Meliha Çelik
“When what is tolerated is evil, tolerance itself becomes a crime.”
— Thomas Mann
The world is now following in horror the torture and mass graves revealed at Sednaya Prison, the human slaughterhouse of Syria. This is a prison where tens of thousands were systematically executed, a place of unimaginable evil that defies human comprehension. And this is something we will talk about for a long time to come. In fact, all of Syria has been a human slaughterhouse for years. The Baath regime—a small ruling minority holding power—inflicted unprecedented torture, tyranny, and, most accurately, ethnic and sectarian cleansing upon the Syrian people. And everyone knew it!
Those who ignored the victims of this war since 2011 knew it. The Simiyens, who constantly humiliated, degraded, and oppressed the victims, fighters, and refugees, knew it very well. And those who harbored deep-seated hatred for Islam knew it best of all. Every one of them was part of this evil. And likely, little will change for them, as they continue to live with this decaying and ordinary evil.
If anyone claims ignorance, let them remember Plato’s definition of evil. Plato considered evil as the result of immorality and ignorance. To him, evil was essentially the absence of reality, virtue, and goodness.
In one of these prisons, a medieval bone-breaking device reminiscent of the Inquisition’s tortures was found. This was just one of the many instruments of torture.
It was this brutality and oppression that these refugees fled from. And the majority of these refugees were women and children. The greatest fear for the women was the torturers who were also rapists. To preserve their lives, honor, and hope, they sought refuge in other lands. Unfortunately, not all the places they fled to were safe. Some were met with hardships and oppressors. Even those who were lucky enough not to drown at sea faced racism and violence. They struggled to survive, and—most difficult of all—to stand tall with dignity. This struggle is far from over.
Türkiye was among the first countries to open its doors to Syrian refugees. The majority of these refugees were women and children. Had they stayed in Syria, most of them would not be alive today. Or they would have faced unspeakable torture in one of those human slaughterhouses, without ever being tried. According to data recorded by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), thousands of cases of rape against adult women and girls under 18 occurred in regime detention centers. These are just the recorded numbers! In reality, the number of women and children imprisoned and raped is far higher than these figures.
So, do you recall any women’s movement, association, or protest that defended, protected, or supported Syrian women and girls who sought refuge in Türkiye? Have you heard a single word about them from famous women?
Perhaps someone might have heard faint words—mumbled phrases that were never clear or concrete. But there was neither a grounded protest nor any action, nor cries echoing in the streets.
Two years ago, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody in Iran, protests erupted in Türkiye as well. Women expressed their outrage on many platforms, including social media. The death of a young woman saddened us all, of course. Yet how strange it is that the same sensitivity was never shown for the Syrian women who were murdered, displaced, harassed, and raped—just as it was not shown for Palestinian women and children.
Just remember two brutal femicides! Emani al-Rahmun, a Syrian woman who escaped the war and settled in Sakarya’s Kaynarca district, was raped and murdered along with her 10-month-old baby. In İzmir’s Menemen district, 30-year-old pregnant Manar and her 5-year-old child were brutally killed.
There should have been an uproar, but there wasn’t. Feminists in Türkiye and celebrity women with large followings somehow managed to skillfully ignore these tragedies.
There is only one explanation for this: because these women are not “secular enough.”
“The main object of feminism is women,” and, in essence, the defense of women’s rights is about defending human rights and upholding humanity itself.
However, in Türkiye—except for a small minority—feminism, or what is called women’s rights advocacy, is political, ideological, and hypocritical.
The feminists in Türkiye always remind me of the famous Renaissance painting “The Parable of the Blind”—also known as “The Blind Leading the Blind.” In this painting by the Flemish artist Brueghel, Jesus’s words in the Bible about the Pharisees (fanatical Jewish leaders) are illustrated. Jesus says, “They are blind guides leading the blind.” Brueghel’s interpretation shows blind beggars clinging to each other’s sticks, being led by their guide into a pit.
It is not physical blindness but “conscious blindness” that leads people into such pits. Most of us can see this pit of oblivion and recognize it—just as we witnessed the tears of Samira, the mother of Hamza al-Khatib, the 13-year-old boy who was tortured to death and had his limbs mutilated on May 21, 2011, in Syria’s city of Daraa.