BURC AKYOL COLL 05 SUMMER, GÜLISTAN

“Les enfants d’Adam font partie d’un corps Ils sont créés tous d’une même essence Si une peine arrive à un membre du corps Les autres aussi, perdent leur aisance Si, pour la peine des autres, tu n’as pas de souffrance Tu ne mériteras pas d’être dans ce corps.” Gülistan, Sadi « On a toujours l’air con quand on parle de fleur » A dear friend In the oriental world, the rose (Gül) is a symbol of resistance and rebellion. Incidentally, Gülistan was also the name of Iran. It is also a very important Kurdish name. We say, “from the mud a rose” and we hear a message of hope. Gülistan means a land of roses, an empire of roses as put by the poet Sadi, an empire of hope. The same book recounts our human condition as a whole and how we can choose to be a member of that body or a cut-off limb when it comes to our relation to the other. Politics and poetry. My first “other” were gypsies when I was a child, les gens du voyage, other kids who suddenly appeared in my classroom one day because they were passing through our small town. French law says schools must welcome them at every stop. I still remember the art class, all of us spray-painting leaves in gold. I remember talking about my day and those kids to my parents in the evening, and them helping me realise they were the same people as the Roman in my Turkish summers, the Roman of the Sulukule neighbourhood in Istanbul. I loved watching their dances and singing, the strident colours of their unruly matching of pieces that seemed