Image painted by Aynur Epli in Şakran Prison
Click to read the article in Turkish
Have your read the news which has appalled me? Have you empathized? 39 people said to be Chinese died from the cold in a truck container, slowly and crying for help, as if they were being tortured... They were huddling when they died. They were waiting for help when they died. 39 People. There were probably fathers and mothers among them, just like you. They had dreams. They wanted to work and send a little bit of money to their children and their old relatives that they left behind. In other words, their intention was not to join the mafia and become a hired assassin. Their intention was to work. Who knows, maybe they sold their cows and shanty houses to reach fake heavens. They hit the road and died. Their dead bodies reached London. Just like thousands of refugees - migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean and whose dead bodies hit the shores.
And we... Why don't we question it? Why don't we put it into question?: Why did those people lose their lives in a massacre at the back of a truck? Why did they "set out on a journey of hope"? Why have China and/or the UK not declared a national mourning yet?
I have written so many times about it. We have written so many times... Three artists friends and I opened an exhibition entitled "Migration or Limbo".
But, it did not suffice. It never does. More need to be written, more voices need to be raised.
Just as we call work accidents "occupational homicides" because precautions are not taken, the death of refugees who see the capitalist countries as "hope" and take to illegal roads should also be considered homicides. The octopus that takes the world in its hands, namely the capitalist system, is primarily responsible. It is the imperialist monopolies that pick and provoke regional wars, cause sectarian tensions, sell arms to poor countries and lust after their bread and butter. They are the main protagonists, I mean, the real culprits...
And borders...
And visas...
The world belongs to us all. People living in one part of the world do not have the right to impose bans-visas on people living in another part of the world.
After a disaster of refugees unfolded in its waters, Italy declared a national mourning. But, now? Who will mourn for the 39 people whose dead bodies were found at the back of a truck?
All flags of the world should be hauled down.
It is the shame of the entire world. (AO/HA/SD)
