“Today, it is clear that Adana and the whole country need policies that unite over common social values rather than polarizing and alienating policies based on ethnic and social differences. The language that will take the country forward is this kind of language. Everyone should pay attention to this.”
In the municipal elections in March 2014, the acquisition of the Seyhan Municipality by the main opposition CHP in Adana after a long time has made not only a part of the society happy but also all the groups that had conditioned their hope to social democracy. Zeydan Karalar was the biggest player in the acquisition af the municipality. In contrast to other districts of Adana, in the districts where mostly Arab Alevis and Kurds reside, ministrations were naturally left incomplete by the previous administration. Adana Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Zeydan Karalar closed this deficiency and brought all the facilities of the municipality to the neighborhoods and offered the ministrations equally. In fact, it is an objective reality that he does not have an ethnic attitude and behavior in the municipal staff. There is no single-side attitude in both the administrative staff and the distribution of other personnel. This is also evident numerically. People who slander to the Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Zeydan, actually act sectarian and commit hate crimes. The equal and high-quality ministrations offered to the district, which has been deprived of the attention of the municipality in Seyhan for many years, this service has increased the trust to the Mayor not only by the people in the district but also in whole Adana and carried him to the Metropolitan Municipality. These ministrations, which were tried to be carried out without prejudice and indiscriminate were not limited to the Seyhan, some services were tried to be carried out to the whole Adana within the framework of the possibilities. In addition to municipal services, Mayor Zeydan established healthy dialogue with unions, public assemblies, civil initiatives, chambers, scientists, intellectuals, artists and associations. This dialogue increased the efficiency, diversity, and satisfaction in the services of the municipality and opened the way for meeting the larger categories. As it can be understood from the works done, so much work has been carried out which puts sociality in the center without distinction between political differences, religion, sect, ethnic identity, and people wanted to see him in a more comprehensive place as a reward for this effort. When the size and social equivalent of the works were beyond expectations, Mayor Zeydan was consciously tried to be worn down and he was targeted. The perception of being treated according to the ethnic identity, which is intended to be created before the election, is wanted to be maintained in a way that does not slow down for some reason today. It is unacceptable to dismantle hundreds of good works done in the past and compress this into the shallow evaluation and ethnic identity-based analysis and to convert it into the liquidation of the Arab Alevis in particular by using their present position and power by some segments internalizing this situation. Mayor Zeydan has been and will be in a position to protect the equality of the basic practices of the staff that will contribute to social peace as formerly in Seyhan, today in Adana. Although Mayor Zeydan does not have that kind of style, it is not acceptable to suggest that he is concsciously involved in ethnic structuring. In addition to such analyses, some initiatives in Seyhan during this period especially upset Arab Alevis. And the fact that they see that the real discrimination is done by their own political party representatives, which prepares the grounds for social traumas. While the overwhelming majority of the votes for the Republican People’s Party CHP, received in Seyhan and Adana were given by this section, according to Mayor Zeydan, those who hurt this society, those ignore the labor and effort of this society should know that history remembers those who unite, not the ones polarize them. It is clear that Adana and the whole country need policies that unite over common social values rather than polarizing and alienating policies based on ethnic and social differences. The language that will take the country forward is this kind of language. Everyone should pay attention to this. From now on, the attempts to disrupt social peace, to harm the heterogeneous structure in Adana, to trigger political polarizaiton and to lead to factionalities within the organization are useless to anyone. Translated by Atakan Hüyük
