There is/was that Demirtaş fellow

Yes, yes, I am talking about that Demirtaş; Selahattin Demirtaş.

The “was” I squeezed in after the slash in the heading has got to tell you something.

He was the HDP candidate in the presidential election. I am talking about the Selahattin Demirtaş who did his utmost to propel his voice from the westernmost prison in Turkey not just to the easternmost part of Turkey but everywhere and who succeeded in this despite conditions that made a mockery not just of the law, but morality.

Since 24 June, we have been unable to hear either the name or the voice of this young friend of ours whom the Kurdish political movement has gifted to Turkish political life and who combines political gravity with human warmth.

We have heard the folk song he composed, we have read the short stories he wrote whose quality is well above amateur level and the sentences he managed to send out from the roof of the Edirne penitentiary as presidential candidate reached us.

OK, and then?

***

With the dollar soaring and with a succession of disastrous reports about the future of the economy showering down on us ... with tens of thousands of miniscule kids engulfed in a chaos that is darkening their futures as tie-wearing mullahs speak of arranging the education system in line with their own miserable calculations ... and with the turmoil in the CHP having opened and continuing to open serious wounds in the party ... are you inclined to ask, “What has brought Selahattin Demirtaş into your mind?”

I could reply at length, at very great length, to this question.

For example, starting with the HDP, I could articulate the counterquestion, “What gives? Have you forgotten your detained co-chair who is capable of forming a warm bond with the masses?”

For example, I could engage in friendly leg pulling and come out with the sentence, “Is the reason perhaps that effective and most resolute echo-forming opposition is being conducted in parliament and so no time remains to speak of Demirtaş and staunchly stand by him?”

For example, I could ask, “Has the AKP Chieftain returned to power and you have decided not to make do with just incarcerating your convicted opponents but to bury them among four walls, too, and news of this has escaped us?”

Are the Chieftain and his team saying something like, “What are you saying for Pete’s sake sad little journalist? We are even keeping Enis Berberoğlu and Leyla Güven, elected to parliament and armed with immunity as they are, between four walls”?

No, there is a stark answer as to why I am simply just speaking of Selahattin Demirtaş:

We are being made to live in a climate in which politics is being dragged along the ground and this is why I miss a quality, principled and trust-inspiring politician.

This is the sum total of it.

 Hani bir Demirtaş var(dı)