'Çuuuuuuuuuşşşşş!!' she blurted out as I held onto the airplane's steal toilet with all of the strength I could muster. The stewardess couldn't stop herself from a disgusted ejaculation standing on the other side of the door listening to me heave and projectile vomit. I, on the other side of the grateful divide, was retching my guts up into the Pegasus airlines toilet. Just moments after touching down I had rushed to the back, with no paper bag in sight. The change of air pressure at the end had been too much. Such a ride. As I got off the plane after creating such unearthly noises, even a small child looked at me afraid and pointed me out to his parents, revolted.
Before I got violently ill and clawed my way step-by-step back from the Ankara of bureaucracy and secularism to the evocative and classical Stamboul, I had been interviewing the first person who I had hoped to classify as a Turkish 'traditional healer' in a piece of work that is still ongoing. She is a self described modern, secular, Turkish woman, an ardent supporter of the Republican People's Party (CHP) who strives to follow the principals of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in every possible way, wearing western dress, head uncovered, extolling the importance of modern education in the face of 'backwardness' (read: strict religiosity, conservativism). She has been publicly honored by the head of the party himself. But there are many other women who could fit some part of this description.
What distinguishes Zöhre Ana (nee Suheyla Gülen) is that she is believed be to a living saint, a 'Friend of Allah' capable of healing the sick, made an instrument by divine will and the intervention of holy beings of the past who are believed to appear to her and to have done so since the 1980s.So strong is this belief that I cannot count the number times I saw a person prostrate to her during the day we spent together. She would gracefully, lightly, touch-tap them on the back, accepting their embodied, somatic devotion.
Zöhre Ana is a member of the minority Alevi community, a religious group particular to Turkey that integrates elements of Shiism and local Anatolian beliefs, largely held together by an allegiance to saintly figures such as Hacı Bektaş, holy rebels like Pir Sultan Abdal and an elaborate scheme of dedes (grandfathers, religious elders). That, though, does not describe a tradition within Islam (even that identification is sometimes rejected) that cannot agree on any one definition for itself. There are no five pillars or creed to ascent to, here.
On my way to meet her I had picked up a golden large healthy jar of honey at a former priest's vineyard tucked away among the embassies and diplomat's homes in Çankaya, the centre of Ankara. After a bumpy taxi ride. I joined her at her ' Open Door' association (Açık Kapı Derneği). Its housed in a building with every imaginable function: religious ceremony space, a slaughterhouse for meat promised to be distributed by those making vows, a library, a place for weddings, circumcisions, various kitchens, a guesthouse and even a small ethnographic museum holding Anatolian folk costumes.
After tea and introductions by her son-in-law, she came down the stairs of the salon, looking quite stern and took my gift, with some polite protest. I started my usual and, well, logical line of questions about how this woman, considered by many a living saint, had come to be surrounded by hundreds, thousands of people quietly seeking her healing gift in a gecekondu (shanty town) neighborhood of greater Ankara. She was unimpressed.
Oh. They always ask the same questions. You don't need to ask me all the questions on your list. I sense what you want to know...
Before I got violently ill and clawed my way step-by-step back from the Ankara of bureaucracy and secularism to the evocative and classical Stamboul, I had been interviewing the first person who I had hoped to classify as a Turkish 'traditional healer' in a piece of work that is still ongoing. She is a self described modern, secular, Turkish woman, an ardent supporter of the Republican People's Party (CHP) who strives to follow the principals of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in every possible way, wearing western dress, head uncovered, extolling the importance of modern education in the face of 'backwardness' (read: strict religiosity, conservativism). She has been publicly honored by the head of the party himself. But there are many other women who could fit some part of this description.
What distinguishes Zöhre Ana (nee Suheyla Gülen) is that she is believed be to a living saint, a 'Friend of Allah' capable of healing the sick, made an instrument by divine will and the intervention of holy beings of the past who are believed to appear to her and to have done so since the 1980s.So strong is this belief that I cannot count the number times I saw a person prostrate to her during the day we spent together. She would gracefully, lightly, touch-tap them on the back, accepting their embodied, somatic devotion.
Zöhre Ana is a member of the minority Alevi community, a religious group particular to Turkey that integrates elements of Shiism and local Anatolian beliefs, largely held together by an allegiance to saintly figures such as Hacı Bektaş, holy rebels like Pir Sultan Abdal and an elaborate scheme of dedes (grandfathers, religious elders). That, though, does not describe a tradition within Islam (even that identification is sometimes rejected) that cannot agree on any one definition for itself. There are no five pillars or creed to ascent to, here.
On my way to meet her I had picked up a golden large healthy jar of honey at a former priest's vineyard tucked away among the embassies and diplomat's homes in Çankaya, the centre of Ankara. After a bumpy taxi ride. I joined her at her ' Open Door' association (Açık Kapı Derneği). Its housed in a building with every imaginable function: religious ceremony space, a slaughterhouse for meat promised to be distributed by those making vows, a library, a place for weddings, circumcisions, various kitchens, a guesthouse and even a small ethnographic museum holding Anatolian folk costumes.
After tea and introductions by her son-in-law, she came down the stairs of the salon, looking quite stern and took my gift, with some polite protest. I started my usual and, well, logical line of questions about how this woman, considered by many a living saint, had come to be surrounded by hundreds, thousands of people quietly seeking her healing gift in a gecekondu (shanty town) neighborhood of greater Ankara. She was unimpressed.
Oh. They always ask the same questions. You don't need to ask me all the questions on your list. I sense what you want to know...
....and ?!
ReplyDelete...and more to come.
ReplyDeleteHi Logan!
ReplyDelete