Sara Aktaş
“When it is one of the most fundamental needs of humanity, how strongly are we able to take sides with justice? What is it that we do so that justice doesn’t remain an abstraction? How loud are our voices in the face of injustice?” writes Sara Aktaş for Yeni Özgür Politika.
New names are added to the list of those who seek justice. This list is already a really long one with all the Saturday Mothers and Peace Mothers, with Gülistan Doku and İpek Er, with Emine Şenyaşar and the mother of Garibe Gezer, who was killed through systematic torture.
There is no doubt that these endless cries of the mothers not only make us reflect on, but also question the meaning and value of justice.
Although justice includes all other virtues in itself, it is, indeed, an area of value that is most denied and wasted on a daily basis.
Justice, however, has always been defined as the embodiment of values, principles, ideals and virtues in a society that provides everyone what is appropriate and rightful for them. Addison’s words are meaningful in this regard to remember: “There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.”
When it is one of the most fundamental needs of humanity, how strongly are we able to take sides with justice? What is it that we do so that justice doesn’t remain an abstraction? How loud are our voices in the face of injustice?
According to Nietzsche, justice is the virtue that deserves to be respected the most, as he most respects the person who has the willpower and a strong motive for justice.
Because, in the person who deserves this respect, the rarest virtues find their place at the highest level in a bottomless sea where rivers from all directions meet and hide.
Mother Emine makes us wonder how much we see our own image in this bottomless sea!
Nietzsche discussed justice not only upon the basis of rights, equality and honesty, but also upon the basis of injustice and inequality.
Based on the conviction that human beings are and should be strong, precisely in an emotional context, Nietzsche sees it as a result of “herd” morality [referring to slave morality] that people place demands, without working or resistance, upon what they don’t deserve out of empty pride, resentment and compassion. He emphasises that the way to change this is to question and purify all virtues and to fight for justice.
Mother Emine, who has been seeking and crying out for justice for months may be the realisation of such struggle in flesh and bones.
“What matters, my justice? I do not see that I am ember and coal. But the just person is ember and coal!” This is what Nietzsche writes in his book ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra.’
What matters is to be able to become the ember and coal for the sake of justice and Mother Emine is the ember and coal.
Of course, saying ‘big words’ becomes meaningless if we do not live them properly. In questioning the values of words, Nietzsche also discusses whether that value is revealed in the word itself or through its practice.
Are ‘big words’ and qualities such as “honesty, responsibility, justice, humanity, truthfulness really accepted and affirmed for their own sake?,” he asks.
Because the value and criterion of these qualities, whether for their bearers or for society and humanity, becomes significant only if we take the risk to pay the price for their sake or not.
Emine Mother calls out, “The justice of each of you is as important as your actions in the face of injustice.”
Mother Emine obliges all of us to be conscientious, because justice is connected to all of us. As Nietzsche said, “Morality is destroyed in our hearts.” (…)
Mother Emine draws the baton of justice and calls out to us in Nietzsche’s words: “I do not like your cold justice: out of the eye of your judges there always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel. Tell me where we find justice, where is love with seeing eyes?
“Devise me, then, the love which not only beareth all punishment, but also all guilt! Devise me, then, the justice which acquitteth every one except the judge! And would ye hear this likewise? To him who seeketh to be just from the heart, even the lie becometh philanthropy. But how could I be just from the heart! How can I give every one his own! Let this be enough for me: I give unto every one mine own.”
