I can hardly get away from the book on my lap. I still enjoy
reading, truly reading a book by turning its pages, underlining important
sections, even marking the must-remember phrases with a star or two. The books
that I read are not those that can be re-sold on e-bay. They wouldn’t qualify
for “good”, “like new” for sure, but they are read. My new read is “Staring at
the sun: Overcoming the terror of death” by Irvin D. Yalom, an existential
psychotherapist. I had bought this book when my friend Kim, a surgeon died 5
years ago after a 3-year, most graceful battle with terminal lung cancer. Being
just couple of years older than I, she had brought to my awareness my own
mortality. Especially, having lost my late partner to death just 4 months
prior, this book found its way onto my night stand, among other books on
grieving, but never got around to reading it in the last 5 years. I thought the
ten day trip I am embarking may be a good time to read it in one breath. It
turns out to be true. If it weren’t the thoughts and curiosity about my recent
trip, I would be turning its pages non-stop.
Middle East in 1850, before the Ottoman Empire started declining
I am heading to a middle-eastern country for the first time
in my life of 57 years to be followed with a “side trip” to Turkey. It sounds
unbelievable for an academic not to have been to the Middle East, who spent the
first 38 years of her life in Turkey. Part of it was the fact that
globalization was just blooming two decades ago, and traveling as much as we do
now was not part of our cultures when I still lived in Turkey. Part of it was
choice, though; if I had the rare financial means to travel abroad I would use
it for Europe or USA for a reason: Being a woman of Ataturk’s generation,
facing the west to catch up with the scientific and cultural developments was
the motto we were all indoctrinated with in the 20th century.
Contemporary Middle East
This was justified with the fact that Turkey had missed
centuries of development under the Ottoman rule as a result of Islamic
oppression over adopting new science coming from the west. Ottoman language that
had become a hodge-podge of Arabic and Persian vocabulary on the background
Turkish grammar was clear evidence of cultural dominance of Arab and Persian
cultures over whatever was Turkish. In fact, Ottoman culture, which was driven
by Islam first and fore most looked down on anything that was Turkish. The
young, secular progressives of this young democracy, raised as Turkish
nationals were put off by the radical Islamic sections of the society holding
onto the Ottoman past, day-dreamingly ever-ready to bring back the “grandeur”
of the Ottoman era, yearning to become an imperial power again …
Thus, with the new republic and its “revolutions” we had
turned our back to anything to do with the middle-east and Islam, some of us
having left the even secular form of the religion altogether. Certainly, Islam
defining, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, the social arena according to
the needs of men by the rules men made for their best interest and for
segregation and effective control of women played a great role in this reaction
in the young Turkish society. Understanding all of this and taking a secular
position with pro-women’s rights attitude, in fact was one of the indicators of
being an intellectual in Turkey and still is under the oppressive rule of the
so-called “Mild political Islamists” that are currently ruling Turkey. Among
all these factors, Islamic oppression of and discrimination against women in
Turkey in my youth, played the greatest role in alienating me from anything to
do with Islam and Arabic cultures.
Dr. Yalom, who is a psychiatrist by training claims death
anxiety is one of the major existential issues for everybody, for the entire
existence of humanity. Death anxiety is so crippling, like staring at the sun,
we cannot stand being aware of our own mortality every single moment. Instead,
we generate methods to soften death’s terror: We project ourselves into the
future through our children, we do things to make a dent on earth through
getting rich, famous, powerful, merging with a loved one, a cause, our
community, or devote ourselves in the hope of an eternal afterlife; isn’t death
anxiety the mother of all religions? All for the purpose of tempering the
anguish of our finitude. Despite all our defenses, though, we cannot completely
subdue death anxiety. We can only come to peace with it by looking at it in the
eye and find ways to accept our finiteness… Wow, I never felt dealing with
death anxiety, but I wonder if I am suppressing it just as all his vignettes
had been doing… Read and see.
It wasn’t until I moved to the USA I started recognizing my
bias against Islam and Arabic cultures and how I justified it over 3 decades.
It was an eye opener for me, to observe how cognizant, progressive American
culture was of the importance of accepting and embracing all cultures,
religions, and ethnicities. With every encounter with observing Muslims in the
USA, I was still tensing up deep down, observing how women were deliberately
pushed to the background under male dominance and how Islamic patriarchy was
the most prominent feature of such families. However, I must give myself credit
that I was also developing a different mindfulness about this unspoken,
un-expressed reaction, doing my best to learn about and understand such
individuals and families better and better. One perception that was becoming
clearer and clearer to me was that the women I was encountering were not nearly
as upset as I felt deep inside. Could it be that they were totally comfortable
with their position or were they also doing as good a job as I was in
concealing how they truly felt deep down?
All that work of the last 18-19 years must have paid off:
When a lovely, young pediatrician from Oman found me as I was lecturing at an
International Conference last fall and invited me to give a lecture at an
International Pediatrics conference on child abuse and neglect, I didn’t
hesitate even for a split second as if I was waiting for this moment all my
life! Five months later, here I am, on my way to a new destination: Oman. I
feel very excited with this first chance of having a glimpse of an Arabic
society, one of the representatives of the artificially divided Arabic landscape...
This may be an opportunity for me not only to help them with child abuse and
neglect prevention but also to learn from them as far as confronting myself
with my preconceived notions regarding Islam and Arabic cultures. At least,
whatever comes out of this will be an informed decision on my part, and who
knows, I might also become a part of the bilateral growth process with at least
some women I will encounter in this process… The possibility of becoming an
observer of Arab spring may be an exciting experience.
Arab Spring in Egypt
