Hey nice people!

Tell me which nation dies more beautifully.

Which nation grieves better?

Which nation cries better?

Sometimes there are answers that make my ears bleed when I hear them. They rip my heart in two.

Please don’t.

Is there anyone who hasn’t died in this world? Perhaps death is the only word we cannot use with the word “if”. I feel a pang of sadness contrasting deaths and the ways we grieve while our human species called Homo Sapiens have been roaming the earth for about 200.000 and 55 million people died in 2018.

Einstein said that nationalism is the measles of mankind.

Saying that “There are good traditions about grieving on this land” is wonderful.

However, saying that “The best traditions are on this land” is not wonderful. It means that you have contracted measles despite your being vaccinated.

Saying that “I have heard about that tradition of that region and I liked it” is amazing.

Nevertheless, it is not amazing to say that “It doesn’t belong to our land. I don’t feel like hearing about it” when one hears about other places’ traditions. It means that all your body is covered with measles.

For God’s sake! Do death and grief have any nationality?

While humanity has been crying over their dead beloved ones for thousands of years, what is separating the reactions of humanity shows towards this pain based on lands or nations supposed to mean?

Is the grief of someone in Equator less valuable than yours?

Every drop of tear for death and grief and every tradition followed are the common property of humanity. That’s it.

The rest is measles beyond hope of recovery.

Just as you don’t like and continue every tradition in the land you live, the very same thing is valid for other grief traditions in the world. You listen to what is told, but pick and follow the one which appeals to you. You don’t choose based on the nation.

What I mean is that your first criterion while choosing cannot be the land, nation or the country.

Well, if you absolutely insist on the traditions on these lands and this place (if you insist on staying with measles), then you spare some of your time, review the existing resources, travel if needed and talk to the elders in the region, and thus, create your own archive. This can’t be bad, right? You make a contribution to humanity as well. And I benefit from the resource you have prepared and take the ones I like and adopt them. I also disseminate this in my speeches.

“What traditions there are in Anatolia!”. Sure, there are. Anatolia has been home to many different cultures. The traditions now we call as “our traditions” have been shaped by who knows whose (other peoples, races) tears and for how many years. These traditions are neither more nor less significant than the others. They are only as valuable as the others and the common property of humanity.

We can recover from the measles.

Every new tradition I hear brings the smell of jasmine flower to me. *

*I have been inspired by a poem by Argin Kubin

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