“Your country raised you, your country fed you, and just
like any other country it will break you.”
Gogol Bordello – Your Country
I have never been proud of being Turkish*. I have never been
ashamed of it either. I did not ask or work for being Turkish. It was given to
me at birth. I do not understand how people can be proud of their nationality. If
there is an equivalent of a grinch for independence days, I am that person. I
find it weird seeing too many national flags around and the proud faces of the
people carrying them. Nevertheless, I do my best to respect the people who feel
proud of their nationality (as long as they don’t diminish other
nationalities).
I wish I could say that I simply don’t care about belonging
to any nation. However, it is not that simple. I lived the first 21 years of my
life in Turkey. Being Turkish is a big part of who I am. It is in the accent I
have while speaking English. It is in the way I interact with people. It is in
the food I eat. It is in the jokes I laugh at. I can’t ignore it. I live with
it every day. As a result, it affects me when shit goes down in Turkey, like it
did about three weeks ago.
I have never felt as hopeless in my life as I did on
July 16th. When you are ill with high fever, the fever would be the
main thing you feel. The day after the fever, however, you start being more aware of
every aching bone in your body. July 15th was the day of the fever, it
was the day of the coup attempt. We were all trying to understand what the heck
was going on while constantly texting/talking with the loved ones and hoping
that nobody dies on the streets. July 16th was the day after the
fever. The coup attempt was prevented, but we still had no clue what really
went down and the overall mess of the whole thing started to sink in. The
situation was, as the saying goes in Turkey, a stick where both sides were covered with shit. I barely slept the
night before, my head was killing me, and my body was resisting any type of
food or movement. I just sat on the couch looking emptily at the walls of my
apartment.
Toward noon, I texted Greek bro. He was taking his kids to
the park, he said I was welcome to join them. I went there immediately. I
thought seeing the tiny beautiful faces of his kids might restore some hope in
me. It didn’t, but at least the two hours I spent with them made me stop
thinking about what happened and smile a bit. Plus, he made me eat nutritious
food as usual. Then, I met Twin Sister. She looked as worn down as I did. We
aimlessly walked around talking about the downward spiral state of our country.
It was really nice to talk to someone who can really understand your desperate
state and who won’t be excited to immediately dive into the political analysis
of the situation.
The following week was a mess. I gave myself several panic
attacks just by reading the news about my country or thinking about the
possible future of my country alone at home. I even thought having a husband
would be useful for these types of situations in terms of not being alone, but then immediately abandoned
the thought. I kept wondering how my parents went through three coups in a sane
way. I barely concentrated on the things I was supposed to do. I had to pretend
that everything was ok at work place while the non-Turkish people around me
kept on living their lives the same way**. I was slightly happy that I was off
next week since I could then stop pretending that I was ok or I would be among
people who could help me forget what was going on in my country even for a
short period of time.
Here we are now. Three weeks passed since the coup attempt. I
won’t pretend that I am all recovered. This shit has a long way to go. But life
whips you in the back constantly to move forward. And sometimes it is our only
option, so “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
* Here, by “being Turkish”, I mean “coming from Turkey”. I
do not mean anything that is related to ethnicity. If we dig my ethnic roots,
or anyone’s ethnic roots in Turkey, we would run into the danger of falling into a very deep pit.
** I am well aware that this is not an issue specific to me
in our community. I work in an environment where people are of a lot of
different nationalities. I am sure many of them feel like this on some days.
