The Girl from the Golden Horn

My friend Jen nominated a book I was unfamiliar with for our Istanbook feminist book club, and it became my biggest guilty pleasure read of the year. 

The Girl from the Golden Horn, by Kurban Said, is a novel relatively unknown to most. It had been published in the 1930s and translated from the German. Truly, there are about two reviews of it online. We didn't have to blow dust off our Kindles obviously to read it, but if this book is sitting in libraries somewhere, I suggest it isn't getting its due. That's a shame, as it has much cross-cultural discernment to share with today's reader.

Are there so many novels that feature young female Ottoman intellectuals? I haven't run across another. The protaganist in this book, despite living in Berlin as an exile from her failed Ottoman Empire, had kept her identity and way of thinking as an Eastern woman intact, no easy thing in decadent European society of Berlin and Austria. The book follows her as she pursues her destiny, with agency. 

   

Contemplating:

is this the exact perfect spot

on Istanbul's Golden Horn

to hold our book discussion

of Kurban Said's book,

The Girl from the Golden Horn?

I think it will do, what do you think?

Who had the best view of the Golden Horn

on book discussion day?

Us or the sailboat?

What a magnificent expat experience!

We felt lucky to experience the setting, 

each other's company,

and the book all together.

Just as it would take a unique writer to portray both Ottoman society and Vienesse society so intimately in this book, we felt unique as readers reading a book we felt would be lost on, for example, most American readers back home. 

Jen had been posted to Vienna before she was posted to Istanbul, so you can imagine all of the insight she brought to this discussion from both societies. We had a great exchange of ideas. With three women from the West, and two from the East, there was a perfect number for a fascinating discussion. And here I will stop in my description -- so you get the same joy from the book as I did, knowing nothing about what would happen as I read.

Where is the female movie director from the East who will bring the heroine Asiadeh Anbara's story to the big screen? It's so cinematic!

Celebrating the City of Joy

My City of Joy movie posse,

Ladies from Global Minds and Istanbook book clubs

here in Istanbul

What a powerful evening last night was! Eight of us assembled for our film screening of The City of Joy, celebrating the work of the new Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Denis Mukwege. He cares for women in the Congo who are victims of sexual violence that has occurred in pursuit of mineral wealth for famous global corporations. Also featured in the film were Congolese humanitarian leader Christine Schuler Deschryver and fundraiser/playwright Eve Ensler.

The City of Joy Movie Documentary Trailer

One of the most meaningful things I have ever participated in as an activist was the inaugural year of Eve Ensler's #1BillionRising global event. Eve Ensler, a deeply-respected thought leader on the issue of sexual and domestic violence was asking the world to consider how different the culture of the globe could be if the estimated one billion women who have experienced sexual and domestic violence, did not experience the violence they had lived through. 

How would the spirit of those women be different? How well could women thrive with less trauma? How could that impact their families? Imagine one billion families around the globe headed by women whose spirit hadn't been clipped. Eve Ensler's efforts and thought leadership were just so moving. She has raised over $100 million dollars to support women recovering from violence around the globe through her plays, the most famous of which is the Vagina Monologues (another great experience I had in Istanbul - acting in my first play).

I remember the inaugural year of #1BillionRising, the journalists covering the story didn't talk to Eve in a studio in New York. Instead, they reached her in the Congo. I remember being so shocked that she would be that far away from the media when her big idea debuted. Watching this movie helped me understand why she was in the Congo. That was where she was needed the most.

This would be a tough film to watch alone at home on Netflix. I am proud of my fellow book club members for not turning away from this story. No solutions can be found without first facing the problem, right?

As I watched, I kept remembering childrens' television host, Mr. Rogers. He always said, 'in stressful events, always look for and lift up the helpers.' Why not hold a watch party of your own to lift up 'helper,' Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Denis Mukwege, and spread the solidarity.

Americans, how well do you know your global neighbors?

Americans ladies

having lunch with legendary journalist

Suzy Hansen (second from right),

after her reading at PAWI,

the Professional American Women of Istanbul

This month I had the joy of interviewing legendary American journalist Suzy Hansen and reviewing her first book for Lale Magazine, the bimonthly-publication of the International Women of Istanbul. Suzy Hansen's book is called, 'Notes on a Foreign Country : An American Abroad in a Post-American World.'

American author James Baldwin asked, 'has American prosperity come at the expense of the American Negro?' Suzy Hansen, whose admiration and interest in James Baldwin inspired her to move to Turkey, extends the question. She asks, 'does American prosperity and identity come at the expense of the world?'

You can read my review here on pages 32-34 of the January/February issue. 'Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World' was chosen by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2017. Excerpts appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian.

Thank you to editor Monisha Kar for the opportunity. Thanks also to Monica Fritz, of Monica Fritz Photography, for the photos used in the story.

A Month of Turkish Literature for Global Literature in Libraries

On a ferry between two continents

 is a great place to read

In the last two years, one of the most fun things I have done is get involved in the fledgling Global Literature in Libraries movement. Did you know that around 3% of what is published each year in English has been translated from another language? It astonished me to learn that English-language readers read so provincially (for comparison, in Turkey, 42-50% of everything that is published has been translated from another language).

What could the world be like if English-language readers read more globally? Would there be more empathy? Less fear? Would there be more collaboration on big global problems? Would there be more international business and international travel? It's fun to think about.

In August, I served as the Turkish Literature Month editor for the Global Literature in Libraries blog. See, I was still blogging! Just in a different place. It was so much fun working with over nineteen different contributers from around the world to showcase 50 different titles. Gosh, that was fun. Here's the summation post with links to all the blog posts about Turkish Literature. 

You can follow along and read around the world too by following @GlobalLitinLibs on Twitter

or 'Global Literature in Libraries Initiative' on Facebook.

Washington Post: As Boomers Shed Stuff, Their Offspring, Millenials, Reject it

 

This article about Boomers downsizing and their children not wanting their stuff made me smile, as I have had this experience when I downsized, and I now actually live in a city with my memories on a blog, just like a Millenial! There's a big box of hard copy photos waiting for me to organize into scrapbooks when I get back home to America though. I guess this article is telling me: don't bother.

Maybe the reason Millenials aren't defining themselves by possessions is they all saw this movie short "The Story of Stuff" growing up: 

Thanks to my friend Hope Gross Mandel for the article. 

Watching Tom Shadyac's movie "I Am"

Official HD Trailer

for Tom Shadyac's documentary

"I Am"

Years ago, Oprah recommended a movie called "I am" by director Tom Shadyac. If Oprah tells me to watch something, I'm going to do so - after all these years, I love her more than ever. I miss her weekday show. It's as if a friend moved away.

 I finally got around to watching the documentary "I am." It was, just as she described, wonderfully uplifting. I recommend it too! The central questions of the film are "What's wrong with the world? What can we do about it?"

Watching it from Turkey, I can't help but see how American the inquiry of ideas is in the film. An American viewpoint celebrates individual achievement above all else. In pursuit of capitalism, world and human resources are to be used in pursuit of the profit of whomever is building a company requiring them. The long-term consequences to the Earth or others isn't ranked as high as the need to continue wealth creation. So this is where Tom Shadyac started out and he shared his travels to a different point-of-view.

The central premise of his new viewpoint (gathered from interviewing some of the most interesting thinkers on the planet) is that we, as humans and species, are all interconnected. In a capitalist society, it's very easy to discount the weak, the elderly, the disabled as non-contributors and to assign them less value. But if they aren't there, what happens to the entire society? Does it continue to exist? 

I reflected afterwards that this idea of non-contributers is so central to American life it even has a number assigned to it: the 47%. It's not a very empathetic point-of-view. People usually spend some time in their life in the 47%, for example, when they are children or an elderly person.

In contrast, I would describe Turkish culture as a hive culture where people assume cooperation with each other in most settings. The capitalist system is an adjustment in the last generation from an older culture of togetherness among people of the same ethnicity. The spirit of competition and zero sum game is a new practice here.

A simple example of how it is expressed is that Western students would hide a bad test score from their peers, but Turkish students share this information openly. Their attitude is geared more toward helping each other rather than competing with each other.

 Another idea from the film is that our emotions have the power to influence events and other living creatures. We under estimate the power of each of our individual acts and how they influence others.

People also live their emotions much more openly here in Turkey and this energy contributes to creating an exciting hum in Istanbul.

I think a Turkish friend watching this movie would say, "Duh. Everyone knows these concepts that we are all interconnected and that our energy and emotions influence the energy of others." Yet, I don't think all Americans do know that, which is why Tom Shadyac's film resonates so much. 

If you judge the systems based on wealth created, the American system is better. Is that the only way to measure individual success? Humanity's success? In the movie, Tom Shadyac gives up this measure for measuring the success of his own life. And he has never felt happier. He adopts more of an indingenous cultures' viewpoint that pursuit of gain beyond one's own immediate needs is considered mental illness.

Watch "I Am" for yourself and ask yourself what your cultural lens taught you growing up. Has it changed as you've aged? If so, why? Do you think that your cultural lens will help or hurt the long-term survival of the species - not only the human species but all other species as well?

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The Rape and Murder of Turkish University Student Ozgecan Aslan

Ozgecan Aslan

Last week, a bright, beautiful 20-year-old Turkish university student named Ozgecan Aslan was the last person on her shared taxi known as a dolmuş. It's a common form of transportation in Turkey. A dolmuş, much like an airport shuttle van, carries up to 10 people at a time. Everyone in Turkey uses them. It would never have occurred to me to think of one as unsafe. Last week riding in a dolmuş cost Ozgecan Aslan her life. She was raped, stabbed, dismembered, and burned by a dolmuş driver, his friend, and the dolmuş driver's own father.

Turkish Women refused

to let men near her casket

At the funeral, the imam signalled for men to pick up the casket and Turkish women were having none of it. They refused to step away and carried her casket out themselves, a shockingly unusual act in patriarchal Turkish culture. It was an incredibly healthy response of contempt that signalled to the entire nation, this problem of violence against women MUST be addressed. Ozgecan Aslan, and her fate, was on the lips of every Turkish woman with fury and sorrow all week long. 

Turkey, a country famous for its denial of so many of its historic problems, is not in denial on this one. Turkey knows it has a problem with domestic violence and violence against women. The President himself called it "Turkey's bleeding wound." Last year, 281 women were killed in Turkey (that are known of - with honor killings and such you can't be sure of accurate reporting).

A Turkish actress started a hashtag called #Sendeanlat (tell your story), asking women to take to Twitter to tell their stories of how they had been harassed in daily life. Last I looked it had close to 1,000,000 tweets in two or three days. Even though the men of Turkey, know there is a problem,  I'm not sure they care enough to fix it. 

Murder of females is political

Graffiti about Ozgecan Aslan's murder filled the streets. It wouldn't have occurred to me to think of Ozgecan Aslan's murder as political until I saw the graffiti above that declared it so. Then I couldn't get it out of my mind once seeing it. There were so many ways it could be. Like the victims of so much state violence this year, Ozgecan was both Kurdish (an ethnic minority) and Alevi (a religious minority). Was her death going to be used by authorities to further restrict the freedom of women in the country, the way terrorism is used to justify the end of civil liberties for citizens in the West? Immediately, there were calls for women to be segregated into 'pink buses.' Others pointed to the misogynist statements by politicians that devalued women. The pattern of peeling women away from public life is underway in Turkey.

Our rebellion is for murdered women!

What fascinates me is the similarity of toxic cultures for women -- no matter where they are located. For example, I have always thought of the American state South Carolina as a state badly in need of the fresh breezes of change -- a state still nursing grievances from the Civil War. 

Just the other day, one of South Carolina's lawmakers referred to women as a "lesser cut of meat." It's easy to condemn the lawmaker, but it must be assumed that this attitude represents the population and it sells. These kind of statements diminishing women are common in both Turkey and South Carolina. Diminishing statements about women sell to the masses in Turkey too.

Recently, the Post and Courier newspaper in South Carolina examined how the good 'ole boy culture of patriarchal policy makers contribute to South Carolina leading the nation in dead women murdered by men. Despite another woman dying every 12 days at double the national rate, (and at three times the rate of South Carolina men who served in Iraq and Afghanistan combined), policy makers actively ignored a dozen initiatives to do something about the problem.

Who matters more?

The woman or the dog?

You'd be surprised --

or maybe not.

According to the Post and Courier, the only policy initiative related to domestic violence that got acted on in South Carolina was a proposal to make sure pets were taken care of when domestic violence happens. Indeed, South Carolina must value animals higher than women as 46 shelters for animals exist (one in every county) in the state, while only 18 shelters exist for women state-wide. According to the reporters who wrote the award-winning Post and Courier series "Til Death Do Us Part," a man in South Carolina can get five years for abusing his dog, but will only have to serve 30 days in jail for the first time he abuses his wife or girlfriend. 

One of the sad aspects to the Ozgecan Aslan murder in Turkey, is that the mother/wife (same woman) of the alleged murders said she had been a battered woman for years. If she had received help, and this battery had been taken seriously in Turkey, would 20-year-old Ozgecan Aslan be alive today? According to the investigative journalism of the four reporters in South Carolina, incarceration saves lives as men are separated from women. That may be, but in South Carolina and in Turkey, there appears to be no interest in helping women in that situation as men choose to view them with morality judgements as "those women."

According to experts quoted in the "Till Death do us Part" series on domestic violence, South Carolina has the most traditionalist culture in the entire nation of the United States, preserving a status quo that benefits the needs and values of the elite. Wow, does that sound like Turkey. And here's what sounds EXACTLY like Turkey, "honor culture:"

"Surprisingly little research has examined the role South Carolina’s culture plays in domestic abuse and homicides, considering the state’s rate of men killing women is more than twice the national average.One often-cited study about violent tendencies in Southern men came from Richard E. Nisbett, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.
His research revealed a Southern “culture of honor,” one in which for generations a man’s reputation has been central to his economic survival — and in which insults to that justify a violent response.
“We have very good evidence that southerners and northerners react differently to insults,”Nisbett says. “In the South, if someone insults you, you should respond. If the grievance is enough, you react with violence or the threat of violence.”
In a clinical study, Nisbett subjected northern and southern men to a test. Someone bumped into them and called them a profane term. The reaction: stress hormones and testosterone levels elevated far more in southern men.
“He gets ready to fight,” says Nisbett, coauthor of “Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in The South.”
How does it apply to domestic violence? Men who perceive their women have insulted them — by not keeping up the house, by talking back or flirting with someone else — launch into attack mode to preserve their power."       

 ~South Carolina Post and Courier, 2014 

Here are examples of that same hypersensitivity to insult in Turkey here, and here, and here.

The response of disgust that Turkish women felt and voiced about the murder of Ozgecan Aslan was the healthiest human response to this whole sad story. The challenge for Turkish women and those who love them, will be to turn their social media energy and disgust into real lasting change. Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci describes this inability to make lasting change from social media power in her TED Talk here.

Turkish women took to the streets

throughout Turkey to protest

Turkey's pattern of

violence against women

If the first step, is to drag the whole country out of denial that there is a problem, the women of Turkey, have passed that test with flying colors and not let their nation descend any further (hello, Egypt). Respect, Turkish ladies! You have my total respect!   

May the women of South Carolina find the same strength. According to the journalists in South Carolina who wrote the award-winning series, "Till Death Do Us Part," 30 women's lives and families will depend upon it in the coming year.

What I would want the women of Turkey and South Carolina to know is, you are not in this alone. One billion women across the planet are rising up each year to ask the world to change this paradigm where violence against women is acceptable. Eve Ensler began this movement three years ago and each year it gets bigger and bigger. Luckily, the President of Turkey criticized women for participating so now everyone in Turkey has probably learned what the "One Billion Rising" is all about.  Next year, may the criticisms of women dancing for change sing out across the land! Strike! Rise! Dance! One billion rising! Break the chain!

You may be interested in these other posts about domestic violence and violence against women in Turkey:

#1billionrising in Istanbul

I rise to break the chain as a part of Eve Ensler's #1billionrising

#1billionrising in Turkey

Breaking the Silence on Street Harassment in Istanbul

VDay2013: 1 billion women rising globally and dancing

My First Turkish Movie -‘Kurtuluş Son Durak’

You can follow 'Empty Nest Expat' on Facebook, or just sign up for RSS Feed at the right. Care about domestic violence and violence against women? Why not share this blog post to broaden the conversation.

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to Strike! Rise! Dance!

Heaps and heaps of gratitude to the amazing journalists in South Carolina whose journalism will save lives, move their state forward, and result in a more equitable environment for the citizens of South Carolina.