You will know this buzzword from the past few years; the Stockholm Syndrome. We could identify this as a hostage’s empathy and sympathy towards the person, who took him/her hostage, during the time of captivity; in other words, a hostage’s understanding of the perpetrator’s feelings. This syndrome had taken this name after such an incident. In 1973, during the bank robbery in Norrmalmstorg Square of Stockholm, the 19-year old Patty Hearst, one of the hostages in the 6-day hostage case, participated in the robbery. Even after being released, she left her fiancée and waited for the robber to get out of prison. Psychiatrists are defining the syndrome as a person’s adaptation of the conditions, which puts that person under difficult situation, even defending it and taking side with the oppressor. The instinct to stay alive is being shown as the reason it shows up.

I’ve learned about the Stockholm Syndrome through books. As for another syndrome, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS), I’ve learned it by experiencing trauma. As its name states, this is the stress disorder that is formed within a person after a trauma… Depending on the heaviness of the trauma, it may or may not be experienced. You might experience such a process, as I did after the accident I had experienced. God forbid, you might also experience this as result of natural disasters like earthquake, wars, civil wars or incidents, like harassment, rape, abduction, torture, beating, family violence…. It’s not necessary for you to be the victim, even witnessing is enough for you to experience PTSS. Unfortunately, since one out of every three persons in our community had at least experienced one trauma in their lives, this is a very common syndrome, even though its name is not well-known…. One of the symptoms of PTSS is common with Stockholm Syndrome. The beginning of a victim’s empathy towards the perpetrator. This was how I discovered PTSS. Putting all the depressiveness aside, after the “For God’s sake, all these people had treated me badly, but why am I still trying to understand them?” question, and after many books and experts, I’ve finally learned about this syndrome. To my surprise, this was also caused by the mind’s instinct to stay alive. It seems that, while searching for a meaningful answer to the things you experienced in your mind, you fill the gaps since the perpetrator does not tell you the truth that will satisfy you. I’ve reached my inner peace through this answer, and I’ve escaped from the nonsense of trying to understand the perpetrators. Let’s keep it short; however, for interested people I can suggest one of the most successful books written on this matter: Judith Herman’s book entitled Trauma and Recovery. However, in short, I can say that PTSS and the Stockholm Syndrome are not healthy, even though they are common.

While thinking that the conservatives, who attempted to understand the Gezi incident, are suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome, today, I resemble the people, who are trying to understand the Gezi incident, to the people experiencing PTSS.

I’m not going to portray Gezi again, that attempt was a wind of lies as I’ve written in my Thursday’s article a couple of days ago. Even the lie on the first day, which spread around like, “Help, there are deaths in Taksim Square!” was showing us that this attempting would possess a scrambled style. What were we living in and in what period for God’s sake? While the Turkish-writing Gülenists were against Gezi, without a doubt, it had been beneficial to see that English-writing Gülenists were Gezi supporters, and while Zaman Newspaper mentioned Gezi lies since the first day, Today’s Zaman’s “We are revolting against the dictator” manifest. Even though I didn’t understand Gezi, or in other words, I didn’t show tolerance, I can understand how the people, who couldn’t see the truth that day, are mistaken.

Being a shameless liar, an abusive impudent, a coup-minded mentality that calls the military to the streets, “secularist” and “Islamophobic” hatred movement, showing no tolerance against the ones that don’t approve it, accusing everyone outside its participants as sheep and pack of ignorants….. All these had already irritated me from the Gezi incident I’ve seen and understood. Later on, instead of turning back from mistaking it, I felt sympathy towards the coup in Egypt, humiliated the people against the coup in Turkey as “Rabia supporters”, felt empathy towards the Assad regime and regarded hundreds of thousands of people, who lost their lives under bombs, tortures, chemical weapons and snipers, as terrorists, and saw every method fair for overthrowing the government, which had been elected legally…. These also clenched my opinion.

Let’s say that you were unable to see the thumping regional secular coup attempt, but now you are also saying we shouldn’t regard the Gezi incident from the point of “foreign focuses”. Let’s say that you are not pursuing finance markets, now you are saying “what interest-rate lobby are you talking about?” What’s left to understand afterwards? Didn’t you also see the peace protestors, who raided the Wisemen Committee’s Meetings with their CalPac flags? Should we understand it as peace hostility? Should we understand the ones, who are saying “In order to overthrow AK Party we have to capitulate some deaths, we have no other choice”? Should we understand the people, who called NATO to do their duty in order to overthrow a rulership that is elected via democratic ways? Ok, there is an unsuccessful opposition party for the past 13 years; however, should we understand the people, who failed to put forth a political movement since they gave in to their ideological blindnesses? Should we understand how they even fail to make politics out of the Gezi incident, which they regard as their biggest success in their history? Should we understand people, who cannot even tolerate a teller with a headscarf, in a Turkey, where the headscarf had just entered the parliament following these incidents? Should we understand their anger in sharing their Akmerkez, Galleria (shopping malls), cinemas, cafes, restaurants with others? Should we understand their discomfort in sharing the rights they had as members of a privileged class with others?

I don’t understand Gezi, nor do I show empathy towards it. I think that the ones, who are attempting to understand Gezi, are suffering from the traumas of the past years, which passed with coups, oppression and tyranny.

If you want to understand Gezi instead of getting rid of your traumas, then do it, and we will write “Died because of understanding his/her murderer” on your tombstones.