I met and be-friended Defne, the young woman who wrote the Facebook post below, when she came to America for the SF Bay Area's International Body Music Festival in 2011. She wrote this in English for her American friends to read and share on the net. Please share if this moves you.
"I am going back to the Park now - as my friend is calling me back, not to the barricades this time but to sit next to some mothers who are reading "yasin" prayer at this holy nite for the Muslims. I am not a religious person, but I will join them to share a peaceful moment. To respect and be respected.
Yesterday, at the park I had very mixed feelings. People all around Turkey are still dying and we are "partying" at Gezi Park! How come?! Shall we? Why? Shouldn't we be fighting or making meetings to decide on next political actions?
I read similar lines from friends today. I just want to share my feelings and humble thoughts, to maybe shed a little light to their bewilderment and to reach out to the world from a personal point of view.
As I walked I looked around, tired and hopeless from the future. Concerned and fearful. Paranoiac. Who is civil police? Who is sincere? Why do people come here? Do they know what they want? Do I know what I want?
Yes, I knew what I wanted at that moment. I wanted to find some one to tell me what happened, what is going to happen, what "I" can/should do?!
Defne continues:
I met a friend. She said, she is so afraid. She is having panic attacks at home and coming here feels safer but not really. She said she does not want Tayyip to resign. She just wants her Park back and democratic rights. She does not want a revolution. Hearing her made me realize that I have huge expectations from these days. I realized that not everybody is thinking like me. I realized maybe I am having too much of an expectation from my self even. Weird but I felt some kind of a relief listening to her...
Then in the parade of circus artists, I ended up by the beginning of a performance of a dancer friend. He asked me how I was. I said "how could I be?" and he said "good, so good! We are occupying our park back, we should celebrate." I could not watch his performance since I was not able to connect to this joy.
Lost, I met another friend. He said, "what is done is already done. We have to celebrate the fact that without guns we managed to proceed, we, thousands of people we managed to get in here and now we are sharing whatever we have. We are having an alternative way of life here. With no politicians or controller we are fine and we manage to co-exist.
To see all this - people sharing whatever they have without asking who the sharer is, to see that there is still joy deep down." He reminded me that to affirm life is important, especially where there are people dying and being beaten to coma. To affirm living together, to open our hearts and not feed in our anger and rage is important! I was able to breath and even have a small dance after talking with him...
I slept long hours after these words. Today, I try to find the peace in my heart and open it. As I was joyfully playing my pots and pans at 9.00 pm to protest. A young man shouted to me at my balcony; "you are hurting my ears, cut this crap!" I flushed with rage. I shouted and shouted at him... he shouted back at me. He asked me to go and find another place to play. I shouted at him that we will need to find another country to live! Was he aware! No he was not.
He was fine living here like this. He was not feeling like us. There was no use to try to speak to him... And I feared like hell (is he coming upstairs to take me? is he a civil police? Did he mark my flat? But I continued... Then I realized my mistake. I should have kept going without shouting at him. I learned my lesson. I hope to be able to manage my temper!
Another friend called me just now, saying that one of her religious friends told her "yes, I would go out to streets if Tayyip calls me to help" she could not believe her ears. She asked if he saw the videos. He said "yes, what needs to be done is done!" She lost a friend over the phone, but gain thousands in the park.
So I go to the park now. To cook for my real friends and to listen to the prayers of the old ladies. I will pray for other friends stuck in a building in Rize, where many civil soldiers of Tayyip are waiting for attacking them as the police is just watching. I will pray in my own way for the others in Antakya and Ankara... I will pray for goodness. I will pray for mercy and love.
I will keep telling to myself. "The things you can do will appear to you slowly. Take it easy and keep on believing in the people and yourself! And yes, celebrate what has been achieved!!! To be able to go on!!! "
I write to understand/reflect on what I live.
I write in English to reach out.
I write to do "something". It sounds hopeless but maybe it is not...
I don't know... Hoping to find the right things to do... to be!
Having visited Istanbul and knowing and working with some of these beautiful and talented artists like Defne, the struggle for Gezi Park and a true secular democracy in Turkey is a personal struggle for me as well.
I have heard many times that the personal is political, and look at us -- headed into the throes of battle over reproductive freedom, voting rights, and protection of individual privacy. But, looking at Istanbul and the rise of the Turkish summer, maybe its the political that must be personalized - that our individual stories are the ones that need to be told, over and again, one connected to the next to build support, to find community, momentum, and to make the change.
I don't know what's going to happen to Defne in Istanbul, and I continue to be concerned and anxious for the lives of these young men and women courageously laughing, dancing, playing music and enjoying themselves as an act defiance in the face of repression. I am hoping history will not repeat itself, like it has in the recent past from Arab Spring. In the meanwhile, I am crossing my fingers.