"given to the earth"

"Given to the earth" is a literal translation of the Turkish idiom for being buried ("toprağa verildi"), which is seen often in Turkish (and especially Kurdish) news outlets reporting on the endless war between the PKK and the Turkish government.  In these papers and websites, someone is always being "given to the earth," as if the dirt of Anatolia felt an insatiable hunger for human flesh.  I made this musical collage in about a week, combining images from a multitude of online sources and Philip Glass's haunting music for "The Hours."  W.H. Auden famously wrote that "poetry makes nothing happen," and he was probably right.  If this minor attempt at art results in anything, it is likely to be only a transient sense of awe. Turkey's police state remains the same.  Formerly it was run by the "security forces" in collusion with statist prosecutors and judges, and the ever-changing "democratically-elected" governments only pretended to rule.  Now the "deep state," as it is known, is under new ownership.  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AK Party play at being democrats, just as before, but as 2012 begins they have convincingly taken over the machinery of repression.  My few readers will know current events in Turkey as well as I.  If my brief video collage survives in "the valley of its saying" (Auden again) for a day or two, that will have to suffice.