Istanbul, May 11, 2006
MULTICULTURALIZM AND INTEGRATION: WHERE ARE WE HEADING TOWARDS?
* Panelist

Thank you so much, it is a pleasure for me to be here and I also look forward to questions and comments or objections later in the second session.
   
My talk is going to revolve around the concept of cosmopolitanism as a writer who has spent quite a bit of her childhood and teenage years in different countries and as a writer who writes both in Turkish and in English and commutes back and forth between the States and Turkey and also someone who believes that literature and art has this potential to transcend the political, religious, nationalist as well as gender boundaries that are given to us by birth. Cosmopolitanism plays a very central role in my work and writing as well as my life I would say. I am going to base my talk on two frameworks, one domestic and try to take a closer look at the situation in Turkey and the other one I was going to be more international and take a closer look at the situation on a global level.

I think Turkey constitutes a very interesting case study for those of us who are interested in such issues as the only Muslim country in the region where the efforts of modernization, secularization, westernization have been taken to the furthest extreme possible where they have reconstructed not only the public sphere but also the private sphere the family law, the household and as a country where contemporary political history has witnessed a transition from a multiethnic, multilingual, multifaith cosmopolitan imperial structure into a secular nation state which for sometime claimed to be homogenous. Turkey construes a very interesting case study in itself and I think especially in the last 2 decades, especially in the last 25 years within Turkish civil society we have started to question more and more issues, questions such as how can Islam and Western democracy coexist? How to deal with the issue of differences, multiplicities, different cultures, different ethnicities so all those questions mean a lot to us within our domestic space as well. And I think over the last two decades Turkish society has come to terms with may be the notion of synthesis, hibridities. There was a time when we had a certain polarization within ourselves especially since partly because Turkish elite for quite sometime believe that in order to westernize and modernize as quickly as possible they had to get rid of every eastern element that they had so in a way the choice between West and East was perceived as an either/or choice. And as a reaction to that we also have seen the flourishing of a more conservative discourse in Turkey. This time people who wanted to embrace everything that the reformist elite perhaps wanted to discard but now perhaps more so then ever we are debating the issue of synthesis. More and more people are saying this aloud that this is a country with hebrydities with synthesis. It is a country where the process of westernization has started quite early and has been very successful in a relatively short span of time and yet at the same time this is a country that embodies Eastern elements, Islamic elements, elements from multiple cultures and civilizations and there is nothing wrong with that. in another words now we have more favorable opinion of synthesis then I would say 20 years ago. So all these questions mean a lot within the Turkish domestic sphere. Nevertheless I see two undercurrents in both Turkish political system and civil society. On the one hand is a discourse that thrives upon the discourse of politics of fear. This discourse has told us that Turkey has been surrounded by sea on three sides and surrounded by enemies on four sides. It thrives upon this notion of the fear of the other, fear of the unknown, the fear of the foreign and wants to keep Turkey more and more inclosed, more and more nationalist but on the other hand and also with the EU process I see an opening of the Turkish civil society in which more and more people believe in the need to make this country with open borders, open frontiers and in that sense we do see clash of opinions perhaps going on in Turkey. I personally think that it is crucial to overcome this politics of fear that has been taught us ever since we were kids. I remember a riddle we use to sing as kids in Ankara, and in a way at some level that riddle we keep saying, it started with saying the Turks were the greatest nation of the world and one by one we would name our enemies as little kids. So one undercurrent in Turkish civil society still keeps repeating that old riddle but I also think that the opposite is also with us and in that sense I see an important potential for opening up Turkish civil society.

Now I personally believe that Turkey’s EU bid is very important and I is going to very important in this process and I think both Turkey needs EU and the EU needs Turkey especially in a world that is becoming more and more polarized. This is an extremely important framework in which those boundaries can be blurred.

That’s probably going to bring me to my second framework, what is going on at a global level? As we know and as different speakers have emphasized especially after 9/11 the number of people who believe in a clash of civilizations has increased tremendously on every side. One implication of this discourse is perhaps its gender dimension because in one way this discourse of clash of civilizations has been telling women both in the East and Western front to be grateful to be born in the country, which they were born. For instance I hear this quite often in the States when I travel there in a way this discourse tells women to be grateful for not being born in the Middle East because if they were born in the Middle East they would be so extremely oppressed and exploited so in a way you have this quiet number of women feeling grateful and thinking that the statusquo in which they were born thinking that not being born in the land of the other but I see the repercussions of similar of exact discourse in the Middle East as well. There are so many women who are thankful for not being born in America or may be in a European country because they think if they were born there they would be sexually exploited so again we have each side thinking their our patriarchies and using this discourse of clash of civilizations. I do not believe there is a clash of civilizations going on in the contemporary of politics today but I think there is a clash of opinions going on and this is not between supposedly mutually exclusive West and East or West and Islam but there is a clash of opinions going on within every country and more so perhaps in countries such as the USA or Holland for many reasons that have been stated in this conference and in Turkey as well. This clash of opinions is between two sides, on one hand we have the mirror oriented people who want to leave with their reflections in the mirror with people who are just like them, people who want to live homogenous sterile communities what Richard Senet calls people who have this flight from heterogeneity and especially after 9/11 we have seen this a lot this flight from cosmopolitan cities into sterile homogeneous suburbs. So on the one hand this is going on but on the other hand we have the cosmopolitans, people who do not want to live in similar Islam phobia or similar zenophobia, people who are ready to welcome the foreigner into their living space so it is in this sense that we are witnessing clash of opinions within every country rather then between civilizations. And I think I would like to end my words with an example from Rumi from the great mystic Rumi he in one of his works and in one of his stories would tell the story of the lame birds and as the story goes, one sage when he is walking on the street sees birds of different species flying together and feeding together, he is very much surprised because after all pigeons are supposed to fly with pigeons and storks are supposed to fly with only storks and crows are only suppose to fly with crows but when he takes a closer look he realizes all of these birds are in fact those who are flying together although they belong to different species they are all lame birds and I think in this world as cosmopolitans we need to be lame birds. To be a lame bird means you might be Turkish but at the same time you are a world citizen, you might be German but at the same time you are a world citizen and in that commonness of being lame perhaps we are going to find the dialogue and the cosmopolitan culture that we so sorely need. Thank you.



Soru – Cevap


Soru: Sayın Schaumann namus cinayetlerinden bahsetti. Sonuçta tüm demokrasilerde olduğu gibi, bizim ülkemizde de cinayet adli bir suçtur. Namus cinayetlerinin özellikle Almanya’da Türk toplumu üzerinde derin ve bir kısmı haksız kritiklere sebep olduğunu düşünüyorum. Sonuçta, bu bir cinayettir ve hukuk sisteminde suçtur. Bunun Türk toplumu üzerinde ve geneli üzerinde bu kadar acımasızca kritik edilmesini doğru buluyor musunuz?

Soru: Öncelikle böyle bir organizasyon düzenlendiği için teşekkür ederim. Benim sorum biraz genel olacak. 2010 yılı için İstanbul kültür başkenti seçildi. Bundan sonrası için eğer dünya genelinde kültürel platform oluşturulduğunda ve dünyayı kapsayan ortak bir fikir platformu oluşursa Türkiye buna öncülük edebilir mi veya öncülük edilecek bir kuruluş veya bir ülke varsa bu hangi ülke olabilir? İkinci sorum, dünya günden güne küçüldüğü için bir başkente ihtiyaç varsa ve ileriki yıllarda veya ileriki yüzyıllarda kültürel anlamda İstanbul buna başkentlik edebilir mi?

Elif Şafak: I am just going to say a few words few words about the honor killings and perhaps a few words about Istanbul as a cultural capital. I think you are very right in pointing out that because in a way a new debate Turkish civil society which did not exist before because I should say until quite recently even women’s movement in Turkey saw honor killings as a problem that some people in some remote villages experience, somewhere far away and now we are more and more accepting the fact that “no that’s not the case at all, it is our problem, wherever you might be living in Istanbul, in Germany or Diyarbakir because of the code of honor we all share and internalize but most of the time do not question so in that sense I think they are all part of it and it is quite important to multisee it as the problem of a backwardsness or as a problem of a remote village somewhere far away.” That is said often times especially the elite becomes more defensive when the issue of honor killings is brought up because outside of Turkey it becomes matter of defending your identity and I don’t think it is a coincidence that often abroad can be much more conservative, much more nationalist and much more religious then the Turks in Turkey. So that seems very ironic to me, within the Turkish civil society there was much more rich debate on the issue of honor killings and on the need to question the patriarchal principles that we all have internalized sometimes without being aware of it.

As for Istanbul as a cultural capital definitely I would very much like to see that happening but I would like to point out one thing, often times when we are presenting and that goes back to the debate on cosmopolitanism, when we are talking about Istanbul we see just the sheer fact that different ethnicities and different minorities lived in this city does not mean in itself automatically that a cosmopolitan culture was created. Often times minorities live by side without really interacting, without really touching one another so multicultural system or even a “millet” system because we have this tendency to romanticize the Ottoman Imperial structure sometimes well we all lived peacefully as brothers. Yes and no. it meant a different thing to be a minority in that system and it meant a different thing being part of the majority. So just the sheer fact that different minorities were side-by-side, mosaic model does not necessarily include an interaction. I think it is important to remember that, to keep that in mind. And one more important thing for Istanbul is I think to inject memory into the city. I mean we are very much a society of amnesia and become very unfortunate in a city like Istanbul where there are layers upon layers of history. When you go to a city like Berlin you see collective memory scattered everywhere, in every building, in every street and people being curious about their history and sensitive about remembering even those things that are not nice to remember. Whereas in Istanbul we like to erase it with amnesia so for Istanbul to become a cultural capital city I also think to bring back that collective memories is going to be part of the project as well. Thank you.