Week 48 - Gul reflects on a year in lockdown

Edited BY


G P Kennedy


Gul - Aegean Coast, Turkey



COVID-19 PANDEMIC ANNIVERSARY

 This time last year, we locked ourselves in our flat in Istanbul.


Looking back is making me melancholic. 

 I knew things were going to be different at the beginning of March 2020. I was following the news about the virus very closely but life was continuing on the one hand. 


 Our daughter was going to visit us on March 11, then my mother-in-law. Right after, another friend of mine. Our life was so full that I had to check my agenda to avoid missing anything. 


 The last ‘normal’ moment was a friend’s birthday gathering on the 8th of March. Then everything is on hold, as we all know. 


 One year on, I fear that things will never be quite like they were. The lockdown has affected me very much. 


 I don’t miss crowds at all, and I certainly don’t miss traffic and pollution but I miss hugs, eating indoors, just walking through shops touching everything as I go, reading menus in bars, wondering what cocktails to order, killing time in cafes. 


 I didn’t know before that these little things I would miss at all. Travel; having people over; cinema; gigs; visiting art galleries; making spontaneous choices.






 One year into the Covid pandemic, Turkey has been experiencing another spike in new cases with daily infections of around 30,000. 


 Reopening public spaces was a big mistake as infections are on the rise. However, the Turkish vaccination program is going too slow. We don’t know when we’ll get our Covid vaccine. 


 I can’t wait for things to get back to normal in the summer. Fingers crossed that brighter days are ahead.





POLITICAL TURMOIL

 We woke up this Saturday morning with shocking news. 


 Our president Erdogan has withdrawn Turkey from an international treaty to protect women through a presidential decree issued in the early hours. 


 Turkey was the first country to sign this EU Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence in 2011. 


 It was a critical role in protecting Turkish women but the religious and conservative groups were lobbying against the convention.


Violence against women in Turkey is a huge problem. So far in 2021, 78 women have been killed. Since Saturday, women have been protesting in every city.





 As if this wasn’t enough, we were stuck at home and turned to social media to get the news all this week.


Because a motion has been filled with Turkey’s Constitutional Court to ban the third-largest party, the pro-Kurdish party called HDP, and the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of an MP, Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu. 

 

We’re very concerned about our parliamentary democracy. This is an outright attack on our democracy and on the political choices of people. We’re making ourselves sick over politics.



 

Comments

  1. NgoziMarch 28, 2021 at 4:07 PM

    Life is a continual struggle or as Mandela once said - 'my life is the struggle'. Let us focus on the rainbow and not the storm. Sending love. Ngozi

    ReplyDelete
  2. NgoziMarch 28, 2021 at 4:07 PM

    Life is a continual struggle or as Mandela once said - 'my life is the struggle'. Let us focus on the rainbow and not the storm. Sending love. Ngozi

    ReplyDelete

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