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A wom­an’s life sto­ry, in the years when patri­archy ruled even as it still does in Diyarbakır in the last few decades; a way of mea­sur­ing the road that still needs to be trav­elled and how res­ig­na­tion can­not be the answer.

Zeynep: “I would have liked this not to be my story”

By Arjin Dilek Öncel, pub­lished on April 19 2020 on Jin News, in the sec­tion “From wom­en’s pens“

In the small town of Dicle, in the Diyarbakır dis­trict, Zeynep’s sto­ry is known by every­one. In telling it, we were about to dredge up what she would have liked to for­get her­self. To lis­ten to what a woman endured, a woman who wish­es to remain a stranger to her own past.

We wait for Zeynep in front of the door of this small store belong­ing to one of her friends in Dicle, Diyarbakır dis­trict. She arrives, slight­ly late. I sin­gle her out imme­di­ate­ly among the women at the end of the street, despite the fact I have nev­er met her. Fierce, she walks with her head down. And as she keeps her eyes low­ered, she does not see us right away.

She opens the door to the bou­tique and invites us inside. A smil­ing woman. The weight she car­ries on her shoul­ders is impos­si­ble to ignore. We were expect­ing her to tell us what she lived through and we see a woman who stands upright. Zeynep con­sid­ers the fact she is still alive to be a fea­ture of the resilience she has prac­ticed for years.

Before speak­ing about her life, while clar­i­fy­ing that she will have a hard time talk­ing about every­thing she has attempt­ed to for­get for years, she talks of every­day things, as if to put off the top­ic. Then she begins by say­ing that the geog­ra­phy of the town where she lives is a piece of par­adise.

When she men­tions par­adise, I remind her that, accord­ing to some leg­ends, Eve would have lived in Dicle. When Eve was tempt­ed by “the for­bid­den”, God pun­ished her. Thus were Adam and Eve chased out of par­adise and sent to dif­fer­ent places. For Eve, this would have been Dicle…

Zeynep is 42 years old. She does not remem­ber fur­ther back than her twelfth years. And she would like to for­get the rest also. “My mem­o­ry plays tricks on me, in attempt­ing to for­get what I lived through, I’ve for­got­ten all of my life”, she says in an attempt to explain her state of mind.

Zeynep was born in the vil­lage of Akrag (Biçer in Turk­ish) and lost her father when she was only 1 year old. With her two old­er broth­ers, she was the only girl child in the house. When she was twelve she was forced to mar­ry her uncle’s son who was 22 years old. No offi­cial mar­riage being cel­e­brat­ed since Zeynep was not yet an adult.

Once mar­ried, Zeynep became preg­nant. More­over, despite her 12 years, she was sub­ject­ed to the vio­lence of her com­pan­ion. Unable to take the vio­lence any longer, she returned to her fam­i­ly’s home with the lit­tle seed grow­ing inside her.

While liv­ing with her fam­i­ly, Cuma, the son of her aunt, often came to vis­it Zeynep’s moth­er. Zeynep’s hus­band heard about this. He cut off Cuma on the road, killed him and found him­self impris­oned for mur­der.

After this mur­der the sec­ond act of tor­ture began for Zeynep. A sec­ond mur­der. Dur­ing the sixth week of her preg­nan­cy, the vil­lage women unit­ed against her say­ing “in a vil­lage, no woman with­out a hus­band and a child in her bel­ly”, they gave Zeynep the heav­i­est tasks. They weighed on her bel­ly, they made her car­ry the water… And the seed did not bear up. Zeynep lost her baby.

She explains how, for years, she attempt­ed to mod­i­fy her own mem­o­ry and adds, con­cern­ing her baby stolen under tor­ture “He was going to gron, I was going to bring some­one into the world, a piece of myself. I decid­ed to for­get every­thing that belonged to those years. That is what hap­pened. I was a child. Many things have been erased.”

Dicle is sur­round­ed by places of wor­ship. “Koy­la Aşık” is among them. It is found at the heart of Zeynep’s vil­lage. Any vil­lage woman who has a wish to mak­er runs to this place. Accord­ing to local beliefs, when you vis­it and pray there, your wish­es come true.

Zeynep was forced to leave the vil­lage for the town. Her moth­er and her broth­ers had decid­ed to move. Zeynep was only 15 years old at this time. Before leav­ing the vil­lage, she went back to “Koy­la Aşık” and prayed. “That this suf­fer­ing may dis­ap­pear in the flash of an eye. That I may nev­er set foot again in this vil­lage.” This is what hap­pened. She did not set foot in this vil­lage again for 25 years.

This time, in her new life in the new town, a her­mit’s life began for Zeynep. For 7 years, she was not allowed to leave the fam­i­ly home. From there, Zeynep’s world con­sist­ed of a glimpse on a nar­row street out of the win­dow in her room. At the end of this street, there stood a tree. The tree lost its leaves, turned green again… This is how 7 years went by. Dur­ing those 7 years, one room, one win­dow, one tree. The leaves of the tree…

Hav­ing received no school­ing, Zeynep attempt­ed to learn how to read and write on her own and she pre­pared the wed­ding trousseau for all the young women in this town. “My con­tri­bu­tion is in each of their mar­riage chests. For 7 years, I embroi­dered and made lace.“

The mem­o­ries return­ing, her voice turns husky. Zeynep cries. “I would have pre­ferred to have com­mit­ted faults in this life, so I could make sense of it by telling myself these things hap­pened to me by my fault. We are women who are made to pay the heav­i­est price with­out a sin­gle ounce of a fault”, she says and adds she is angry at her­self for not hav­ing fought against what was done to her.

Life impris­oned in the house is now over.

Now 42 years old, Zeynep is in charge of this small bou­tique. “Every­one trusts me. They love me also. Fear­ing the gos­sip, I avoid­ed going alone any­where for years, even to the gro­cery store. I was embar­rassed to enter a store as a cus­tomer. At home, I man­aged to han­dle all the tech­ni­cal issues myself, I nev­er called in a handy­man. These coun­tries are tiny places. Being a woman here is very dif­fi­cult. It’s even worse is you are sin­gle…“

Zeynep is still sub­ject­ed to psy­cho­log­i­cal vio­lence by her ex hus­band, now lib­er­at­ed after 15 years in prison. Fight­ing as she does against so many forms of social pres­sure, she has nev­er thought of remar­ry­ing.

Zeynep no longer dreams, she strug­gles to sur­vive and says “My lodg­ing is a rental and I’m the one who takes care of my moth­er. My only objec­tive is nev­er to ask for help from any­one. My child­hood was burned, so was my youth. But life goes on. I’ve man­aged to sur­vive. I’ll man­age what comes next also.“

Arjin Dilek Öncel


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges – iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com
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