PINAR URAL 

Amed- İn Turkey, where social, economic and cultural chaos deepen day by day, consequently the cases of the crimes, violence and suicide increase, the dimension of trauma also increases. The imbalance between the threats and interventions and the capacity of people to cope with them causes traumas. Emotions such as helplessness, anxiety, fear, flight and anger faced in these situations felt by society like a nightmare. Traumatic events cause a serious break between the past and the future in the memory of both people and the society. The solution of how society can overcome these traumas and be healed is difficult but not impossible.

On average 8 people commit suicide

Society subjected traumatic events suffer both materially and morally. Unless the reason of trauma is eliminated by ignoring and normalizing it, its wounds grow from generation to generation. On average, eight people commit suicide per day in Turkey. When the data is analyzed, the first reason for committing suicide is illness, the second is marital conflict and the third one is financial incompatibility. 

Intervention on the texture of society causes traumas

Sociologist Ruken Ergüneş Özdemir points out that people lose their hope for the future and this causes suicides and she states that suicides causes a poor quality of life and a bad society. Özdemir emphasizes that one of the most important reasons underlying traumas is the interventions of governments on the texture of society and she explains what she means as follows;

“We can say that violence and methods of coping with violence and its solution are under the control of the government, the ruling power. So if we look at which trauma people facing in Turkey; the foundation of the Republic is considered a reason for trauma. The modernization period is also reason for the trauma. It is discussed that modernization in a day and a sudden change in life style cause serious effects on people. The military coups are also considered as reason for trauma.  They are interventions having serious consequences. Societies have their own histories and they have their own natural texture of life. What does an outside intervention mean? We can consider assimilation policies as an intervention. The history of Kurdistan is undoubtedly a process of creating trauma because there has been an ongoing outside intervention. If we look at the recent history, the burning of villages and the forcibly displacement are important examples for it. It is serious reason for trauma. In a night, villagers’ houses were burned, their trees were burned and their animals were killed. They were forcibly displaced. Everything was taken from them, their texture was damaged. And suddenly they found themselves in big cities unlike their villages. It is a trauma.  

Ruling power gets power by spreading fears

Expressing that the solution for traumas is in the hands of the powers, Ruken Ergüneş Özdemir also says that they create problems on purpose, because the ruling powers get power by spreading fears. Özdemir says, “Disaster-like interventions are carried out against people and society to shock them. For example, the ruling power appoints a trustee to municipalities in a night. Home raids are carried out at nights. People are worried about if their homes will be raided or not, who will be arrested on what charges. 

Solution: Common life

While Ruken Ergüneş Özdemir says that the method of coping with trauma by people only by themselves has become difficult and almost impossible, she also shows the solution as follows;

“First, it's important to be able to describe in order to overcome trauma. The second is awareness in order to control the interventions in our lives. Surely, just awareness is not enough. The important thing is to be together, live together.”