What We Have Gained From the
Harshness
X,
who is one of my close friends, who is different than me about many things, but
still has a wonderful soul that feeds my existence. Also, she is one of my
mirrors that reflect many good things that enrich me. All of my close friends
are very different from each other and if I make them to come together in one
place, I guess they will not get along with each other pretty well. Despite
this, I found unique commonness or goodness in all their different soul
foundations. In the past, we were staying together for several months and
during the cold seasons; we were sleeping in the same bed crosswise because of
lack of bed in the warm room in Istanbul. We were comforting each other every
time when we felt down on the life paths or felt in love with someone who hurt
us and so forth. Things that I have been seen in her mirror are making me good
and think deeper.
This
month, X asked me if she opens her headscarf what God’s impression would be
about her. “Can Allah still love me, or not,” she asked. I said, sure, if this
choice; wearing the headscarf is our only one virtue about us in front of
Allah, we would rather not exist. She felt better. Both of us had to leave, or
another word kicked out from, our schools because of scarf ban in Turkey’s
public schools. We were resisting this inhumane policy and refused to open our
headscarves and this resistance cost us to change our destiny paths. Even when
I was a child, from
6th grade to 9th grade, I continued to study in the private school in a hidden
class room. Some of my friends and I had to be locked up if some inspectors
were visiting our school. The building was an additional building inside the
main school’s garden and did not have any restroom, so we always need to get
permission to use the restrooms to not risk the school authority. Another
thing, once, I have applied to a poetry competition and won, but the school
authority decided to pick someone from my classroom who were not wearing a
headscarf and brought her to the award ceremony with me and introduce her with
my name and made me clap to congratulate her. They made someone play my
identity in a fake person’s appearance which can fit and fulfill to the
system’s wish. For me, it was very a respectful mistreatment. This is only a
sample of a big picture of what I have been experiencing for many years just to
reach an upper education. I had to leave my country and come
to the U.S. to continue my educational life here with all the financial and
emotional harshness. Because of the headscarf ban discrimination we were
hospitalized by police forces during our protests and many of our goals had to
be postponed. The system did not accept us to take national university exam, so
we could not go to university. Finally, she gained some certification about journalism
and nowadays became a director of a news agency.
After
a decade, this year Turkey’s president started to soften the scarf ban in
Turkish public schools. Nowadays, we can be a student in the universities, but
not an instructor. Even the Conservative Party not want to solve the problem
very quickly after more than a decade of being the government party to
use/abuse this topic as a hot button for the next election. Despite all these
slow changes, I am still trying to graduate after all many years of financial
struggle as an international student and she is still waiting for me to open
our book cafe together in the near future. Sometimes, life seems like a whole
big postponing.
I
could only use my unique education story for this testimonio, but I decided to
share this opportunity with my close friend X, because she is a part of my
life, too, and our last conversation captured my feelings extremely. In
addition, I believe that all friends or people that we know can take and
exchange destiny from each other. Her questions and worries about her new
potential decision made me think more and more. I liked my first reaction to
her when I am thinking back to that day. She is my best friend even though she
decided to open her headscarf or not, even if she would change her religion…
But, the issue here is why she is thinking to make this decision. We talked
together about this just to understand her better. She is scared to make this step and felt bad
and guilty. I emphasized that I support her both possible decisions. I
understand her very well and she said that even being understood by me without judging
is a big gift for her. We are tired of having the headscarf as a master status
in the society. We just want to make it only one of our decisions, but it is
impossible because of individual and institutional practices against our
religion and its dress codes.
I
do not wear the headscarf as a result of fear of God. I am no more feeling a
belongingness of a specific frame of religion. I still feed my soul from the foundation
and wisdom of Islam, but my soul stepped over beyond the all religions which
also include them, not exclude. Although, I still wear it because I like the
philosophy and meaning of it. She is confused and thinking to not wear it anymore,
because she is tired of discriminations. I feel her pain. We thought together,
why this is happening after all those struggles. And, we realized that when the
secular system forced us to open our headscarves and be a different person than
what we believe and want, made us to practice this choice very hard. After the
scarf ban become weaker, we just realized how were are tired psychologically
and exhausted. That’s why she started to think this decision when we almost
reach our freedom in public. The ironic part is that she might have similar
problem in the future because of her new decision based on the new Turkish
political atmosphere. Half of our lives passed just to explain our reasons for
why we are wearing this headscarves and how we have problems to continue our
educational lives in public schools and experiencing insults in the society.
Unfortunately and probably, the rest of her life might have to pass just to
explain why she decided to not wear it. Thinking about his made we laugh
sourly.
I
still want to keep my headscarf in my life, because by this practice I can
eliminate most of the discriminative external appearance obsessed people from
my life. Headscarf is like a litmus paper for people in my life. Yes, the
results can be so sad for me sometimes and make me crass to some invisible
Berlin Walls, but I still like many of its functions. I am trying to be myself
and head is scarf one part of this. Who can tear down his or her invisible
Berlin Walls, they can reach my mind and soul and can gain a real friend. Only
with these people, we can share our intellectual worlds with each other. And,
who can crash this litmus head scarf; he or she can stay away from my life.
Despite the individual part, the institutional discrimination hurts more, but these
sharpen my character and open many new and sometimes uneven paths which enrich
me, too. Headscarf gave me some auto control ability and power to resist
external control on my body. I feel really free with it and have more ability
to share my privacy to share or not share it with someone. However, I do not
like a stable mind. My life and realities can change, but I resist keeping my
sincerity until I die. Life is a journey and all the things that we come across
on its paths shape us, hopefully toward to a better character. I wish this for
my close friend X, too. What we have gained from the harshness of the society
is their loss and we will use this wisdom to make our world a better place at
least for some people.
Meryem Rabia Tasbilek
No comments:
Post a Comment