Archived Nation articles

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The Turkish Mother

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. ( Anthony and Cleopatra 2.2.244)

An-ne, the Mother, is a veritable institution in Turkey. Turks are glued to their mobile phones not least because at some moment in the day An-ne will call and the obedient son or daughter (mostly the latter) must be standing to attention. If it is already late in the afternoon, the message will be, “But why haven’t you called me? Is something wrong? Didn’t you remember I went to the doctor today?” Anywhere – in a shopping mall, a bookstore, a cafe, comes the inevitable whine of the needy child. “An-ne! Where are you?” The whole world dotes on these angels who can do no wrong. Their every whim must be indulged. Christmas isn’t anything to Muslims of course but the city is full of brightly lit trees, effigies of the silly old man in red hat and presents. Whole floors of istanbul’s magnificent shopping malls are devoted solely to delighting the little people. The shops are stuffed with goodies and people pack into them as if there were no tomorrow. It’s only the social outcasts who go in for online shopping here: everyone else regards it as a jolly family ritual.

You might get the impression that Turkey with its background of military coups, nationalism and repression was a patriarchal society. Wrong. Men just look as if they have power: in reality they exist only to serve their women. Even modern young working people for the most part wait patiently until they have found their marriage partners before leaving home. Naturally, double standards exist here as men have freer rein and must sew their oats. But they do it discreetly with god-knows-whom. Meanwhile they live at home where they are waited upon hand and foot – food is cooked, washing and ironing done for them and every comfort seen to. Duygu, a healthy woman in her thirties complains that her mother won’t even let her carry anything. Ilgin has just turned 40 and works 7 days a week to make enough money for holidays. She wouldn’t dream of going without her mother. They live together as do so many Turkish families, mother and daughter, bound like Prometheus. You don’t even ask about father. When Ilgin is feeling frisky she goes with her mother to one of the many clubs in downtown Beyoglu, the centre of Istanbul’s nightlife. There they listen together to live music and Ilgin takes pictures of them both on her mobile phone. Can it be satisfying? Ilgin is no fool. “I make all the decisions,” she says, gleefully. I can see who wears the pants. Why leave this comfort for some unknown territory where you may have to be the maid, cook and bottle-washer for some uncertain reward?

Age cannot wither An-ne because whole armies of hairdressers, beauticians, manicurists and cosmetologists exist merely to preserve her long-lost youth. Only near death will a woman let the world see her grey hair: the rest choose any colour of the rainbow though garish pinks and greens are still only for the outlandish or those who have just discovered punk . Mostly it is blonde, and on special occasions like New Years Eve, the hair will be pulled and teased into girlish sausage curls of a corn-bright yellow. The effect is that elderly men always have young-looking things of indeterminate age in tow. (Is that his daughter, mother or wife? You can’t tell.) And what was once a Mediterranean land of dark-haired, olive-skinned women has now become a kind of Disneyland of Barbie dolls.

Daddy provides. Sinem lives in a fine apartment paid for by her father and works when she isn’t having the vapours. She is travelling the next day and An-ne keeps phoning. “Why don’t you take the smaller suitcase darling? You might be overweight if you take the big one?” Such tender loving care. But Sinem doesn’t think so. “My sisters and I have been trying to get them to divorce for years!” she says, sighing. “They do nothing but argue and can’t stand each other.” But of course there are the beloved children. How could they inflict such pain on them? Sinem is beautiful, intelligent cultivated and at 38, alas, still not married. Her lover is a dashing colonel in the army, married with children. “When he comes it is paradise! He brings flowers, chocolates and treats me like a princess.” The stress of it all stops her from working. But she has the kind of job that can deal with this on-and-off commitment because there is a hard-working male who does all the donkey work. Life has fashioned things in such a way that she must remain a princess in a tower waiting for the frog prince to release her.  So custom doesn’t stale her infinite variety; she is free to go to any one of Istanbul’s delectable coffee houses, galleries or museums. She has the leisure to read and reflect. And time still before motherhood looms or the signs of old age must submit to the wiles of the magician.

CHILD ABUSE IS UNIVERSAL

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-98380/child-abuse-universalhttp://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-98380/child-abuse-universal

Ataturk Lives!

In Russia the Tsar was always referred to lovingly as Little Father; here in Turkey,  Ataturk’s presence is writ large. He attracts a different kind of worship. Each year on November 10^th, the  anniversary of his death in 1938 at 9.05, the moment he last drew breath, a siren sounds and the country collectively comes to halt for a minute. Cars hoot and drivers stand to attention.  In that gorgeous wedding cake of architecture, the Dolmabahce Palace, the clock in the room where he breathed his last is permanently frozen at that precise minute. It doesn’t stop there, of course; Turks love any excuse to bring out their brilliant red star- and-crescent  flag adorned with the image of the father, his head tilted upwards, his eyes gazing into the distance as if dreaming of great things to come.

Istanbul has some of the world’s biggest and finest shopping malls; on a day such as this, even they pay tribute to the great white father. In Akmerkez, a gleaming modern version of Topkapi Palace, a sacred non-commercial space has been cleared for the occasion showing portraits of the man while  a band plays his favourite tunes. Bookshops display the many biographies of him, and lit-up panels carry quotations from his writings. Shopaholics take a breath in between Versace and Vakko to pay homage to a man who has never really departed. He is everywhere. Even in private homes you will see photos of him posing like Napoleon with right hand in jacket or dancing with one of his daughters.

Thus the name Sabiha Gokhcen might not be given two seconds’ thought by visitors to Istanbul’s second international airport but it is worth more than that. The lithe young woman pictured in large black and white photographs was one of his eight adopted daughters  - possibly the favourite - and the first female combat pilot in the world. Like father like daughter. She had no fear of flying. I can’t help thinking of the Greek goddess Athene springing fully born out of the head of Zeus. Ataturk was briefly married to  Latife Uşaklıgil to whom he proposed in company with his fellow soldiers. That was the custom back then. Though it was a childless marriage, he went on to adopt several children who came his way and appealed to him. Perhaps Sabiha was his favourite because she followed in his footsteps and lived up to his name.

It was in his latter years that he fell in love with children; by then perhaps he had tired of wars an late-night political jaw-jaws.  Sabiha Gokcen was 12 when she encountered Ataturk at a public parade. She stepped forth boldly and asked him to assist her with school fees. He gladly obliged.

Later when she had become a pilot, he tested her loyalty to him. She would have to hold a loaded gun to her head and prove her love (shades of King Lear.) She did, unflinchingly. She survived because the gun wasn’t loaded.

Who was the real man as opposed to the saint? He died at the age of 57 of cirrhosis of the liver. Flouting his secular version of Islam, he once called out drunkenly from a boat on the Bosphorus, “This is raki! That’s what we drink.”

Young people are brought up to worship him. A girl in my class who has never spoken before waxes lyrical. “He was such a great man. He saved the country!” “From what?” I ask. She blushes, unsure how to answer. “And what about his alcoholism?” They  all look at me blankly. “What has that got to do with it?” They do not want their hero besmirched especially by a foreigner. This is unnecessary, this disinterment of his graven image and at such a time too.

They have been sold a story which they won’t question. Certain things are sacred even to freshmen at the “Harvard of Turkey.”  No modern leader has been able to match him. None would dare to try. The Prime Minister makes hurried excuses and misses the celebrations.

As worries of creeping Islamicisation abound, Ataturk -lovers cling to his revolutionary changes: the freedom he gave to women who were among the first to vote, the secularism, the changing of the alphabet and modernising of the language now peppered  with words borrowed from French which the great man loved. What a relief! A few words a foreigner can grasp: reservasyon, pardon, kuofer (coiffeur.) All spelled phonetically to boot. In college the increasing number of girls with headscarves worries them. They see conspiracies everywhere. There are whisperings that the great American devil is planning a new caliphate for Turkey so that the region can be secure under his control. “Haven’t you noticed? More religious students are being given places on campus.” The  changes that the great man symbolised are being eaten away.

816 words

betty.caplan1@gmail.com

The Power of Speech

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-92380/mutula-kilonzos-team-should-consider-minimally-invasive-education

A Small Act - a tribute to Hilde Back

 A SMALL ACT – a documentary by Jennifer Arnold

Some tragic events have surprising outcomes. During the Second World War, a German Jewish woman called Hilde Back lost both parents and was saved by someone who took her to Sweden where she was eventually granted citizenship. Survivors sometimes experience feelings of guilt and trauma throughout their lives; Hilde Back was different. If she did have those emotions, she turned them to a good cause. Feeling grateful to be alive and to have been saved, her thanks was to regularly put $15 in an envelope and send it to one Chris Mburu who lived in a village in the Rift Valley. Little did she know how far her small act of kindness would go.

The film of this story has recent been released by HBO and illustrates the way a documentary can initiate world -wide change; I happened to catch it on television in Australia and was heartened to see something so inspiring and positive about Africa amidst all the usual rubbish about gangsters and drug addicts. Jennifer Arnold, the film’s director  studied at the University of Nairobi with Chris Mburu’s cousin which is how she came across the story of Hilde Back and her part in his life. After finishing school, he graduated from Harvard Law School and became a leading light at UNESCO. What goes around comes around. He decided that he would pay back the “small gift” which had changed his life, and together with Hilde Back set up a fund which would assist poor and needy children to go to school. Now tiny and in her eighties, she is invited to Kenya and made a Kikuyu elder. All dressed up in her shuka, she joins in the dancing with elation. But her greatest affection is for Chris, a substitute for the children she did not have. If only all those women cast off as “barren” would see other needy children as worthy of care in this way!

The film was shot at an awkward moment: Chris has set up the scholarship fund and we follow several children who are hoping to qualify. But there is stiff competition, of course. The children are told that the cut-off point for success will be 380 marks. There is great tension and anxiety as they go about studying under extremely difficult circumstances. There is precious little light to pore over books at night. The schoolrooms are bare and uninviting especially during the rainy season when everything is covered in mud. Books are in short supply. A harshness pervades the atmosphere: children who lack the money to go to secondary school are teased and laughed at. Puzzled mothers in their headscarves struggle to understand. The headmaster is blunt. Chris, who narrates much of the film, has to be realistic. “We can’t help everyone who needs it,” he says.

It is around January 2008. In the middle of all the preparations for the scholarship award, the post-election violence breaks out all around them. In addition to their fears for their future education, these children are worried about just staying alive. But Kimani, Ruth and Caroline succeed after the panel of judges has lowered the cut-off point. They whisper amongst themselves: is this the right thing to do? Why have the children performed so poorly? Should they give special consideration to the girls who have a harder time in school? Why indeed. Education can’t take place in a vacuum: it needs the support of the state, the parents and the community at large. Forgive me if I repeat the truism that school is a microcosm of society.

It premieres in Toronto where it is one of the favourites and goes on to win awards at the Sundance and many other festivals. Bill Gates and George Soros attend a performance and decide to chip in and assist the foundation. In April of this year, Arnold returns to premiere the film in the village where it is shot. There is great jubilation and joy.

Three children who are successful have been followed on the website: Kimani now attends a private school owned by a board member of the foundation and plans to become a neuro-surgeon. Ruth is in one of the top secondary schools in Kenya and wishes to be a lawyer whilst Caroline is in her third year and wants to combine modelling with lecturing at the university. But what of those left behind? Jennifer Arnold needs to come back and make a film about them. It is hard to watch the bitter tears of those who have not made the grade and are destined to have lives of drudgery and penury. But there is no room for self-pity here: one of the movie’s best qualities is to show how these people don’t complain, but just get on with it. After all, as a friend of mine pointed out when I first became enraged in Africa, you have to have someone to complain to! Their desire is to better themselves and to please their parents so that they can build decent houses and make a contribution to society.

Why in the 21^st century should such children be at the mercy of charity? Why should there be enough money to pay bloated politicians and not a penny for these children many of whom might, given the chance, become world leaders like Chris Mburu who works to prevent genocide? While private funds help a lucky few, the powers-that-be can sit back and watch while the huge majority goes to waste.

917 words

betty.caplan1@gmail.com

A response to the Zuma controversy

"Expression Today offers a commentary on the recent fuss about the Zuma 'exposure.' It turns out that many black South African artists and cartoonists have expressed the same views, but have not been given the same publicity due to the largely white ownership of galleries.


http://eastafricapress.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=691:the-limits-of-artistic-freedom&catid=151:free-speechwww.http://eastafricapress.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=691:the-limits-of-artistic-freedom&catid=151:free-speech