My name is Cihan Encü
My name is Cihan Encü
My name is Cihan Encü.
I am one of the six men of a family with seven children. I was going to be 20 if I had been able to live three days more…
Dreaming was my prominent characteristic feature at school. I used to believe ‘our dreams are what colligate the ground and heavens’ and I wouldn’t tell them anyone to not to let them fade away and be destroyed.
I started the school with pleasure but I had to leave it before starting the high school. It is true that poverty was following us like a shadow but I had some problems which were greater than poverty…
As I got through single row ages, I started to realize that growing up was in fact something not very good. My father had a tumour in the brain and his state of health was deteriorating every day. Hospitals, doctors, examinations, medications…
It lasted three years like this, and he spent the last year of his life confined to bed….
I turned 15 without my father. The poet saying “Have you ever lost your father?/I have once, and I went blind” is right; being fatherless makes you blind…
The God is my witness; I cried for my father at every funeral after that day…
Just then it was my mother’s turn to die. She couldn’t regain consciousness after a traffic accident she had in 1999. She had brain surgeries three times but her weak body couldn’t endure it…
Me and my elder sister Bahar slept at hospital corridors for fifty two days after her last surgery, however it was in vain…
When my mother died, I wanted to go blind like that poet, but I couldn’t. I wanted to go away with my heart but I couldn’t leave the graves of my mum and dad…
Every new day was sorrow and every season autumn to me thereafter…
The God is my witness; I cried two times at every funeral after that day…
At each time, ‘my tears vanished into thin air, turned into a covey of pigeons and flew away’ to my mum and dad…
With the separation of our mother after that of our father, our only elder sister Bahar discontinued her university education and became a mother to us. After all these things, I kept saying that “The pain may also be killed one day!”
A long time afterwards, my elder brother Hüseyin got married. Marriage and a new home meant hope, happiness and expense and debt at the same time…
I didn’t allow my just married brother go that night, it fell to my share to be “one of the thirty four”.
I was one of those who went after the caravan that carried hope but met the fate of death… Some of them sacrifice their sleep for education, some for hunting and some for praying. It was our fight for bread that left us sleepless in the depth of the winter…
Everybody sang a ballad he loved. Singing the one I loved, with my sorrow on my neck and with the fire of a love in my heart, I was burning…
The castles I built in the air along the way could leastwise cool my heart down…
Not only we ourselves but also our houses turned into a bedlam on the way back home. They rained bombs on us, saying that we were violating the borders they themselves had drawn up in the middle of our lives. Those who had drawn lines on the earth of the God and laid claims to it slaughtered “thirty four” innocent people that night. They violated the borders of the God!
They collapsed the dream house in my heart and enshrouded me with my dreams…
My name is Cihan Encü, one whose sister kissed the blanket covering his body…
One who was left half-orphan at the age of 15 and orphan before 18 and one who passed way before seeing the age of 20… One soldier said us that “this would be our last smuggling”, it turned out to be our end…My shedding blood froze and I died… My murderer shall turn the light off whenever he wants to, I will recognize him from his darkness!
This may annoy you but I have several words to say;
I demand justice,
If the bombs that killed me didn’t kill the justice too…
Doesn’t everyone have the right to justice?
Or,
Should I apologize to the state because it has warted those huge, expensive bombs for killing me,
Should I thank the General Staff for not missing the target and for killing me?
* Platform for Justice for Roboski publishes the life story of 34 people from the villages of Roboski and Gülyazý who were killed by bombs on 28 December, 2011. These stories which will be published for 34 days are also sent to the offices of President, Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and Interior Ministry via fax and mail.
I am one of the six men of a family with seven children. I was going to be 20 if I had been able to live three days more…
Dreaming was my prominent characteristic feature at school. I used to believe ‘our dreams are what colligate the ground and heavens’ and I wouldn’t tell them anyone to not to let them fade away and be destroyed.
I started the school with pleasure but I had to leave it before starting the high school. It is true that poverty was following us like a shadow but I had some problems which were greater than poverty…
As I got through single row ages, I started to realize that growing up was in fact something not very good. My father had a tumour in the brain and his state of health was deteriorating every day. Hospitals, doctors, examinations, medications…
It lasted three years like this, and he spent the last year of his life confined to bed….
I turned 15 without my father. The poet saying “Have you ever lost your father?/I have once, and I went blind” is right; being fatherless makes you blind…
The God is my witness; I cried for my father at every funeral after that day…
Just then it was my mother’s turn to die. She couldn’t regain consciousness after a traffic accident she had in 1999. She had brain surgeries three times but her weak body couldn’t endure it…
Me and my elder sister Bahar slept at hospital corridors for fifty two days after her last surgery, however it was in vain…
When my mother died, I wanted to go blind like that poet, but I couldn’t. I wanted to go away with my heart but I couldn’t leave the graves of my mum and dad…
Every new day was sorrow and every season autumn to me thereafter…
The God is my witness; I cried two times at every funeral after that day…
At each time, ‘my tears vanished into thin air, turned into a covey of pigeons and flew away’ to my mum and dad…
With the separation of our mother after that of our father, our only elder sister Bahar discontinued her university education and became a mother to us. After all these things, I kept saying that “The pain may also be killed one day!”
A long time afterwards, my elder brother Hüseyin got married. Marriage and a new home meant hope, happiness and expense and debt at the same time…
I didn’t allow my just married brother go that night, it fell to my share to be “one of the thirty four”.
I was one of those who went after the caravan that carried hope but met the fate of death… Some of them sacrifice their sleep for education, some for hunting and some for praying. It was our fight for bread that left us sleepless in the depth of the winter…
Everybody sang a ballad he loved. Singing the one I loved, with my sorrow on my neck and with the fire of a love in my heart, I was burning…
The castles I built in the air along the way could leastwise cool my heart down…
Not only we ourselves but also our houses turned into a bedlam on the way back home. They rained bombs on us, saying that we were violating the borders they themselves had drawn up in the middle of our lives. Those who had drawn lines on the earth of the God and laid claims to it slaughtered “thirty four” innocent people that night. They violated the borders of the God!
They collapsed the dream house in my heart and enshrouded me with my dreams…
My name is Cihan Encü, one whose sister kissed the blanket covering his body…
One who was left half-orphan at the age of 15 and orphan before 18 and one who passed way before seeing the age of 20… One soldier said us that “this would be our last smuggling”, it turned out to be our end…My shedding blood froze and I died… My murderer shall turn the light off whenever he wants to, I will recognize him from his darkness!
This may annoy you but I have several words to say;
I demand justice,
If the bombs that killed me didn’t kill the justice too…
Doesn’t everyone have the right to justice?
Or,
Should I apologize to the state because it has warted those huge, expensive bombs for killing me,
Should I thank the General Staff for not missing the target and for killing me?
* Platform for Justice for Roboski publishes the life story of 34 people from the villages of Roboski and Gülyazý who were killed by bombs on 28 December, 2011. These stories which will be published for 34 days are also sent to the offices of President, Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and Interior Ministry via fax and mail.
