Secrets

Sunday, December 18, 2005

  I promised, so I m going to keep her name secret. Actually, her name or surname is not that important. Let s call her Ayşe. She is one of the many Turkish girls who study overseas to wear the headscarf. She told her story in detail in her letter. She explained how she couldn t go to university in Turkey due to the headscarf ban, how her family struggled to save enough money to send her overseas to study. She explained how important her education was for her family and how grateful she was for them. She said she loved books even more than her fellow human beings. She wrote about her dreams. And then she briefly mentioned her childhood. She said she comes from quite a conservative family and explained that she was never left to lead an independent life. She says she had never lived alone apart from her family until she found herself alone in a Western country. She keeps noting how unaccustomed she was to be alone. She always lived beneath the protective wings of her family until she suddenly found herself alone in Europe.

  That was the first time she felt lonely and the sense of foreignness and isolation. She then began to reassess her identity. She realized there were other Turks living in a foreign land. She realized there were thousands of her fellow citizens who were overseas because of various reasons like the headscarf. Some of them felt isolated because they couldn t speak Kurdish in public areas and felt letdown by Turkey. Others felt they were branded because they were leftists, Alawi, Syriac or Zaza. She listened to their stories, constantly comparing theirs with hers.

  “One of my closest friends today is a leftist Kurdish political refugee who had to flee the country after the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup. I am sure if my family heard about it, all hell will break loose. They would never want me to befriend anyone outside our community,” Ayşe says. She is a girl who wears a headscarf and comes from a conservative family. She lived a very sheltered life. However, since she started studying in Europe, one of her closest friends has a very different ideological background. A girl with a headscarf and a middle-aged revolutionary political refugee. However, they were able to listen to and understand each other. Ayşe s heart is large.

  Ayşe wears a headscarf and is religious. However, she is also capable of saying: “You are right. If we are to learn anything, we will learn it from those unlike us.”

  I receive many letters, full of secrets, from Turkish youths studying overseas.

  Those who don t sit side by side in Turkey go overseas and gain a sense of camaraderie out of isolation. Only then do they discover their common points. Exile… Turks in Europe develop new languages. Isn t it about time these languages are heard back in Turkey?