Narin ‘incident’

What can be put in the same situation with the sudden, reflexive decision to kill a small child, as if kicking aside a stone? Is it okay that this murder, for example, is known to many people, but that it is waited for in silence, in the hope that it will not come to light, reinforcing the hostility of those who seek the truth? What about the participation of the one who killed that beautiful child - most probably by strangling her - the one who carried the body, the one who covered it up in the search efforts, which is said to be carried out with the utmost meticulousness? When the commander, who was the operational commander of the investigation and especially of the search efforts, which everyone “friend and foe” said were being conducted properly, made the statement, “The circle is narrowing, we are close to a finding,” about a week after Narin disappeared, and then another twelve days passed until the body was found, and the gendarmerie commander spent that time behind the scenes in silence? Lots of disgraces that reveal our insight in all its filth...

Moreover, it is so intricate yet simple, so astonishing yet familiar, so sleazy yet orderly, so outrageous yet normal, that the murder and hiding of a girl and what we watch in the aftermath is not only the subject of an adventure of brutality, horror, and intrigue. In that village, which obviously harbored a stream of nightmares, Narin, who had experienced unnamable feelings of uneasiness that the world was not the only place, but who had not yet reached the age where he could put “that much”, could not even participate in life properly; she was only exposed to a tiny, ominous part of it. In villages -especially in towns! And now in metropolitan cities too- in lands where those who take the name of God most often in their mouths actually worship only their own privileges -existing or not yet existing but seemingly attainable (i.e. usurpable)- and the state, ordinary human life is an adventure of exposure. In lands like ours, you cannot “make” your own life. Whoever seems to have done so has usurped it from someone else.

The story of Narin's murder and its aftermath extends to these issues as well.

In our country, it is not the facts learned or fabricated about the “before”, but the “aftermath”, despite all the tricks of our colleagues who reveal the story of the murders, who play the game of revealing little by little based on their “sources”. Let me give you an example that will convince you all at once: For example, if the police chief comes out right after a political assassination and says, “It is not the work of a (criminal) organization,” we understand that not only is it the work of a criminal organization, but also that it is related to the state and will not be illuminated, and that even if it is the subject of years-long trials, the real mastermind will never be named, prosecuted, much less punished. At the same time, we understand that this person, this circle, this organization, whatever it is, will not be punished, because what was done is not a crime in the eyes of the state. Even if the murder, assassination, or massacre... in question is not a specially decided, planned action, even if it is an “isolated act” committed by someone because they are meddlers and know that they will not be punished anyway, the bureaucracy, as soon as it identifies that the action is in compliance with the procedure, it takes it upon itself to participate and do what is necessary. Because of this unwritten official doctrine and procedure, the “aftermath” is always the source from which we get the real information. Because it is part of the procedure, some of the officials' testimonies are taken, and we find out that they participated in the operation because “Sir, we thought...”. Such processes mostly take place in the context of the persecution and extermination of politically unacceptable people and circles.

The brutalization of our poor little girl is not part of this. So here the state is at a loss as to what to do: Like in earthquakes! Something happened to the citizen, but the state is not organized to help and serve the citizen! What to do now?... Unfortunately, the opposition, which claims to put an end to the regime of dishonor in which we are languishing, is also unable to action for other reasons. Because dishonorness, like lack of conscience, cuts horizontally across social clusters - to put it in a handsomely scientific way. The perpetrators can be described as “religious extremists,” but unfortunately these people also have ‘unacceptable’ ethnic characteristics. Some opposition members of the “bright face of Turkey”, whose legitimization is facilitated by entrenched racism, are able to avoid Narin's - now lifeless - gaze with the remark of “They are Easterners anyway...”. These Kurds are either terrorists or religious sectarians; they leave no place to play for the civilized part of our nation that had to return from vacation because schools have already opened! Yet, we are talking about people who were able to ignore Ceylan's gaze, whose body parts were collected by her mother from the field; a whole population whose ability to ignore should never be underestimated!

The story of Narin -this word (in Turkish) was invented to describe the fragility of these innocent little humans in the harsh human environment- being ripped away from this world by the cruel and dishonorable -this word was invented precisely for such subjects- male hands, especially with the “aftermath”, it is a sinister, uncanny, troublesome tangle of countless threads, from the will to conscience, individual, political to the religious, social, gendarmerie to government, administrative, moral, philosophical, wherever you go, you will catch one end of it.

Let me just bluntly say the big word that must be said: If somehow, anyhow, in a way, the “necessary” killing of a little girl is not considered “normal” -yes, I mean acceptable- up to a certain point -up to what point?- if such a belief, acceptance, in fact, outright knowledge, were not continuing to produce and spread germs somewhere, such incidents would not easily occur. What normalizes the horror, the murder? It has been spent decades trying to prevent girls from being buried alive at birth in Chinese villages. And this was at a time when anyone who said a word would be dealt with on the spot. In the late 20th century, this was still an issue. Is China on another planet? In other words, there are very primitive motives and impulses that have not yet been overcome, and worse, they have been ideologized and fortified with very strong, durable, permanent social-mental structures. There are primitive, natural, instinctive factors that the male part of the animal genus called humans has not been able to transform despite all the evolution of civilization. According to the way these are combined with civilizations, women are considered disposable. How women feel in the everyday life of a society is a measure of the civilization of any human society. Our civilization can be measured by the concept of non-privilege and equality in terms of rights that are ingrained in the minds and souls -whatever we want to call our spiritual depths- not of women, but of men -at least a considerable number of them- who have developed their consciousness, who have realized the impossibility of the obvious, who have grasped that the human species is made up of different sexes and that being a man does not bring any “innate” superiority or qualities, and that we belong to a single animal species called “human.”

Because the fact that women -in all respects, in every aspect- can be kept in the position of a kind of servant, even a kind of slave, even though it becomes more difficult as societies develop and issues are revealed, is the “knowledge” that men, who are now watching the gradual loss of power in their victimized state trying to remain proud, cannot get out of their minds! The spontaneity of putting a bride veil on that coffin, under these circumstances, in this story is even more frightening than the scene of the uncle who strangled his tiny, tiny nephew. An uncle or other bully can harm several people in their lifetime. Putting that veil on that coffin… shows that slave owners had no problem with the essence of what happened, and who knows how many more generations will face similar treatment and dangers. “This is what normal is,” they say, “A daughter... what else would she be? She was supposed to be a bride, she couldn't be.” Then? 

One of them, probably the one who strangled her to death, says to the other one, “Take this, take it over there, throw it.” And he takes it and throws it. Because he finds this demand normal to a certain extent. It is obvious that 200,000 liras are not a promise of a future that will make what will never be done happen. What makes the man who, after hiding a child's corpse in a sack in the stream, then deals with his tiles at home and so on and so forth, and then prays, go through this obviously hellish adventure -and in fact whose authority over the life of another human being is obviously more tangible than that of the one who commands the prayer- is undoubtedly the identity of the earthly being -just a man- who commands. His power. Power, that is. It is the most recognizable force of the human species, male and female. Normality is multiplied by the energy this releases. If a man who is powerful in the village -who has backing- comes and orders another man to do something, it is done. This is normal. On the other hand, it is also normal to kill the girl -it was necessary- and hide the body. Otherwise, if a powerful person asked a man who is normally submissive to him to cut off his penis for, say, 500,000 liras, would he do it? Whereas if he is asked to throw the body of a murdered girl somewhere and cover it up, he can do it. I swear, it is deep-rooted, but so simple.

I will not be able to elaborate on this any further here. Diving in even to this extent is in order to get away from Narin's face and gaze in concrete terms, at first. A thousand times over, I prefer the helpless rage of dealing with the perpetrators to the paralyzing helplessness of looking at Narin's image, which is now just a lifeless picture. What we call an “incident” is that the brutal murder of that beautiful child can be considered a solution to an ordinary everyday problem. Or at this point, should we question whether Uncle's religious belief really has anything to do with God and the hereafter? Yes, it is true that people cannot live if they do not distinguish their “daily” affairs -including murder- from the sublime and the ethereal. However, especially in terms of this existential-philosophical issue, one of the richest laboratories has been established here. So we will have to take this path as well.

How can what we here call religious belief be so far removed from the most basic, simplest, minimum moral requirements that almost everyone from all religions and political views that exist on the face of the earth can accept? The whole experience of the AKP rule -which coincided with the practice of ISIS as a glorious human catastrophe right at our neighbor- has led people like me, who naively, probably foolishly, hoped for some kind of worldly justice and conscience from religion and the concepts of God and the hereafter, to completely different places. To be honest, most of us have never looked at the Hezbollah issue in the southeast from such a divine perspective. Because there were people involved who were trained and released by the state that they were supposedly against to the death. As a matter of fact, after all that had happened -first as a dangerous enemy, then as a “useful” employee, then as a dead but troublesome unlucky son and then as a punishment for disobedience- when it seemed that some on one side had retreated to an attitude of no longer using themselves, and others had retreated to a line of no longer using them, the shadow of Hezbollah appeared before us, again directly implicated in concrete political calculations.

And what made this whole process possible was not that the omnipotent state sculpted and shaped Hezbollah to suit itself, but that it transformed itself in such a way that it was able to absorb Hezbollah, openly embrace it, and even incorporate it. Because it was the “old” state, not defined by religiosity, and yes, also “February 28th”, that trained and equipped Hezbollah as a force that would not leave the streets to “them”; Now, the state is the temporary organization of a cadre that seeks to deal with the grave incident that took place in the village, where Hezbollah is apparently not only haunted by its ghost, but also embodied to the extent that its relations with the state allow, in a way that will cause as little damage to itself -and, yes, to the Hezbollahists- as possible.

Some children look very intelligent. Of course, if what we see is just a photograph, sometimes something comes along and gives us this impression, and we are wrong. I am accepting this, okay. But from the moment I saw Narin's first photograph, I had the impression that this child was a very smart, quick-witted human being who would make you laugh a lot if you chatted with her, but who would also corner you, and who would probably grow up to leap beyond the conditions in which he was raised. What I have written above, and what I have to write more now that I have laid it all out like this, is all in order to escape Narin's gaze.

I'll try to keep going.