Yesterday, January eighteenth, was the Women’s March both here in Santa Fe and across the world, and so it seems appropriate to honor a second remarkable woman, one of the many who continue to work tirelessly for women’s liberation.
Sometimes the Trojan Horse is actually a country or some part of a country in the grip of intolerance.
I met a young Turkish woman, Ozlem Ezer, several years ago when she was a scholar in residence at the Women’s International Study Center here. For almost a decade, the Center has provided living and work space for women scholars from all over the world, honoring the legacy of the three women—grandmother, mother and daughter—who built and lived in a charming old adobe house on Acequia Made—the Mother Ditch that once nourished all the neighborhood gardens.
Those gardens are gone, but the legacy of the “Three Wise Women,” as they were called, continues in the life and career of women like Ozlem.
Now at home living and working in Istanbul, Ozlem is creating and sustaining a women’s center there to provide some respite from what she calls “the madness between Iran-U.S” which is, of course, affecting everyone in the region.
Her women’s center, although struggling for long-term funding, is able to host women who “proudly call themselves feminists,” such as their guests at the moment, a Kurdish woman and an Alawite, as well an Iranian artist who “is considering coming to our women’s house for painting indoor murals in return for free food and board, but now they may give her a hard time on the border, we can’t tell.”
After a U.S. drone murdered General Soleimani and two cars of his allies, with no mention in the U.S. press of his family—not even their names—Ozlem writes, “Only in 12 days, topsy-turvy! Imagine how many conferences were canceled or so many other cultural events… It’s hard to imagine ‘normal’ lives of people in the land of the ‘enemy’—as pictured by many people in the U.S.
She adds, “It’s even more embarrassing for us Turks not imaging or empathizing, since we’re next-door neighbors to Iran.” The general’s murder and subsequent events unrolling for years to come are excused by the powers in Washington, claiming that Suleimani had “blood on his hands.” Who among us who order or condone murder do not?
Ozlem goes on, “People on the ground are the ones who who suffer/will be suffering. Isn’t dehumanizing the ‘enemy’ such an old trick that worked for centuries, and the general’s portrayal in the U.S. is no exception?”
Suffering from exhaustion and shoulder pain, she goes on, “Then I look out the window and see the most beautiful yellow rose bloomed out of the blue…Isn’t it a sign?”
She ends, “With love and in solidarity against madness of politicians in power.”
Certain that her messages are being read by the authorities, Ozlem continues fearlessly to write and to organize for women, a firebrand inside a part of the world that is, for now at least, the Trojan Horse.
[Part one, “Firebrand in the Trojan Horse and the Half Step Strategy” is available here.]
[Ozlem has translated two of my short stories into Turkish. Her English introduction, and those stories, is also on my website.]
“With love and in solidarity against madness of politicians in power”….such a profound phrase. Rick Steve, the travel guru, once had a travelogue about the beauty of Iran and it’s people, and it stressed how much the people wanted to be friends with Americans. It was a memorable film I saw several years ago, and it came back into my memory when all of the madness of the assassination occurred. I wish they would rerun this episode to remove this madness between all of us.
For those of us who love to travel to foreign countries to appreciate their beauty and their people, it’s disappointing to now have more travel restrictions issued by our State Department. It sets up an sense of fear, instead of anticipation. So, I, too, will close – with love and in solidarity against the madness of politicians in power.
What a bittersweet gift to read the follow up to our conversation, Sallie. My heart goes out to Ozlem. It was arresting to read your post, and her authentic and true words. I realized that this was the first account I had read from a citizen in the region, someone on the ground, speaking about their lived experience. How distant we are from the murals, the neighbors, the suffering on the ground, and the yellow rose, as well. Sending sisterhood and solidarity to Ozlem and the women at her center. Thank you for reminding us all that the Trojan Horse knows no boundaries.