Ahmet Özcan
“Abel and Cain met after Abel’s death. They were walking in the desert and recognized each other from afar. For they were both very tall. The two brothers sat down, lit a fire, and ate. At sunset, like weary men, they did not break the silence. In the sky, a few stars, yet unnamed, appeared. In the starlight, Cain saw the mark of the stone blow on Abel’s forehead and threw the bread he was about to eat to the ground and begged for forgiveness for his crime.
Abel answered:
—Was it you who killed me, or me who killed you? I don’t remember; here we are again, together as before.
—Now I know you have truly forgiven me, said Cain, because to forget is to forgive. I will try to forget too.
Abel spoke softly:
“It is true, as long as regrets persist, so does guilt.”
(Legend, Jorge Luis Borges, In Praise of Shadow)
Starting wars, killing, breaking, burning, destroying, and taking revenge is easy. Anyone can do it. Peace is difficult. What is difficult is; reconciling, letting live, building, constructing, forgiving. Not everyone can do it.
Provoking, cursing, and hurting is easy. Soothing, repairing, and correcting is difficult.
Dividing, fragmenting, and segregating is easy. Integrating, unifying, and completing is difficult.
As long as revenge continues, so does guilt. Forgetting and forgiving prevent the repetition of past crimes. Virtue is an act in the way of Abel. Abel represents life, Cain represents death.
Most people choose what is easy; choosing the difficult is the virtuous act of Abel.
Civilizations, states, and cities are built by virtuous people.
Philosophy, art, craftsmanship, literature, music, and architecture are developed by virtuous people.
Religion, morality, love, peace, sharing, and solidarity are preserved, watched over, and sustained by virtuous people.
In the existential struggles of societies, at the turning points of history, during times of peace and tranquility being settled, it is not destructive people but constructive, virtuous people who play a role.
The Roman statesman Cicero once said, “In unhappy times, amidst all our corruption, does Rome need great names?
No, it needs virtues.”
In these periods, the problem itself, its causes, its history, the parties involved, the tally of right and wrong are no longer important; these are now details, stage props. What is important in these periods is that no matter what the problem is, the solution can now be discussed, peace, unity, solidarity and tranquility can be built, the future is planned and can be built.
What matters in these times is that virtuous people step forward, show willpower, form the difficult but possible conditions of constructiveness with determination, courage, patience, and self-sacrifice, and begin the work.
What matters in these times is; to embrace life over death, unity over division, mercy over rage and to listen to everyone with empathy, to try to understand, to respect every idea, suggestion, and request to end the immorality of war and attain a level of virtue worthy of peace.
As Mevlana said, “Our wounds are where the light filters through into us.” To heal the wounds is to keep the light within us. Virtuous people are social healers and they correct evil with goodness, carry pain with grace, and teach others how to protect people from the emotional violence of their own suffering.
As wounds are being healed, warlords, provocateurs, necrophiliac death-mongers, nests of intrigue and malice, pots of hatred and animosity must now fall silent. The brainless, heartless, merciless, and ignorant war drummers must step aside. Now, real people, genuine patriots who step forward for a just, noble, constructive and good future, must begin to speak.
Instead of the negatively charged language of the past conflict era that composed of words like Kurdish issue, terrorism, separatism, PKK, war, guerrilla, martyr, homeland, it is time to get used to speaking a positive language composed of empathy, shared ideals, common values, law, justice, democracy, equality, liberty, compassion, and mercy. In the fiery words of Cemil Meriç, we must move beyond “a skull full of dead words, dancing concepts; slippery, disjointed, like beads from a broken string scattered in every direction” and discover the words of virtue and wisdom.
The words Turk, Kurd, Türkiye, Turkish, Kurdish, Kurdistan must no longer be coded as part of a language of division, conflict, enmity, and provocation, but as part of a positive language that reflects natural and genuine realities and marks the normal, reasonable, and possible foundations of a shared future.
Virtuous people, by speaking with the words of compassion and empathy, must, in this arduous, exhausting, and grueling peace process and on the threshold of strengthening unity and brotherhood, act with patience and deliberation with the awareness of making unity and harmony permanent and paving the way for the construction of a common future.
Because now, it should be expected that the elements that feed on war, terror, division and discord will do everything they know best, namely to disrupt, break, provoke and poison process.
But these lands, having experienced every kind of conflict, division, strife, and unrest imaginable, also know peace, unity, harmony, tranquility, and mercy and when it appears before them, they always choose peace. Because this geography that is the birthplace of a deep memory, deep-rooted values, vital instincts and creative mind, carries within itself the willpower to unite, integrate and be reborn after all periods of deterioration, disintegration and dispersion.
In this geography, when the state is guided by this historical memory, no obstacle, no provocation, no fear can prevent order, prosperity, existence, and unity.
When the nation activates the reflex of this historical memory, no problem remains unsolvable, no blood feud lasts forever, and no malice prevails.
With this understanding, it is necessary to determine the destiny of living in these lands and walk to the end with common ideals, collective intelligence and virtue chosen from the ashes of the past and the imaginary paradise of the future.
Then, paths will open for making up for a lost past and building a future worth living.
Whoever wants, gets what he wants, whoever lives what he deserves. Whoever wants calamity, finds calamity, whoever wants gloom, gets gloom, and whoever wants mercy, receives mercy.
The state and society, Turks and Kurds, no longer deserve darkness, they deserve peace, safety, and mercy.
It is time to gather under the shadow of virtue so that we do not lose our children in prisons or cemeteries, but raise them joyfully, peacefully and honorably in the homes, streets, mountains and seas of a just state that we will be proud to be a part of, and a country that we will be proud to live in.
