My funded friend, don't struggle so much

I was born and raised in the city.

I received my education in above-average public schools, if not the very best.

Later, I pursued higher education in the United States at a private university.

For years, I have been conducting research and teaching at a university.

While I may not have become a complete success in the traditional sense, I have never been beholden to the dishonorable.

It is said that I am an academic whose word carries weight.

In fact, there are not a few who say I have a unique character.

I have lived a relatively bohemian life.

However, I have never been far from the climate of the village. 

I remember my grandmother's cow in the barn right below the house in the village as if it were today.

I remember how, when it smelled the watermelon we brought from town in the evenings, it would moo, as if to say, "Give me the rinds too."

Since the cow lived in the space below my grandmother's living quarters, even if it couldn't speak, it understood Turkish and would express its troubles by mooing.

My late grandmother would have me drink the milk she milked from her cow while it was still warm, just as the morning call to prayer was being recited, while my eyes were still adjusting to the light seeping through the window with its wooden shutters fastened by a hook.

At breakfast, I would spread the fresh, fragrant cream of that milk, along with honey produced from the hive in the garden, onto Trabzon bread.

The churn would be hung from the ceiling by ropes at both ends, and the milk inside would be churned with rhythmic, skillful movements until the bright yellow butter began to float on top of the milk.

While spending summers in the village, one of my favorite activities was fishing in the creek; in those days, hydroelectric power plants (HES) had not yet been invented, and the creeks roared with life.

In the book "The Towers of Trabzon" by Rose Macalilay, it is written that when people came by boat from Espiye and traveled by donkey from the Livera road to the Sümela Monastery in Maçka for religious services, the Maçka Değirmendere creek was so full of fish that the water was barely visible.

Anyway, since there were no tools in the village, I learned how to fish using a method left over from the Stone Age from the village children.

We would dam the creek and wait for the water on one side to drain.

Once the water drained, the fish would start flopping around on their own.

As the water disappeared completely, the fish would struggle, taking their last breaths in our hands.

Looking at the reactions from the so-called Kemalist, secular-looking, funded social-democratic circles regarding the CHP's stance on the Imralı monster issue, I remembered the fish flopping like mirrors on the dry side of the creek.

Don't struggle so much.