If we feel the pain of others, we are human

Three years have passed since the earthquake, three long years...

Considering that we are a society with deep pain but a weak memory, I believe that reminding is as indispensable as sharing the pain. If we do not remember, if we do not commemorate, it means we have forgotten. We have chosen to escape from the pain and live in another world...

Today is February 6!

Just like February 6, I remember August 17 and all the natural disasters and social devastations we cannot even count, and I mourn with those who remain.

Remembering now is like an inquiry into open and closed files, like wandering through consciences once again.

The February 6 earthquake left deep cracks in our consciences as well as in the soil, concrete, and walls, and left wreckage in our souls. We have once again destroyed the already wounded values within us...

This fault line passed not only through the earthquake zone but through 81 provinces, through the very center of Turkey.

It shook our consciences for minutes...

It destroyed, we mourned in its wreckage, and the cities could never recover again...

It said much about humanity, it showed much.

In my article about war, I asked "Why?" Some referred to systems, listed certain reasons, and legitimized war once again... I am asking again, this time about the losses in the earthquake. Are we going to blame the responsibility on systems and orders again, just like in war?

Tell me, which system suggested erecting buildings in unsuitable places, in an unsuitable manner, and granting licenses...

Which system said, "It is yours, loot the unlocked houses and shops..."?

Which power wanted to kidnap the girls and children found in the earthquake? Some are still missing...

Human reason and conscience are not enough to understand humanity....

As humans cease to be human, should we perhaps pause for a moment, step out of the systems for a moment, and look at humanity, at ourselves, as a single human being?

When problems are explained and accepted through systems, it is clear how passive the human becomes and how they soothe their conscience, even if only slightly, in their helplessness...

In both war and the earthquake, didn't the human, their story, and their reality get erased into a number? Didn't they melt away within the large numbers they were a part of?

"According to official records, 45,784 Turkish citizens died in the February 6 earthquake."

Who would remember the father who did not let go of his daughter's lifeless hand, which remained among the concrete for days, if that photograph did not exist...

If we weren't human, how would we feel the breath that never returned...

We are human, after all, in all systems and against all systems...

At a time when many articles are now written by artificial intelligence and read by artificial intelligence, we can still write as ourselves... That is exactly why I am writing here and now.

Today, even though I never wanted to, I meet you in pain again.

Just like in the first and second years of the earthquake, we are commemorating our losses with art this year. We said, "04.17: This is not an exhibition," we cried silently but together at the commemoration titled ART-ÇIL, and now with writing...

I know the pain is eternal, the losses are infinite... Sharing, remembering, and questioning are human...

With a feeling as burning as the moment I wrote it on the first morning of the earthquake, I share a few lines from the poem I wrote for that photograph:

...

it was cold,

the palms of our hands froze at the same time

she slept with her hand in mine

we collapsed, a little more with every passing moment

pillows, quilts,

the ceiling above us is still asleep