Pigeons as Relics of a Miner

Everbody has talked about him. But he is so quite as if nothing happened.

Saadettin Özkoç is the only one who could survive amid his 100 hundred coworkers at S-gate [in the mine].. He could survive thanks to the pipe which operated the construction equipments. Ducked for five hours, he waited to be saved. “If I  stood up and left the pipe just for two minutes, I would have died,” said Özkoç in a calm manner.

 “Don’t be deceived by his calm attitude, he can’t sleep at night,” his wife continued.. “How can I sleep, I crawled through the dead bodies,” he said. He has lost all his friends.

Even though Özkoç could survive, but his nephew Mesut Özkoç couldn’t be saved from the same mine.

We are now at Zafer Mahallesi, a far neighborhood in Soma district and known as ghetto of Soma.

In front of their house Özkoç family is sitting around a white plastic table and receiving the visitors for condolences.  The family is serving fruit juice to the visitors like other families in Soma.

While the family feels happy for the life of uncle, they mourn due to the death of the nephew.

Mesut Özkoç was 24 years old. It had not been even one year since he started to work in mine. And he was married just for seven months.

Actually he passed the military exam and he planned to leave both mine and Soma by a new assignment in August.

His wife Hülya Özkoç is both so young and shocked.   She is listening by leaning her head to one side. “The one who is responsible for this should be punished. I wish they won’t be able to get out of prison, because we couldn’t see our relatives again,” Hülya said.

Her father who is still working in mine said that “We will claim our rights,” her father said. He is still working in the mine.

His brother Samet studied Economics in Konya. “If I couldn’t be successful in the university entrance exam, I would have been in that mine as well. My faith was rather the university,” Samet stated.

He is aware that studying at a university is the only way for escaping from the mine.

But what about the rescued uncle Saadettin Özkoç? What will he do after all?

“I don’t know,” said Saadettin by heaving a sigh. Like all other miners in Soma.

What about the working conditions? Would they change after this? “It is a hope,” he replied.

He didn’t complain too much about the conditions. He just added “It is the reality of underground”.  Then his wife put in a word and told that sometimes he took back his lunch due to the dropped coal particles.

“Yes,” Özkoç said.

“Usually we took half sandwich with tomato sauce, onion, olive, etc. with us. If a piece of coal drops in it while opening the bread, we couldn’t eat it. In addition to this, we have a thermos that could be filled with only four cup of tee. We usually sit on mud in rush, sometimes we eat in half hour and then return to work. It depends to the time allowed..”

And he added: “Eventually Soma is a mine”

He has to pay 50.000 lira mortgage. His wife Kadriye Özkoç doesn’t want to allow her husband to work in mine again by saying “still as if not his body but his soul is with me”. But she also knows that there is no other choice beyond the mine.

In Soma, the only job opportunity for women is the seasonal agriculture labor. She goes for reaping olive with other miners’ wives. But she also knows that she couldn’t manage to live with a 2-3 month job by earning 25 liras per day.

I am leaving Özkoç family with their sorrow, their men who will work in mine again and their women who will wait for their men.

Along with Samet’s elder brother, his cousin that Samet considers him as a “good friend” also lost his life. Samet wants from me to visit his wife also.

Deniz İren (24) has been left behind with her 3 months aged daughter and three years old son.  In their newly built house, her daughter’s birthmark has not faded yet.  

 “What did he do after the work?” I asked. She showed me the pigeons in the backyard.

“His only hobby is pigeons. Whole day he passed his time with them,” Deniz said. “He would usually provoke me by saying  that he would buy the best birds with his salary after finishing his debts.” paying all our debts, I will buy the best birds with all of my salary”.

“As long as he would be alive, I wouldn’t complain for endless debts.” said Deniz İren. Then she remembered a photo. The recent photo of his husband with their two children. “Fortunately, I took that photo.”she said and for the first time she smiled.  

She didn’t want to have her photo taken. And we didn’t insist, and then we just took the photo of the pigeons in the yard as a memory of 301 miners. (NV/CB/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.