My name is Selam Encü
My name is Selam Encü
My name is Selam Encü.
I was the light of my mother, the first child of a family…
“There is no single story in Roboski that is not made from pain”, as said by Yüksel Ürek before. However, “it is our soul not conditions that makes us happy”, like Voltaire said. We were made of pain but we were happy…
I was a shy and introverted person…
I couldn’t tell even my best friend Ferhat that I loved a girl. Fortunately he realized my often daydreamings so that I could finally find someone to tell about my heart in fire…
I had graduated from two-year vocational high school, department of construction engineering and I was preparing for the transfer exam to start a four-year license. As I asked my father for some money to pay the exam charge, he told me to “wait for some more”, which is another expression of poverty in Roboski. Like all children who hear this sentence, I asked my father to allow me to go smuggling. He insisted on not giving permission as I had never gone before but he had no choice but to allow me in the face of my unending persistence…
On the way to “smuggling”, I in each breath damned this order which made me hit the road by taking my life in my hands in the dead of winter to earn 40 TL. This was going to be the last time I would go smuggling but it turned out to be my end!
We huddled together soon after the lightening in the heavens like the daylight. This was the sign showing soldiers that we were smugglers… Now that they knew we were smugglers, why exactly were those fire balls rained on us like hell?
The bomb burnt me up to my lungs, my breast was scattered in pieces on the rocks around. I wasn’t able to make my sound be heard by anybody, although the screams of my silence were reaching the ninth heaven…
My mother received the news when she was told that an area around us had been set on fire. Nobody could tell her that her son had burnt down. Come rain or shine, she run all that way in the freezing cold, like other mothers of Roboski…
She could hardly be stopped as she two times threw herself in the fire which had been lighted to prevent the cold for women who were waiting there while the parts of our bodies were being collected and loaded on donkeys…
She looked for her son among lots of burnt bodies in pieces. They showed her the shortest one among us but she said ‘my son was tall, he used to bend forward while kissing me’. She recognized me from my feet which she would have no doubt distinguished from all other feet stepping on the earth…
Do you know what a great pain it is to not to be able to see the face of your died child? I know it from my mother…
I left before seeing my “brother” Ferhat whom I had missed very much as we hadn’t seen each other for five months…
Tell my beloved, “my raindrop” that I will be waiting for her in the heaven until angels bring her too…
My name is Selam Encü. I was going to be an engineer. I couldn’t even turn 23 yet. What would have ever happened if I had seen one more spring?!
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 was the light of my mother, the first child of a family…
“There is no single story in Roboski that is not made from pain”, as said by Yüksel Ürek before. However, “it is our soul not conditions that makes us happy”, like Voltaire said. We were made of pain but we were happy…
I was a shy and introverted person…
I couldn’t tell even my best friend Ferhat that I loved a girl. Fortunately he realized my often daydreamings so that I could finally find someone to tell about my heart in fire…
I had graduated from two-year vocational high school, department of construction engineering and I was preparing for the transfer exam to start a four-year license. As I asked my father for some money to pay the exam charge, he told me to “wait for some more”, which is another expression of poverty in Roboski. Like all children who hear this sentence, I asked my father to allow me to go smuggling. He insisted on not giving permission as I had never gone before but he had no choice but to allow me in the face of my unending persistence…
On the way to “smuggling”, I in each breath damned this order which made me hit the road by taking my life in my hands in the dead of winter to earn 40 TL. This was going to be the last time I would go smuggling but it turned out to be my end!
We huddled together soon after the lightening in the heavens like the daylight. This was the sign showing soldiers that we were smugglers… Now that they knew we were smugglers, why exactly were those fire balls rained on us like hell?
The bomb burnt me up to my lungs, my breast was scattered in pieces on the rocks around. I wasn’t able to make my sound be heard by anybody, although the screams of my silence were reaching the ninth heaven…
My mother received the news when she was told that an area around us had been set on fire. Nobody could tell her that her son had burnt down. Come rain or shine, she run all that way in the freezing cold, like other mothers of Roboski…
She could hardly be stopped as she two times threw herself in the fire which had been lighted to prevent the cold for women who were waiting there while the parts of our bodies were being collected and loaded on donkeys…
She looked for her son among lots of burnt bodies in pieces. They showed her the shortest one among us but she said ‘my son was tall, he used to bend forward while kissing me’. She recognized me from my feet which she would have no doubt distinguished from all other feet stepping on the earth…
Do you know what a great pain it is to not to be able to see the face of your died child? I know it from my mother…
I left before seeing my “brother” Ferhat whom I had missed very much as we hadn’t seen each other for five months…
Tell my beloved, “my raindrop” that I will be waiting for her in the heaven until angels bring her too…
My name is Selam Encü. I was going to be an engineer. I couldn’t even turn 23 yet. What would have ever happened if I had seen one more spring?!
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.
