In the Wake of Sırrı Süreyya Önder's Passing: A Friend's Quiet Farewell
My dear friend,
Our paths first crossed in 2004. Just as you captured everyone's attention, you struck me from the very first moment too. Not only with your words, but with your very presence... Your intelligence, your humor, your heavy yet heartfelt gaze, that narrative style of yours that traced the trail of languages, cultures, and stories... You had depth. You were a sage who made people think while making them laugh, and taught them to embrace life while making them cry.
AN EXCAVATION CARRIED OUT WITH CONSCIENCE
When I first met you, you were eager to write screenplays. Your eyes were shining. You had excitedly read me the rough draft of the film you called "Beynelmilel" ("International"). That's when I understood: you weren't just a screenwriter, you were also a keeper of memory, trying to repair this country's broken memory. That film was much more than a project: it was an excavation carried out with conscience against forgetting...
As a physician newly returned from Germany, I suddenly found myself in the middle of conversations about literature, cinema, and theater with you. We talked about so much, laughed so much, and fell silent together so often... Your hand had touched every instrument; but it was words that you commanded most of all. You would deliver a line of verse like a manifesto, a story like a hymn. Every encounter with you was an inspiration, every parting, a lesson.
YOU BROUGHT LIFE TO THE STAGE
Your friendship with our elder brother Ahmet Gökbulut went back to before 1980. That friendship, too, was deep, ancient, and loyal, just like you. Over time, the three of us had formed a bond of friendship. On the day you decided to enter politics, I told you what was on my mind: "You have reached such a place in writing, in cinema, in storytelling... You should stay there." But your inner voice was greater. You had been washed by the pain of this people. You never stopped writing, but where writing was not enough, you carried life onto the stage.
You wanted to stop the bloodshed. You saw bringing peace and rebuilding brotherhood not as an ideal, but as a duty. You never held yourself back. You were not afraid of going to prison. While the paths of exile lay open, you chose a dignified stance. You had no expectations for yourself for tomorrow, yet you were a hope for the people.
THE PEOPLE'S BELOVED CHILD
Over the last 10 years, our friendship deepened even further. We shared not only memories, but also sorrows, hopes, and laughter, and then... a long illness. It weighed heavily even on a heart as strong and patient as yours. But even there, I saw something else: the love people had for you, the compassion and loyalty rising from every part of society. You were no longer just an intellectual, an artist, a politician; you had become the conscience of this land, the people's beloved child. You were no longer only a child of the Önder family, but a child of this soil.
Yesterday we bid you farewell into eternity. But there is a void within me that I cannot describe. I am left facing the absence of our conversations, our debates, those beautiful bursts of laughter of yours. But I know that you left this world leaving a mark behind. Talking with you, writing, trying to understand... it was all a privilege.
Sırrı Süreyya Önder, your name will now live on in a line of literature, in the scene of a film, in a child's dream, in a people's longing, and I... I will always remember you as a friend, a brother, a sage.
May your light be our companion.
Your friend,
Dr. Hüseyin Nazlıkul