Turkey’s national amputee football team made our day

Osman Çakmak is my new hero in life. He is the captain of Turkey’s national amputee football team and a commando who had lost part of his leg after stepping on a land mine in the southeastern district of Şırnak. I think he is a symbol of power, success and resistance.

I am one of those people who became emotional in front of the TV when our national team became the European champion and immediately posted a tweet, “Congratulations champions.”

One of the followers had written this comment under that tweet:

“Write about it. Write about the triumph of ambition, those who do not give up on holding on to life. Write that everything is possible if you believe and work for it and write about our national spirit.”

So, I am writing.

When the immorality, lies, hypocrisy, cheating and tricks, organized malignity, injustice, lawlessness are so high, there are also incredible concepts in this country, like the ones mentioned by that follower.

There are also those who live like Osman Çakmak. There are those like the amazing players of that team, who create their own chances in journeys where they start with one step back and come out of nothing with success despite others backed by influence, favoritism and nepotism.

Moreover, I believe the second group is larger than the first one.

Our dear national amputee team, thanks to you, it is as if we have opened a window in an airless room. We are grateful, you are like oxygen for us.

I am proud of our flag and this nation.

Why were Turkish citizens not outraged about the American visa ban?

When you look at it, it is a huge incident in regard to diplomacy.

Even in the worst years with the U.S., this never happened. For example, even during the Cyprus Peace Operation, America had only confined itself to a weapons embargo. What does it mean to stop giving Turkish citizens visas indefinitely? What about freedom of education, trade and travel? The freedom of health treatment for those who go to the U.S.? What happened to the land of freedom and what about the statue of liberty?

The President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the U.S. Ambassador to Ankara John Bass defined the issue as an “upsetting event.”

In my eyes, it is a mindless action.

Ten different possible reasons are mentioned other than the ones mentioned by America, about the conflict of strategic interests.

But isn’t an attitude like “do not come to this country” a move taken not only against the other country and a move against America’s own interests, but to impose sanctions on the other state or government and to create a public opinion against them?

At the moment in Turkey, is there a single citizen, regardless of opinion, who thinks, “Oh, so America will not give us visa, I guess that means we must have done some very wrong things. How could we have offended America?”

Don’t any of the U.S. representatives, embassy, public opinion research companies and public relations units not have any grasp of Turkish people’s psychology?

What good will this do, in a period when everyone from the far right to the far left has the least trust in America, when Turkish citizens are fed up with the politics and are living in their own world?

Isn’t placing Turkey in the same category as Sudan, Yemen, Somali and Libya, especially not an ideal move in offending this proud nation?

Ok, but why didn’t one of the most dramatic incidents in our history with America create a huge outrage and reaction in our country

Why did the dollar, which looked like it was slightly increasing, turn relatively normal the next day? Why is this not one of the first things in our daily conversations? Who knows what is happening in politics and diplomacy. I hope it will be solved immediately through dialogue and calmness. But here is the view on the streets: First of all, no one thinks it will last long.

Secondly, in recent times, America has had huge, illogical and strange projects like building a wall along the Mexican border, throwing immigrants out of the country and not allowing this or that country’s citizens in the U.S., so neither America nor the world takes the American government as seriously anymore as they did before.

The U.S. president has become the subject of jokes not only around the world but also in his own country in a big and significant way.

It is true the lives of those who need to obtain visas in order to go to America have become more difficult. But apart from that, it’s a shame for America, they are losing us.

Yesterday, a friend of mine said, “It’s alright if I don’t go, but I have a visa for six years, and my best guess is Trump has only four more years.”

An interesting point of view that is.