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Introduction

The anthology of Turkish-speaking (TS) women’s writing is the culmination of shared experiences of Turkish-speaking women living in London. It gained momentum with the Short Story and Poetry Competition for TS women organised under the auspices of FATAL (For the Advancement of Turkish-speakers Art and Literature). The anthology reflects and embraces many of the issues of claiming, reclaiming, recreating and being part of a communal memory for TS women. It is also part of our resistance to the status quo. The background to the anthology, the context within which women are writing as well as the social and literary issues it raises will be explored.

Background

TS women occupy a special position within a language community which is made invisible in British society. I have dealt with these issues of invisibility and the impact of racism on the communities for the last twenty years as a community activist in a number of publications and conferences (Mehmet Ali, 1999; 1985; 1986/1987;1989). The invisibility of the communities is a direct consequence of the British assimilationist and integrationist policies on race and culture and their impact on the lives of the Black and Bilingual communities.

The TS communities have a presence in Britain of over fifty years beginning in the 1950s. Migration on a smaller scale still continues. Although accurate statistics are not available, an estimated number of 150,000-180,000 Turkish speakers may be living in London. The major population movements for the different TS communities were as follows: Cypriots arrived primarily in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, Turkish people in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the Kurdish communities in the mid-1990s, although some came in the late 1980s (Mehmet Ali, 1999; Kucukcan, 1997). Despite the high visibility of the communities in certain parts of London and in certain areas of employment such as the kebab shops, restaurants, supermarkets, or association with certain criminal activities such as the trade in drugs and in women from the ex- East European countries, the communities are made invisible within British society. And within that invisibility women occupy a special place. In political and community organisations women are not visible, are marginalised and not present on management committees. Very few women are known in their own right, mostly being referred to as someone’s mother, wife or daughter. The low educational achievement levels in the TS communities (Mehmet Ali, 1999) and other factors impact on the needs and aspirations of women. Service delivery authorities rarely are able to work directly with women.

TS women are also central to absorbing the pain and trauma of living
in racist societies. Racist attacks on the husband at work or on her children at school or in hospitals are absorbed by her, compounded by the isolation she may feel living in Britain (Mehmet Ali, 1997). She is also controlled through “honour” codes, as the “honour” of TS society is channelled through women. Although the individual positions of women vary and may be determined by their class and educational background or whether they belong to the Cypriot, Turkish or Kurdish communities or whether they are first or third generation women, certain issues such as domestic violence and racism are common concerns. No matter how articulate you may be in English or how well you may have adapted to British society or your level of professionalism, as a TS woman you will have to deal with racism and its impact on your everyday life.

Turkish-speaking women and Writing

I became interested in TS women’s writing in 1985 when a group of us organised a conference for women. We asked them to bring something they had created to be exhibited on the walls of the conference. While some women brought handicrafts, a 70-year-old Cypriot woman brought her poetry and performed it for the 150 participants. She was followed by her grand-daughter, aged twelve, who had won a prize for her poem at school. However, one of the most moving moments at the conference emerged when an 18-year-old woman was talking about her experience as a victim of domestic violence. She described how she had left her husband’s house and had gone to the hospital, where one of our members (TS women’s group) was working, to seek refuge. She held a ten-day-old baby in her arms and a plastic bag containing all her belongings. She had run away. We found her a refuge. The mechanism of gossip, very prevalent in the TS communities, went into overdrive focusing on the namus (honour) not only of the family concerned but also of the communities. Messages went back to her village, in a remote part of Turkey, that she had become a prostitute and was now in a brothel. And as women who had placed her in a “brothel”, we were also prostitutes and a danger to the TS communities in London. Although threats were made against us and the mosque tried to mobilise people against us, fortunately for us, it failed because we were well known in the communities as community activists with a long record of responding to the needs of people and helping to defend and claim their rights.

Her mother came to Britain and discovered the truth. She was at the conference listening to her daughter telling her story. The young woman was the first TS woman we persuaded to tell her story of domestic violence publicly and to demonstrate that she was able to take action to change it. She had the whole conference in tears as she touched the lives of many women there. When her daughter finished, the mother told us she was poor and could not offer us money or a present to express her gratitude for taking care of her daughter and being there when she needed someone in this strange land, London. She wanted us to accept her gift, which turned out to be an epic poem, a “lament”, about the story of her daughter. She “sang” about how she had raised her daughter after the death of her husband, how she loved and cherished her and married her to the young man and entrusted her to his family, how she longed for her and missed her when she left for London, she cursed “fate” for what it had brought her and her daughter and told how heart-broken she was when she learnt that her daughter was tortured and beaten up. She could not read or write but had created a poem for us.

These early experiences were the first signals that all sorts of women were creating poetry in London whether in a written form or not and irrespective of the cultural settings within which they were operating. Despite the fragmentation of lives, social networks, structures and cultures, women were able to maintain, transfer and recreate in new settings mechanisms of personal survival.

In 1987, I became more involved in poetry when I organised a number of bilingual and trilingual poetry readings including some for TS women and Cypriot-Turkish and Cypriot-Greek women.

For many of the women I have since met, I discovered that writing is about survival. When asked, they tell you they write to keep sane. This has an impact on the way that the work can be performed or made public and selected for inclusion in publications. They write to remember, to re-shape, to redefine, to make sense of their past, as some came as refugees and escapees of wars. Some write to make sense of their present situation, to come to terms with their changed and destroyed social positions. Some may have been teachers, trade unionists, writers, intellectuals or in other professional fields, but in London they have to work in sweat-shops, factories, restaurants or supermarkets and suffer humiliation. Through their writing they try to look at a different future; they try to imagine one. Some are in search of or creating new identities. They fictionalise life, making sense of it and accepting it. Just as in the writing of African-Caribbean women and that of other Black women, history and culture are central pre-occupations for women living and writing in London. These reasons for writing echo the definitions of the role of feminist criticism by providing:

 “. . . a clue to how we live, how we have been living, how we have been led to imagine ourselves, how our language has trapped as well as liberated us, how the very act of naming has been till now a male prerogative, and how we can begin to see and name – and therefore live – afresh.” (Rich, 1980)

Some of the women included in the anthology are well educated, possessing degrees or doing postgraduate research, while others are primary school graduates. Some are professionals, others are workers in factories, restaurants, shops and supermarkets. They are first, second and third generation. Some are refugees, others lesbians sharing their work with other women. Some women write in Turkish, others in English; some experiment with both languages.

The other misconception in our communities is that women’s writing is dismissed as only being concerned with “love” and therefore not “serious”. So not only does white British society dismiss and make us invisible, but in our own societies our writing is marginalised. Women write about love and about racism, longing for “home” and belonging, people and lives left behind or lost forever, desire for a different life, gay and lesbian relationships, sexuality, religion, namus. We write about politics and how it impacts on our lives both in Britain and “back home”. We write about social issues, about violence and, just as in other communities, domestic violence.

How one woman writer challenges and sabotages some of the taboo subjects ruling her life, such as the Muslim religion and sex, can be demonstrated in the following unedited excerpt written in the form of a diary:

2 February

9 stone and feeling groggy and fat.

After the festivities my father came up to me and pulled a long face. ‘It is time you were married.’

I hackled somewhat, then went into the bath and vomited. Then I went and pressed my top and tried to gauge what century it was. ‘I don’t want to marry.’ Although nearly twenty-one.

Been invited to a party but can’t go because I would get a reputation. Bad for a girl to get a certain notoriety. A Muslim girl does not drink, does not smoke, in fact she does not do much. I smoke secretly. If I get cancer I’ll be found out. I drink as well, I don’t indulge much but then I do occasionally. I don’t have sex.

...

February 3

Time is 9 o’clock. 10 cigarettes (good) 0 sex (good) alcohol 2 glasses (fine).

Been invited to this party and I can’t go. I think the reason being is that it’s an all night party and of course I might get laid . . . I tie my headscarf closer and go out. I hate everyone and everything and there is nothing I can do to change it.

I could fall in love and marry that would be nice. I look a cross between a bird and a sensible man’s pain. So who would marry me?

. . .

I have been trying to write a novel but can’t get beyond the first few pages. Being a painter is what I want to be. I was always good at Art. Some outlet but parents won’t allow it. The image is very important and it is blasphemy to paint nudes and see nudes and give them an image. My friend Jenny says Muslims are so original and pure and she wishes that she was as pure as us!

She does not know what she is talking about. I know: why don’t we swap
places, she could pretend for a night that she is me. . .

                                                                          Fatma Durmush.

The piece sabotages in an understated way a number of taboos in the TS communities e.g. an unmarried woman of 21 stating that she wants to be laid, wanting to go to a party without her family: both unacceptable and contrary to the behaviour of a namuslu (respectable) young woman.

The place of poetry

Poetry is the preferred genre of literature in the TS communities. Its popularity may be linked to the oral traditions in the “home” communities. Both men and women write poetry. The “machoest” of men can write poetry without losing credibility and may be considered desirable, possibly as a measure of “sensitivity”. This is in contrast to men who may be labelled “sissies” for writing poetry in Britain. However, a gender difference seems to exist amongst published and those regarded as leading poets. While in Turkey the world of poetry is dominated by men, in Cyprus, the most original voices and leading poets are women. Anthologies in Turkey barely include five or six women while approximately half of those included in Cypriot anthologies are women (Kurdakul, 1986; Behramoglu, 1987; Yasin, 1994; Northern Cyprus National Ministry of Education and Culture 1989; Karaalioglu, 1983; Fuat, 1986). What is quite clear is that women are more challenging in poetry, alongside some gay poets, in tackling taboos around the Muslim religion, spirituality, eroticism and questioning social relations.

Poetry has high visibility in the lives of the TS communities. Daily newspapers and many magazines publish poetry alongside magazines devoted to it. Many events are inaugurated, celebrated through poetry. Competitions throughout the years of schooling and beyond also ensure poetry a special place in the lives of the TS communities. While poetry may be used to bolster existing power relations and maintain the status quo, it is also the most common form of questioning, resisting and undermining it.

Another characteristic of women who write is that they hide their work. When I ask to see it, having heard from others that they write, they rummage through cupboards, drawers, books, purses, pockets to unearth and bring out samples of their work. The “famous” TS poets in Britain are male, much more able than women to promote themselves and thus
make a statement that it is their right to be writing poetry. Poetry and being a poet is serious business and needs dedication and single mindedness and is thus assumed to be men’s business. These assumptions which undervalue and marginalise women’s creativity are but reflections of societal views. It may be absurd to make such a comparison but, while women may cook, men are the chefs. Just as women may write poetry but men are the poets. Thus poetry becomes masculinised.

FATAL Short Story and Poetry competition for Women

In 1996 I organised the first short story and poetry competition for TS women in London under the auspices of FATAL, a group I set up in 1987 to advance the arts and literature amongst Turkish speakers in Britain. Our aim was to encourage more writing by women and flush out those who were writing. We ran the competition for three years. We had a good response which was evidence that women were writing and producing good quality and varied work. The competition gave us the opportunity to give women’s writing high visibility in the TS communities by establishing links with book-shops (both Turkish and English), the local Turkish language radio and newspapers and even local restaurants who supported the venture by giving prizes. We encouraged the winners to read and talk about their work on the radio while we arranged for it to be published in the local press. We wanted to encourage other women to write but also to share their work.

In 1998 we added a section for 14-17-year-olds as there was a demand to participate; previously the competition was limited to women aged 18 and above. In addition, creative writing workshops were set up to help women improve their writing skills, to promote empowerment and confidence building through the sharing of work, and to highlight the value of creative writing. A number of issues emerged which needed to be negotiated with the women including what was the “correct” language, “Cypriot or Istanbul Turkish”, were there “correct/proper” ways of expression, what needed to be “corrected” and why?

Issues raised by the anthology

I could have chosen to do the anthology on my own but decided to involve a group of women in the process. My starting point as an adult educator committed to the approaches of empowerment inspired by, amongst others, Paulo Freire, was central to that decision. The group of women includes award winners and judges of the competitions. Some of the issues we are dealing with are as follows:

• should the book be bilingual and work be published in the language in which it was produced?

 • should the work originally written in Turkish be translated into English as the book will be published in Britain?

• should it include work from across generations and different age groups? • should the book include controversial work from refugees and political asylum seekers, some of whom may be Kurdish, which may fall foul of the official circles in Turkey?

• should the work include writing from lesbian women or on gay and lesbian relations which are taboo subjects in our communities?

• how do we create cross-cultural access to the work?

 • how do we prevent the ghettoisation of TS women’s writing?

• should we restrict the genre of work to be included?

• how do we decide on quality?

• how do we select the work of women?

Most of the time we are aware of the need to be inclusive and not to impose definitions. Rukhsana Ahmad’s paper (1) on ‘Feminists or Traditionalists: Women Writers and the Urdu Literary Canon’ (1999) is a good reminder not to force definitions of feminism on women who seem to be doing extraordinary things. In the group there are those who define themselves as feminists while others do not. We feel that the work of the women will reflect the definitions of themselves and their life philosophies. We are also aware of the fact that the reconstruction of women’s history has been a central concern for contemporary feminism and that studies of women’s writing have played a vital role in that process (Frith, 1997).

In putting the anthology together one of the major issues we face is lack of funding. Within our own communities our individual efforts are not taken seriously and when we approach British funding bodies we face marginalisation. We are treated as though we are “Turkish delights” until we assert our vision of what we want and how we want it. Our wish to produce a bilingual anthology has caused problems as British society has never accepted bilingualism as the norm and repeated policies have denied the cultures and languages of the communities. These policies find their way into the processes of the funding bodies who insist that the work be in English. When we submitted an application for funding two years ago and asked assistance in ensuring that it was appropriate, it was denied. Funding authorities seem to have pet projects which they support over a number of years. Cuts in local authority funding and other agencies have diminished further the chances of publishing from local bilingual communities.

Conclusion

Inevitably the anthology will challenge the domination of men in literature in the TS communities in Britain. It will also contribute to the establishment of other languages as representatives of British literary life. Another question is how the literature created in London will impact on the literatures of Turkey and Cyprus, the literatures we have come from. And how do we contribute to the literatures of Britain. Technical issues such as marketing, distribution and editing are also of concern. It would also be useful to experiment with other bilingual communities and with other arts, theatre, mime, music in that crosscultural presentation. We also realise that we are the first to be working on such an anthology in our communities. We hope that we help to break the silences of the soul of so many of our women by breaking our own silence.

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