Culture & Travel

Wednesday evening.

I'm on a bus, headed to the main transportation hub of Ankara - Güvenpark. I drive down the street which connects my district, Öveçler, and Kızılay. The buildings look the same. Nothing seems out of place.

We round a corner and start pulling into Güvenpark. Now I see it. Now I see the yellow police tape, clinging to tree trunks and light posts; I see torn-up asphalt spewed across the street and sidewalk; I see the mounds of ash and black tree stumps, reminiscent of the swathes of land along Northern Ontario highways which have experienced forest fires.

Now I see the destruction caused by the car bomb which exploded exactly one week previous.

On Wednesday, February 17th, the people of Ankara woke to pleasant spring weather and clear skies. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary - simit vendors sold cheap kurabiye on street corners; the subway was crowded like the ashtrays on the tables of cafes and restaurants; and traffic, as always, was crazy.

It was a normal day.

At least, it was, until 6:30pm, at the height of rush hour traffic.

A car filled with explosives driven by a member of the PKK-affiliated Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) made its way to the military district of Kızılay and detonated beside a bus carrying members of the Turkish army. 28 people were killed - a disputed number by many members of various political parties.

At 6:30pm on that Wednesday evening, I was making eggs in my flat's kitchen. Suddenly, the lights flashed brightly and burned out. I was in darkness.

I felt my way along the walls until I reached the fuse-panel and switched the power back on. It was a strange occurrence, but not strange enough to investigate. I returned to the stove and my now-burnt eggs.

Ten minutes later, the girl I share my flat with, a student of economics at Başkent University, rushed in through the door and turned on Son Dakika Haberler, one of the most popular evening-time news shows in Turkey.

Explosion in Kızılay. 28 dead.

I took to my Macbook and began messaging my friends in Ankara. This isn't the first time I've had to do this. In fact, at this point in time, it almost feels routine - think of everyone you know in the city that was attacked, make a Facebook group chat, and enter the question "Are you safe?"

Only, this time, I was late to log in, and the Turkish government had already shutdown social media. You see, during attacks like this, Tayyip Erdoğan and his gang of Islamo-fascists love to cut off access to Facebook, Twitter, etc. Is it to prevent terrorists from communicating, or is to prevent the people of Turkey to contact their loved ones in Ankara? For once, I'll give the Ak Party the benefit of the doubt.

My phone rang.

"Merhaba."

"Mitch, it's Ata." Ata, my Turkish friend and an aspiring career soldier for the Turkish army, following in the footsteps of his parents, of whom both are high-ranking officials. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you and your family okay?"

"Yes, we're fine. Listen, we don't have much time before they shut down cellphone service. Social media is going down too - download a VPN. We'll talk on Facebook. Görüşürüz."

I took Ata's advice and downloaded the Chrome extension ZenMate, an IP-hider which uses Romanian IP addresses to hide your computer's location. Suddenly my connection problems were over and my messages were able to send to friends and family in Ankara.

Fortunately, everyone was unharmed - although some by slim chances.

Tülin, a representative for my exchange organization and an accomplished architect, was on the attacked street just fifteen minutes before the explosion.

"I'm sorry Mitch, I can't really gather my thoughts right now. I narrowly avoided that bomb. I can't believe what's happening right now."

A man I lived with in the Çayyolu district in September was at a bar in the Kızılay district when the attack happened. He said his drink bounced off the table and the glass windows of the birahane shook. That's when he knew something wasn't right.

Other friends expressed frustration with the continuous attacks Turkey has been facing in the wake of the rise of Daesh, the resumed conflict between Kurdish terrorist organizations and the Turkish state, and the incumbent Syrian refugee crisis.

Giray, a classmate of mine, put it best when he said:

"It's [awful] that a bomb explodes under our noses and we just keep doing the same thing every day. The death of hundreds of people doesn't seem to have a big impact, it just becomes a daily ordeal. You just ask [everyone] you know if they are all right or not and then continue doing what you were doing the day before."

Others, specifically representatives of the Ak Party, used this attack as justification for intervention in Kurdish-held Syria and Iraq, which brought on the suspicion of my old Turkish teacher, a socialist professor from the city of Eskişehir:

"This fake caliph [Erdoğan], he's probably behind this attack. He wants to intervene in Syria against the Kurds because the Kurds are cutting off the transfer of oil between Erdoğan and [Daesh]. He was behind the attack in October and he's probably behind this attack tonight."

In October 2015, the Ulus district of Ankara was the scene of another terrorist attack, this time killing over 100 people gathered in a peace rally. Among the victims were supporters of the main Kurdish party in Turkey - the HDP. Since Kurdish terrorist organizations wouldn't attack a pro-Kurdistan rally, and since the attack happened right before the November 1st election, many people looked to the ruling Ak Party with suspicion.

A few days after the attack, Al Jazeera released an English-language statement from the TAK group which reaffirmed their belief in armed struggle against the Turkish state for the liberation of Kurdistan. They admitted they had refocused their attacks on the tourism sector of the Turkish economy and warned foreigners against travelling to Turkey.

For whatever purpose the attack on Wednesday was carried out, the fact that 28 innocent lives were taken in a fiery explosion does not change. Not only did the perpetrators of this crime, whether it be TAK, the Ak Party, or Daesh (for all we know) rob 28 lives of existence, it also robbed the Turkish people of their sense of security, their trust in government, and their trust in their neighbors.

The Turkish people are pensive. Another attack is expected at any time, we just don't know when, or where, it will happen. And as the quagmire of Syria and Iraq spills into neighbouring countries (including the unprecedented flow of Syrian refugees into south-eastern Anatolia and the rekindling of the age-old PKK/Turkish state conflict), the issues facing the Turkish people will only further dictate and disrupt their everyday lives.