Agos, 4 June 2004

It is only recently that the West has started to become acquainted with multiculturalism in the real sense. The US, which boasts the widest variety of cultural diversity, has a history of but two centuries.

As for Europe, it is steadily developing ways of ‘living with the other’ by, so to speak, conducting experiment after experiment in the laboratory.

And because it does not have a deep-rooted tradition of multicultural living, when it is confronted with an issue like the headscarf, which ranks as being fairly ordinary for us (!), it gets stuck, and has no idea how to react.

France is a typical example. The pain caused by the passing of the law prohibiting the use of religious symbols in schools is still sharply felt.

But it is hard to find any words in criticism, because, despite their lack of experience, they display the good will to make things better, progressing step by step from monoculturalism to multiculturalism, and from uniformity to unity.

We, on the other hand, have the experience, but lack the will.

***

Those circles in our country that dislike the concept of multiculturalism are quite worried. Their greatest concern is that if our differences are brought to the forefront of debate, they will gradually morph into humorous tales, and that our unity and integrity as a nation will be damaged.

They use words like unity and integrity to cover their real desire, which is to defend uniformity.

You’ll remember the oft-quoted comment, “Enough of your ‘mosaic’ nonsense; our country is like a slab of marble”[1]… That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

Yet despite this being their position, they still won’t compromise one iota from their attitude of, “We already have multiculturalism, a new version is unnecessary.”

***

Legend has it that once there was a time when we lived together in such harmony that we would channel our differences into jokes and tease each other.

It was enough for a Turk, a Kurd, an Armenian, a Jew, and a Greek to get together, and there would be no stopping us.

We would poke fun at each other with fond banter, starting out with the line, “A Kurd, a Turk, and an Armenian were walking along the street …” Ah, those were the days…

Instead of losing our temper over our differences, we would entertain ourselves with them.

The capacity to transform differences into entertainment… That is perhaps the true measure of human civilization.

***

But then… The day came when we began to fear each other, so much so that we could not even tell each other our jokes. In the name of ‘uniformity’, not only did we lose much of our rich variety, we also lost our sense of joy.

Can we ever return to those times?

Where should we start if we want to bring them back? Do you suppose it might be a good idea to leave aside daunting words like ‘governance’ and ‘politics’ and begin with education?

Would it help if we introduced units and research topics into our textbooks that would indelibly inscribe our differences into our memories, so that they are never forgotten?

Or perhaps it would be best to begin with the alphabet.

“There is a sentence in primary school course books that goes, “Ali, throw Your Man In This Column the ball to Veli”. Perhaps we should add a new sentence next to it: “Ali, 139 throw the ball to Hagop.”[2].

***

I once asked such questions and put forward these proposals during a meeting, organized by the Beyoğlu newspaper, that brought together representatives of minority communities.

My friend Mihail Vasiliadis, Chief Editor of the newspaper Apoyevmatini, was amused with my phrase, “Ali, throw the ball to Hagop.”.

“By God, you’re going to get yourself into trouble with that one,” he teased. “You’re telling Ali to throw the ball, but what if Ali mistakes it for a cannonball? When the time comes for him to do his military service, he might go and aim a cannonball at Hagop! Won’t he then say, this is only what they taught me in primary school?”.

We had a good laugh at that.

***

“This is how it should be,” I said to myself, “This is exactly how it should be.”

Even if it shows one ‘other’ the extent of trauma or paranoia present in the mind of another ‘other’, this is this kind of togetherness we must strive to attain.

To turn our differences into jokes and banter…...

[1] During an appearance on a television talk show, Alparslan Türkeş, founder and president of the Nationalist Movement Party, responded to a comment by Kurdish MP Orhan Doğan that Turkey, with its wide variety of differences, resembled a mosaic, by saying that the country was like marble, i.e. an indivisible, integral whole

[2] “Ali, throw the ball to Veli” is a typical example of the kind of sentence used in primary schools when children are learning to write. The names used in these sentences are always common Turkish names, never names of people from the country’s minority communities.