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I saw him in every eye I looked into yesterday!

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Our Republic has turned 101... Everyone entered the new century with those they love...

Yesterday, there were two groups:

Those who were blind, deaf, and mute... And the millions who were proud but heartbroken...

The first group were the "counter-revolutionaries" who have always stood in our way since the proclamation of the Republic. They tried to act as if nothing had happened. As if the Republic proclaimed 100 years ago was not their republic...

As if the sultanate had never been abolished...

As if secularism had never been declared...

As if they had always remained subjects and had never become citizens...

When these friends were forced to speak, they did not celebrate the 100-year-old Republic of Turkey, but rather the "Second Century of the Republic," which they have claimed as their own.

Their gratitude was not toward Atatürk, but toward Recep Tayyip Erdoğan...

They certainly did not talk about how they sold off the massive factories and companies built during the first 100 years of the Republic like they were their own property; instead, they boasted about drones and aircraft carriers...

Then there were those who ran to the streets and squares with flags in their hands and dressed in their finest clothes.

They were unhappy.

They were tired, hurt, and resentful...

They were thirsty for the enthusiasm of those first 15 years of the Republic.

But they were mature, they were virtuous, they were conscious...

They coughed up blood, yet said, 'We drank cranberry sherbet.'

They did not give the counter-revolutionaries the satisfaction.

And how happy I am that yesterday I saw those determined 'young eyes' in the squares, on the screens, and at the podiums...

With flags in their hands, they were like the soldiers heading to the barracks, bidding farewell to their mothers:

They were all 'hennaed lambs'...

And what about their mothers?

Their hearts were bittersweet like the country, they were poor; but they were strong...

"We didn't see those first 15 years, but that doesn't mean we won't see them" shouted one of the young people at Anıtkabir...

Young girls wore the revolutions made in the first 15 years of the Republic like white wedding dresses...

"Long live freedom," said a young girl who had been confined to the house and condemned to bigotry...

"Long live secularism," said the women who refused to accept being second-class citizens...

"We are equal," said the Alevis, Sunnis, Kurds, Turks, and Circassians...

Like a spike from Melisa Vargas, who came from Cuba and became Turkish, this determination hit the faces of the traitors at 128 kilometers per hour...

It was a slap that exploded.

Workers took an oath of "re-organization"...

Civil servants and retirees spoke of "solidarity"...

Ashamed, they bowed their heads, and the gas distributors, biscuit makers, and gangs questioned their reasons for existence once again...

It was not a state holiday that was being celebrated yesterday...

The nation celebrated its own holiday!

In defiance of those who tried to silence them, they sang songs in unison...

They shouted out the most beautiful anthems...

They certainly did not forget the children massacred in Gaza, the treacherous Israel, and its collaborator, the USA!

And yesterday, in those squares...

In the eyes of those elderly, young, children, men and women, Alevis, Sunnis, Christians, and non-believers...

The married, the single...