Cumhuriyet: I became a lawyer for my father

Bişar Abdi Alanak

(Radikal - 17 June 2012)

18 years ago, I couldn't congratulate you on Father's Day while you were behind bars. I was a little boy, 11 years old, then. I cried while watching him being sentenced to death on television. In June 1994, our late uncle İlyas took us for a picnic so that we would not miss him. My mother, my twin Cabbar and me. Everything was very nice.

Then the meat cooked on the embers was taken from the barbecue and a voice came from afar: "Children, for dinner..." We sat down at the table with appetite. Cabbar, my uncle İlyas' daughter, Begüm, and me. My mother made me a huge wrap filled with meat. I attacked the bread like hungry wolves as if I had never eaten meat before. Everything was great until that moment. How could I have known that that beautiful meal would remain in my crop? How could I have known that Begum would hug her father and say, "Happy Father's Day, I love you so much." A huge lump was stuck in my throat.

Daddy, where are you?

As I remember, I can't swallow even now, and even now I left the meal I was eating unfinished... My eyes were searching for you frantically. That's when my love affair with deers started, while I was looking for you. At that moment I realized that they were also imprisoned. I thought somewhere outside those fences the fawns were longing for their father deer. I screamed loudly, "Dad, where are you?" but not even the ants heard my voice. That day, I learned what it was like to cry inside.

I still remember that little boy who was in a bad mood on the way back from the picnic, imagining his father in the car, and trying hard not to cry because he was a hard man. That hour and a half I spent on the road holding back my sobs has lasted for 18 years. When we got home, I ran and found a lonely corner to cry. As I cried, I grew bigger and when I finished crying, I felt like I became a big man.

Even though I feel like a big man, I know that I am always your little child. You know, sometimes you get angry and say to me, "Son, why do you get angry so quickly?" You know, the principal of the Turkish Grand National Assembly Primary School did not read the letter you sent from prison when we finished primary school, saying that you loved us and congratulated us on our graduation... Other children had fathers who were traveling, I remember very well. Congratulatory messages from out-of-town fathers to their children were read, but yours were not read because you were "separatist". That day, I felt like attacking and hitting that principal. Then, those big men who came to the garden of Ayrancı High School and beat me, saying that you were a separatist... Then, when you were beaten in the parliamentary rostrum, I remember seeing it on television and crying loudly, while we were thinking, "Our father is very powerful, he can beat everyone," but you didn't even hit a single person. to the men. I must admit that we were more upset that you didn't hit those men than we were that you were beaten by Cabbar. I must admit that, as the children of the beaten man, we went to school with shame. "Dad, why didn't you hit me? Were you scared?" When we say, “I didn't want to hit. Hitting is bad, if I had hit I would have been like them. You said, “I wanted to talk.” My father, I know you don't like violence.

Their father will be hanged!

But I must admit that I cannot restrain the anger inside me, like you. The big men who beat that little boy, the school principal, our friends at school shouting when they got angry, and other times whispering behind our backs saying "Their father will be hanged", and many other traumas that would take pages if I were to tell them... Now, when I get angry, the traumas that little boy went through explode inside me like a volcano.

I remember every detail of the day you were released, December 8, 1994. I called the secretary, sister Gülsen, with the phone card I borrowed from my friend: "Sister, what happened to my father's hearing?" I asked. A voice came to my ear: "Bishar, your father has been released." It was the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. I wanted to speak, but I couldn't speak. I hung up the phone before I could talk to sister Gülsen. There was only you in my mind, I had that picnic in my dreams that I couldn't go to with you. “Begum, my father is coming!” I said to myself.

The date is April 2012, the day you could not be released. Exactly 18 years later. We were waiting for five o'clock at Çağlayan Courthouse with our lawyer friends, hoping to be released. As five o'clock passed to six o'clock and six o'clock to seven o'clock, there was still no news from the court. While I was smoking outside to relieve stress, my phone rang. A gray voice said, “I'm sorry, Mr. Mahmut was not released.” It felt like my heart was on fire. There was a lump in my throat from longing again, my eyes filled with tears, but I didn't cry. Or so everyone thought. I cried inside again, just like I did 18 years ago.

Dad, did I ever tell you that I was a lawyer "for you"? He is a young lawyer, but his child's heart has grown old with the longing for his father. He is a lawyer who is outside, but his heart is imprisoned in Kandıra F Type Prison. Now, with a heavy heart, I continue to smoke that never-ending cigarette in front of Kandıra F-type prison.

Dad, 18 years have passed and we are still waiting for you. We keep track of every moment we couldn't be with you.Happy Father's Day to all prisoners. Happy Father's Day. I love you, I love you very much.