🕯️ The Name He Took, the Name He Hid
Tayyip Erdoğan says
he is a child of Rize,
born of tea leaves and Turkish soil,
wrapped in crescent moons and minarets,
loyal to the call of the muezzin,
a son of Islam.
But the earth beneath Rize
speaks older tongues.
The wind from the mountains
does not say “Turk,”
does not say “Muslim.”
It murmurs Tbilisi,
it remembers
names written in Hebrew and Georgian,
not Arabic script.
There are no minarets
in the blood that shaped him,
only the echoes of old songs
sung in candlelight,
by Georgian Jews
who lived quiet,
but never vanished.
And so,
he must become Muslim.
Loud.
Unyielding.
Because the silence inside him
shakes.
Because to be Muslim
is power.
To be Muslim
is shield.
To be Muslim
is permission
to erase what came before.
So he builds his name
like a fortress,
stone by stone:
Tayyip
Recep
Erdoğan
But the stones beneath
are not his.
He says “ummah,”
but his shadow says “diaspora.”
He says “one nation,”
but his blood holds many.
He walks through marble halls,
but behind him,
his shadow walks barefoot
through stories
he dares not tell.
And if you speak of them,
he will call you a liar.
But truth is older than fear.
And blood does not forget
the names we bury.