Justice

I participated at two important meetings one day after the other.
The first was the meeting at Taksim Hill on 11 October, marked as the International Day of
the Girl Child

At the gathering staged by the Istanbul Solidarity Platform under the chair of Mr Önay
Alapago, we spoke about the problems of girl children in our country.
We once again saw with figures and facts that our country, where we might well imagine the
use of “justice” as a name for its girls to be a way of stressing the importance of this notion
particularly for them, has, especially in recent times, fallen behind Islamic countries, too,
when it comes to injustices against girls-women.

As to the comments made by a colleague with expertise in the field of education about the
new textbooks, these were terrifying.
In short, modern national education in Turkey is rapidly being turned into religious
education.

For example, the notion of secularism, as presented in the relevant textbook, is criticised as
being a notion that ignores the “other world” and only has to do with “this world”.
What the near future appears to hold is the notion of the “other world”, far more than the
reality of “this world”, constituting the focus and axis of education at our educational
institutions starting from nursery schools.

***

The second meeting I took part in was the gathering for the “Justice Watch” at the Çağlayan
Judicial Complex.
The formality that should have been held in the inside entrance hall prior to the press
statement could not be conducted thanks to a mopping operation suddenly embarked on by
two cleaning functionaries.
The area where people have traditionally assembled and had a collective photograph taken
was cordoned off with ropes.
The sight was truly reminiscent of a scene from a Brecht play.
The two cleaning functionaries supposedly mopping up the bubbles of detergent covering a
very wide expanse at the day’s busiest working hour in slow motion like on a theatre stage or
in a film, and the other participants and I amidst the lawyer colleagues waiting adorned in
their robes ...
Having all waited for a while, with this cleaning not finishing and with it obviously being a
put up from the outset, the collective photograph taken on the stairs in the hall was given a
miss and a move was made onto the outside steps for the press statement and speech I was to
give.

***

I wound up by tying my thoughts in with our country’s current situation and our
responsibility as intellectuals and citizens.
Given that a watch cannot be held for something that does not exist, what must be done
today, and what we are in any case doing, is not to hold a Justice Watch, but a battle for
justice.
When it comes to succeeding in this, clever, decisive, realistic, planned and courageous
battles must be fought in all areas against despots and despotic methods that destroy justice
and see laws as being fetters and, unable to dispense with them, circumvent them to do as
they will.
This is where the solution lies to do with justice and all its problems in our day.