Seven women open door for Oral History Foundation in Turkey

Seven women open door for Oral History Foundation in Turkey

Monday, September 13, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Seven women from a multitude of disciplines have formed the Association for Research on Oral History, Culture and Art. The association will carry out work on oral history all around Turkey and provide support to foreign researchers working in the country. ‘Official history is so imposed in Turkey that chaos erupts when something different is told,” says one of the founders of the association Mehtap Filiz

Seven volunteer women from varying professions, art disciplines and ethnic origins have founded an association for researching the oral history in every corner of the country.

The goal of the Association for Research on Oral History, Culture and Art, founded in Istanbul in August, is to carry out oral history research all around Turkey in pursuit of highlighting the variety and depth of ethnicity across the country.

Association Chairwoman Türkan Akkulak Koç said Turkey had many untouched issues to research and that the association would not only work in Turkey, but also contact other associations and organizations carrying out work on oral history abroad. She said they would provide support for those who want to do research in Turkey.

Koç was born and grew up in the eastern Turkish province of Elazığ. Later she moved to Istanbul with her family and then migrated to Germany. “During my education in Germany, we were asked about our ethnic identity,” she said. “We want to remove all hurdles in the way of peaceful coexistence. This is why we aim to carry out our research all around the country.”

Koç said the first mission of the association would be women’s problems. “Not only in Turkey, but also even in the world’s most contemporary countries, women are second-class citizens. This is why we give priority to this issue.”

The team of seven women has attended many seminars at Bilgi University in order to start their oral history research and succeed in founding their association. “We had to do our best for our goal and our research,” said Koç, adding that oral history research has been accelerating in recent years and has great significance in terms of social development. She said Turkish society did not want to remember the past. “We keep all problems in our subconscious. But we need to talk to each other. We have to be brave to see all our pains as a whole,” she said.

Research on stone-throwing children

One of the founders of the association, sociologist Mehtap Filiz, highlighted the importance of oral history. “Official history is so imposed in Turkey that chaos appears when something different is told,” she said. Being hopeful about Turkey’s future, Filiz said, “Turkey has experienced volatile processes in its recent history. Democracy is newly built. Turkey is now in a process during which it will confront itself.”

Filiz also said they wanted to pursue projects about Kurdish problems, adding that although they hesitated to face these problems, they would start working.

“I want to research about Kurdish children who have thrown stones at police in the East and to draw a sociological picture. Before anything else, we need to find out why these children resort to violence and how they are affected by the political atmosphere,” Filiz said.