Karadayi's Protest

Yesterday I received a message from retired Military General Staff Head Ismail Hakki Karadayi. In the message, General Karadayi asserted his discomfort with being linked at all in name with Leyla Zana. I can appreciate how this commander, who for years fought against the PKK, feels about being remembered in name alongside the politician Zana, who kisses the hands of Ocalan's mother and brother.But I have a few things of my own to say on this subject. The issue I would like to underline in my writing is this: "the inability to live together" syndrome.  Turkey has experienced so many distressing events over the past years. Nearly 30,000 of our people have lost their lives because of these events. Now there awaits us a question whose answer is of the utmost importance: Are we to continue to carry with us this anger and bitterness from the past? Or shall we try to rescue the future by going forward without the anger?  If we are serious about rescuing the future, the first barrier we must overcome is the pschology I have referred to above. In the beginning of this week, we read the results of the poll carried out about Turkey by TESEV in Armenia. As it turns out, the people in Armenia still see marriage between Turks and Armenians as something undesirable. In short, they still don't want to be "seen together."  But what about us?  The sentiment of "I don't want to be seen next to him/her." How will we overcome this sentiment? I am looking for the answer to this question. I am not enough of an ignoramus to think that Former General Karadayi and politician Zana could ever work together in a political setting. But I would like to be hopeful enough just to imagine this. This is all I want to explain. I guess I haven't been successful.  Anyway, my problem gets bigger at this point. When the people that make up the mainstream of a society are not able to live together, the shouts of the fierce minority groups are all that's left in the middle. This space which has been deserted by feelings of reasonableness and togetherness are filled instead by ethnic and religious fanaticism. I want to dream up a world which would disappoint all this fanaticism. I will continue to dream. Sometimes my dreams are interrupted by the unpleasant realities of life. But I sometimes see developments which fill me with hope. Yesterday, in Hurriyet newspaper's "Kelebek" section, there was an article about the film "Gallipoli." Since coming to the big screen, this film, directed by Tolga Ornek, has met with great success. More than 300 thousand people have watched it so far. It is about the War at Canakkale, one of our country's turning points, and a crucial moment in our history. The War in Cannakale touched all the people who made up the Ottoman Empire of the time, as well as today's modern Turkish republic. Which means it touched Turks, Kurds, Greeks, and Jewish people.  Over the past 30 years, Turkey has been enslaved to divisive, not uniting, movements. The "communist-fascist" divisions of the 1960s and 70s, the "Turkish-Kurdish" and "religious-secular" divisions of the 1980s and 1990s: these chasms between us have carried away a good 35 to 40 of our years.  I say that for once we embrace feelings of uniteness rather than divisiveness. I dream of this. Am I too naive, too unrealistic? I guess I just can't be any other way. Â