Eastern Turkey, Kurdistan 2012

Inside Turkey

These little essays are written by an Austrian geographer and photographer, Herbert Bödendorfer. He travelled several times in different regions in Turkey in the last decades to shoot and do research work for the multimedia shows he presents in Austrian schools.
Some of the texts are longer than others because they might be published in turkish newspapers.

My view is an outside view, a tourist’s view, a view of a stranger, who tries to understand a country and its people, - both of which I have learned to love.

Full moon over the great basalt city wall of Diyarbakir.
 

Diyarbakir

We were coming by car from the dusty mining settlements in the Maden Mountains. Diyarbakir greeted us, like so many other Turkish cities had done before, with a huge belt of new high-rise flats.

This had surprised us again and again. Millions of people who had moved in from the villages now lived in relative comfort. What they bought, furniture, kitchenware, cars ... was boosting the Turkish economy. But the factories which we had seen in the west of Turkey were much rarer here and we had heard about troubling rates of unemployment in the east. But still it looked as if after decades of war the peace dividend was beginning to bring some prosperity.

My wife guided me through the dangers of the evening rush hour to find a nice hotel overlooking a part of the black wall surrounding the old city. Smoke and delicious aroma of barbecued meat was rising into the air at every street corner. During the evening additional makeshift kiosks were set up in parks and main streets where moustached men prepared tasty spits of shish kebab. The city made our mouths water.

 

 

 

It had been arranged for us to meet some Kurdish friends of friends who were willing to help us with translation.

We wanted to learn more about the Kurds. It was sad that we arrived at a time when the nerves of the people were tight because of a hunger strike. More than 700 prisoners were starving, almost dying after over 40 days. The helpful young people we met were worried and full of despair. And I had been looking forward to delicious meals of barbecued meat in this romantic old city! That was not a time for partying!

After a day in Diyarbakir (- that will be another story!) my wife and I had dinner in the hotel room where I had brought some food, carefully and expertly packed by friendly cooks. What we had heard that day about Kurdish history weighed on our minds. I looked up “Dersim” on Google (first time I had ever heard of that massacre). I even found an account of Seyit Rizas execution that made my blood freeze. I thought: “Will that never end? Will Kerbala come again and again?” 

Someday the Turkish government must realize that Kemal Pascha’s dream of “one nation” never was real at all. Why pay this price for a fictitious idea of homogenous nationality? Is it not the mix of European and Middle Eastern cultures that made Turkey great? The Turks and the Kurds, the Armenians and the Arabs, the Syrians and the Georgians, the Jews and the Bulgarians, ...

Would Turkey, this big success state, really fall apart today, if that was recognized?

Now, looking back and reading the little we hear about the hunger strike here in Austria I still cannot overcome the feeling of hopelessness that I felt looming over the black old fortifications of Diyarbakir like an equally dark cloud. Too much history there! Too much blood shed on all sides!

The prisoners are striking for their leader who is denied human condition in his prison. By Turkey, the EU, the USA and by a number of other states they are all considered to be terrorists. Even the biggest part of the Turkish (and Kurd) people (I learn from several sources) were against the wave of fierce violence the PKK fighters brought over the East.  So now the support for the hunger striking prisoners is not really overwhelmingly worldwide. 

What I definitely realized in places like Diyarbakir, Batman, Mus, Van, ... was this: the people there want peace and are grateful for the peace that has eventually come, they want to take their future into their own (hardworking) hands and they want to enjoy the prosperity they are now beginning to see, they do not want to be prisoners of their own historical past.

“I am proud to be a Turk!” Good for the Turkish. But all the other people living in this state should at least be able to sing “ I am proud to live in Turkey!”  

Hamlet in Diyarbakir

Hamlet in Diyarbakir

Unofficially this town, formerly called Amed, is the centre of Turkey’s Kurdish area. For thousands of years it has controlled the northern part of Mesopotamia. Since roman times its huge, black basalt fortifications sit on the hills overlooking the Tigris. 

Until 2002 it suffered heavily under 24 years of martial law when it was the centre of the war waged between the PKK and the Turkish army, both of which regarded it as their base. Luckily the last ten years have been more peaceful and have brought visible improvements: blocks of flats have been built, roads and other infrastructure has been improved.

Every new-comer will at once realize that the town is addicted to barbecued meat. Delicious smells circle in the air from lunchtime until late in the evening.

Our friends took us to Hasan Pasha Han, an old guesthouse or caravanserai built around 1575.  They ordered tea and kebab for all of us. Here the kebab did not come on a spit but wrapped in a pastry, similar to Tibetan Momos or Italian Ravioli. 

The cafe where it was served was run by KAMER.  Founded in 1997 this organization has done a lot to improve the situation of women in the region. It seems that in this corner of Turkey, with its continuous wars and conflicts, with its poverty and violence, lack of education and male-dominated structures, women had to suffer from outdated traditions and sexist violence more than in other societies. “Honour killings” or forced suicides of girls were frequent. KAMER and other organizations now offer refuge to women. They have also conducted studies and published their results. What is this concept of “honour” (töre)? What is a woman’s duty? How should she be punished? etc. were among the questions asked in sociological surveys.

One statistical outcome caught my attention:

Asked “What is a woman’s duty?” 5, 4% answered: “To submit.” – Bad! But probably not so different from the practical forms of life we see elsewhere.

28, 6% answered “To listen and obey.” Worse! And it is quite unbelievable if you see the fire in the eyes of Turkish and Kurdish women. But what I found revolting was this: 49, 9% believed a woman’s duty was “To be protected.” 80% of the over 400 people questioned were male. That says it all. This is the cock-eyed, turned-around logic that is at the basis of sexist repression.

This over-protectiveness might have been appropriate in Mohammed’s time when cattle, sheep and women were equally lawless and Islamic law gave women definitive rights for the first time. But nowadays? How can it be a woman’s duty to be weak and helpless, only “to be protected” by superior men?

Luckily the ladies from KAMER whom we met and the young journalist who accompanied us through the old city were educated, powerful and self-conscious women. I am sure people like them will chase away the medieval ghosts of male violence and repression that still haunt this place.

At the local theatre in Diyarbakir they were rehearsing Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The posters were already out. The audience will recognise many old ghosts as old acquaintances. Many young people here will feel a deep resonance when they hear: “..."Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (I. iv. 90). ... "The time is out of joint; — O cursed spite. That ever I was born to set it right!

Apart from this issue of violence against women,  there are still so many things right in this state and in this old town, that it is a pleasure to spend a few days there as a tourist: the old city centre is kept clean, 

the old church under the city wall that has been turned into a cafe, 

 

the platforms on top, where young and old sip their tea and look down over minarets into Mesopotamia,

the quiet and elegant bookshop (one of the nicest we have ever seen!) under the Hasan Pasha Han where you find all European classics as well as boxes with religious Islamic literature, 

the group of friendly men playing dominoes,

the groups of chatting young students (Diyarbakir has 40.000  of them!!), - 

all this makes a fascinating mixture.

Our friend who was originally from Batman guided us through the city.

“I am in love with Diyarbakir!” he said. When he entered the beautiful quiet hall of the church/cafe under the bastion he waved his hand: “Welcome in paradise!”

And of course one feels instantly safe and protected in Diyarbakir, because in case of an attack against its fortifications, all the kebab men with their spits will at once convert the spits into dangerous weapons and repel the enemy!  

 

VAN. Or: The wish is the father of the mountain.

 Distances are long in Anatolia and the landscape is big and wide! Natural cinemascope.

 Power lines, oil pumps and heaps of wheat.

 Autumn had coloured the poplar trees golden.

 

In the mountains huge herds of sheep and goats were driven down to the villages. In Europe we normally don't see how pigs are produced, but we can imagine it. This pastoralist way of meat production in muslim countries certainly seems more natural.
The effects on the vegetation are disputable.

And then finally, after hours and hours of driving: this high snow-capped volcano:  
Mount Ararat. 
And the blue waters of lake Van.



Following the lakeshore one approaches the city of Van. Container homes give shelter to thousands of refugees. Most come from the northern coast where an earthquake last winter destroyed the town of Ercis. Some come from the kurdish villages along the iranian border. PKK fighter were supposed to be fighting from there and so the villages were bombed and the population driven away.

The fortress of Van is an incredible place: built on a ship-like rock on the lake shore it controlled
Eastern Turkey for thousands of years. Or rather: the Urartans, Assyrians, Skyths, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantians, Seldschuks, Mongols did it from here. The list is incomplete but gives one a feeling of how multi-layered history is in these places.

 We found a nice, new ApartHotel in the main street of Van.

 Next morning on the fortress again.

Trying to make out into which direction we were going to head next (towards Dogubeyazit) we got a little confused. Our road clearly was taking us farther away from Mount Ararat instead of getting us closer. We turned the road map into all directions and finally came to the conclusion that we had been looking at the wrong mountain all the time: what we supposed to be Ararat was really Mt. Süphan, 4058m!! Ararat was still nearly 100km to the east and of course you can't see it with lake Van in the foreground. Quite embarrasing for a geographer!