Nothing remains of the old holidays...

I don't know if I'm still considered young enough to say, "Where are those old holidays?" But I truly miss the flavor of those old holidays. When someone says "holiday," my late grandmother's house comes to mind... I was 6 or 7 years old... A holiday meant the living room that was only opened when guests arrived... Furniture carved from walnut wood, khaki green velvet armchairs, and curtains with tassels made of the same velvet... Don't think it was out of wealth; my grandfather was a non-commissioned officer with three children. But my grandmother was a seamstress, very talented. She sewed everything herself, found and gathered things, and made them look good together. Her labor was woven into every corner of that holiday living room. It touches your soul.

And seven grandchildren running around the living room, which had its doors opened in honor of the holiday morning. My interest was always drawn to the caramel candies in the marble candy dish. The lid of the marble candy dish was so heavy that I could only open it with both hands. In other words, it was very difficult to reach the caramel candies... I don't know if it was because they were hard to reach, but those candies had a different taste...

Our generation is perhaps the last one that barely grazed the consumer frenzy. Maybe that's why we miss the taste of the old holidays so much. We look for them, but we cannot find them. We, five grandchildren, would stay at my grandmother's house during the holidays and have so much fun without even needing a single-channel television. Did we have many toys? Not at all. Because back then, there weren't that many toys either. But we were happy children. The source of our happiness was the communication we established with our cousins and neighborhood friends. This communication was so simple that we didn't need toys or computers.

And we were children who would crowd into our grandmothers' houses and enjoy the holiday tables for hours.

Is it like that now?

We can barely keep our children at the breakfast table for 10 minutes on a holiday morning. Every kind of computer and every variety of toy can go no further than providing temporary happiness. And what about us? Are we any different? After a busy work pace, when the holiday comes, we all look for a vacation spot to escape to. And perhaps we celebrate our elders' holiday with a phone call... Or sometimes just with a message...

Adapting to time is actually a natural situation due to human nature. But we should not drift away from our fundamental values and our essence as much as possible. While so many children could fit into our elders' houses, now we live in techno-loneliness all by ourselves in our huge homes. In fact, our lives are turning into a giant shopping mall. We are moving away from the warm texture of our neighborhood... We live fast, we consume fast. And because we consume fast, we always miss the small joys in life.

In short, nothing remains of the past holidays, but let's face it, we entered this holiday feeling especially bitter. What good is the holiday when young people are in prison for exercising their constitutional right to protest and demonstrate... Government officials are bearing down on the youth as if they were never young, never objected, and never sought their rights... Yet, many politicians who are active in the AKP today spent their youth in street protests seeking their rights. Is what was once a right for you, not a right for the youth today, gentlemen?

We miss the holidays and the togetherness of the past, but most of all, we miss the freedom and peace. We have even started to long for the 90s, which we criticized the most in terms of the democratic climate. Don't you think there is something strange about this?