By reflecting on a personal story, Gülseren Onanç writes about the need to stand in solidarity against radical Islam and resist its oppressive regime against girls and women around the world.
Gülseren Onanç
I was five years old when I took my mother’s hand and got on the ferry for the Princess Islands. I remember like it was yesterday. I was in awe and admiration mixed with anxiety and fear in the middle of the vast sea. A year ago, we had migrated from Mardin, an ancient city located on the border of Syria, to Istanbul with my big family. When my grandmother, who could not speakTurkish at all, mother, father, three older brothers and I, came to Istanbul in 1969, the population of the city was only 3 million, it is about 15 million now.
It was my father who admired Istanbul and wanted to build a future for himself, his family and his children in this city. My father grew up in the distinctive multilingual and multi-religious cosmopolitan life of Mardin. He had seen Beirut and Damascus but was fascinated by Istanbul’s social life, where he served in the military. My father, who did not have vocational education, believed that he could survive in Istanbul as an entrepreneur. He was able to hold on to Istanbul by engaging in business like operating a grocery store, a jewelry store, leather export. He was able to provide social and financial basis to raise his children.
Those who were shy, afraid of the big city were the women of our family. My grandmother and mother wanted to live in peace with the land where they were born and the neighbourhood where they roamed freely. Istanbul was foreign to them. My grandmother, who was illiterate could not express herself in any language other than Arabic. I remember how she wanted to find people who spoke her own language. It breaks my heart to remember how she looked forward to our visits to her brother living in another neighborhood of İstanbul.
My mother used to describe our other neighbors in our apartment according to the cities they came from. She used to refer to them as the ladies from Denizli or Malatya. After all, we were those who left our towns and migrated to Istanbul. Solidarity was necessary in order to survive in Istanbul. From that moment on, it was more important to build our future together in İstanbul. This determined our path, not where we came from.
When I read our interview with journalist-writer Emine Uçar Erdoğan on her newly released book on Syrian migrants in Istanbul, I thought of my family’s migration process and what they went through. The research on Syrian women’s experiences in the past years show that they were not accepted by the local people in any city except Mardin. While everyone can find a place for themselves in the multicultural mosaic of Mardin, there is a clear opposition to immigrants in other cities of Turkey.
Syrian women are not only ones. Afghan women, who migrated to Turkey with dreams of starting a new life, leaving the threat of the Taliban and the many dangers they experienced in the region, are also struggling with discrimination, difficult working conditions and unemployment.
I want to share a quote from a young woman, an Afghan textile worker named Mahdiyeha. She says that “I have to work to support my family. I work very long hours, more than local workers, yet I get half of the salary. I am exposed to discrimination and racist statements. Life is hard. We are constantly blamed, but I don’t know why; we never violate the rules here; the only rule we violate is working. We have to work, or we will die. We are not dishonouring anyone, and we are trying to show the people a lot of respect, but we are blamed.”
Another woman, Zohra, has been in Turkey for a month with her family says that “the Taliban took many family members from me. We barely saved our lives. I don’t know why our Turkish brothers are angry with us, but we are in a challenging situation; we had to come.”
There is a greater need to build solidarity in these contentious times. The American and NATO military forces surrendered the country to the Taliban. The images of people trying to escape the country by holding on to the wings of a plane at the Kabul Airport is a symbolic image of the patriarchal system crashing.
After the US decided to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban regained power and control of the capital, Kabul. With the return of the Taliban, the freedoms and gains that women and girls have made in the last 20 years are also under threat. Under the Taliban regime, which prohibits girls from participating in education and women from working, without a burqa and without a man accompanying them, 80% of those who commit suicide are women.
The leaders of the Taliban, who took over the country, announced that the new system will not be a democracy and that the rules of sharia will be valid in the country, and that the veil will be obligatory for women. They state that the right of women for education and work will be protected. The news from the country shows that the situation for women is very dire.
We all remember how girls and women were oppressed under the sharia order during the Taliban between 1996 and 2001. Afghan women say they do not believe the Taliban, although it has been sending more moderate messages in the last days since it came to power. They say that under the sharia regime of the Taliban, women are living in hell and call out to the world: “Be with us, not the Taliban.”
Speaking at the press conference where NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg evaluated the latest developments in Afghanistan, Afghan journalist Lailuma Sadid said: “They will not respect human rights, women’s rights. They will not give any space to women, do not recognize the Taliban.”
There are so many women from Afghanistan whose voices we need to hear. Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan women’s rights activist is one of them. The life of the seventy-year-old Mahbouba, whose name means lovable in Arabic, has never been as easy. She was born in Kabul and went to school in that city. She lived in exile for 26 years and saw unending coups in her country. She returned to Afghanistan in 2003 after the US invasion. When she went back to her homeland in her fifties, Mahbouba worked as an activist for women’s rights and was a part of the peace process. She feels responsible for her beloved country and her country’s daughters.
Mahbouba, who witnessed the negotiations between the representatives of America, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and NATO in the face of the terrifying sharia demands of the Taliban, sat at the table as the spokesperson for women and girls. She is a brave heart who had the chance to get to know male-dominated politics closely, and her rebellion against these forces was the defining voice of last week: “Shame on you. I am gonna say it to the world world, shame on you for what you did to Afghanistan. Why did you have to do what you did? Why are you doing this to this part of the world? I don’t get it. Are you using all of us?”
Women’s Platform for Equality (EŞİK) based in Turkey, published a statement, calling the Turkish government not to recognise Taliban. “The Taliban is not an administration to be “recognised” and to be in contact with in “unity of faith”; it is a religious fundamentalist criminal organization that is hostile to women and human rights! We want to see an approach that implements a holistic immigration policy taking into account not the Taliban, but the Afghan civilians who are oppressed under the Taliban – a policy that protects Afghan people’s fundamental right to life, and does not see them as bargaining chips.”
They also organized an online meeting to discuss the ways for solidarity with the women of Afghanistan. More than 300 feminists, activists, and journalists from Afghanistan, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Iran, Turkey and the USA attended the meeting. Emphasizing that the imperial powers have turned the world into hell for their interest, the participating women indicated it is high time to say “enough is enough” and to demand for real change more loudly and in a more organized way. They repeatedly emphasized the indispensable importance of secularism for women and societies to live freely and in peace.
As the problems of women are interconnected all over the world, we should not think that the events of Afghanistan are beyond the reach of Turkey. Last week, we saw traces of the Taliban mentality in the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Turkey. The Ministry of Justice, in its reply to the Constitutional Court (AYM), regarding the arrests made within the investigation launched due to “the Kaaba image being knocked down” at an open-air exhibition held at Boğaziçi University, stated that homosexuality is considered forbidden in Islam (haram) a and defended that the arrest decision was in accordance with the law.
On the other hand, we have to hear the voices of refugee women and understand their problems. We all live in different locations from the land we were born. When I think about how my mother and grandmother overcame the difficulties they faced in Istanbul in solidarity with women from other cities, I see the need to increase solidarity with Afghan and Syrian women.
As Mahbouba Seraj said, we cannot leave our future in the hands of powerful men. Today is the time for women around the world to stand in solidarity against radical Islam and resist its oppressive regime against girls and women.