Ahmet Davutoğlu recites Nazım Hikmet Ran's poem 'The Girl Child' at the Parliament podium

Future Party leader Ahmet Davutoğlu criticized the government's trade with Israel and its policy on Gaza at the Saadet-Future Group Meeting.

Stating that "National Sovereignty Day is also Children's Day," Davutoğlu noted that children visited his party yesterday and said, "All of their faces were smiling, but the story of a girl child in Gaza, amidst the ashes under the rubble, came to the face of each one of them, and that poem Nazım Hikmet wrote for the children who died in Hiroshima echoed in my heart and mind."

Davutoğlu also recited Nazım Hikmet's "The Girl Child" poem.

Ahmet Davutoğlu, Meclis kürsüsünde Nazım Hikmet Ran'ın 'Kız çocuğu' şiirini okudu https://t.co/yKK7HbrV8z pic.twitter.com/aY5a5smmj5

— 12punto (@12puntocomtr) April 24, 2024

Nazım Hikmet's poem The Girl Child is as follows:

"I am the one knocking at the doors,

knocking one by one.

You cannot see me,

for the dead are invisible.

It has been about ten years

since I died in Hiroshima.

I am a seven-year-old girl,

dead children do not grow.

My hair caught fire first,

my eyes burned and scorched.

I turned into a handful of ash,

my ash scattered in the air.

I ask nothing of you for myself,

for I am not even able to eat candy.

A child who burns like paper

cannot eat candy.

I am knocking at your door,

aunt, uncle, sign this petition.

Let children not be killed,

so they may also eat candy."

Following the poem he recited, Davutoğlu continued his remarks as follows:

"Now, take out Hiroshima and write Gaza over this poem. Gaza is burning, children are burning. Children are turning into ash and scattering into the air. We are able to celebrate Children's Day in Ankara with joy, just as we celebrated Ramadan Feast without feeling anything."

News Source: 12punto