the tears of mothers in this country been filtered through an ideological filter?<\/p>\n This is the real Mother's Day issue in Turkey.<\/p>\n Not flowers And because this country still cannot tell Mother Berfo the truth; Memory Covered by Flowers<\/p>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":285772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[286],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-285771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-yazarlar","tag-manset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285771","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285773,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285771\/revisions\/285773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRemembering is often a form of resistance.<\/p>\n
\nThis struggle is a moral war of memory against state-organized forgetting.<\/p>\n
\nwas the normalization of a system in which people could disappear.<\/p>\n
\nThe newspapers wrote about it for a few days.
\nPoliticians made several statements.
\nThen life went on.<\/p>\n
\nFor them the calendar has not moved forward.<\/p>\n
\nHe built shopping malls.
\nHe erected residences.
\nHe talked about mega projects.
\n\u201cThey chanted \u201dNew Turkey\" slogans.<\/p>\n
\nis no more powerful than a mother's question, \u201cWhere is my child?\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nThey were not making propaganda for an organization.
\nThey were not holding guns, but photos of their children.<\/p>\n
\nTalk about big projects all you want,
\nYou can make all the hamas you want,
\nThere is a serious moral collapse there.<\/p>\n
\nMaybe there will be long speeches about \u201cmotherhood is sacred\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nWhy were the Saturday Mothers dragged on the ground for years?<\/p>\n
\nthe courage to face those darknesses is still lacking.<\/p>\n
\nis the great silence that has been established until today in the face of those sufferings. In Turkey, the state has often sought its greatness in its toughness.
\nBut true state seriousness is revealed in moral courage in the face of suffering.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTo be able to say, \u201dYes, big mistakes have been made here\"...<\/p>\n
\nHamas instead of truth...
\nThe language of security instead of justice...
\nState reflex instead of conscience...<\/p>\n
\nA story of incomplete, fragile and constantly repressed democracy...<\/p>\n
\nMore importantly, it is the state that can hold it to account.<\/p>\n
\nIt made the pain invisible.
\nHe closed the squares.
\nHe tried to disperse the memory.<\/p>\n
\nNo revenge.
\nNo threats.<\/p>\n
\nJournalism has been blown away.
\nInstitutions were scattered.
\nPrinciples were thrown to the winds.<\/p>\n
\nWith the same photos
\nWith the same question<\/p>\n
\nHe just sits and waits.<\/p>\n
\nBut if it is remembered, it will be held to account.<\/p>\n
\nIt is not an advertisement
\nIt is not a slogan... It is a matter of truth...<\/p>\n
\nevery Mother's Day is a little incomplete,
\na little embarrassed,
\nhe's gonna owe some money.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"