“Bu Memleketi Kurtarmak İçin”

…Daha birkaç ay evvel “nesebi sahih olmayan çocuklar” meselesi zihinleri bir hayli meşgul etmişti. Köylerde imam nikahı ile evlenmenin, iki, üç karı almanın önüne geçilemediği zikredilerek buna bir çare aranıyordu.

Şimdi bekarlar evlenmiyor diye yanıp yakılmak ne tuhaf oluyor! Acaba bekarlık vergisi teklif edenlerin, Adliye Vekaleti’nin bu gayrimeşru evlenmeler hakkındaki anketinden ve nesebi sahih olmayan çocuklar meselesinden haberleri yok mu? Halkın büyük bir kısmı birden fazla kadın almaya mecbur oluyor, küçük bir kısmı da hiç evlenemiyorsa bunun sebepleri üzerinde derin derin düşünmek lazım değil midir? Üç beş maddelik bir kanun hazırlayarak bütün işleri halletmeye kalkmak, memleketin içtimai bünyesindeki karışıklığa, iktisadi münasebetlerdeki sakatlıklara bile bile gözleri yumarak tatlı bir rüya alemine dalmak değil midir?

Acaba “çok çocuk yetiştirmemiz lazım!” diye kaloriferli odalarda, kristal yazı masalarının başında “laf ile dünyaya nizamat” verenler, bu “çok çocuk”ların halini bir gördüler mi? Ankara’nın Yenişehir tarafında sefil çocuk görülmez, çünkü Yenişehir halkının göz zevkini ve vicdan rahatını pek düşünen Ankara vilayeti, böyle çocukları oraya sokmaz, onlar yalnız Bendderesi ve Dağ Mahallesi semtlerini süslerler, oralarda dilenir, sürünür, hırsızlık ederler. Fakat İstanbul bu lüksü pek yapamıyor, İstanbul’un her yerinde bu sarı benizli, değnek gibi bacaklı, saçları uzamış yalın ayak çocukları görmek mümkün. Çeşme yalaklarında uyuyan, dilenci şebekeleri tarafından işletilen, akşamüzerleri incecik sesleriyle “En, en, en son havadis” diye bağırarak, koltuklarında yağmur yahut kardan ıslanmış birkaç gazete ile caddelerde koşuşan, vapur iskelelerinde, morarmış ellerindeki ufak mukavva kutuları uzatarak: “Yeni hayat… Hani ya, Yeni hayat!” diye yalvarıp sokulan bu zavallı çocuklara gösterdiğimiz büyük, insani alakaya dayanarak mı daha çok çocuk istiyoruz? Yoksa Bektaşi’nin çamurdan yaptığı insanlara söylediği gibi: “Rızkını vermeyecek olduktan sonra yap yap koyuver” prensibini mi ele alacağız?

Hayır rızkını vermediğimiz, veremediğimiz müddetçe ne çocuk, ne nüfus istemeyiz. Karnını doyuramadığımız, sıhhatini koruyamadığımız, tahsilini temin edemediğimiz her çocuk, “Bu memlekete yüz milyon lazım!” diyenlerin gözüne, onları gaflet uykularından uyandırmak için sokulmuş birer parmaktır. Bize yarının hastanelerini, darülacezelerini, cezaevlerini dolduracak, cahil mesleksiz, serseri yüz milyonun lüzumu yok! Bize, insan gibi yaşamak, hayatın nimetlerinden istifade etmek imkanlarına, hiç olmazsa bu sakat tedbirleri tavsiye edenler kadar sahip yirmi milyon vatandaş, daha faydalıdır. Bunun için işi kabuğundan değil, çekirdeğinden ele almak evvela bu memlekette sefaletle, cehaletle içtimai müsavatsızlıkla, hulasa bütün geri taraflarla hep birden mücadele etmek lazımdır. Hiçbir içtimai mesele tek başına var olamaz, hepsi birbirine zincirleme bağlıdır. Zincirin bir halkasını ele alıp üst tarafını unutursak, köylerde on çocuk doğurup bilgisizlik, bakımsızlık, sefalet yüzünden ancak ikisini yaşatabilen anaları, sıtmadan, veremden ölen, trahomdan kör olan yetişkinleri düşünmeden “Fazla çocuk doğurmuyoruz da ondan küçük ve geri millet olarak kalıyoruz!” diye bağırırsak, gülünç vaziyete düşmüş oluruz.

Bize yeni bir hayat getirecek yeni bir nesil, yeni bir hamle, yeni bir dünya görüşü gerek. Ama istediğimiz bu yeni hayat, yukarıda söylediğimiz çocukların sattığı cinsten, sefil ve korkunç bir “Yeni Hayat!” değil.

Tan, 9 Şubat 1944

Sabahattin Ali – “Markopaşa Yazıları ve Ötekiler”

Güzel İnsanlar Ölümsüzdür…

“Bu arada; hiç başımızdan eksik olmayan gökyüzüne, günün karanlık saatlerine, ara sıra kopsa da fırtınalara, bir gün boğulacağımız denizlere, eski günlere, neler olacağını bilmesek de geleceğe, kötülüklerle dolu olsa bile tarihe, tarihin akışını düze çıkarmaya çalışan tüm güzel yüzlü çocuklara, Donkişotlar ‘a, ateş hırsızlarına, Ernesto “Çe” Guevara’ya, yollara-yolculuklara, sevgililere, sevişmelere, sadece düşleyebildiğimiz olamamazlıklara, üşürken ısınmalara, her şeyden sıcak annelere, babalara ve tadını bütün bunlardan alan şarkılara kendi sıcaklığımızı gönderiyoruz. Kötü şeyler gördük. Savaşlar, katliamlar, ölen-öldürülen çocuklar gördük. KENDİ DİLİNİ, KENDİ KÜLTÜRÜNÜ, kendisini kaybeden insanlar, topluluklar gördük. Yanan köyler, kentler, ormanlar, hayvanlar gördük. Yoksul insanlar, ağlayan anneler, babalar, her gün bile bile sokaklarda ölüme koşan tinerci çocuklar gördük. Biz de öldük. Ama her şeye rağmen bu yeryüzünde şarkılar söyledik. Teşekkürler dünya.”

Kâzım KOYUNCU

From The Princess Bride

1.

“Do you love me Westley?  Is that it?”

He couldn’t believe it. “Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. If your love were-”

“I don’t understand that first one yet,” Buttercup interrupted. She was starting to get very excited now.

“Let me get this straight. Are you saying my love is the size of a grain of sand and yours is this other thing? Images just confuse me so- is this universal business of yours bigger than my sand? Help me, Westley. I have the feeling we’re on the verge of something just terribly important.”

“I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids…. Is any of this getting through to you, Buttercup, or do you want me to go on for a while?”

“Never stop.”

“There has not been-”

“If you’re teasing me, Westley, I’m just going to kill you.”

“How can you even dream I might be teasing?”

“Well, you haven’t once said you loved me.”

“That’s all you need? Easy. I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you. Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I.”

“You are teasing now; aren’t you?”

“A little maybe; I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every time you said ‘Farm boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘As you wish’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard.”

“I hear you now, and I promise you this: I will never love anyone else. Only Westley. Until I die.”

He nodded, took a step away. “I’ll send for you soon. Believe me.”

“Would my Westley ever lie?”

He took another step. “I’m late. I must go. I hate it but I must. The ship sails soon and London is far.”

“I understand.” He reached out with his right hand.

Buttercup found it very hard to breathe. “Good-by.” She managed to raise her right hand to his.

They shook.

“Good-by,” he said again.

She made a little nod. He took a third step, not turning. She watched him. He turned. And the words ripped out of her:

“Without one kiss?” They fell into each other’s arms.

2. 

“You were already more beautiful than anything I dared to dream. In our years apart, my imaginings did their best to improve on you perfection. At night, your face was forever behind my eyes. And now I see that that vision who kept me company in my loneliness was a hag compared to the beauty now before me.” –Westley

Enough about my beauty.” Buttercup said. “Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I’ve got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.”

3. 

“But Roberts did not kill you.”

“Clearly.”

“Why?”
“I cannot say for sure, but I think it is because I asked him please not to. The ‘please,’ I suspect, aroused his interest. I didn’t beg or offer bribery, as the others were doing. At any rate, he held off with his sword long enough to ask, ‘Why should I make an exception of you?’ and I explained my mission, how I had to get to America to get money to reunite me with the most beautiful woman ever reared by man, namely you. ‘I doubt that she is as beautiful as you imagine,’ he said, and he raised his sword again. ‘Hair the color of autumn,’ I said, ‘and skin like wintry cream.’ ‘Wintry cream, eh?’ he said. He was interested now, at least a bit, so I went on describing the rest of you, and at the end, I knew I had him convinced of the truth of my affection for you. I’ll tell you. Westley,’ he said then, ‘I feel genuinely sorry about this, but if I make an exception in your case, news will get out that the Dread Pirate Roberts has gone soft and that will mark the beginning of my downfall, for once they stop fearing you, piracy becomes nothing but work, work, work all the time, and I am far too old for such a life.’ ‘I swear I will never tell, not even my beloved,’ I said; ‘and if you will let me live, I will be your personal valet and slave for five full years, and if I ever once complain or cause you anger, you may chop my head off then and there and I will die with praise for your fairness on my lips.’ I knew I had him thinking. ‘Go below,’ he said. I’ll most likely kill you tomorrow.'”

4.

Inigo stood silent for a long time. “I am ready then.”
“I would not enjoy being the six-fingered man” was all Yeste replied.
The next morning, Inigo began the track-down. He had it all carefully prepared in his
mind. He would find the six-fingered man. He would go up to him. He would say simply,

“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die,” and then, oh then,
the duel.
It was a lovely plan really. Simple, direct. No frills.

__

Inigo stood still a moment, panting. Then he made a half turn in the direction of Count
Rugen and executed a quick and well-formed bow.

“Hello,” he said. “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
And in reply, the Count did a genuinely remarkable and unexpected thing: he turned and
ran. It was now 5:37.

__

And Inigo had no way of knowing that Count Rugen had a Florinese dagger. Or that he
was expert with the thing. It took Inigo until 5:41 before he actually cornered the Count. In a
billiard room.

“Hello,” he was about to say. “My name is Inigo Montoya; you killed my father;
prepare to die.” What he actually got out was somewhat less: “Hello, my name is Ini—”
And then the dagger rearranged his insides. The force of the throw sent him staggering
backward into the wall. The rush of blood weakened him so quickly he could not keep his
feet. “Domingo, Domingo,” he whispered, and then he was, at forty-two minutes after five,
lost on his knees. . . .

__

Power was flowing up from Inigo’s heart to his right shoulder and down from his
shoulder to his fingers and then into the great six-fingered sword and he pushed off from the
wall then, with a whispered,

“. . . hello . . . my name is . . . Inigo Montoya; you killed . . . my father; prepare to die.”
And they crossed swords.
The Count went for the quick kill, the inverse Bonetti.
No chance.
“Hello . . . my name is Inigo Montoya; you killed my father . . . prepare to die. . . .”
Again they crossed, and the Count moved into a Morozzo defense, because the blood
was still streaming.
Inigo shoved his fist deeper into himself. “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya; you killed
my father; prepare to die.”
The Count retreated around the billiard table.
Inigo slipped in his own blood.
The Count continued to retreat, waiting, waiting.

“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya; you killed my father; prepare to die.”

He dug with his fist and he didn’t want to think what he was touching and pushing and holding into place but
for the first time he felt able to try a move, so the six-fingered sword flashed forward—
—and there was a cut down one side of Count Rugen’s cheek—

—another flash—

—another cut, parallel, bleeding—
“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya; you killed my father; prepare to die.”
“Stop saying that!” The Count was beginning to experience a decline of nerve.
Inigo drove for the Count’s left shoulder, as the Count had wounded his. Then he went
through the Count’s left arm, at the same spot the Count had penetrated his. “Hello.”
Stronger now.
“Hello! HELLO. MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA. YOU KILLED MY FATHER.
PREPARE TO DIE!”
“No—”
“Offer me money—”
“Everything,” the Count said.
“Power too. Promise me that.”
“All I have and more. Please.”
“Offer me anything I ask for.”
“Yes. Yes. Say it.”
“I WANT DOMINGO MONTOYA, YOU SON OF A BITCH,” and the six-fingered
sword flashed again.
The Count screamed.
“That was just to the left of your heart.” Inigo struck again.
Another scream.
“That was below your heart. Can you guess what I’m doing?”
“Cutting my heart out.”
“You took mine when I was ten; I want yours now. We are lovers of justice, you and
I—what could be more just than that?”
The Count screamed one final time then fell dead of fear.
Inigo looked down at him. The Count’s frozen face was petrified and ashen and the blood still poured down the parallel cuts. His eyes bulged wide, full of horror and pain. It was glorious. If you like that kind of thing.

Inigo loved it.
It was 5:50 when he staggered from the room, heading he knew not where or for how
long, but hoping only that whoever had been guiding him lately would not desert him now. . . .

Buttercup and Westley

The Princess Bride

Prepare to die!!