Ece Temelkuran: "To survive I had to put my heart in the freezer"

BarcelonaEce Temelkuran was Turkey's most widely read journalist. In 2016, after receiving death and rape threats, she decided to leave the country permanently. Now, a decade later, she explores the pain of homelessness in The Nation of Strangers (Anagrama 2026), and appeals to all those who have been left exposed – also morally exposed – to unite against a world that is increasingly giving way to fascism. She is in Barcelona to participate in a meeting of ICORN, the International Network of Cities of Refuge.

How does a country go from democracy to dictatorship? For a long time we believed that Europe was a safe place and now we realize that perhaps it isn't so safe anymore?

— That's what my first book, How to Lose a Country, was about. When I left, they expected me to explain my story, or the story of Turkey, but I wanted to tell Europe: "This will happen to you." As you say, it was considered a safe place, and the rest of the countries – India, Turkey – were seen as immature democracies where anything could happen. Shortly after, Europe began to witness similar things. But it took them a long time to recognize that it was not just about "bad elections," but that it was a systemic trend and that it had come to stay.

He says that what really drives him to leave is not just the regime, but that those whom he considered his own people are switching to the other side.

— Many people think you lose your home when you leave the country, whereas, in reality, you lose your home when these things start happening around you: political discourse changes, personal relationships change, and power shifts to the far right. That's when you feel you're no longer safe, when you start feeling you're not at home in your own land. At that moment, the only thing that can make you feel at home is your friends and the people who think and act like you. When these people switch sides or normalize the situation, you feel like you're alone in the middle of a bad joke. That's the most painful part. People think it's out of fear that people leave their country. No, I think it's out of lack of support from your side.

What is it like to be an exile?

— It's a painful experience, of course. But the other side of the coin is that it's liberating. It's a lesson in humility. You experience what it is to "be nobody." Then you know who you really are, without all the privileges, without the security, without the resume. Yes, it humbles you. And that's why I constantly talk about humility in the book. This humility – when you are nobody, when you accept loss – is very necessary today in the world. To stop pretending, to leave the political and moral theater. We need this humility. Accepting it is painful, but also liberating.

Use the word unhomed (homeless) in a moral sense. What do you think is the cause of this shared feeling?

— I have established a parallel between people who have truly lost their homes and those who find themselves "morally homeless" in these times. When I left Turkey, I felt that, in order to survive, I shouldn't feel anything, that I had to be strong; that I had to "put my heart in the freezer," to anaesthetize myself so as not to feel pain. And I see that the same happens with all the people who, for example, see what is happening in Gaza. But I also want to tell people that, if they feel this way, if they feel morally homeless, they are actually the majority, because the majority of humanity feels this way at this moment.

Was talking about Gaza. Is it a point of no return for the moral legitimacy of the West?

— The moral authority of the West has been undermined for a long time, especially after the invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s. But Gaza has been the last straw. It has been the first time in human history that we have seen genocide live, we have seen dehumanization live. I think it has been an experiment to see what the world could swallow, and the world has shown that it can swallow many things, especially the Western world. The narrative of "bringing democracy to the world" was unmasked a long time ago, but now it has become a bad joke.

The book says that the first thing we have to do is stop pretending. Are we living in a simulation?

— We live in a parallel universe. Europe and the United States have enjoyed the privilege and illusion of believing that we can return to the old days, that democracy will be as it was in the 90s and that everything will continue as always. I think it's time to abandon this theater. Nothing will be the same again... Now we are living the pain of this change, and the extreme right is one of the symptoms of this great shake-up. But if we could truly embrace the "here and now", we would understand that we are all in survival mode, that we are all homeless, and that we are fighting to rebuild this home morally, politically, and even physically.

Let's talk about Turkey. Is the imprisonment of Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, the end of democracy in the country?

— This regime, more than anything else, has destroyed our sense of belonging. It has changed Turkey in such a way that all those who are against the regime feel homeless, insecure because, like Ekrem Imamoglu, they can be imprisoned, threatened... That such magnificent people as Ekrem Imamoglu, Selahattin Demirtas, or Osman Kavala are imprisoned means that what they say and do is terrifying to the regime. And I believe they will soon achieve their goal. Soon the moral, political, and good people of Turkey will return. I am absolutely sure that as soon as Turkey becomes a safer place for critical people again, the great brain drain that has occurred since 2016 will be reversed.

What do you think of Erdogan selling himself as a "peacemaker" between Iran and the US?

— Many people in Turkey would smile bitterly if they were told that Erdogan is a peacemaker. I remember Ali Ismail Korkmaz and Berkin Elvan. Do these names ring a bell? Berkin Elvan was 15 years old when the police killed him during the Gezi uprising [2013 protests]. And Erdogan saying in front of thousands of people that he was a terrorist and that his family was too, just after they had lost their son. Ali Ismail Korkmaz, 19 years old, was beaten to death, and Erdogan also called him a terrorist. This guy is now the face of world peace.