One of the best
excuses for procrastination when it comes to creative or academic writing is
overwork. You convince yourself and others that you are too busy to write
anything meaningful or smart. In fact, you know darn well that there are other
reasons for not being able to write but to cover it with your ever-growing
projects is a commonly embraced and accepted strategy. I work a lot, and there
have been some side-projects that came out from nowhere but I love them.
However, psychological outcomes of the political atmosphere and the numbing
effect of the several suicide bombers' massacres in Turkey have also been among
the major reasons for my writer's block. The incident that remains the closest
to my mind and life is the one which came to be known as the "Petition for
Peace". In short, it was composed in response to the violence in the conflict
between state security forces and PKK in mostly Kurdish populated southeastern
region. The petition, headlined "We Will Not Be a Party to This Crime", demands
an end to curfews, deportations, and violence. It simply calls for a resumption
of peace talks. The text is allegedly criminal under Article 301 of the
constitution, which prohibits "insulting the State of the Republic of Turkey"
and Article 7 of the Law to Combat Terrorism which prohibits terrorist
propaganda aimed at inciting hatred and enmity among the public. For more
details, feel free to check out another colleague’s blog:
http://ebruerdemakcay.com/2016/01/16/solidarity-with-academics-for-peace/
Yesterday, I read
the background stories of the three academics who are now behind the bars in a
state prison to their own shock. The piece was prepared by an old friend who
has been conducting wonderful interviews and well-researched commentaries on
the current events and figures in Turkey in Cumhuriyet
Newspaper: Zeynep Miraç. You may have already heard of the peace-petition scandal
and the shrunken room (as if we are placed in a Poe or Kafka story) of
the freedom of expression in Turkey. I am aware that it is nothing new, but the
randomness and the absurdity of the investigations and detentions have never
been so explicit.
I chose to
translate the first section of Zeynep Miraç's essay entitled "Three Lives Full
of Labor" which narrates some selected highlights from Esra Mungan's life story.
It goes without saying that my sympathies and support extend to Muzaffer Kaya
and Kıvanç Ersoy as well. I hope that they would not accuse me of favoritism since I
chose the female academic at the university where I am both alumni and occasionally
an adjunct instructor. I also hope that Zeynep will be tolerant of my careful shortening
of some sections while translating:
Assistant Prof.
Esra Mungan was born in 1968. Her father İhsan Mungan was a professor of architecture.
The family is originally from Mardin. She finished German High School in
Istanbul and graduated from Psychology Department at Bogazici University where
she was teaching until she got arrested. She completed her MA and PhD in Washington
DC. She is known as a cheerful and energetic instructor and is favored by many
students. One of her main interests is
cinema. She loves the world cinema and Bertolucci’s 1900 has a special place in
her memory. She would watch any movie directed by Sokurov and Zvyagintsev. The culture of Russian cinema
influenced her deeply. Her office is full of movie posters. She is known by cycling
to everywhere and wearing t-shirts even when the weather is cold, a habit from
her years spent in the US, where the indoors are heated way too much for her standards.
Her other 'weird' habit from the US was
cycling. She was well-known for commuting by her bicycle in the crazy Istanbul
traffic for 10 years until she got a spinal disc problem.
Esra
Mungan wants her students to share her enthusiasm toward the courses she
offers. She is in favour of getting rid of hierarchies regarding the student-instructor
relationship. She addresses her students in the formal 'you' in Turkish (siz)
and never uses her right to grant grades as a trump card to pressure students. She
claims that it is the Bogazici University culture which makes this form
of setting possible. When she described Bogazici University with the words "freedom"
and "confidence" in an interview for Time
Out magazine in 2010, she had no idea that she would be arrested for
signing a petition for demanding peace but backed up strongly by the university
administration in the times of witch-hunting in Turkey.
(My note: In fact, the University President
Gülay Barbarosoglu requested a meeting with the
İstanbul Chief Prosecution (March 16) and it was reported that her request of trial without arrest for Mungan has been
received favourably. See: https://bianet.org/english/freedom-of-expression/173098-arrested-academic-esra-mungan-we-stand-by-our-word)
Ms Mungan confesses
that she doesn't like to grade papers and that reading articles gets boring
occasionally because she feels that the student papers reflect the lack of
expressing oneself properly due to the education system which has been favoring
multiple choice exams. The worst thing however was to force oneself to become a "detective" against plagiarism.
In
another interview for Hurriyet newspaper
in 2009, Mungan criticized the education system in Turkey: "It does not provide
the very basic values of universal ethics such as honesty and fairness for all."
Was she wrong?
After
being arrested, she sent a message in which universality is once again
underlined:
"We, who long for
peace despite all intimidations and oppressions, continue standing by our
words".
Upon a request
from its author Ece Temelkuran, I am re-visiting the novel Devir (which is in
the process of being translated into English as Time of the Mute Swans), set in Ankara, and it takes place during some turbulent times between
1971 and 1980 when two coups d’états took place in Turkey. When combined with
what we have been going through nowadays in Turkey, the novel's effect is
indeed gloomy and moving because the reader realizes that the past three generations
of Turkey have been wallowing in the similar muddy waters of politics and
suffering from the mismanagement of clumsy politicians. The ethnicity issues and
the strong prejudices between the secular and the 'religious' (very problematic
way to define a group, I know) people of Turkey have only been worse. The people
who are in defense of minority and women's rights have been systematically oppressed
and the punishment appears in different forms ranging from physical torture in prisons to defamation in the workplace or the neighborhood.
Overwork may work
for some of us. It helps us to forget or temporally blind ourselves but it doesn't
solve any of the current or the past problems that we are forced to live in. How
can we absolve ourselves in this dark picture? What if we have indeed tried
hard to change the system and failed more than once? How do we define 'hard' ? What
is the straw that breaks the camel's back for you?
These are some of
the questions which we as citizens of this country have to work through on an
everyday basis. There are more. I personally appreciate the international support
of my friends and colleagues, and do not shy away from reaching out. We have a Turkish expression that I dislike
a lot: "Kol kırılır, yen içinde kalır" = "A broken arm should remain inside the
sleeve" which equals to saying: Don't air dirty laundry in public. So tell me then,
what should I do if the private space I was given has become so small that I
cannot no longer air or do any laundry in that tiny room?
