New year, new hopes...

Since my childhood, I have loved walking the streets during the New Year season and gazing at the bright holiday decorations for a long time. Buying small gifts for my loved ones, remembering them, calling them, being remembered... That sparkling celebratory mood always instills hope in me. New hopes that will come with a new year...

Now, we are bidding farewell to 2024. And at the same time, we are conducting our own year-end accounting. We are mentally tallying everything we have done throughout the year for our country, our loved ones, our families, and ourselves. 

In 2024, we fought to defend freedoms as much as we could. Sometimes our reactions found a response, and sometimes they did not. Yet, we did not give up. We had hope, however. We had a longing for a bright, modern Turkey. Our longing was our common cause. We defended our cause with all our might... 

In moments when we fell into despair, as Ahmed Arif said in his verses, we endured "with books, with work, with fingernails, with teeth, with hope, with love, with dreams..." We endured. And we never gave up on the insatiable taste of independence. 

We fought with our companions for the longing to breathe freely... We shared our ideas, and as we shared, we multiplied. On the other hand, we also tried to understand those who did not think like us. "Empathy" was always written at the top of our agenda. Understanding each other was the only path to consensus and peace. We were aware of this. We took care not to hurt the wing of a bird.

And this path could not be walked alone. We always had our friends by our side. Our true friends who supported us in good times and bad. We blended and matured in the conversations of friends. We worried about the future of our country. In every conversation, we gave each other a little more hope. After all, love for the country could not exist without hope...

Now, as we leave a whole year behind with its bitterness and sweetness, with the experiences, sorrows, and joys of the past year in our satchel, we are setting sail for a new year. The coming year is pregnant with many developments for the world and humanity... But what matters is to protect the hope in our hearts, to be one, to be united. To multiply as we are crushed. To be able to say "human first." To be able to walk away from the ambition of flashy positions, with the value our ideas add, without breaking anyone, without marginalizing, without ignoring. To be able to walk in a friendly, heartfelt, and smiling way...

I hope the new year brings abundance to us all. May our happiness, our hope, and our peace overflow from our hearts. Life is a tough struggle. Between the struggle for bread, the struggle of politics, and the struggle of life, it passes ruthlessly. Within this ruthless struggle; let us live without forgetting our parents and elders if they are still with us, knowing the value of our spouses and children, without breaking the hearts of our friends, and knowing the importance of loyalty. 

Let us breathe by always working, writing, thinking, producing, and most importantly, by understanding and internalizing life, and by duly fulfilling all the requirements of being human. Living is not just breathing, of course. It is being able to remain virtuous and honorable. Greetings to all friends who are fighting for an honorable life. Happy New Year...