MÜSLÜM KABADAYI
WRITER AND RESEARCHER – TÜRKİYE

The most natural right of every living being is to live safely in a healthy environment. Legal studies related to human rights, which have been conducted since the 18th century, expanded in the 19th century with the fight for animal rights. We know that studies related to plants also became popular in the 20th century.

The right to life has been guaranteed in the following treaties and legal provisions in force to date; Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples‘ Rights. Despite this, could we stop the wars, genocides, massacres, and murders that take away the right to life from individuals and societies? Unfortunately, no. Why and how?

Both nationally and internationally, as with all fundamental issues, the “right to mourn,” which is closely linked to the “right to life,” has a direct relationship with the structure of power. It is not wrong to state now
the slogan that we will highlight at the end: in order to create a social order in which all human beings can live with “the right to a dignified life” without having to resort to the right to mourn we must put an end to
“power.” Because all power, in other words, the ability to govern, resorts to repression and violence when it cannot govern. From this point of view, the right to life and to mourn is also a question of “power.” So far, neither the UN nor other international organizations have included any definition or regulation on the “right to mourn” in the documents they have drawn up on human rights, as Neval Oğan Balkız, a legal scholar, points out: „Mourning is a subject with very different and broad contexts that is not addressed as a norm in the legal sphere, but is evaluated as a consequence related to the facts. It is a concept that emerged in Colombia, Chile, Congo, etc., following mass killings of the population, as a result of the search for justice by popular initiatives, and has also been used in Türkiye in relation to enforced disappearances, the burning of villages, forced displacement, and massacres that took place during certain periods, within the framework of national and international legal resources. It is a concept related to ‘social memory’ and ‘truth’. The concept of ‘restorative justice’ must be based on human philosophy and political philosophy, social psychology and legal sociology, as well as legal policy, but it is a concept that has been little addressed in these contexts.” It is not at all irrational to think that the fundamental reason why no legal provisions have been established at the national and international level to regulate this
concept, except for provisions relating to permits and material and technical support contained in laws or collective agreements concerning the relatives of the deceased, is the fear that this would place the “powers” in a difficult position.

In England, France, and the United States, countries that occupy a central position in colonialism and neocolonialism, agreements, constitutions, and laws related to “rights” have been established since the Magna Carta to limit the level of exploitation. When we look at the signatories of treaties published over the last three centuries, particularly those of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we see that the countries and states that have committed the most massacres on our planet are precisely the same signatories. We know very well that five of the fifteen countries that comprise the United Nations Security Council (the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia) have a very long history of wars and genocides. I would like to briefly recall some of the most significant practices that violate the right to life and to mourn, committed by these states and their ruling classes, which are responsible for wars and massacres that could not be contained in entire volumes of text. France, which began its colonial activities in 1524, established its rule in more than 20 countries in West and North Africa and maintained control of 35% of the continent for 300 years. The best known massacre caused death of nearly 1.5 million people during the period between May 8, 1945, the date of the “Setif and Guelma Massacre,” and 1962, the year Algeria gained its

independence. France also committed serious human rights violations in countries where it had political influence. It has been revealed that France also played a role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 people were killed. There are numerous international lawsuits against France, which has been accused of providing weapons and information to the Hutu government responsible for the genocide, rather than preventing the genocide. France, like other colonizing states, has been known to transfer skilled workers and professionals from the countries it has colonized to its own country in order to subject them to harsh working conditions, as a result of the economic losses suffered in the wars of independence of those countries, which is one of the distinguishing features of new colonialism.

Well, what is the history of England, which was once the “empire on which the sun never set”? In the decade of 1770, more than 10 million Indians lost their lives in the state of Bengal, India, as a consequence of famine caused by British soldiers, as well as disease, torture, and forced labor conditions. Starting in 1942, due to the colonialist decision of the British government and Churchill himself, another famine occurred in India, causing the deaths of another five million Indians. The Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842) took place in the southern part of the Helmand Valley and is known as “the Great Game of the British Empire.” In this war, many people died in the Helmand area, causing fear and terror in Afghanistan. Great Britain, which continued its massacres in Africa after Asia, imprisoned thousands of innocent people in forced labor camps during the Boer Wars (1900-1902). In one year, 10% of the Boer population died in these camps from disease and starvation. Britain, which between 1917 and 1925 carried out attacks that
killed millions of people in Iran and Iraq, also went down in history for being the first to use chemical weapons in the Sulaymaniyah region. As can be seen, long before Saddam’s regime used chemical weapons in the Halabja massacre in 1988, which killed thousands of Kurds, Britain had already committed this atrocity. The “torture houses” it set up in Yemen showed another side of Britain. This was followed by the massacres perpetrated against the Irish people between 1970 and 2000.

The massacres perpetrated by Spanish and Portuguese colonizers in Latin America were followed by 65 massacres against the indigenous peoples of North America. The last massacre against Native Americans on US soil was perpetrated by the Americans in 1911 and is known as “the Last Massacre”. In the 20th century, the massacres perpetrated by the United States, which took over from the British imperialist powers, are countless. CIA operations, the Guantanamo prison, the invasion of Korea, the aggression against Vietnam, the invasion of Iraq, and finally, the genocide of the Palestinian people through Israeli Zionism demonstrate how long the United States‘ history of atrocities is. Russia is known to have perpetrated the massacre that led to the “Great Circassian Exile” in 1864, as well as the massacres per
petrated in Crimea and against the peoples of the Caucasus. Throughout China’s millennia of history, there have been numerous massacres. The Kuomintang’s anti-communist massacre of 1928, which killed 300,000 people, was followed in the decade of the 1930s with massacres that killed 700,000 communists. There have been numerous genocides against the Mongols and Uyghurs in Chinese history. The Nanjing Massacre, perpetrated by the Japanese army over six weeks in 1937 against the Chinese people, is one of the most shameful genocides in human history, characterized by looting, mass rape, torture,
and arson. Mentioning some of the massacres perpetrated by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council makes it perfectly clear that we are not accusing a people or a nation of genocide. Those responsible for the massacres are the security forces, intelligence services, and ruling classes of those countries or states. Apart from this, massacres have also been committed by mafia organizations, thieves, and terrorist structures of different sizes and with different motives. Such as the genocides perpetrated by HTS against the Alawite and Druze Arab populations in Syria.

Have the colonial states of the 20th century been held accountable for the deaths of millions of people in World War I and II, caused by competition between them? Only Germany was sanctioned for the Jewish genocide, but senior Nazi officials held key positions in the United States. As we have illustrated with some of the most prominent violations of the right to life, it is clear that in a world marked by exploitation and colonialism, it is impossible to avoid massacres, wars, oppression, and violence.

There have also been numerous massacres throughout Turkish history. From the Koçgiri massacre to the drowning of Mustafa Suphi and his comrades in the Black Sea, from the Dersim massacre in 1938 to the massacre of Greeks in Istanbul on September 6 and 7, 1955, from the Taksim massacre on May 1, 1977, to the massacres in Maraş, Çorum, and Sivas, the murder of seven young TIP members in Bahçelievler (Ankara) in 1978 by members of Ulku Ocaklari, the Madımak massacre on July 2, 1993, by religious reactionaries, the massacres during the coups d’état of March 12 and September 12, the massacres Roboski, Suruç, Ankara Train Station, Gezi Resistance, there are numerous examples where the right to life and to mourn has been suppressed. In addition, there are also cases perpetrated by PKK ramifications, such as those in Başbağlar on July 5, 1993, Merasim Sokak, and Güvenpark in Ankara in 2016.

Legal and regulatory provisions have been put in place based on the concepts of nature and the right to the environment, in relation to people’s right to live in a healthy environment. Nevertheless, to date, no legal or regulatory statement or legislation on “plant rights” has been drafted, either at the international level or in individual countries. However, when we focus on this topic, we see that studies on “plant physiology” show that plants have mechanisms that allow them to perceive environmental changes. This definition of plant perception differs from the idea that plants can feel emotions (also known as plant perception). The concept of plant perception, along with plant intelligence, dates back to 1848, when German experimental psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner proposed that plants have feelings and that
healthy growth can be encouraged through speech, interest, and love.¹ In Switzerland, there has been significant progress in the field of “plant rights,” which requires increasingly serious study. „In Switzerland, in 2008, an ethics committee was created to protect the ‘honor’ of plants. This ethics committee was the first in the world to ratify plant rights through a special declaration. The title of the document published by this Swiss ethics committee is as follows: The Honor of Living Beings from the Point of View of Plants: The Moral Evaluation of Plants through speech, interest, and love.“² Studies on the rights of humans, animals, and plants have reached such a point that, because of intensive exploitation of nature, problems such as global warming, climate change, drought, and environmental pollution have come to threaten the future of our planet and natural life. Therefore, it is imperative that all of humanity focus on this issue and apply binding international legal and regulatory standards without delay.

While practical and legal efforts continue at the international level to protect our planet’s animals, plants, and valuable minerals and metals, in our beautiful country those who fight to protect nature are being murdered. Who are the ones that have deprived Professor Metin Lokumcu, murdered in Artvin Hopa, Reşit Kibar, and Hakan Tosun, murdered this week for supporting the ecological struggle with their reports and documentaries, of their right to life?

The people responsible for the great destruction and loss of life caused by the earthquake on August 17, 1999, were not held accountable, the earthquake regulations enacted in 2000 were last updated in 2018, billions of liras were collected in earthquake taxes, and despite decisions being taken in 2021 to reduce seismic risk in Hatay, no measures were adopted, and in the earthquakes of February 6 and 20, 85% of Antakya was destroyed and tens of thousands of our citizens died. So, 32 months after the earthquake, have those who failed to take the necessary measures, those who approved urban planning amnesties,
and those who claimed that reconstruction taxes were spent on road construction been held accountable? Leaving aside the highest-level officials, even very few of those responsible in local administrations are being tried in court. While this is the harsh reality in terms of accountability, and while there are people in this country who were unable to recover the bodies of their loved ones after the earthquakes on February 6 and 20, people who were unable to bury them and mourn their loss because they could not find even a finger of their loved ones, are those who, with illegal concrete factories and stone and sand quarries opened in violation of regulations, threaten both the health of the population and the future of nature in these areas, in order to flood the country with glass and concrete, being held accountable? The illegal concrete plant in Samandağ continued to pollute the residents and gardens of the Atatürk neighborhood for months, despite a court order to close.

The examples we have given so far, both from around the world and from our own country, show that although international treaties and the constitutions and laws of countries establish that states have an obligation to protect the rights of their citizens on the basis of the inviolability of the “right to life,” this fundamental right continues to be violated through massacres and individual murders. Article 3 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by Türkiye in 1949, states that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.” Article 22, directly related to this article, states the following: “Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of
each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.” Based on this article, the protection of “human dignity” is very important, and “respect for the dead” is part of it. In countries where massacres have taken place, in addition to the violation of the “right to life,” there are countless examples of “human dignity” being destroyed through inhumane practices such as the mutilation of the bodies of those killed, the cutting off of their limbs, burning, or throwing them into water. The last straw was the United States‘ cancellation of visas granted to state representatives who opposed the genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza for two years and to the Palestinian delegation led by Mahmoud Abbas so that they could attend the United Nations General Assembly. It is therefore essential and urgent to modify the structure, internal functioning, and location of international institutions and organizations, particularly the United Nations, in order to create an environment in which all member countries have equal rights of participation and encounter no obstacles. To this end, it is very significant that Politeknik magazine has opened up for public debate the proposals of some intellectuals and countries to change the headquarters of the UN and UNESCO. Accelerating the work needed to achieve these goals is crucial to saving the future of humanity and our planet.

In the latest massacres in Gaza, hospitals and schools were bombed, and people died of starvation due to the siege, unable even to exercise their right to mourn. The statement made by Safa El-Feramavi, a mother who lost her daughter Gazel when she went to seek help in Gaza, that she was forced to sell Gazel’s clothes to support her six surviving children, is a great tragedy both from a human perspective and because of the impossibility of exercising the right to mourn. Therefore, the imperialist-capitalist states and multinational corporations that dominate the world, as seen in the recent destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian genocide, have not only backed and supported Israeli Zionism, which is responsible for these crimes, but have also gathered in Egypt to celebrate a “peace party.” The leaders and shameless states of the new colonialism are now trying to divide up Gaza as if it were a large construction site. Is it possible to have real peace in Palestine without holding accountable those who have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the last two years? Can further massacres be prevented?

Taking into account this harsh reality, launching a global campaign for the RIGHT TO MOURN to hold countries, states, and organizations that commit wars and massacres accountable is the most basic right and, at the same time, the duty of all those who defend the “right to life” enshrined in international treaties, constitutions, and laws. In particular, it is the right of families who have lost loved ones in wars, destruction, and massacres. If this campaign becomes a universal force and finds the resonance it deserves both at the UN and in other institutions and organizations working in the field of human rights, it
could also become a force capable of preventing future massacres and the destruction of nature.