Sunday, August 7, 2016

When Your Country Breaks You



“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.

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