Breakfast in Közlüce

But for the car's headlights, the only light illuminating the valley floor was from the radiant stars and the easily recognizable band of the Milky Way traversing their paths across the cloudless Dersim sky. But the night was not entirely still, however. Through one of the 'highway's many passes, we were forced to share the road with a disoriented grey bear cub who had also chosen asphalt as the quickest route from point A to point B.

Meanwhile, at the village turnoff, our headlights woke up the lightly dozing jandarma guard; Tunceli, like many other places that have traditionally been centres of resistance to central rule, is dotted with remote and lonely police outposts -- for those that man these stations, life is generally filled with boredom punctuated only by the occasional firefight with insurgents appear from their mountain bases under cover of darkness. Theirs is an unenviable life; conscripted soldiers, many see weapons for the first time in their lives when they perform their obligatory military service. In Turkey, only the positively mad look forwards to completing between 5 and 16 months of national service; most, while professing the necessity of a national armed forces, see their time in the military as merely a necessary evil before normal life can resume. For those unlucky enough to be dealt a bad hand by the military's database (rarely does one get to serve in one's hometown -- most are randomly assigned to points throughout the country based on a computer printout), Tunceli can be a nerve-racking and dangerous experience, albeit one in the most awesome of natural surroundings.

This evening, however, the jandarma officer's voice is muffled more from fatigue than existential worry -- after explaining our destination and point of origin, he offers a muttered and sleep-deprived "continue on." Between the single track dirt road and the brook beside it, there is little room for anything else in the deep gorge that leads from Pülümür into Tunceli's eastern mountains. After no more than 7 km (but an eternity in trying to negotiate the road's rocky and dark path), we arrive in Közlüce Köyü, the contemporary Turkish nomenclature for the previous Zimâk, a name of Zazaca-Kurdish origin.

Közlüce is a microcosm for much of what has happened in Tunceli during the region's embattled history. With a summertime 'high' population of around 45, the number of those left in winter trickles to barely enough for a football squad. While there are potentially millions of people scattered throughout the world with a Tuncelili heritage, only 70.000 still maintain permanent residence within the district. For people in Közlüce, as is evidenced throughout Tunceli, winters are hard, cold, and lonely, work is impossible to find, industry is scarce, transportation is slow and likely to be significantly delayed by livestock traffic even at the best of times, few educational opportunities are available, and there is the persistent possibility of rebel activity, forest fire, or forcible resettlement by a security apparatus desparate to gain the upper hand in a long-running, simmering conflict with insurgents.

Közlüce's summer population, thus, is comprised primarily of people that now call Ankara, Istanbul, Köln, Berlin, Marseille, or Amsterdam home. Every summer, migrants from Western Turkey and beyond make an annual return to villages like Közlüce for a chance to nostalgically reminisce about a(n admittedly hard) childhood spent tending sheep or bees -- or, as is increasingly the case, to visit a hometown most have never lived in, such is the long-rooted history of displacement and emigration out of Tunceli.

In the end, Közlüce is an odd village: For every tut-tutting, grandmotherly clucks of the headscarf-wearing, hearty amounts of breakfast-serving, and çay-serving babuska, there are three lawyers, doctors, or engineers in attendance; for every word exchanged in Turkish -- or, more ancestrally, Zazaca, there are three in German ; for every beat-up Tofaş Şahin with Tunceli number plates (the Tofaş Şahin is a true Turkish institution: Boxy and belching, it continues to rule most Turkish roads, the day you happen to board a non Şahin yellow taxi anywhere in the Turkish Republic will be the day of Judgment), there is a BMW from Duisburg.

Though Közlüce might seem odd, its annual summer migration is one that mirrors many of the changing anthropological landscapes observed throughout Anatolia.

1) Közlüce's rocky approach by daylight

2) Some of the treeless mountains that serve to cut off Tunceli from the rest of the world

3) Közlüce's main thoroughfare

4) Sprichst du Deutsch? A good portion of Közlüce's summer population, from Germany and beyond

A Journey to Düzgün Baba

Düzgün Baba Ziyareti lies some 20-30km away from the centre of Tunceli. Like most roads in Tunceli, the way is bumpy, remote, and difficult; even the initial portion of the paved 'highway' (it is the region's only access road to the north and the highway that passes between Erzincan and Erzurum -- indeed, there are only three terrestrial access points into Tunceli, a testament to the area's remoteness and a determining factor in ensuring that all central governments have always had difficulty in controlling the region) is only wide enough for one vehicle in some parts. The ensuing turnoff to Düzgün Baba has a bit of the Bolivian to it with little but the minibus' Sabancı tires and the driver's skill separating the living from a premature end at the bottom of a rocky valley hundreds of feet below -- such driving skill is even more extraordinary given that most captains tend to nonchalantly negotiate hairpin turns with more interest directed towards writing text messages and lighting cigarettes than in investing due care and attention into their primary occupation of actually driving the vehicle.

Following one's tempting of the road gods, the traveller arrives at the Ziyaret of Düzgün Baba, a 14th century figure revered by many of Turkey's Alevi population. In embarrasment for a perceived transgression, Düzgün Baba took to the mountains to live in a cave -- while he continued to receive itinerant visitors in his mountain abode for some time, he eventually disappeared from sight -- meaning that his final resting place was never truly determined. Despite this, a funeral mound some kilometres from the base camp purports to be the final resting place of the holy man. Legend has it that an Ottoman army chose this site as a camp during a military excursion. However, after settling down, the ground began to pour forth with blood; from this blood a voice announced to the awestruck soldiers that this was place of Düzgün Baba. Needless to say, the Ottoman army quickly made alternate camping arrangements.

The arduous journey to the site, coupled with the area's mountainess terrain enhances the physical austerity and otherworldliness of the Ziyaret (literally "visit," the term usually refers to shrines for members of Turkey's Alevi sect. The shrines might be actual burial places, or, more likely, simply places where holy men have made a physical appearance (cf. Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary)). Here, religiously inclined Alevis arrive to perform animal sacrifices and create a shared sense of community through the exchange of common food staples to one another at the Ziyaret; food, such as bread, nuts, watermelon, or fanta is widely dispensible at any nearby market ("nearby" used here in a somewhat figurative sense, given that this is Tunceli), but acquires increased importance when traded following the performance of animal sacrifice in front of the site's initial Ziyaret, a large rock adorned with sheeps' horns on top and lit candles on the bottom. Though the area is devoid of stately religious buildings that one would commonly encounter in grand mosques or cathedrals, the performance of animal sacrifice, the subsequent distribution of its meat (it is, I'm fairly sure, the first time that I have walked around with a pile of raw sheep intestines in my hand trying to find a bag to put it in --- not excepting the distributed gift would be somewhat gauche), the lighting of candles around the Ziyaret (generally accompanied with tears borne not of sorrow but of conviction in the validity of the prayer), and the ritual exchange of common commestibles serves to "Alevize" the space. In short, while Alevi identity is a matter for intense discussion (I should know, it's my never ending master's topic), with diverse views as to what is and is not Alevi, the rituals performed at the initial stage of the Düzgün Baba Ziyareti serves to mark the area as a "religiously Alevi" area (religiously being the operative word, since most Alevis would identify with the group's secularist and humanist philosophy without professing any adherence in its religious practices).

Elsewhere on the mountain, there are further sacralizations of space in honour of Düzgün Baba. Along waystations towards the holy man's cave (a good 1.5 climb up shale and over boulders best left to those in reasonable physical shape), one finds cave springs and holy rocks typically adorned with candles, personal photos, and knotted bits of cloth (indeed, one finds knotted cloth in holy places around the world) representing requests for Düzgün Baba's intercession in whatever troubles the supplicant. Again, the area's physical remoteness and the largely unadorned nature of the ziyarets (tied cloth here, candles there, sheep horns over there ---- in marked contrast to the grandness of the Friday mosque or the great cathedral) reminds the visitor of Alevism's rural roots far from central authorities -- as an Islamic branch whose disdain for orthodoxy has often rankled its more normative, puritanical, and politically powerful coreligionists, the Alevis of yesteryear (and arguably of the present day) could not afford to invest in any form of permanent, grand architecture. As a result, one is left with the rural Ziyaret, exemplified most strikingly with the site honouring Düzgün Baba.

















Pictures in descending order:
1) The initial part of the hike to the final resting place of Düzgün Baba.
2) The initial Ziyaret for Düzgün Baba. On the left, one can see the sacrificial floor. On the holy stone, one finds sheeps' horns on top and lit candles below.
3) An intermediary Ziyaret at the site of a cave spring. Supplicants can also tie a piece of cloth when asking for Düzgün Baba's intercession.
4) A further Ziyaret, usually greeted with a kiss and the touching of the forhead to the candle-blackened stone
5) The purported resting place of Düzgün Baba. Before entering the circle, one removes one's shoes, takes three stones, and circumbulates the grave, throwing a rock onto the pile at the beginning of each rotation.

Malls and Mezars in Ankara

In behaviour more befitting the qualities of a stubborn individual rather than anything else, I had contrived for more than four years to avoid visiting Ankara; it was not as if I had reserved special hatred for the Turkish Republic's semi-purpose built capital, but more of a case of wanting to visit something more interesting than a sprawling, brown, treeless, and waterless town known more its drab ministry buildings than its culture, food, or antique architecture.

Regrettably, having finally planted my footsteps in the sprawling, brown, treeless, and waterless town of Ankara, I must corroborate the reviews of most Turks in confirming that it is a town known more for its drab ministry buildings than anything else. Perhaps compounding the misery, however, is the fact that the local council (still led, inexplicably, by the incumbent Melih Gökçek after 12 years of fiasco) has decided that the best way to 'create an even better Ankara' (as the billboard at the city's Otogar reminds the weary traveller (at least it was something to that effect)) is to go on a mall-building spree: The boom is inescapable; doubtlessly a crow cannot relieve itself without soiling the glass façade of one of Ankara's 'shopping and life centres'. Who, exactly, in a country where income differentiation between the richest and the poorest classes is growing daily is supposed to frequent these new gleaming shopping centres is a mystery to both the Ankaralı and the traveller alike.

Away from the ministries and malls, however, the fact remains that no student of republican Turkish history can come to the country without an obligatory visit to the capital. Angora was just a dusty village when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the hero of the Turkish War of Independence (Kurtuluş Savaşı), chose the town as the setting for the new republican capital, both because of its geostrategic location (far from the marauding Allied forces who were busily divying up the country's soil) and because it was the antithesis to the supposedly imperial and decadent İstanbul. It is thus befitting then, that the man more or less responsible for saving Anatolia from a fate as bad as the modern Arab Middle East (even if contemporary hindsight might judge him less favourably on account of a failure to address the issue of minority rights -- a challenge that the somewhat crystallized doctrine of Kemalism is only slowly coming to grips with) should be honoured with a mausoleum reminiscent of the royalty of the past. Built in a neo-classical style, the mausoleum and its whitewashed square provide a symbolic (and very material) reminder of the early Turkish Republic's ideals of secularism and a Turkish homeland free from the interference of the colonial powers. Such material symbolism remains all the more poignant when compared to the nearby Kocatepe Mosque, one of the largest mosques constructed within the country since the founding of the Republic in 1923, and arguably a symbol of the (re-)assertion of the country's Islamic heritage.



















But before this turns into an overly dramatic pulsetaking of the modern Turkish battle between secularism and religion, I will leave the story in a far more humble graveyard (though far more massive than anything else in the country). On the city's northern outskirts is Karşıyaka Mezarlığı (Karşıyaka Cemetary), the final resting of tens of thousands of Turkish citizens, some illustrious, but most common. It is here, however, at Gate 2, section 17, that one finds the resting place of Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan, and Yusuf Aslan, heroes to millions of Turks, but sadly hung by the state on 6 May, 1972 during one of the state's frequent attacks on the radical Left. Denied larger graves supposedly for fear that their graves would become a rallying point for disaffected sections of society, the graves are places of quiet pilgrimage in which to remember the vision Deniz Gezmiş and co. hoped to bring to the country. When they were killed, they were accused of seeking to sell Turkey out to Soviet Communism; Gezmiş, however, always maintained that the goal was only to fulfil the dream of total independence envisioned by Atatürk. Whatever the case, their premature departure means that it must remain a matter of conjecture.

Whether the grave is grand or small, it remains clear that modern Turkish history inevitably revolves around Ankara, despite its sprawl, brownness, treelessness, and waterlessness.

Harbiye Dürüm -- The Best Kebap in Istanbul!

For a summer to be spent ostensibly engaged in research on Turkey’s minority Alevi population, SFU was kind enough to provide me with a summer scholarship (I suppose they had some money left in the bank after they bulldozed down half the forests on the mountainside to build condos) – enough to cover transport, accommodation, nourishment, drink, literary resources, and other related expenses.

After a trip to Africa whose final balance sheet was somewhat more than had been expected (somewhat exemplified by a knockoff Burkinabe football jersey wrenched from the hands of a street vendor for the somewhat princely sum of around 35 of your Amerikan dollars), and various other travel-related expenses, it became apparent that I would need to find additional employment to supplement my semester stipend from the good people at SFU. But what job to do? Halfway to a master’s degree in Turkish history in addition to a fairly fluent literary ability, spoken Turkish better than most foreigners (even if it is accompanied by an occasional and inexplicable Kurdish accent – although the frequent ungrammatical nature of my speech is less inexplicable and more just lazy), 1.5 years of teaching experience, ability to tutor English, and a strong interest in journalistic affairs (especially in the fields of current events, politics, history, and culture), it seemed that finding some sort of semi-official summer employment would be cake in a bag (the local idiomatic equivalent of a piece of cake). After mulling the various options available to my somewhat educated self, I chose the most appropriate: Working in a currently unlicensed (permit inevitably pending) kebap house run by friends from Hatay (Antioch).

Away from the dull routine of discussing potential coups, counter-coups, supreme court fights, issues over the very existential direction of the country, wars, massacres, and bombs is the far more scintillating world of dishwashing, çay-making, parsley/ice/beer/rakı/cigarettes-fetching, laying out tables, and learning how to balance food while walking up rickety stairs (out of a deference to the cost of potential hospitalization rates, I have fortunately not been permitted to actually make any kepabs). And, perhaps befitting my ability as the really pasty white guy that comes to change the ashtrays for various Turkish customers somewhat sporadically, I receive a financial remuneration calculated at exactly..... zero New Turkish Lira.

Yes, I revel in the fact I have succeeded in becoming one of the few relatively educated foreigners who, while watching friends back home and everywhere get real jobs and real houses, has taken a significant wage cut to enter into the barter economy: In return for my labour as a dishwasher extraordinaire at an unmarked and unlicensed kebap house (we close the front door after about 10pm to avoid unwelcome uniformed visitors) I am provided free food (the city’s best dürüm kebap (a bit like a hot pita), hummus, and baba ghanouj (spicy eggplant dip)) and a patch of rent-free floor at my friend’s house. Garlic-laced hummus, flatbread, second-hand smoke, and the occasional beer liberated stealthily from the kitchen fridge hath never tasted so delicious when they are won for free --- all it takes is a few hours of washing up.

In between scraping plates and scalding skin while carrying çay improperly, there is plenty of time to amuse new customers (while boring to tears other employees and long-time customers) with a routine performed at least two to three times a day between myself and Sedat, one of the co-runners who has succeeded in putting the ex in extravert:

-Sedat: Stefan!

-Stefan: Yes? (My voice almost drowned out by the washing foam enveloping the kitchen.)

-Sedat: Come here! (In heavily accented, though carefully pronounced English, he calls me over to meet another friend . I come, trying to extricate myself from the mountains of plates full of delicious, uneaten leftovers I’m hording in my kitchen-based lair.) Stefan, where are you from? (Said again in the same vein.)

-Stefan: Samandağ! (I reply emphatically – Samandağ is an Arabic-speaking town along the Syrian border near Antioch full mostly of Orthodox Christians and Arab Alevis (Nusayris). For a smallish town, I am endlessly amazed that every second customer at the kebap house seems to be from there. Somewhat unsurpringingly, given its geographical location, most of the people there are fairly swarthy.

-Assembled customer: No.....! (They reply incredulously in Turkish)

-Sedat: No, really! You don’t believe it? He’s really from Samandağ, he’s one of you!! (Sedat, now switching to Turkish, implores his friend with unshakeable determination to believe that I,in all my Viking ancestry, am too of Samandağlı stock.) Stefan, talk to them in Arabic! (Since Sedat’s English tends to leave him in a moment of excitement, he implores now me to switch also to Arabic.)

-Stefan: (I offer a badly mispronounced and somewhat lame “how are you?”) Kiyf Halek?

-Assembled Customer: Oohhhh!!! (Much rapturous applause – no doubt also the result of a desire to leave and avoid having to maintain the charade that I am Arab. My undercover identity appears assured, even if it is quite apparent that I have again been undeservedly rewarded for my childish Arabic.)

-Sedat: See, I told you he was from Samandağ! (Again in Turkish, while giving me a hug, as if in celebration that we have convinced at least one more person that I am from Samandağ).

And so and so forth – I am happy that Sedat accrues enjoyment from it, even if everyone else would love us to shut up about me pretending to be from Samandağ four times per day. Safe, however, in the thought that we have converted yet one more to the Stefan-the-Samandağlı cause, I return to my work of scraping dishes, making tea, and fetching cigarettes for the assembled patrons: While most Turkish kebapçı workers could only dream of somehow getting to Canada to continue (or, more likely, contemplate even starting) their education, I, one year from finishing a post-graduate degree, have come to Turkey to work as a kebapçı in exchange for food and board.... I figure everyone in their life has to do it at least once...

Assembled crowds, most likely waiting for çay from Stefan