In a chaotic world, we must remember our humanity and the collective spirit that binds us all together.
Fires of Friendship Coming Through the Flames
Your heart has become a burning pomegranate, oh lilişan. You are human, you are human, you are human, you are human. You are human, hey lilişan, you are human, you are human.
Serious books speak in your name. The bravest compositions sing of you. You live like songs in the world. You are human, you are human, you are two billion souls. You are human, hey lilişan, you are human, you are human. You are human, hey lilişan, you are two billion souls.
Fires of friendship coming through the flames. You have opened like a sail to the cruel wind. Hey lilişan, hey lilişan. I have laughed, I have cried. Something strange has happened: the state of the world.
In the rapidly turning, metalizing, and increasingly cooling gears of today’s world, we sometimes forget our most fundamental reality: that we are human. The painful news that falls on screens, lives reduced to statistics, wars, and an unending series of anxieties all wound our souls, even if we don’t realize it. Because we are human, despite our attempts to deny it. Right in the midst of this crowded and noisy alienation, a shocking voice from the past echoes in our ears. The verses of the great poet Attilâ İlhan, combined with Ahmet Kaya’s rebellious, deep, and wounded voice, shout to us who we are:
You are human, you are human, you are human, you are human...
This is not just a poem or a song refrain; it is a magnificent manifesto written about the human’s own existence, dignity, and adventure on Earth.
Fires of Friendship Coming Through the Flames
It begins with the lines of Attilâ İlhan’s poem:
Fires of friendship coming through the flames. Your heart has become a burning pomegranate, oh lilişan.
Indeed, the history of humanity is a history of fires that justifies Thomas Hobbes completely. Today, as we look around us, we see the flames rising in different geographies of the world, the pains being endured, and a paradigm where the law is increasingly trampled upon, and the law of the powerful is attempted to be established, enveloping the entire world like dark smoke. Man is a wolf to man; this observation is validated and confirmed by humanity itself every day. However, poetry reminds us that humans are not ashes in these fires; rather, they are beings who come through those flames, their hearts cooked and matured like a 'pomegranate'; it almost says, 'tremble and return to yourself!'
The pains that are crammed into brief images on television screens or social media feeds can never represent the essence of humanity. We are not just beings who suffer, are oppressed, or are consumed. We are that brave will that has 'opened like a sail to the cruel wind.' No matter how cruel the wind blows, even if the sail tears, we have a spirit that resists. That spirit will return to its essence; if not today, then tomorrow.
Serious Books Speak of You...
As the modern age tries to turn humans into a number, a consumer, or an algorithm, the line that rises from Ahmet Kaya’s voice shakes us all: 'Serious books speak in your name / The bravest compositions sing of you.' Because the sole subject of philosophy, science, art, and history is humanity. All those thick and serious books written, the most epic and brave songs composed, do not tell of a machine, a system, or capital, but of 'humanity.' The joy, sorrow, resistance, and hope of humans... The temporary darkness we are living through cannot overshadow the way humans live in this world 'like songs.' Because humanity, with its existence, is a work of art in itself. But what if that human has forgotten they are human; how will they remember? There is a cost to this forgetting; as there is for every forgetting.
From Two Billion Souls to Eight Billion Souls...
When the poem was written, the world population was around two billion. The line 'You are human, hey lilişan, you are two billion souls' emphasizes how an individual’s existence is actually a whole with all of humanity. It says, you are not just 'you'; you are the sum of all the people on Earth. This may seem to refer to the understanding of the unity of existence, but it actually describes the unity of humanity. When Attila İlhan says, 'you are two billion souls,' he emphasizes an internationalist solidarity, a collective consciousness. In other words, the individual is not just themselves; they are the totality of all the oppressed, the suffering, and the resisting in the world. The pain of one person is the pain of two billion; the honor of one person is the honor of two billion.
Today, we are eight billion souls. The numbers have grown, cities have reached colossal sizes, and technology has surpassed limits. But what about our humanity? Has it grown in the same proportion? If the tears of a child somewhere do not cause a part of this colossal body of eight billion to ache, then we need to remember our humanity again. The philosophy of 'you are two billion souls' straightforwardly hits us in the face with the reality that we have forgotten empathy and universal brotherhood.
'A Strange Thing Has Happened, The State of the World'
At the end of the poem, the poet says, 'I have laughed, I have cried / A strange thing has happened / The state of the world.' How beautifully it summarizes the bitter-sweet, absurd, and strange cycle of life. The state of the world is like this; sometimes it makes us laugh, often it makes us cry. It harbors strangeness, contradictions, and unimaginable cruelties. Does the dialectic of life require this, or can humanity change this ill fate? Who knows, perhaps to the extent that humanity remembers its essence, it will cease to be so cruel. Because hope never ends; the 'strange' and sometimes ruthless state of the world does not change the fact that we are human. On the contrary, the darker it is, the more we need the light of humanity within us.
In defiance of today’s pains, wars, and increasingly numb crowds, we must keep alive the 'lilişan' within us. We must look into each other’s eyes and whisper that simple truth, stripping away all labels, classes, and identities:
Do not forget, my friend; you are human, hey lilişan, you are human...
Source: SeaNews Türkiye