A Personal Take on Turkey Elections: Hopeful But Really Tired

“I can rest, finally!”

To be honest, this was my first thought when my brain started working at June 8th. I was feeling tired, worn out. And still feel the same. My guess is the elections affected a lot of people living in here similarly.

Yes, I’m also an digital activist, including lots of other things I’m doing. But politics, especially daily politics in Turkey is nothing but a total mess. It’s not my area, I can’t fit in. I can comment or report some basic news but I’m not doing it with joy. It felt like a duty, I have to spread (translate) what’s going on in here. It was an abrasive experience, just like last two months in Turkey.

Especially in May, politics seized everyone’s life in here. I don’t know about other people, but it was unbearable for me. Lots of meaningless fights on media, roaring election vans and booths everywhere. I was able to see stress around me. There was no place to hide from it. And it was blocking you to do anything else or even think about anything else.

It felt like there was no end.


But finally, election is over. I know that there are lots of political uncertainty and these will probably continue at least for couple of months. But even though I feel more hopeful about the future of Turkey, I don’t have any more power to follow this much anymore.

I have my own interests, things I enjoy following and arguing. Things I wanted to write, create. There are lots of things I have to handle in my life. But my brain was blocked, mesmerized by the elections and now I feel like it’s filled with nothing but crap. I have to clean all of the junk and I have to take a lot of things back from where I left weeks ago.

Of course I will follow what’s going on, but as long as it’s not about technology, internet, censorship, surveillance and freedom of speech; I want to be a follower, not a commentator. I feel like I don’t have enough power for any other stuff for now.

I might write another blog post soon to what I’m planning to do in near future, what my plans for summer. But for now that’s all I want to say.


In case you’re wondering my takes on the election results, there will be an detailed post on Global Voices, collecting all Turkey authors’ comments on that. I wrote my general opinion and I guess most of it will be included. I’ll link it here. But shortly: I’m mostly happy with the outcome, like Louis Fishman said, hope is the real winner of this election. I’m just hoping that ‘the hope’ will stay in the air and we can start long-term changes in here. Otherwise, some groups (some already started to work on that) will do everything to wipe out hope to get their power back. I hope Turkey won’t let that happen.


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