We shall overcome

Belgin Akaltan - belgin.akaltan@hdn.com.tr

Kocatepe mosque in Ankara, Turkey February 19, 2016. REUTERS Photo

We are not afraid, the lyrics of this remarkable song goes. But, here in reality, on this February day in the land of the Turks, in the year 2016, oh, dear, we ARE afraid. At least I am exceptionally afraid that one day one of the bombs will strike me or one of my loved ones. 

This piece is being written with the sentiment that has affected all of us after a car bomb went off in our capital city Ankara, killing 28 people earlier in the week. It is written after a sudden migraine attack hit me, cutting me off from daily life. I got back on my feet after a night’s sleep and I have hope; I have Joan Baez’s song in my mind. It is echoing in my ears as I play it over and over again… “We shall overcome; we shall overcome…” I know that Joan Baez will come here to Istanbul again when all of this is over, and we will sing together with her, at the top of our voices. I will join with my untrained, off-key, horrible voice… Surely, we will cry out loud that we have overcome; that we are finally living in peace…

This is not only about physical bombs. We have other bombs, similarly destructive, equally lethal bombs, in other forms. We have explosive material all around us, inside our souls; in Ankara, in Istanbul, in Sur, in Cizre and in Syria… We have people who have wrapped themselves in bombs, on their way to kill us… 

But my theme this week is not terror, bombs, our fear or the ongoing war. My theme this week is hope and how much I believe we shall overcome this.

I am sure you all feel how we are surrounded by dark clouds, depressing us, making us hopeless, desperate as a country, as a nation, as a society, as group of people who are actually good inside, nice, non-violent people who only want to live peacefully with each other and with their neighbors. 

These dark clouds take the form of bombs, hostility, war, bullets, booby traps, trenches, the urge to kill each other, hate and hate speech. It frequently comes as voices on TV, as politicians speaking… An evil is constantly generated over us, infiltrating our souls… We are living in a large hell and in smaller hells of our own, with hate pumped toward us from all directions… It could well be that our past evils, the ones we avoid confronting and the mass deaths we have caused are here to haunt this land…

But, some day we shall overcome. This is indeed not the worst. Guys, friends, comrades, Romans, countrymen… We have seen worse. We will overcome this malady. We shall overcome this. I’m not just saying that… 

I am not being nationalistic or anything similar. The Turkishness or being a Turk means different things at different times to different people. I am only referring to the collective feeling of loss or victory that is with us at certain times which is generally defined as being a nation. I feel the power of that sense of belonging, that sense of sharing. I felt it the most during the major earthquake on August 1999. I felt a fraction of when our national football team finished third at the World Cup y in 2002. I certainly felt it at Gezi… I did not feel it that much during our Eurovision or Nobel prize victories. 

This togetherness, this unity that makes us resist evil and evil times, will again be powerful enough to make us overcome this man-made evil. That feeling of attachment, the one that we felt during and after the earthquake, the one that exceeds our borders… The thing that is called humanity… That we have shown by hosting 3 million refugees and that we have room even for more to come… Hold on, guys; hang on… Keep it tight, keep going. 

I know deep in my heart, I know we shall overcome. This is not the first time evil has struck us. It is not the first time we have hit rock bottom. We saw it in the economic crisis in 2001. We saw it in those mad times during late 1970s when brother was killing brother, during our undeclared civil war when an average of 25 people were dying on the streets a day. We survived those times; we will manage these also… 

Deep in my heart, I believe that we shall overcome. We’ll walk hand in hand. We shall live in peace…


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