Home
When you are at home, you feel safe I hope. That is why the term" feeling like home" is basically refers to being surrounded by an intimate and known atmosphere. Actually when you look at things from a particular distant, everything gets blurry. You do not see the details but you kind of get to see the general outline of the issue. One of these issues Berna Turam is discussing here is that people's instinct to live with the ones whose are like them (devout or secularist) in order to feel safe and appreciated in a place that they call home, their neighborhood ( Turam, 2013, pp. 417).
She tries to clarify the feelings behind this instinct and then point at the outcomes of it, especially the effects on politics and state. She is choosing a very good example, old secularist Teşvikiyeli's, as she knows the area and the people well by her childhood. Besides these, she also criticizes the instinct by saying a line which really loved while I was reading the article: " What people frame and contest in terms of ' whose neighborhood? whose square?' and so on, speaks for more than their ideology ( Islamist, secularist nationalist, feminist, Kurdish, etc.) (Turam, 2013, pp. 413). As I first read it I thought that she was angry with the old Teşvikiyeli’s about their reaction but as much as it is wrong, she was not expecting them to speak their ideology more than they need to, too.
There are two different dimensions of this issue. One is that the meanings behind the behavior as it stands for people's fear of losing their freedom, privacy and rights. The other dimension is that she criticizes not the Teşvikiyeli's but the failure of government and opposition to protect and secure liberties and rights ( Turam, 2013, pp. 409). That is why the street-level contestations are very common and people feel the need to protect their zones, families and rights. That is also mentioned in the article that there is a gap left by the absence of Spatial analysis from political science and political sociology (Turam, 2013, Pp. 409), by that I can say arguing their ideologies and asserting their rights are not ordinary people's issues and responsibilities and obviously street is not the right place for doing it.
When you consider the fear and the other reasons behind this instinct of Teşvikiyeli's, this behavior seems understandable yet still not appropriate. It is sure that there is a created fear and anxiety upon the weakened secularist part of the society, as the hegemonic pro-Islamic government is increasing its power. However, since this article is written in 2013 and we are about a decade further from it, so that we can look from a different perspective with considering the changes in the last decade. It is obvious that the fear is still where it was, the people's minds and souls. However, Turam mentions the middle-class secularist newcomers in the last parts of the article by referring them as more optimist and welcoming for devout visitors (Turam, 2013, pp. 422). I also can add that Generation Z is looking from a point of view that this is a diversity in society. Furthermore, I can say as a citizen from the secularist part of the society that "equality" issue is much more discussed and prioritized than being secularist or devout as an ideology. I am not claiming that everything is cool between secularist and devout people. However, I think that day by day, people (especially Gen Z) are turning to more primary and healthier communication techniques rather than competing to impose an idea to "the other".
As Turam mentions that "the advocacy of freedom to wear the headscarf goes unconditionally together with their advocacy of recognition for other marginalized groups , ...( Turan, 2013, pp. 424), so basically ones liberty ( if there is a need of doing it) must be protected by everyone. That is why I mention the primacy of "equality" and "liberty" issue, rather than going around and round about being devout or secularist. Yet some insultings and harrasments are still happening mutually, there is no room to underestimate the impact of these kind of attitudes. As I know it ever from myself that being the "unwanted" according to a group of people can turn out to be a strong traumatic memory for "the other". For instance, I have a traumatic memory with mosques from the school trip that I went to six years ago. when we went to Uludağ, we also wanted to visit Bursa Grand Mosque, because we were so impressed by the architecture of it. However, the man in charge did not let me and my friends whose are not covering their heads into the mosque. So we were forced to cover our heads in order to visit it, yet still women in general were not allowed to be in some specific places of mosque.
This was the first time that I was experiencing something like this but not the first time that I was forced to be someone I am not in order to be accepted. Still such places like schools and workplaces, people are forced to wear similar and "appropriate" things in order to be appreciated. This is also attached with the situation that happened about 25 years ago that headscarved women were forced to take off their headscarves in order to enter school. Yet, 25 years further from that, the hot topic of nowadays is that teachers (especially women) are continuingly being criticized about the" inappropriate" things that they wear by "surprisingly" politicians. This is also mentioned by Turam that most of the discriminations were having "the female body" in its core ( Turam, 2013, pp. 416) which is being discussed both spatially and politically.
To criticize, the idea "cultural and spatial proximity is not solving but reinforcing the conflict " of Turam is not what the situation is evolving to at all ( Turam, 2013, pp_421) . On the contrary, it is helpful to normalize the differences of each ideology. As I mention that Generation Z have a whole different perspective of this situation, it would be right only with the consideration of the fact that Generation Z born into the variety of these ideologies. "... urban contestations open a space for agreement to disagree..." (Turam, 2013, pp. 426). We need to be able to see the differences as diversity, live peacefully, have the right to maintain our ideologies and liberties, live in a country where rights are properly protected in order to provide everyone the safety that they can call where they live "home".
Bibliography
Turam B. (2013) “The Primacy of Space in Politics: Bargaining Rights, Freedom and Power in an Istanbul Neighborhood” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Vol. 37/2, pp. 409-429.
