In the cause of living in fraternity

İklim Öngel
 
CHP General Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, noting that the whole world now knows of the importance they attach to justice, said, ‘There may be attacks on us. There may be those who criticise us and want to make us angry. Bless them all. I will march for justice with persistence, decisiveness and resolve, and for the 80 million.’
Kılıçdaroğlu spoke before the first leg of the fifth day of the march. Kılıçdaroğlu, saying, ‘I am most satisfied. The whole world now knows of the importance we attach to justice,’ expressed the view that justice, equity and the law were mutually inseparable concepts. Kılıçdaroğlu, saying they wanted justice, equity and the law for everyone and this is what they were marching for, said, ‘We are harming nobody. We are badmouthing nobody. We are looking askance at nobody. We want 80 million to live together in fraternity. Let 80 million live together in tranquillity. This is the wish of us all. There may be attacks on us. There may be those who criticise us and want to make us angry. Bless them all. I will march for justice with persistence, decisiveness and resolve, and for the 80 million.’
Justice is a must
Kılıçdaroğlu, pointing out that a large part of the march the previous day had been held in the rain, noted that those in passing cars may perhaps have thought, ‘Why are these people walking in this rain?’ and commented, ‘I wish to say to them that we are marching for justice. If there are people somewhere, there must also be justice.’
Support from Istanbul
Following Kılıçdaroğlu’s press statement, the procession set out on the march behind Kılıçdaroğlu to slogans of ‘justice’. People’s Houses General Chair Oya Ersoy, former Şişli Mayor Mustafa Sarıgül, Ataol Behramoğlu, and Ahmet Tatar and Hürriyet Ünver, big brother and sister of Ali Tatar who lost his life while in the dock in the Ergenekon trial, walked alongside Kılıçdaroğlu on the Justice March, with the participation of about ten busloads from Istanbul. Also joining the march was Cumhuriyet Foundation Chair and our paper’s publisher Orhan Erinç.
Unlawfulness has become routine
Ahmet Tatar, big brother of Ali Tatar who lost his life while in the dock in the Ergenekon trial, said that a general expectation and demand of society is subsumed under the rubric of justice. Tatar, saying that marches of this kind are not encountered in a normal country, noted, ‘There has been a big build-up of lawlessness in society. Unlawfulness and injustice have more or less become routine.’
Tatar, noting that if the person heading a country’s second biggest party has taken to the roads this is indicative of a very serious problem, commented over the arising of such a need despite the existence of parliament and the courts, ‘This means there is no longer any way out. Parliament retains no function, either. I hope that deaf ears will hear the demand for justice.’
Necessary for everybody
Ali Tatar’s big sister Hürriyet Ünver said, ‘Ali Tatar is a wound administered like a dagger to the bosom of justice and we have sought justice for seven years. We wanted to support this march. We are among FETO’s biggest victims. We have called out from every platform that justice will without fail be necessary for everybody one day. I say it again now. Justice will be necessary for everybody, including our president, one day. If there is no justice, the country will be unable to defend its integrity. The single basic precondition for us to live as a whole is justice. There is no other way.’
The poem ‘Like Yunus’ from Behramoğlu
Following a walk of about five kilometres and a half-hour break, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu appeared before the press with our columnist and poet Ataol Behramoğlu. Here, Behramoğlu read the poem ‘Like Yunus’. Behramoğlu commented to Cumhuriyet, ‘This is a prominent and important action. In one sense it is like passive resistance, but an extremely important result it achieves is in showing that a large body of people are dissatisfied. This large body of people are Turkey’s progressive and most enlightened circles.’ Behramoğlu, pointing to the popular attention over the course of the march, commented, ‘This march started for a detained CHP MP but, as Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has also declared, it is for justice in the broadest sense and encompasses all those who have been imprisoned for their thoughts, not least the inmate of Edirne Prison, the HDP’s Selahattin Demirtaş, and his colleagues, our friends who are on hunger strike and most certainly Cumhuriyet Newspaper’s columnists. I have been involved in mass protest for fifty years and I have never experienced such an unjust, unconscionable regime.’
Like the Gezi spirit
Behramoğlu said, ‘I see this Justice March as a continuation of the Republic rallies and the Gezi spirit. Even if mass protests appear to have ended they continue in society’s subconsciousness. This march will have consequences beyond our forecasts and expectations. Those fighting injustice have gained great self-confidence through this march. It has been shown that the opponents of justice will not always be able to prevail. Even if the march appears to be on the late side, it is performing a very significant and important function. Enis Berberoğlu is the symbol of this march, but this march is for the detained parliamentarians, the people on our newspaper who have been detained, those who do not think like us, the wronged in F-type jails who write to us every day and for Nuriye and Semih. I personally have felt pride as I stride out on this march from one halt to the next. This march will and must continue in a figurative sense until 2019.’
KEEPING WARM ROUND A CAMP FIRE
The justice procession, having made an overnight halt at the end of the fourth day on the peaks of Kargasekmez, lit a camp fire here to minimise the effects of the rain and cold. The team, springing into action in the early hours of the morning, once again assuaged its hunger with tea, soup and breakfast made ready by municipalities. Eskişehir Tepebaşı municipality took over as the provider of logistic support, given by Çankaya and Yenimahalle municipalities for some eighty kilometres. Tepebaşı municipality will serve the procession for about forty kilometres.