What the Hell Are You Looking At!

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There are many things to say, I am frightfully confused, so the mode of this piece will be cacophonic. That's why, please "listen" to this article as a sigh!

It is obvious that there is an affliction concerning a "species", an individual of the "species" and, as per our subject, the geography. For we don't know of any other creature that—save for natural occasions of feeding and reproduction—breeds aggression towards just about everything.

Nevertheless, let us put aside the forms of collective male violence that for centuries have caused a bloodbath the world over and have gone on a rampage in the last century. For the human condition that fosters all this malice and starts seething on the street, at home, in school, in the workplace, in traffic and in childhood and adolescence, which is the incubation period of the affair, is quite ugly...

It's customary, when asked to write on such big issues we quickly double back and look at our childhood. For what's happening is a curse-of-the-species reasoning on the lines of "dude, this is how it was in childhood too", as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.

Ok, it will a bit over the top but if there was the means and possibility, how many children on our street, in our neighborhood (needless to say all are boys) would not be eager to take role in William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

Anyhow, some of them grew up and brewed their own rampage in the classes on Government and as per its means took role in those "movie"s, and continue to do so.

If there is a trick plotted by grown up men, surely it has an adaptation for children as well. Even more, given the proper paraphernalia, this would be an adaptation with a significant scale of violence; please, before you object, let us take a quick ride to childhood and back.

If that proves difficult no need to stray too far; let us take a look at the massacres carried out by little boys in American high schools starting with Columbine. However, in this case, the child (or childhood) can be categorized as victim rather than culprit. On account of being a social being, molded with learned experiences, etc. But in any case, it is obvious that a position is taken on the existential road with respect to the structure of power-authority.

That is, all roads lead to Rome!

This is a horrible circle; male violence can turn even its victim into a zombie. Surely you didn't think that the most naïve, physically "fragile", cowardly and overweight boys with glasses, who are always the first ones to be chucked away in youth films, would quietly sit back and watch all the goings-on.

Of course, they too would have a revenge plan, I mean life would be unbearable otherwise...

Especially if those plans grant the right to be included in the collective manhood performances that are under the inspection and auspices of the authority in power. Being naïve, meek, fragile and cowardly is a childhood "trouble".

In fact, everything has started beautifully, it doesn't cross his mind to hurt anyone, this is a quiet, pleasant life in the arms of motherly love.

Then that other life begins on the street, in the school with the "bad" boys. He is mocked, punched, either excluded from the games or constantly scolded, his glasses are thrown on the floor, often "threatened" with being sent to play with the "girls".

Each street game, each playtime is hell.

I remember in my high school years we had such a friend who would not leave the classroom during the break times, he would sometimes bury his head on the table and not raise it until the next class. And from time to time, in order to keep people at bay (because no one approached him out of the kindness of their heart or for a friendly chat), he would clench his teeth, knit his eyebrows, squint his eyes and stand at a corner.

But, the worst of all was that time when in order to revolt against yet another session of evil, he started to bang his head against the table. That thin, naive boy, whom we tried to stop by holding his shoulders, had acquired the strength of a grown man while hitting his head against the table. It was a moment to make even a person with the least conscience detest everything about life.

But, the worst of all is the inability to deal the final blow to that collective "lynching" which will bring everything that is happening to an end... Coalescing with the fear of being excluded from the "pack of men", which is one of the most bizarre forms of violence... The day when the last school bell rang must have been the happiest day in the life of our friend.

There are certainly a vast number of children who spent their childhood subjected to all these bellows and abuses of bullies. A life brewing in the fears, rages and sorrows of all these subordinated children... Now, the country as a whole is the victim of the bellows, abuses and beatings of that manhood.

It is enough to even take a "look" at what has been happening; but, the answer as well as the verbal and physical composition resulting from that answer is ready: "What the hell are you looking at?"

Manhood, which acts with a virtually perpetual and insatiable instinct of "reproducing-hunting", has descended upon us like an incubus. It is such a performance that the whole street looks as if it sprang out of a phony physical education class; chests are bulging, puffed out, shoulders upright, heads cocked out ready to butt, legs wide apart like a crab, lower lips nailed under the upper teeth, neck veins bulging, hands open, arms at shoulder-length, vocal cords like buttermilk, and stashed away are jimmies, stones, sticks, knives, and worst of all, guns.

And, in the face of all this malice, a wounded society, which somehow makes it home safe and sound and dreams of a "Messiah" that will just appear in the middle of the movie and take them out of this collective beating and abuse. But, the most bizarre of all is that when the Messiah comes that subordinated boy who "hit his head against the table" does not seem willing to leave the things to be done in the hands of that holy person.

Sometimes, such a blind, strong and limitless show of manhood tends to make the people subjected to it childish; the tendency to make people escape into that unrestrained, disconcerting and careless states of childhood...

As the dream would have it, when the Messiah comes, he is not expected to talk to the people and persuade them to be decent. Since it is he who dreams, then, whatever that subordinated "child" wants to happen will happen. First, he will be made happy, because he has had enough and is sick and tired of what he has suffered.

The one who has made him suffer will pay dearly for all the wrongs done to him, he will be beaten good and proper, "the living daylights will be knocked out of him", his every living moment will be made miserable, his house will be destroyed, his world will collapse around him, he will be driven from pillar to post, and...

Easy!

It is truly an awful virus; a virus that obscures the line between the victim and the villain, a virus that can always find a body to lay its eggs on; an ancient virus whose roots lie hidden in the depths of time. It is like a formula that a species has developed to rehabilitate and destroy itself, a sort of food poisoning: Manhood and violence as its "truest" son. It will take time to heal!

And everything will start anew by learning how to vomit! (TM/ŞA/APA/SD/TK/IG)

* Images: Kemal Gökhan Gürses

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