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A welcome rant from Rabia Mine that could also be raised outside Turkey. Where one sees that “celebrities” never miss a chance to yammer, either with the word “solidarity” in their mouths or to encourage everyone to obedience, whereas usually, they are quite content to stand up for the established order.
Stay at home. But what home?
Dame Defne Samyeli (Turkish TV anchorwoman, columnist, singer and actress) said in a reportage “There exists a reality known as ‘natural selection’. It will carry off the weaker among us… Those are the cycles of life. Thank God, I have a villa in the forest, I eat healthy foods, I do my jogging, bla bla bla bla, stay at home!”
You piss me off. You must have held back, you could have shown off a bit more. Woman, can we still talk about “natural selection” among the living who haven’t been satisfied with breaking their links with nature but who have literally signed its death warrant? What you’re calling “strength” today is nothing other than money! Only those with money will remain standing and alive, whether young or old, whether in poor or in good health…Do you really think that during this epidemic only those catching the virus will die? No M’am.! A lot more people will die that the corona will not have killed – no matter whether they live in forests with the strength of a tiger – they will of hunger, of other illnesses brought on by poverty, and from killing one another for a piece of dry bread. Hey, the film hasn’t even started yet! All we’ve seen so far are the credits rolling by!
A horde of pseudo celebrities, supposedly sending out a social message are speaking out of their ultra-luxurious houses and telling the people “Stay at home!”
The Queen is screwing with me
OK, I’ll stay home, teacher. In which home, and how? In far-away countries, power, natural gaz and water bills, even payment of the rent have been suspended until September , October. People are receiving aids. “As for our own “State grandees” they’re content with pouring cologne water on our stretched out hands, like toilet attendants do, then they shove us off to Allah. All that’s missing is for them to hold the candle, saying “in your prison-homes, fuck generously and have many children.” So? I’m supposed to raise my children on cologne water, and use it to feed my family and pay the bills? Maybe they’re giving us this advice so that we’ll go nuts and commit suicide as soon as possible. Who knows?
“Stay at home. Stay at home.” Go to hell! What home, huh? Half of the population in this country is made up of people who will have nothing to eat if they miss a single day at work. Most of the people in this country are the poor who, if they skip rental payments for two months, find themselves out on the street. Are you going to provide us with our food? Are you going to pay our rent, our bills? What home are you talking about, when you tell us to stay in it? While we struggle against hunger, the State has even started shutting off power for those who cannot pay. In the middle of the cold season.
If we stay at home, we’ll die of hunger before dying from corona, right, you despicable ones?! At the same time, what’s the difference if we go outside. All the doors are closed for the jobs we get. We sold simit, stuffed mussels, we shined shoes. We were waiters you forced into exile in the “West” by destroying and burning down our villages. We were migrants performing the dirtiest of jobs you despise, all for a bite to eat. We were the staff in your shitty private sector, our fate stuck between the two lips of our lumpenbosses. Little shop owners were the ones who were the best off among us. Most of us were poor people at the sight of which you frowned in normal circumstances. Now that we don’t even have any work anymore, who will guarantee our day! Of what home are you talking about, goddamn you, of what home?
“Natural selection.” Ha, it’s a selection all right, but it isn’t the one nature is choosing. It’s the new world order, a savage one, created by those who have chosen to be avid and cruel. All right, I accept doctors and health workers telling us to stay home. But not you, despicable higher ups… In the reportages you send out from your palaces, slumped on your fat asses, don’t tell us to “Stay at home”!
We don’t have a house!
Rabia Mine
Writer and poet, activist in the defense of human rights. Author of the book of poems “Külden” (Ashes) published in Turkish in 2014.
She studied Law at Istanbul University and cinema-television at Mimar Sinan University. She has worked as production manager in cinema, editor and as an independent publisher.
Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com
*A word to English-speaking readers: in all instances where the original text is in Turkish or Kurdish, the English version is derived from French translations. Inevitably, some shift in meaning occurs with each translation. Hopefully, the intent of the original is preserved in all cases. While an ideal situation would call for a direct translation from the original, access to information remains our main objective in this exercise and, we hope, makes more sense than would a translation provided by AI…
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