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I am the corpse of the Other…
The Kurd you call “ter­ror­ist”.
The Armen­ian you insult.
The Greek whose home you confiscated,
The Rom you throw out, the Arab you despise.
The Ale­vi whose door you mark with an X,
The Chris­t­ian whose win­dows you break with stones, the Chaldean you threaten.
The Oth­er against whom you discriminate.

I am the corpse of the Other…
I am the woman you attack, the child whose rapist you set free.
The LGBTI you knife down.
The home­less man you shove around…
The old man you aban­don to his solitude,
The orphan you lock into a room.
I am the corpse of the Other…
The child orphaned in Ermenek
The min­er greet­ed with kicks in Soma
The moth­er rais­ing her hands to heav­en in Rey­hanlı
I am the father lay­ing his child into the grave
The child whose only pho­to with his father is tak­en at the cemetery.
The Moth­er of Sat­ur­days still search­ing for the bones of her child.

I am the corpse of the Other…
I am the tears of Hacı Bir­lik’s moth­er,
Whose body was dragged behind an armored vehicle.
I am Cemile’s frozen eyes
Whose body was put in a freezer.
The fate of Aziz’ father who has been fight­ing for two months
to recov­er his child’s remains.

I am the corpse of the Other…
The white hand­ker­chief in the hand of Meryem’s mother.
Ethem’s stub­bor­ness, Ahmet’s smile,
Hrant’s shoe with a hole in it.
The bicy­cle Vey­sel nev­er got to ride.
I am the pain of a 35 day old baby.
I am the corpse of the Other…

Ali whom you killed with beatings.
Berkin whom you killed by aim­ing for the head.
Kevs­er whom you undressed.
The peas­ant you mas­sa­cred in Robos­ki,
In Suruç, the young­ster who was bring­ing toys to Kobanê.

I am the corpse of the Other.
Of those you nev­er stop killing,
Of those you shove aside, whose exis­tence you negate,
Whom you nev­er man­age to annihilate…
Of whose deaths you are nev­er sated,
Of which you nev­er tire, you have no shame…
Of those you don’t man­age to intimidate,
To crush, to obliterate…

Of those you can’t suc­ceed in shut­ting up,
Of those you will nev­er man­age to muzzle.

Text by Ley­la Alp pub­lished on T24
Video in French with the voice of Ürüşan Yıldız , colum­nist at L’œil Noir (the Black Eye).


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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Le petit mag­a­zine qui ne se laisse pas caress­er dans le sens du poil.