Unfortunately, it happens!...

My wife, Dr. Esen Demir, and I took our seats on an Ajet flight from Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport, ready to depart for Izmir. As we were fastening our seatbelts, at 12:30 PM, an authorized flight attendant began her announcement after saying "Boarding Completed." She made the announcement "We celebrate International Women's Day" first in Turkish and then in English, followed by a few weak claps from the passengers. Never mind those on the plane; the world itself has no taste for celebrating "Women's Day" or applauding.

We landed at Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport on time. The weather was sunny, but it felt joyless. Despite it being "Women's Day," unhappiness and hopelessness could be read on the faces of those walking on the street and sitting on the train, especially the women. The traces of the sorrow and unhappiness caused by the war shaking the world were reflected on their faces.

We arrived at Izmir Alsancak Station via the İZBAN commuter train. We were at the station exit with our suitcases. Dozens of women were squeezed between the station building and the street on the Bornova side of the station. They were preparing to march with banners, pennants, and protests on their lips. On the Izmir side of the station, as many, if not more, police officers had gathered, waiting for the women who were about to form a march. We passengers getting off the train were also struggling to pass through the security forces with our suitcases to get to the other side of the road. We were waiting for the green light. Moreover, it was a Sunday. We couldn't help but say, "Couldn't the authorities find a wide area in Izmir, or even in Alsancak, instead of this narrow space in front of the station?" It's unbelievable. What can one say?

Women want to exercise their constitutional and democratic rights. Just like in the rest of Turkey, they were seemingly trying to intimidate them in Izmir by piling dozens of security officers in front of Alsancak Station. Let our women protest the blood spilled and the massacres in the Middle East war, as well as the US-Israel-Iran war that is affecting the world economically and psychologically. Let them protest those who massacred 170 schoolgirls killed by a bomb dropped in Iran, the women's murders that have become a routine practice in our country, the killers who murdered 653 women in 2025 without blinking and those who created that order, male oppression, and those who killed thousands of innocent children, women, and civilians in Gaza without blinking. No! We once again saw a management system that recognizes no rules or law, saying "It cannot be!"

Today is March 8; unfortunately, capitalism has revised the "International Working Women's Day," which was actually born from the struggles, suffering, and deaths experienced by women, into "International Women's Day" for its own benefit. In fact, March 8 is the anniversary of a day of struggle.

March 8, 2026, coincided with the 9th day of the US-Israel-Iran War. The megalomaniac Trump is a complete global bully. Together with Netanyahu, they are a group of 21st-century Hitler-esque leaders who disregard international law, commit war crimes, and have never received a share of human love! They are turning the world upside down from near and far.

No matter where or how we look at the world, or from which angle we view it, children and women are always, primarily, and at the center of the suffering.

Despite being one of the first countries in the world to grant equal opportunity to women and more than a century having passed, we have come to miss the previous day and year with each passing day.

In the last 25 years, we have raised such a generation that from students to ministers, we have reached the point of saying "six of one, half a dozen of the other." A student can murder the teacher they should hold in high esteem with knife wounds, in plain sight, without even blinking. The head administrator of that rotten system, Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin, first ignored it, and then, under public pressure, in his delayed statement regarding the murder of teacher Fatma Nur Çelik, expressed his condolences and brushed it off by saying "... unfortunately, it happens!..." He is absolving himself.

What should one say?

Oh, Minister of National Education!.. Thousands of students, teachers, instructors, professionals, and ministers were raised in the Republic Schools, Village Institutes, and many state boarding schools of 25 years ago, where you claimed there were not even toilets. Millions of Turkish citizens who believe in science, are cultured, and contemporary graduated from our schools. Our two Nobel-winning values were also raised in the schools of that period. As for your last 25-year period, a youth was created that stabs and murders its teacher, is addicted to drugs, is a young mafia-wannabe fraudster, a counterfeiter, and does not want to live in its own country. You should first look at the prisons, the citizens facing enforcement proceedings, and the 74% of the population with credit card debt. Then, let the toilets have their turn.

I wouldn't have wanted to write such a pessimistic article on such a day. At least it doesn't suit me. Unfortunately, the days we are living are like this.

I bow with respect before our compassionate, struggling women who are trying to make the world and our country more beautiful.