Is It Possible To Forget?
Image: Pexels/@Roon Z. CCO
We people have vivid remembrances of decades-old public traumatic events, like the Challenger space shuttle explosion (January 28, 1986), the death of Princess Diana (August 31, 1997), the 9/11 attacks (September 11, 2001). Known as “Flashbulb Memories”, these detailed recollections can be as clear as something that happened yesterday. Every time there’s a public trauma, our mind has “taken a picture” of the circumstances in which the news was learned.
Like most of others, I have one more traumatic memory like this. The Sivas Massacre (Sivas Katliamı) July 2, 1993 which resulted in the killing of 37 people. The victims, who had gathered for a cultural festival in Sivas, Turkey, were killed when a mob of some religious people set fire to the hotel where the group had assembled.
I remember clearly, we were at the Office in Bakirkoy, Istanbul (western part of the country) with my mother and other staff. We couldn’t left the office till late hours that evening. We couldn’t get out of our eyes from the news on Tv. It was unexplainable, unacceptable for many of us (many others, they’re happy with it as we know). In this time of the century, some people set other people on fire! it’s hard to write as well…
Can you imagine that, most of these people never got any penalty because of that action? One of the attorney of them served as Minister of Justice, one another attorney as Minister of State, a few of them Member of Parliament, a few of them served as a Mayor, a few of them in Constitutional Court. They’re proudly supported.
Yes I remember like this happened yesterday.
We didn’t forget and we will not.
#Sivas #Madımak #Justice #unutMADIMAKlımda
Nil Taskin