From the sky, everything looks simple. But on the ground—especially in the Middle East—nothing is as simple as it seems. Reality is often constructed through a single divide: us and them.
A city is bombed, and it is called “security.” The same scene, told differently, becomes “resistance.” The words change, but the landscape remains the same: rubble, sirens, silence…
The language of war is written long before the bombs fall. The missiles now flying over Iran were scripted much earlier—behind closed doors, over maps. For those seated at the tables, cities became dots, people became numbers. Events are simplified to the point of a child’s tale: labeled as “stability” or “threat.”
In such a framework, questioning becomes impossible. Once a society is coded as a “threat,” every path connected to it is redirected elsewhere.
The issue ceases to be political; it becomes a matter of security. And when security takes over, ethics and boundaries dissolve. People are no longer seen as vulnerable—they become targets. This is the oldest trick of modern warfare: placing human beings directly in the line of fire.
For years, Iran has been portrayed within this narrow frame—a one-dimensional threat. One color, one voice, one dimension. This narrative has been repeated so often that history itself has faded: interventions, coups, long wars… all reduced to footnotes.
The more a story is simplified, the easier it becomes to legitimize violence. The same logic unfolded in Palestine: the world split into two poles. One side’s “fear” was made absolute; the other’s very “existence” became a problem. Law was suspended, conscience postponed, and truth displaced.
But this “other” does more than distort reality—it makes war possible. The moment you say “them,” their pain ceases to be your concern. Yes, the Iranian regime is authoritarian—I oppose it. But dismissing a nation of 92 million people is no less unjust.
This mechanism operates in Turkey as well. People are coded through political or religious labels; they are othered with terms like “F.TÖ.” Innocence becomes measured by the power of the label. A group is marked as a “threat” in the memory of the state and society. Debate is pushed out of sight, into whispers in coffee corners, and evolves into systematic pressure.
Still, it would be unfair to see Iran solely as a victim. A system built on internal repression and external tension carries its own responsibilities. But this truth does not erase another: destruction does not bring freedom.
What we are witnessing today is not merely a war; it is a threshold where it is decided who counts as human. The world still speaks the same old language: us and them. But for those buried beneath these narratives, there is no difference. A child under the rubble in Palestine and a silenced youth in the street share no ideological distance. Both are crushed within boundaries drawn by others.
In these narratives, the human being has no name—only a place. Their value shifts depending on which side they stand on. One death becomes mourning; another becomes a statistic. What matters is not who dies, but who does the killing. And so, a life is reduced to a number. No one sees the contradiction. Everyone looks only at their own numbers.
And still, we continue to believe in these stories—stories that decide who lives and who dies. We accept the othering of some as a necessity of order.
What a tragedy…
