Munzur’s Scream…

Cihan Söylemez

av.cihansoylemez@hotmail.com

August 09, 2022

A tree from Munzur said; I’m about to drown out of the smoke. You cut off my branches and trunks and take advantage of my shadow and drown me.

A fish from Munzur said; Again, tiri-viri, when will you obey the hunting bans? You wash dishes in the water and drop off the dirty garbage in my living space. You throw the beer bottle at my head. If I took my head out, you would brutally attack me and eat me in a hurry. You pour the awnings or flakes into the water together with your frying oil.

A bird from Munzur; I can’t breathe. It’s not like a picnic, but a picnic fire. I can’t go up in smoke. I leave my nest every day during the day and return at night.

a July beetle from Munzur; I couldn’t hear my own voice from this noise pollution.

A piece of land by Munzur; Is it concrete again, is it digging again, is it a working machine again? Every day I am picked up from somewhere, thrown somewhere. What a crowd of Adam’s sons eager to plant concrete on me and try to make money off of me.

A drop of Munzur water; I’m deprived of my freedom, again, what’s funny about those who take me out of my sight, put me in cancer-causing plastic bottles, wait in plastic in the heat from the sun, turn all my positive chemistry into negative ones, then cool down, drink, and think you’ve found healing? But I want to flow freely. I don’t want to go into a pet bottle and give people illness instead of healing.

a rabbit in Munzur; I’m afraid of the sound of these vehicles. A few years ago, so many vehicles did not cross these roads. The exhaust fumes they emit pollute the air of my valley. I can’t escape the spotlights at night.

a bear in Munzur; I agree with the bunny brother. I can’t go to the waterbank and drink water with my puppies because of the density of vehicles. These long trucks are my anxious dream. One of my puppies was hit by one of these trucks and died. Is there not a son of Adam who controls vehicle traffic in the valley?

a lynx in Munzur; Instead of settling in their villages, people travel through my areas with a passion for adventure, unlike the villagers who used to live. What used to be untouched untouched places is now on the endless route of instegram phenomena. The photo trap is a separate issue, the poacher is a separate issue. I can’t go to the edges of the water either. I think I will migrate.

A visitor’s stone in Munzur; How many of Adam’s sons came to visit me and prayed and asked for Murat. I used to have candles that weren’t lit. Where did these old people go? If the crazies they made in their natural way were burned, it wouldn’t bother me at all. The prayer language of these old people was different. The wind is now blowing in the place of Dersimce, the ancient Dersim language that touched me, cried and told me about its problems. Nene prays for her grandson in Dersim, and her grandson prays in Turkish. The two don’t get along. These nature-friendly old people have now been replaced by people who are their descendants, but have no manners, no water, and no language. But a passing child came. He rubbed his forehead into the Achaered Land of my stone and prayed in my lesson. I can’t tell you how pleased I was, how delighted I was to see this tree on another visit that was coming soon. Sometimes I’m sad. There are also those who barbecue next to my visit and throw their garbage around me. There is also the son of Adam who ignores me and thinks I am superstitious.

a goat in Munzur; Now that my eyes are closed, I know that I will soon die for a wish. If I were a mountain goat, my life might have ended differently, but I’m used to that ending. What I’m not used to are those who sacrificed me, threw my organs into Munzur and desecrated Munzur. After my sacrifice, there are such disgusting smells at the edges of the water that I don’t understand how the son of Adam internalizes this smell.

a turtle in Munzur; Drinking water tormented me. As I descend from the forest to the shore, I see that there is a son of Adam everywhere, and I hide in my bowl. Who am I ashamed of, who am I afraid of? Isn’t this my home?

Being a “DEVA” for Dersim

Cihan Söylemez

av.cihansoylemez@hotmail.com

December 04, 2020

There are two major historicist poles in the country that discuss the “Dersim question” on the main axis; Official Turkish Historiography and Kurdish Historiography

These two poles have a lot of voter support as well as a lot of media support. In fact, the main agenda continues every year in a course that is usually designed in line with the ideology of the two poles and is caught in a vicious circle.

The result? No matter what you have, it will be multiplied by zero (0) and there is no progress in the situation despite all the years of discussion.

And at this point, even “Yıldız Tilbe” can set the agenda in a timely manner. In the country, people are divided into “Yıldız Tilbe supporters” and “Yıldız Tilbe opposites” over the “Dersim” issue.

So what are the focal points of the topic, the victims?
…
Today, the thousands of victims who have sent the petitions I have prepared to the Parliamentary Committee on Petitions have not been answered by Parliament. Those who read the book “Drifting Lesson, 1937-1938 and even 1939” by journalist and writer Yalçın Doğan understand my approach to this topic much better, because a lawyer who is not based on magazines is far from populism and focuses on results.

Investigations of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the case of the tomb of Seyit Rıza
The case of the opening of the Seke Surah mass grave.
Hüseyin Akgün’s compensation lawsuit against Devlet Bahçeli
Criminal case against Turkish left-wing magazine
The case for the opening of the mass grave in which Hüseyin Akgün’s family members were murdered…

All these processes are in our archive as a result of my struggle against law, democracy and history in my professional life, which has concluded ten years. In Prof. Dr. Şükrü Aslan’s book “Hozat”, these questions were discussed legally in an article I wrote.

In all these legal processes, I saw sociologically that there were a thousand and one groups and a thousand voices acting on behalf of Dersim. The owners of these voices did not want to listen to each other. They were intolerant and impulsive towards each other. A social situation divided into a thousand and one factions around a pain to laugh at was unfortunately before our eyes.

If the law only benefits one ideology, that was important for a thousand and one voices. For this reason, it was not the “legal battle” for the media that fed on populism, but what the politicians said that turned the issue into an Arab hair. And as a result, at this point, we observe the Dersim question, the chaos created by groups that cannot be treated above politics, that are not based on universal laws, and that are sometimes nationalistic, sometimes tribal, and sometimes oppressive, and that show the stories of the failure of the press as a success and listen to its cacophony.
And now we read and watch Ali Babacan’s veiled “Dersim” messages from the press. I don’t know if the Deva Party will be a panacea for Dersim. Maybe I laugh at my heart that “Yıldız Tilbe will start politics in the Deva Party and the climate will become Yıldız Tilbe’s soldiers”.

I remember for a moment the lines of the poem “Smile” by the poet Kemal Burkay, whose poetry I admired.

“… The whole city resents
me I don’t even have a cat that you understand
The climate is changing, it is becoming the Mediterranean, smile.”

Yes, let’s smile anyway and not leave our poet alone in his verses. And what is the “Deva” of Dersim, let’s try to look for it. From the main media to the local media, all interlocutors… Without turning it into Arab hair, without imprisoning it in ideology, without populism…”

The right of settlement, the problem of exile and the “amnesty”

Let’s remove the phrases “AF” and “REBELLION” from our tongues. Let us not let the bones of our ancestors hurt when they fall to the ground without a shroud; It’s a shame, it’s a sin!

Şükran Lılek YILMAZ

In the geography in which we were born, until recently, not even the year mattered, let alone birthdays. Only the year of birth was important because of the boys’ official obligation to serve in the military, which was solved by printing a few years younger so that the boys would contribute to the labor force until they joined the military.

Since the tradition of oral tradition is important as members of a cultural community without a written language, all important moments are also dated with the social events of the present. Therefore, the birth dates of the children were identified with the special situations of the time of their birth and thus passed on to the next generation. For example, when women who have given birth talk about the births of their children, they date the time by saying: “Roce Xızır bi / Xızır fastete”, “Waxtê cünun bi / Harman time”, “Piye to eskeriye de bi / Your father was in the military”, “A serre 4 m. vorı vare / 4 meters of snow fell this year”.

The social events used in dating can be ordinary, or they can be traumatic events that have opened irreparably deep wounds in the memory of that society. For example; The massacre of Dersim, the return of the exiles to their homelands, the military coup, etc. While this information, which is usually shaped by the narrative of the time in which it is lived and forms social memory, is passed down from generation to generation, it is of course subject to change depending on the historical context and conditions. For example, if we move away from the period in which events take place and the recording of information in its new form, the transition from oral narrative to written expression or the changing social and political conditions inevitably change the information. These changes in knowledge can be based on words or on the basis of the historical development of events, by uncovering written documents and archives of events.

For example, in the Dersim terror of 1938, there was so much intense state propaganda that today not only the whole of Turkey, but also a significant part of Dersim, believes that there was a rebellion in Dersim. However, based on today’s research and the emergence of some archives, we know that instead of the “Dersim Rebellion”, we should be talking about genocide. At the same time, in the memory of many elderly people in Dersim; The discourse that “the state has issued an amnesty, the exiles have returned to their villages” is so strongly reported that as a result of this powerful propaganda by the state, most people in Dersim believe that their ancestors deserve to be slaughtered because they really “rebelled” and that the survivors will be punished with exile.

Although the return of the exiles to their home countries is actually referred to as “AF” in Dersim; With the Settlement Law No. 2510 of 1934, the way was opened for the deportees to return to their villages with the amendment of the same name with the number 5098 in 1947. And so some of the Dersim residents deported throughout Turkey were able to return to their homeland in 1947.

With this awareness that arose in me in 2013, whether it is from Dersim or not; It draws my attention to the fact that researchers, writers or intellectuals use the phrase: “Amnesty is out, exiles are returning to their villages.”

However, just as we say Dersim Tertelesi or Dersim Massacre instead of “Dersim Rebellion”, we should be careful when using the word “AF”. Because if, after the persecution of our ancestors, we continue to say: “The exiles returned to their villages with the amnesty that came out”, we will accept the discourse that the Turkish state is trying to maintain at the national and international level: “The people of Dersim rebelled, and we oppressed them.” Let’s not do that, let’s remove the discourses of “AF” and “REBELLION” from our tongues. Let us not let the bones of our ancestors hurt when they fall to the ground without a shroud; It’s a shame, it’s a sin!

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Sılo Qız

The writer Cemal Taş, who conducts oral history studies in Dersim, wrote about the folk singer Sılo Qız, who lost her life.

Cemal TAŞ *

In the land of peace, freedom and equality in the land where holy visits, the heavens of the earth, the waterfalls, the mountains and the hills are considered sacred… This land was born in the land where bugs, a thousand and one flowers, trees, birds, domestic and wild animals, and peoples were known to be friendly to each other. In the country of Kirmanciye.

Silo Qiz’s grandmother; He is very curious to see if his children are different (the poet who composes the Kilam, the one who sings and the one who recites in the lament). He waited a year for March 21; They are waiting because the locals believe that on this day all the trees will bend their branches to the ground and prostrate themselves on the sacred ground and throw the Scripture on the tree in this narrow time, and the wish of the wish will come true. That day, her grandmother went and threw her bag at the top of the bending tree, asked him for a wish, and said, “My wish is that my children and grandchildren will be different.”

His wish will be granted, and his sons and grandchildren will always be different. They become violin masters, they complain so much that they break people’s hearts. Grandmother’s son Süleyman in the village of Mılu also had a son. They name the born child after his father, and he does it; He is referred to as “Silemano Qız” or Little Solomon. His mother, Saxanıme, was the daughter of Usenê İbrahimi. Ibrahim de Usenê was the son of Ana İsme.

Father Solomon; At a young age, he takes the hand of his son Suleiman and takes him to joint weddings so that he can learn the violin. Silo Qız/Son Süleyman’s hand begins to hold the violin at the age of five. When he turns ten, he loses his father. He follows in his father’s footsteps and so on. And it is that he surprises people with his talent. He celebrates weddings alone with his age as a child.

Over the years, the fame of Sılo Qız has spread and is recognized throughout Dêsım.

Now there is a poet in Dersim, and although his nickname means small, he is a great poet with his honor…

’38 It was his teenage years when his sweat came to the door… A cruel hand leaves no stone unturned in Dersim. Silo Qız survives playing the violin. In his words, the era of Kirmanji is over. Now it’s up to Tertele to burn her lamentations and sing them… The taste of the wedding, the love and the love and the world was overeaten…

Everything that remains of Kirmanciy’s history, language, culture and faith has now been achieved with the language of these poets. Among today’s bards, Sılo Qız is the greatest poet in terms of age and accumulation.

I asked Ap Silemena, what is your advice, advise the Kirmanji youth:

“Whoever you fraternize with,
Whoever you are a companion with
Get to know your friend well.
Divide the bread in half, the large slice for yourself, the small one for you with the giver
Don’t be a brother… Fraternity is equality.
Never think of the evil in this four-day world.”

Ap Sileman;

You have gone to the truth. You have detached yourself from our Qatar, but your voice, your advice, your heritage will never tear you away from the Qatar of the Holy Land. They have left us a treasure that is worth worlds… Thank you to the head of our people.

Let him know that we won’t lose his tracks. I bow respectfully to the moment, Ap Sileman.

Sleep in the light.

*Dersim Oral History Researcher-Author