Living in Limbo: Shifting the Perspective
by Arzu Yildiz
In creative writing classes, there is a method called “multiple perspectives.” This technique involves shifting the point of view, embracing polyphony—where every character produces their own truth—and asking the core question: Who is seeing this? Ultimately, this method aims to show us that truth cannot be imposed; it shatters moral certainties and collapses the question of who is "right." The reader ceases to be a judge and transforms into a witness.
For example, imagine a robbery in a market. You first tell the story from the thief’s perspective, then from the shopkeeper’s, and finally through the eyes of a customer who happened to be there. The story changes from person to person, and the concepts of right and wrong become open to question.
I mention this because it isn’t just a writing technique; it is a reality of life. Truth, purpose, morality, or justice can shift places based on a person’s experiences. Our rights can be wrongs, our perceived justice can be injustice, and what we call morality can be immorality. We can only understand this when we place ourselves in different positions.
Between 2008 and 2013, I worked as a court reporter in Turkey. At that time, I believed that laws protected people and that we must obey them. I thought judges and journalists served the same purpose: not just to find a culprit, but to uncover the truth. Following this belief, I prepared extensive investigative files on corruption, arms smuggling, unsolved murders, drug trafficking, and the mafia. I was certain that no one was above the law. Yet, because of the stories I wrote—despite committing no crime and never being accused of reporting falsehoods—it was I who was prosecuted, not those named in my reports.
That was when my belief that "no one is above the law" was shattered by the reality that "some can be left beneath the law."
The judges were crushed under the law. The law was smothered by the power of politics, weapons, and money.
On July 15, 2016, during the operations against dissidents, I realized that torture was being committed. When I wrote on social media that "torture is a crime against humanity," a warrant was issued for my arrest.
As Gustav Radbruch once said, I began to ask for the first time: "What if the laws themselves are lawless?" On November 3, 2016, I was forced to leave my country through illegal means. To do this, I had to contact human traffickers. While crossing the border between Greece and Turkey with them, my story shifted—just like the "multiple perspectives" method in creative writing. I became another person. This new person believed in things diametrically opposed to what I, the former court reporter, had believed. Truth and morality became questionable. If you are innocent yet the system imposes guilt upon you—if the law is no longer a force behind you but an obstacle in front of you—then the trafficker is no longer a criminal; they become a savior.
As a court reporter, if I had learned that a human trafficker was being brought to court, I might have depicted them as a monster. But when I became dependent on one, surrendering my hope for freedom to them, I realized that they were not the ones to blame. The ones to blame were the systems that created them. Every profession arises from a need, and the primary goal is to make money. Money doesn't just go into the pockets of traffickers; it flows, directly or indirectly, into the coffers of states. People may get stuck between borders, but money always finds its way inside.
Reality shifted. My faith in justice was shaken. I saw that laws could turn from a source of peace and welfare into a threat to one’s safety.
Later, I was placed in a refugee camp in Greece. I stayed there for 17 days. To those who don’t know, a refugee camp might be pictured as a mere stopover or a place of displacement. But there, a positive reality confronts you. There is no national flag, no anthem, no specific faith, no color, and not even a sense of belonging to the soil. It is a space representing pure humanity, devoid of "sacred" markers. The "equality" we always talk about but can never truly feel exists only in a refugee camp. There, everyone is truly equal. This isn't an equality of wealth or law; it is an equality born of uncertainty, loss of memory, placelessness, and the shedding of belonging. Staying there made me feel remarkably good—a feeling I have never experienced again since leaving.
This isn't an eulogy for forced migration or camps. In those camps, purportedly built by the United Nations, you might wake up with a rat in your bed. You are given a few drops of shampoo in a plastic cup to bathe. Portions of food are tiny. There is no hygiene, no dignity in the conditions. Yet, human emotions emerge with startling clarity. Looking at the children, the elderly, and the sick, I asked myself: "I was a journalist; I got into trouble because of my writing. The state knew me and didn't want me. But there were people there whose names the state didn't even know, yet whose lives it had changed forever." I told myself: "I’m glad I ended up here. If I had tried to enter as a journalist, they probably wouldn't have let me. But I entered, I stayed, and I understood."
I believe every world leader should be sent to these camps for a month. Only then could they understand the consequences of their politics.
Once you stay there, you continue to live there even after you leave. Flags, slogans, anthems, official holidays, and religions do not exist. Only what is left of a human being remains. You communicate with people whose language you don't know; you share the same table and the same bed. You form a bond in the first 24 hours that you couldn't even form with your own family. It isn't heaven or hell; it's like the square of Limbo.
You realize that a state's values are merely arguments used to unite its own people, but also tools used to create the power and conviction to segregate others. To survive, the state convinces its own citizens using these materials, but in doing so, it destroys humanity. It builds walls so that people cannot empathize with one another.
Today, popular culture makes it difficult to distinguish between those who truly defend human rights and those who don't. Everyone uses the title, but we rarely discuss who a "rights defender" really is. If a person defends a state, a color, a faith, or a society they belong to, is that rights advocacy? I think that is self-defense. A true rights defender is someone who defends the rights of those completely opposite to them. Defending a right is not the same as defending an ideology or a religion. One is an explanation of oneself; the other is an explanation of "the other." Just like in literature, it shifts the perspective and questions the truth.
State laws appear to aim for internal peace. But because laws are produced by politicians, they often respond to the needs of the ruling power rather than the needs of the people.
Equality does not exist between a poor person who cannot pay bail and a wealthy person who can. A suspect entering a courtroom with a million-dollar lawyer cannot be equal to one represented by a state-appointed lawyer they only saw for a few free sessions. Laws state that "all people are born equal," but they are not.
Laws do not always deserve the respect we are taught to give them.
As long as you stay in the same place and the same position, life shows you the story in the same way, and you remain like a judge. You blame others most, and your own truths least.
But when you shift your place, the story changes.
The truths change. You change.
I now earn my living as a driver in Canada. When I talk to my passengers about the wars and poverty in the world, I often hear the sentence, "We are so lucky to be here." This unsettles me deeply. We aren't in "a place"; we are in a world. Being witnesses to this means none of us are lucky. In fact, this rhetoric is a form of denial centered on one's own comfort. Since we will all die and nothing is permanent, the world itself is a refugee camp; everything will be buried with us. I suppose those who believe they live in "a place" will die in that place and go to those places called heaven or hell. People like me will die in the refugee camp; we won't be in heaven or hell—we will be in Limbo.