HAZİRAN’s message for achieving secularism, at full length
Members of United HAZİRAN Movement, along with a group of political leaders and activists, were taken into custody on Saturday for distributing flyers with a pro-secularism message. Yesterday (September 25), HAZİRAN members and supporters gathered in city squares again to protest the arrests of about 20 people the day before. While demonstrations were held yesterday in big cities such as İstanbul, İzmir, Ankara, and Eskişehir, further cases of arrests have been reported from Eskişehir.
The full-text of the message that the demonstrators wanted to read out loud and distribute is as the following:
“Today is the day to achieve secularism in the face of the sultanate of religious fundamentalism!
Turkey has been run by merchants of religion for the past 14 years. It has been run, for 14 years, by those who buy ‘little ships’ for their own children; who zero out loads of money; who reside in palaces; and who exploit people’s most sincere beliefs while doing all this.
Turkey has been run, for 14 years, by those who have made the rich richer and the poor poorer; who have an eye on the people’s bread; who have stolen from that bread more and more day by day; and, who have been constantly saying ‘azaan, Koran, religion, faith’, while doing all that.
These merchants of religion, these blood suckers, have been partners with the Gülen community up until yesterday! They said ‘we (AKP) have given them all they (Gülenists) wanted’; they said ‘those whose forehead reach the prayer rug would do no harm to anyone.’ They stole the questions of exams together; they resorted to favoritism; they carried out appointments based on community membership, rather than based on competence; and, they filled up state positions with their own people.
With the purpose of raising a ‘vindictive and religious generation’, they have torn the education system to pieces and turned all schools into İmam-Hatips. They have filled up the curriculum with superstitions that do not comply with reason and science; and, they have fuddled pure minds of children in the name of ‘values education’ and given religion lessons instead of courses of rudimentary sciences. Because, they want for the future generations to be subjects instead of citizens; and, they want people to obey them, to remain silent, to not stand up for their rights, and to not question them.
They have sold out the country’s factories, mines, ports, forests, and rivers. They have given away the resources of the country to their followers; and, they have deemed it fit for the workers to have jobs without security and they have caused thousands of workers to lose their lives in ‘labor killings.’ They have seized the workers’ labor and products and continued living in luxury themselves.
Because of the power struggle they have got into with each other, they have thrown the country into burning fire on the day of July 15th. The Cemaat (Gülenists) - which they had been partners with ‘till very recently and turned a blind eye to – attempted to carry out a coup through the military organization it had created within the army; hundreds of people lost their lives and our country had almost gone through a threshold of a civil war.
Then, by using the coup attempt as an excuse, they have enforced their own coup by declaring a state of emergency. They have eliminated the last remaining pieces of rule of law; put aside the Constitution; and, virtually closed down the Parliament. By also using the purge of the state from Cemaat to their advantage, they have begun a witch-hunt and seized the labor of thousands of people through their decrees; and, they have tried to manage those in opposition with unemployment and hunger.
These merchants of religion have not only stolen the money of this country but they have also stolen this country’s – its citizens, its youth – today and tomorrow; they have taken away the people’s hope for living in peace and solidarity; they have restricted the destiny of this country to one man’s words. They have brought Turkey on to an edge of a disaster.
We are not helpless in the face of this calamity!
We must stop on this path of disaster both for our days today and for our future and both for ourselves and for our children.
As the workers whose labor has been stolen; as the teachers who have not been appointed; as the youngsters who could not get a job because of favoritism; as the victims of exams for which the questions had been stolen; as the farmers who sell their products for a penny; as the women who have been victimized in the name of honor; and, as citizens whose beliefs have been exploited, we must all say ‘stop’ to this course of events.
We must struggle for secularism in the face of the sultanate of religious fundamentalism and we must achieve secularism!
Today is the day to stand side by side against the dictatorship!
Today is the day to turn Turkey into a country of laborers, peace, solidarity, and freedom.
United HAZİRAN Movement!”