Anadolu [English translation]

I have given cradles to Noah

swings and hammocks,

Eve seems a child of yesterday,

I am Anatolia,

do you know ?

Ashamed I am,

Ashamed of poverty,

Naked in the eyes of others...

Cold are my sprouts,

Few my harvest.

Lonely I am

In the land of brotherhood,

Workmanship and unity,

Where roses of atoms bloom,

In a world of poets and tyrants,

Left desolate by myself,

Alone and a far,

Do you comprehend ?

Drained I have been for thousands of years,

My roy slumbers have been crushed by their appalling horses,

Tycoons, Tyrants and assailants released extortions upon me.

Neither have I regarded Alexander,

Nor a sultan,

All have migrated shadowless!

Greeted thou I have my fellow,

and have withstood...

Do you see ?

How I cherished Koroglu,

Karayilan and the nameless soldier...

And so Pir sultan and Bedrettin.

Many unwritten,

So many loved ones...

Only if you knew how they have loved me,

If you knew the rifle bearer of the minarets,

The barricades and the cypress branches,

Of how they frowned in the face of death.

Surely I wish you knew

Do you hear ?

Do not grief yourself,

Do not sadden nor do forlorn,

Inside or out , at school or at work,

Walk upon the sight, stand!

Spit on the face of the executioner,

The opportunist, the sinister and the traitor...

Withstand with your books,

Withstand with your work,

With your teeth and claws,

Withstand with hope,

With love and with thought,

Withstand! do not a-shame me.

Witness how I am reborn in your honorable hands.

Daughters and sons I have yet to arrive,

All irrefutable pieces of this world,

Buds to sprout of how many thousand years of longing,

From your eyes,

From your eyes I greet you...

You are my only hope,

Do you understand ?

• Artist:Ahmed Arif