The Story of an Unpublished News Piece By Emre KIZILKAYA

In the year 1999, I, as an aspiring Turkish , was eager to write a touching news piece about the Balkan in .

I completed the piece in a month, but it was never published.

In this essay, I would like to tell you the story of this unpublished news piece, which could be read as the personal aspect of the mutual cooperation in Southeast .

* * *

It all started in May 1999.

I was a young, wanna-be journalist who ended up at the photo exhibition of Bikem Ekberzade, the only Turkish woman who is a war correspondent. Bikem, as a great guide, encouraged me to search around for the stories myself. After I insisted that I wanted to go to a “real battleground,” she tried to put a bridle on this over-excited youth. “There are different forms of war,” she said. “No need to go to or Belgrade for now. You can find on-going wars in , if you look good for them.”

This is how I made my personal discovery about the camps and the immigrant districts of Istanbul.

With my simple tape recorder and my cheap camera, I wandered around the UNHCR offices and refugee camps in Istanbul. In the European part of the city, I went to Yenibosna (New Bosnia) district, which was founded by Bosnian immigrants in the 1930’s and I searched for a story in Arnavutkoy (Albanian village) in the Asian side.

It took two weeks to get a line on the story and it became possible only after I met Ramiz, an 18-year- old Albanian who had recently fled Kosovo. With his parents and two sisters, Ramiz was staying in a temporary refugee shelter in the western part of Istanbul. Soon I started to visit them every three days.

I was almost peers with Ramiz, so we were getting along well with him. He was a great story-teller. As he told me about the memories that he lived all the way down from the war-torn Balkan mountains to the shabby ghettos of Istanbul, I was enchanted. He made me smell the gunpowder; he made me feel the pain of the gunshot wound. However, what struck me most was his “developing story.”

Ramiz admitted that he fell in love with a Serbian girl, Senka. Surprisingly, Senka, who was also a refugee, was living a couple of blocks away from Ramiz. He explained to me what an impossible love it was: “A Kosovar Albanian boy and a beautiful Serbian gal... Neither her nor my family could let us,” he told desperately. “Even though she really liked me, I guess.”

As Ramiz told me more about Senka, thoughts of a great story enticed me away. Without informing Ramiz, I would find her the next day.

* * * Having the address in my hand, I took the road in the afternoon and found where Senka was living. It was an apartment in a new building. Compared to the place in which Ramiz was living, her home was as cozy as it could be.

Senka welcomed me after I rang the doorbell. I introduced myself and told her that I wanted to write a story about Balkan refugees and immigrants in Istanbul, without mentioning anything about Ramiz.

Then came her mother and they both invited me inside. We sat in the balcony. Senka, this girl who has been in Turkey for less than a year, was so fluent in Turkish. Her mother was struggling to understand us and Senka was helping her to catch up. Serving two cups of lemonade, the mother left us alone.

Senka was as gorgeous as the hues of Istanbul skies. Whenever she was changing the subject, she was letting the waves of her black hair fall like flowers from paradise. She was a couple of years younger than me and I could see why Ramiz had fallen in love with this young lady.

Senka told me that her mother and her uncle had fled Serbia during the war and she didn’t know the whereabouts of her father now as she couldn’t even hear his voice for several months. She, with her heart like a full sponge, wept despairingly.

The rest of Senka’s family was in Turkey now, relying on the support that the Turkish friend of her uncle provided them. While her uncle and her mother were trying to find a job, she was getting ready to continue her high school education in Turkey.

I could notice that her mind was beaten to the ground by the catastrophes in her childhood. However, even in these harsh conditions, she seemed cheerful to me. Her Pollyannaish optimism proved that not only was she beautiful in appearance, but also in her heart.

Playing my part as the dewy-eyed journalist, I began to tell about my previous interviewees, avoiding the mention of Ramiz’s name. “A couple of days ago, I talked to a Kosovar boy who lives a couple of blocks aways from here,” I uttered naively. “Ummm, what was his name? I forgot...”

“Ramiz? Was he Ramiz,” she asked curiously. I observed that her lips loosened in a shyly exultant smile. The warm kindling blood rubefied her cheeks like the breath of a Bosphorus wind.

“So you know him,” I said listlessly. “I would like to bring all the interviewees together and take a photo for my story.”

She didn’t speak for a while. Then she decided to explain why it was hard for them to be together as their families of different nationalities and religions would oppose it, about how much she liked Ramiz the first time she talked to him in the supermarket, about how good it could be if it was easier. A tear, or maybe a piece of crystal, glistened in the corner of her eye.

I finished my lemonade after a last sip, leaving the ice cubes clinking at the bottom of the glass. Taking a deep breath, I set my eyes over Senka’s mother, who was sitting in the kitchen that was seperated from us by the balcony window. She came to the balcony instantly with the lemonade pitcher in her hand.

“Some more,” she asked kindly. “May I ask for something else, madam,” I uttered. Under the fearful gaze of Senka, I expounded the problem with Ramiz. “I just wish to take their photo for my story, if you can let them,” I said to the mother. “Who said that I didn’t allow her,” she asked me surprisingly through the interpration of Senka. “Her uncle is a bit of old-fashioned, but who cares? Women are the boss of this household. Don’t they, Senka?”

A nodding Senka smiled like dew upon the roses warmed and melted by the morning sun. She finally had an opportunity to raise the subject to her mother and guaranteed her protection.

Both in a professional and in an amateur way, I had done what I should have done. It was work and it was charity at the same time. I was ecstatically happy while going back home after a second cup of lemonade with Senka and her mother. We were ready for the meeting of the coming week.

* * *

During the shooting in front of a refugee association in the Bosphorus, I witness the sparkling love between Senka and Ramiz. They were so joyful to find themselves in a place together, away from the worries of being condemned by their families.

They told me their stories, rooting back in the geographically close, but socially distant origins, criss- crossing several times in Serbia, in Bulgaria and in Turkey... They elucidated the different challenges that they families have been (and are still) confronting. They told about war and peace, nightmares and dreams, despair and hope, yesterday and tomorrow. They looked into each other’s eyes bashfully and then, confidently, they directed their blessed sights on me. I shook my head with a smile, still shooting photos and taking notes.

After I added the title, “A Tale of Two Refugees,” my news piece was finally done. Even though I was totally satisfied with it, it would never be published because of some unfortunate events in Turkey which stole the possible interest of media outlets for a long while.

Though, I believe that it was worth striving for. What other story can bear such a symbolic meaning? Aren’t Senka and Ramiz the most eminent reality to prove that the dialogue and cooperation is indeed possible in its purest form in Southeast Europe?

When I have been told the good news in April 2005, I knew for certain that the answer of this question was definitely “YES.” Through a postcard with words of gratitude, Senka and Ramiz was announcing that they were in Kosovo and about to marry in a month! Senka was a model and Ramiz was a writer now. Everybody in their families was glad and even the old guard, Senka’s uncle, was convinced that this was their path to happiness.

I couldn’t participate in their wedding, but whenever I think of Senka and Ramiz, the memories of the past slowly move off and disappear like shapes breathed on a mirror. If you ask me the readiness and ability of the people of this region to take responsibility for their future, I would point them out.

A difficult teenage love started in the Bosphorus, the border of Southeast Europe, bore mature fruits of happiness in Serbia and Kosovo, abolishing the virtual borders between us, who could naturally live in a climate of tolerance and encouragement that could not even be dreamed in this region a decade ago.