Demirtaş: Should anyone ask who the heck you are to change this order, snap back, “We are the people, buster!”

In a letter he wrote to Birgün from Edirne F Type Prison, People’s Democratic Party Co-
Chair Selahattin Demirtaş has criticised the pessimism in intellectual, artistic, academic and
political circles and stated, “Despite our conviction that there exist millions who object to and
are rebelling against the current fascistic order, shunning away from leading this potential
does not become anybody who holds a “progressive” stance.”

Demirtaş’s text appearing in Birgün reads as follows:

“OK, it is true that we have not been through particularly “joyful days”. But, the pessimism
and negativity prevailing in intellectual, artistic, academic and political circles, which are
expected to lead society in such periods, defies comprehension. It is not appropriate, either, to
act out the bewilderment of the person who encountered oppressive and tyrannical practices
for the first time in history.
Human history is replete with countless examples that are worse than this, including in our
recent past. When oppression has reigned there has been resistance and, with there being
resistance, oppression has ended. The earlier and greater the resistance has been, the shorter-
lived oppression has been. It doesn’t take a soothsayer to know that this is how it is going to
be in our country, too. However, on seeing this state of pessimism, one cannot but help being
astonished. If we are not to use them when needed, why do we read so much poetry, work by
novelists, history and science; why do we learn so much about the tradition of resistance?


Why, in that case, do we read Ahmed Arif, who says:

‘March on and on into the fray.
Spit in the face of the hangman.’

and Nâzım, who says:

‘I mean, it’s not that you can’t pass
ten or fifteen years inside
and more you can,
as long as the jewel
on the left side of your chest doesn’t lose its luster!’?

If we read them with the idea of this being preparation for tough times, well, that is precisely
where we are just now. There is every reason to keep our chins up. Despite our conviction
that there exist millions who object to and are rebelling against the current fascistic order,
shunning away from leading this potential does not become anybody who holds a
“progressive” stance.

In the Switzerland of 1536, a man of religion and graduate of a “vocational high school for
priests”, Calvin, is invited to Geneva to bring about religious reform. Calvin, complying with
this invitation made by the church assembly, goes on to establish a full dictatorship in Geneva
through the reform movement that he starts. Under “decrees with the force of law” issued in
his period, many regulations are promulgated by the church assembly infringing on daily life
from the size of women’s dresses to ruffles on clothing and a list of “permissible foods” that
are suitable for consumption, and from the banning of non-holy songs to the pronouncing of
things like nuts and marmalade to be sinful. New “decrees with the force of law” appear
introducing hundreds more bans on the theatre, entertainment, popular feasts, dancing, ice
skating, all clothing that does not resemble priests’ attire, long hair for men, puffed up and
curled hair for women, gold or silver jewellery, buttons, ribbons, laced caps, gloves, sandals,
poultry, local people dining in restaurants, the arts of all kinds, pictures and statutes of saints,
music, non-biblical children’s names, Easter and Christmas celebrations and all criticism
directed at Calvin. (A decree with the force of law covering winter tyres will be promulgated
much, much later in another country.)


Calvin, whom they have brought in at their own volition to enact reform, engulfs the
Genevans in darkness in the true sense for his twenty-five- year rule. The effects of Calvin’s
period stretch into the following two centuries. Over these two centuries, there is virtually not
a single work of art or literature that is produced in Geneva. This is because they didn’t
manage to build up social opposition to Calvin. At the same time, apart from Calvin’s friends
Michele Serveto and Sebastian Castellio, nobody had the courage to object. With the
objections remaining isolated, Calvin burnt Serveto alive and, as to Castellio, tried to “break”
him with poverty and hunger until the end of his life.


Here, conversely, the majority of the people are certainly opposed to the current oppressive
order and are resolved to deny consent and not to bow their heads to it. Those who say,
“Nothing will emerge from these people,” and belittle the people’s strength can never
construct the future.

Potatoes were banned in France in 1619 (yes, common-or- garden potatoes). For, it was
believed that potatoes caused leprosy. When, in fact, leprosy was one of Europe’s oldest
diseases. Potatoes, on the other hand, had only reached Europe a century earlier, at the start of
the 1500’s, from Peru. And it was precisely these French, that is, the French who were not
eating potatoes even while crippled with want and poverty, who pulled off one of the biggest
revolutions in history in 1789.

Come what may, we must trust the people and our innate strength and every day augment
hope and be in the vanguard of resisting oppression. Malice and tyranny only spread in
conducive environments. The most conducive environment for them is the environment of

fear. It is our historic mission and obligation to defend good and freedom under all conditions
without submitting to fear and also in the readiness to pay the price. Mythology has it that
Pandora was the first woman to be created. When Prometheus steals fire and gives it to
mankind, god of gods Zeus orders the creation of a beautiful woman to punish mankind. The
god of fire Hephaestus performs this task. The gods create Pandora and, having equipped her
with splendid beauty, sends her to earth as the wife of Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus.
(What a plan!) So, Pandora is now Prometheus’ sister-in- law. Meanwhile, the gods have
filled a barrel with all sorrows and evils and given the barrel to Pandora. Pandora, curious as
to what is inside, opens the barrel (they have given it to her so she will open it, actually) and
all sorrows and disasters spread into the world. Only hope remains in the barrel. At least we
know where it is. It is enough not to panic at evil having spread out of Pandora’s Box and get
hope out of the box. Because that will spread, too.


Should anyone ask who the heck you are to change this order, snap back, ‘We are poor, son!
Our trousers will fall if we do not hold onto them with one of our hands. We cannot raise
both our hands at once so we do not know how to surrender. Nâzım wrote our poem and
Yılmaz shot our film, too. We are the people, buster!’


And send greetings from me. They know me.”