Turkish Films

 I knew I was behind in my blogging, but I kept having this nagging feeling that there was something else as well.  It finally hit me tonight, I missed the Turkish films blog.  Sincerest apologies.  

I really enjoyed seeing the clips about Turkey, but to be honest I didn't learn much that was new to me.  I was already aware of the headscarf debate and the issue of honor killing from research that I had done in another class.  It was a nice refresher course for these two topics, and I really think that they fit the purpose of the class, but it was just my own personal situation where I had already been exposed to the material and consequently spent the duration of the time thinking, "I know this already."  Even so I was able to appreciate the very powerful visuals that these two films presented.  

I was trying very hard to enjoy our discussion, but I am just greatly uncomfortable discussing honor killing.  I know it is an important topic of discussion for our class, but I was hesitant to get involved in our class conversation.  I made the discussion to talk about honor killing in my religion class, and was surprised at myself when I got so choked up over the topic that I had to pretend the presentation was over before I had shared all of my information.  I don't know, it just is one of those things that makes me go really quiet...

I did have an interesting thought when we were discussing the headscarf issue though.  I remember back in elementary school the girls in my class went through this obsession with wearing headscarves, not like the ones we saw in the film but those little triangular ones that only cover the top of the head.  I think I had about twenty of them, and I remember my friends and I being very proud of wearing them around school.  However, they were banned after about a month because the school was afraid that we might be hiding weapons under them.  We were outraged, but this was just a silly fashion statement.  The women in Turkey are being told not  to wear their headscarves which serve as a representation os themselves, their beliefs, their modesty, their devotion.  My own headscarf "problem" is nothing compared to the horrible humiliation and punishment that these woman face by attempting to wear theirs.  Making these connections helped me realize that I can try to sympathize with these woman, but I will never truly know what is going on there or what the woman in Turkey are up against.  Having your teacher ask "can you please take your headscarf off?" is very different from having it ripped from your head.