As a person who tends to see the glass as a whole and usually keeps a realistic stance, these days it feels almost impossible to keep up with what is happening around the world.
Lola Daviet from France, Mattia Ahmet Minguzzi from Türkiye, Meya Åberg from Sweden…
Too much pain to hold. And we are not even their acquaintances.
When someone commits brutal harm, they do not only steal a life — they destroy the worlds of everyone who loved that life, who would love that life, and everyone and everything that life would touch.
What feels even more disturbing is how people have started to sympathize more with the offender than with the victim.
Consciously or not, victim-blaming has become a silent trend. Even when there is no open blame, some people somehow tend to devalue the victim’s place, as if suffering deserved to be examined before believed.
Whenever such nightmares come to light, certain circles immediately start scanning both sides — weighing them as if morality could be balanced like a scale. “That side had this; the other side had that…”
Yes, we all go through harsh experiences. Each person is unique — psychologically, biologically, and socio-economically. But none of these differences justify doing harm. Choosing evil is always the easiest.
There are endless academic and scientific discussions about these issues, but here I speak simply as an ordinary person — one who tries to digest all these stories and comments that pass through her daily life.
Over-sympathizing would not be such a problem if it weren’t always directed towards offenders.
Being a minority, an immigrant, or a local gives no justification for cruelty. Humanity does not work by exceptions.
During Mattia Ahmet’s hearing, one of the suspects’ attorneys said: “It was Ahmet’s bad luck that he was around the suspects that day.”
Is it that simple? Has life become such a fragile accident? Is it normal to be a target of a hunting ideology in the middle of daily life? Really?
It often feels like governments are deliberately choosing not to protect their citizens.
When justice becomes selective, protection turns into privilege. And privileges, by their nature, exclude.
If states over-protect certain sects of society, communities will inevitably over-react to those same sects. Simple logic 101.
When justice fails to reflect fairness, it does not only harm the victims — it weakens the moral spine of a whole society.
Each lenient decision, each ignored case, silently tells people that innocence has less value than power.
And once people stop believing in justice, they stop believing in each other.
Of course, this loss of trust does not happen overnight. It grows every time the media wraps cruelty in words that soften its weight — every time headlines frame victims through endless “ifs” and “buts,” as if they must earn their right to be protected.
When injustice is repeated often enough, people begin to see it as ordinary.
We must refuse to internalize such reasoning. Because every time we excuse cruelty, we make it easier for the next cruelty to happen.
And criticism alone will never be enough unless it leads us to seek solutions — not only through laws, but through our shared conscience.
Since reading this news, I have not been able to calm the sorrow inside me.
When I watched Meya’s trembling speech on national TV, all I wanted was to reach out and hug her — even though I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
People always assume it will be someone else’s tragedy. But the circle is getting smaller and smaller each day.
Sooner or later, the distance between “them” and “us” disappears.
We should remember the simplest truth about life. Put history, politics, and all the rest aside for a moment.
We are all humans who long for a serene life lived with dignity. Learn to protect your own sense of integrity.
As Aristophanes once said: “A man’s homeland is wherever he prospers.”
Respect the boundaries of the place you live in. Respect your surroundings — whether they are living beings or artificial ones.
And show tolerance to those who are doing their best to belong, to find their place in the community they are trying to be part of.
Because peace does not come from similarity. It comes from coexistence.
May we let all these innocent souls rest in peace, through our honest efforts to build a just and humane world.
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Between Everywhere and Nowhere 
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