idea manufacturer, general director of the dream factory
1- THE STATE DOESN’T PLACE BOMBS
2- TO PLACE A PIPE-BOMB LIKE AN AMATEUR, ISN’T IN THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE
3- THE STATE APPROVES LAWS
4- THE STATE MURDERS LAWFULLY
5- THE STATE DOES NOT BREAK INTO APARTMENT, IT IMPOSES TAX
6- THE STATE DOES NOT WRITE „ROMAS TO INDIA“ ON THE PIPE-BOMBS
7- THE STATE SENDS THE PEOPLE ON THE LEGAL WAY TO INDIA
8- MURDER HAVE NO STATE PATIENCE, WHAT THE STATE DOES WITH THE LAWS, THE MURDERS DO WITH THE PIPE-BOMBS
Hüseyin Isik, January 1996, Vienna
OBERWART'95
Question: What is the difference between a pipe bomb and the Residence Act?
Answer: The first kills quickly and painlessly; the second kills slowly and with much pain.
ROMA IN MY LIFE
The tamers of dancing bears.
Flower sellers.
People gathering coal from ashes.
The laughter of Romni girls on the last Line 25 bus to Sarıyer.
The tinsmiths.
Beggars, fortune-tellers.
Old women selling dried cloves and unripe figs, with children on their laps.
Roma from Çayırbaşı.
Roma from Kuştepe.
Roma from Sulukule, whom I don’t know.
The Roma neighborhood in Gelibolu.
The cry of the Roma taxi driver, locked with us in the Büyükdere dungeon (1976):
“I’ll really start stealing, brother. We’re always guilty.”
The most beautiful girl from Feriköy High School, Yurdanur.
Class-shifting Roma who deny their heritage.
The executioners.
Roma who have no place in Muslim cemeteries, nor in Christian ones.
Time of the Gypsies is the most beautiful time.
Concentration camps I’ve only heard and read about, but never seen.
Roma musicians I tracked down in Istanbul.
In Istanbul, I never heard true Roma music, except for Mastika.
In Vienna, the title “Roma musician” isn’t easily bestowed.
Here, Roma aren’t called “Gypsies”—they are Roma, Sinti, and others.
A sign – ROMA TO INDIA –
This sign is attached to a pipe.
The pipe is, in fact, a bomb.
It’s a trap.
The Roma cannot go to India.
They mingle with the earth.
They die where they were born.
Rome is an empire.
Why should Romans go to India?
Caesar is no longer alive.
The makers of the pipe bomb want the Roma to go to India.
But the dead cannot go to India.
“Römer” comes from Rome.
Here, we first called the Turks, then the Greeks, “Rum.”
Istanbul was Eastern Rome.
I was born in the east of Eastern Rome. Geostet.
The great poet Mevlana Celaleddin was also a Rum.
Then there’s also a liquor called rum,
which sailors drink.
But the dead cannot go to Rome, nor to India,
they cannot go anywhere, nor drink rum.
THE STATE ARRIVES –
CLEARS AWAY THE DEAD
Before it clears away the dead, it searches their homes.
Why didn’t they go to India? – Perhaps death is cheaper there.