Wild Pigs as Liberation Symbols

ingilizce links to original Turkish newspaper article

(Hürriyet Daily News, 28 November 2017)


Historians resorting to  "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" theory
to figure out the symbolism.

A Turkish district has marked its anniversary of freedom from 

invasion with a parade of hunted boars, causing outrage among

animal rights activists.  Hunters in the Enez district of the western

province of Edirne paraded with the boars they killed during a 

ceremony organized to mark the 95th anniversary of the district’s 

freedom from invasion on Nov. 24.

Enez District Governor Elif Canan Tuncer Ersöz, main opposition 

Republican People’s Party (CHP) Edirne lawmakers Okan 

Gaytancıoğlu and Erdin Bircan, Enez Mayor Abdullah Bostancı 

from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and 

representatives of political parties, as well as citizens, attended 

the ceremony, in which a parade took place after a speech by 

Bostancı.

The Enez Hunters’ Club’s parade was the most attention-grabbing one,

with dead boars loaded on trucks passing through the ceremony area,

 prompting animal rights groups to object to the incident.

“Did we save this country from enemy invasion by killing animals?”

said Enez Protection of Natural Life, Environment and Stray Animals

Association head Selma Yılmaz, as she added that the parade

“showed killing as a legitimate act.”

“We are obliged to live with such narrow minded, shallow and 

barbaric people. This is a mindset that kills boars and exhibits them

on a day of liberation and takes pride in it. Children are being 

raised in this type of environment. Killing is shown as if it’s a 

legitimate act.” said Yılmaz. 

Enez is at far left, on the Greece-Turkey border.