When the canary stops singing in the mine…

The list that has 18 names on it is a long one with Orhan Erinç, Hikmet Çetinkaya, Murat Sabuncu, Kadri Gürsel, Musa Kart, Aydın Engin, Güray Öz and Turhan Günay… This is the list of those who have been detained and those for whom search warrants have been issued. 

The houses of these executives and writers of daily Cumhuriyet were raided on charges of “committing crimes on behalf of the terrorist organizations FETÖ/PYD and PKK/KCK even though they were not a member of them.” 

Take Hikmet Çetinkaya, for instance. He is the person the Fethullahist group has probably sued the most and they once stopped the publication of the daily because of Hikmet Çetinkaya’s serial on the community.   

The atmosphere here is not suitable for jokes but if they ask “How would you understand if a coup has happened?” I would say, “When Aydın Engin is detained, that means there is a coup.” He was imprisoned after the 1971 coup, and went into exile for several years because of the 1980 coup to avoid heavy sentences. Now he has been “taken” again; this time on claims that he was acting together with those he has always stood against…

There are those who, in every TV debate, have argued against those who showed the utmost respect to Fethullah Gülen during “those days,” for instance, Kadri Gürsel…

There is Murat Sabuncu who has always been the first to rush to assist journalists in trouble, who always fights fearlessly for the freedom of his colleagues…

There is also Musa Kart… One of the best examples of the daily political caricature tradition in the press… 
He has a unique talent of seeing and portraying humor, the essence of the matter overcoming all the verbosity generated by the chaotic agenda of the country… I always follow his caricatures but I took a look back on Monday morning at his recent ones… He drew Fethullah Gülen, and satirized the administration. He drew the PKK – a truck loaded with bombs, driven by a terrorist as a citizen comments, “This is the unmanned land vehicle.” 

He drew the legal system. He drew the symbol of justice, Themis, sitting on a couch, having put her sword aside. She is trying to find the truth in the scale pan on her lap. 

He drew July 15. A tank is overpowered by the book “History of Democracy” before it. Its barrel is down; the head of the barrel of the tank has been buried like an ostrich. 

What else did Musa Kart draw? He drew injustices, hypocritical political pawns, vandals, warmongers, irresponsible beings, terror lords. He has done whatever a humor master needs to. 

He did his job; and he has done a good job. He criticized strongly, and obviously infuriated some people… 
In the past, until quite recently actually, they used to keep canaries inside coal mines, maybe you know about them. 

The canary’s duty was to die. When its sensitive body collapsed as a sign of the accumulation of toxic gasses in the mine, the miners would recognize the danger and would have time to flee. 

The canary, by stopping singing and dying, would signal the danger in advance…  

Intellectuals live and produce for society, like the canary in the mine. When their voices are not heard, it means disaster is approaching…