When one dies, the next goes up into the mountains

How did the idea for “Dialogue“ come about?

Selim Yildiz: I spent 29 days shadowing Kurdish soldiers for a documentary and it was during this time that I got to know one guerrilla fighter who hadn’t seen his mother for 22 years. He was thirteen years old when he suddenly disappeared "into the mountains". When my brother Enes also disappeared, I promised my mother that I would ensure she was reunited with her son. The opportunity arose eight years later, in 2015. But we had to wait two years during the war in Syria until we were able to go out into the streets.

Were there any clues he was going to disappear?

Yildiz: None at all. I was in Istanbul one night when my mother rang. Enes hadn’t returned home and his phone was switched off. We spent days ringing around everyone we knew and were wracked with uncertainty. One week later we received a note which read, "I am going to another city". He didn’t mention that he was joining an armed group. Two months later we received word of him via a third party, "Don’t worry," they said, "he has gone 'into the mountains'."

How did your parents react?

Yildiz: My mother seemed to go into shock; she cried for fifteen days. She stopped eating. She pulled her hair out. On the sixteenth day, we had to force her to eat. We had no idea where he was. My father tried to console her, but would hide himself away and cry in secret. He withdrew after that, avoiding the house where Enes had disappeared and stopped talking. Before all this he would get angry or laugh. The tragedy is, my brother was not the first to go. More than ten of our close relations left. None of them came back. We’re a family in the midst of a conflict. When one dies, the next one goes up into the mountains.

Is this tradition – this weighty legacy – ever questioned?

Yildiz: Those who go, vanish in an instant. They don’t say anything. We tried to find out if anyone was preparing to leave as soon as another one died. But that's not possible because the person often leaves in secret, without giving an explanation. And even in my generation – which rejects armed struggle – no one feels able question a decision of this kind. All we have is this profound pain. Ultimately, I do not want any mother or father to have to go through the death of their child; even in war. As soon as someone disappears, the mothers begin painstakingly trawling through news reports. Why?

To find out if their child is among the dead. Then there are serious disputes between the mothers themselves. Those whose children are in the mountains, or who have lost children, generally support a peaceful solution, demonstrate against the war and hope that it ends, while other mothers are fighting to stop their children disappearing in the first place. It’s not the mothers who are sending their children to the PKK. Nor does the PKK come into the villages and simply take the children away, as is often claimed. It is the violence and oppression that the state has established in the East which leads children and young men to leave their families without a word and join the fight.

The film shows your mother knitting a jumper for her son who has disappeared and whom she will soon see again, laughing to herself as she wonders whether it will fit him. There is no kiss in the goodbye scene. Mother and son sit side-by-side in the car. Your mother leans over and all Enes can do is accept the intense physical closeness, unmoving. Did your mother cry afterwards?

Yildiz: She’s stronger than I am. She recovered quickly. The borders were closed, so we had to present ourselves to the Turkish gendarmerie in order to enter. We were expecting that I would be arrested, so another of my brothers planned to pick my mother up at the border. At that point, she said to me [laughs]: if they take you in, I’ll wait in the gendarmerie garden until they let you go.

When it comes to physical closeness, militants like my brother are forced to change. They have few family ties, their thoughts and behaviour are focused entirely on the organisation. But that doesn’t mean he’s happy.

The film was shown last summer at the Documentary Film Festival in Istanbul. What was the reaction?

Yildiz: There was an enormous amount of interest. The room was fit to bursting and the film won the prize for best documentary. People were amazed that a film could be made under such difficult circumstances and wanted to know whether there were legal issues.

And have there been?

Yildiz: None so far. I’m still waiting [laughs]. I don’t know when it will happen. This coming March, I’m going to be in Batman and other Kurdish towns in the east of Turkey. There are bound to be difficulties there.

What sort of difficulties?

Yildiz: The usual – criminal charges, accusations of propaganda, arrests.

You don’t seem particularly troubled by this.

Yildiz: The human rights situation in Turkey has been incredibly poor for the past four years. We’re talking about a country where the justice system has died a death. But I’m not afraid, because I haven’t done anything illegal. I will defend myself, and tell the truth. It’s not a crime to make a film about certain real life events. There’s nothing for me to run away from, no reason for me to leave my country. Every mother has the right to see her child. It’s about people’s right to existence. There is no legal basis on which to arrest me.

And yet, the film represents a broken taboo.

Yildiz: Yes, it’s still a taboo for a section of society. But it is a gradual process, in which small impulses can change the overall picture.

Interview by Semiran Kaya

© Qantara.de 2020

Translated from the German by Ayca Turkoglu