Sacrificing lives for what?
The Feast of Sacrifice bayram (holiday) or Eid al-Adha is one of the two most important festivities of Islam. Sacrificing sheep, goats, camels or cows, depending on the wealth of the family, during the bayram has become a tradition. It would have been great, perhaps, if Abraham was offered by God to plant a tree instead of a sheep to sacrifice instead of Ismail, yet religious beliefs cannot be questioned and must be respected.
A country not so alien to Turks is sacrificing itself, its beloved sons and daughters in what appears to be a war fuelled by greed and determination to stay in power forever at any cost. Separatist terrorists are slaughtering the beloved sons and daughters of that country with the capabilities they acquired during the time when “guns were silenced” because of the so-called “peace process.”
The culture of sacrifice dates way back to pre-Islamic times and according to many scholars might be as old as the presence of humanity on this planet. In ancient times and still today in many societies shedding blood is a must of the rite of sacrifice. Commercializing the Muslim hajj, killing people in the hundreds because of ignorance, fatalism, the habit of trifling with security requirements and seeing the holy hajj simply as an occasion to rip money from devoted Muslims cannot of course be an acceptable sacrifice performance. Nor can sacrificing human lives to advance a political cause (whatever it is) be acceptable.
Terrorism of all sorts must be condemned. In this country, of course, there is not a president and a government who neglected public security, engaged in an officious and ominous “peace” process for years and allowed terrorists to stockpile weapons and ammunition and lay down mines and tons of explosives all along some key roads. This country did not have either a theatrical team of “wise men” to fool itself with some empty talk while terrorists armed to the teeth and a political team concluded plans of how they would further elevate and consolidate themselves in governance. Thus, it is rather difficult for us Turks to understand why a society might be challenged by a politician after holy bayram prayers, “I wish this bayram conduces to unity and togetherness in the Islamic world. Let it be a beginning of solidarity. Every bayram is a resurrection […] we have entered this sacrifice bayram period in a very distressed process. After this distressed process, as is known, Turkey will have a general election on Nov. 1. This is a repeat election, an early election, and our nation, God willing, will demonstrate in this election its acumen by taking a decision to walk a step [and cast a vote] that will help leave behind all these troubles, achieve reliance and stability. That’s how I think…” What is the relevance?
Can there be a difference between a terrorist group trying to achieve a political agenda by killing people in a market, in front of a bank’s automated teller machine point, in deep sleep in their bed or with a roadside bomb in an armored car and a politician who instead of taking adequate measures to stop bloodshed keeps on telling people if they do not give him or his friends sufficient support in an election, the atmosphere of chaos will continue?
Such things, of course, cannot happen in Turkey and our politicians do not blackmail people with “Vote for me or you face the consequences” and such approaches. After all, this is a democratic country and in democracies everyone concedes that governments come and go through elections. Is Turkey one of those countries where a government insists of not going because it did not win sufficient electoral support? No way… This is a mature democracy, an advanced one.
The director of a public opinion surveying company has already commented that in a country not so alien to Turks a repeat election will most likely produce the result wanted by the ultimate ruler of that country and that there might be a second repeat vote in the spring.
Who knows, perhaps he was right in that assessment. Particularly if one of the opposition parties cannot see what is at stake and insists on playing a shallow policy that cannot go further than being a crutch of the ruling party, at the expense of the country plunging into a civil war the all mighty supreme and only leader of that “democtyranny,” a third, fourth, fifth repeat elections might become a must until the desired result comes out of the ballot boxes. Hopefully, until that result is obtained national and territorial integrity of that country can still be maintained.
In that regard, Turkey is a lucky country. The president, prime minister and all the parties are abiding with the rules of the game. No one is exceeding its constitutional power. State funds are not extravagantly used by the ruling party to promote itself. And the nation is as united as ever.
I wish all our readers a happy sacrifice bayram.