Nermin Aydemir JTW Columnist printable version send your friend message to author add comment ()

Friday, 9 January 2009

Being among the most popular issues in the contemporary world order, multiculturalism gets increasingly popular in the intellectual world, as well. Various metaphors are used to describe different kinds of multicultural societies. Melting pot illustrates how different ingredients in the pot are combined to create a homogenous society. Salad-bowl, on the other hand, is used by those who favor integration more than assimilation and points up how different cultures, races, ethnicities, religions, languages and the like can build up a culture while maintaining their own identities. Many other metaphors seem to appear as the sophistication grows in studies on multiculturalism.
 
 When it comes to Anatolia, Ashura seems to be the best way to describe multiculturalism in this land. Its history goes back to Noah’s time. People on Noah’s board mixed everything together to survive and managed to create a wonderful taste. Pea, bean, wheat, all sorts of nut, apricot, cinnamon and many other ingredients give flavor to each other despite keeping their original tastes. Different from salad, all tastes mix into each other but still remain to be their own. Ashura is neither a mosaic nor a melting pot. It is neither assimilation nor integration. It is something different; it is something special… Ashura symbolizes the great taste of all the society without eliminating their identities. Ashura is a symbol of how different values can make the others much more tasteful despite maintaining the original taste.  One feels all different tastes when eating ashura but also feels the great taste the desert’s own. Ashura is both the symbol of pluralism and unity at the same time. Ashura is the symbol of democracy and tolerance.  Ashura is Anatolia, ashura is Istanbul.
 
 Minorities exist in every society on earth and face difficulties. However, one needs to take contextual differences into account when analyzing how things take place in different societies. Keeping historical and sociological backgrounds in mind seems to be crucial when studying minority groups in different context. Although diverse ethnic and religious identities only came together with industrialization and secularism in the West, things were quite different in many other areas in the world. This is why multicultural theories which are not based on contextual facts fail to make proper analyzes most of the time.  To illustrate, the existing multiculturalism literature hardly explains why and how hundred thousand Turkish people came together at the funeral of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink last year on 19 January. Mr. Dink was a well-known Armenian activist and said things contradictory to the general opinion. He used to believe that the Turks had committed the genocide which most of the Turks strictly oppose. Still, hundred thousand people, not a few intellectuals, were at his funeral and carrying posters saying "we are all Armenians, we are all Hrant Dink". We have to work a lot to expand the literature enough to make it explain why hundred thousand Turks shouted being Armenian in a freezing January afternoon and at a time when nationalism was on its peak.
 
 As for Mr. Dink, himself, he always used to mention how much he loved Turkey. He was greatly sad when he was on trial for "assaulting Turkishness". He had decided to leave the country in case the court would found him guilty but also mentioned that he had no place else to go since Turkey was his country. Rakel Dink’s, Mr. Dink’s wife, words at his funeral explain much, indeed: "…You left those you love, you left your children and grand children, you left all those people here, you left me, but you didn’t leave your country..." .
 
 Of course, minorities have problems all around the world and Turkey is not immune from them. The rising nationalism within the entire world is also the case in Turkey. No one can clear those committing the ill-fated attacks against minority religions in the last year. What the Turkish need is remembering the taste of ashura once again and than telling it to those who have never tasted it. No one is allowed to eat ashura alone, the ones who make it have to serve it to their neighbors no matter from which background they come from….
 
 19 January 2008