Turkey Lays Feminist Vanguard Asena to Rest
Hundreds of women dressed in white instead of mourning black attended the funeral ceremony where together they sang "There are women, women are everywhere," listened to the late Asena's most loved music, prayed together and showed their final respects to her memory as they carried her coffin, decorated with yellow roses, on their shoulders.
Wreaths sent by senior state officials from President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to State Minister in Charge of Women and Family Affairs Nimet Çubukçu, complemented the importance of the ceremony where many known names from the Turkish business, media, literature and art world were present alongside other women activists.
Yet her final burial, at the cemetery in Zincirlikuyu, was a women-only event where her mortal remains were laid to the ground and violet and basil were planted over her grave before it was watered.
Fighting all of her life for women's rights and making more than a dent in Turkish history, perhaps to the extent of changing the country's course where women are concerned, Asena was defeated only once and that being last week, by an incurable brain tumor.
Duygu was not just a best-selling author who became a symbol of an achievable freedom for many Turkish women over the past 30 years but she was hope in itself.
Particularly for a segment of the population ready and willing to flourish, who were fortunate enough to have been taught how to read and even more important, allowed to read at home.
Her fans being primarily those who were brought up in a western breeding in the Turkish metropolitants who recognized and appreciated alternative and new literature. Literature that challenged the norms and described the deserved identity of women.
She was also a recognized and renown journalist who focused on human rights and sexual equality without meaning to intentionally "antagonizing the antagonist" in her work.
Gaining respect not only among the metropolitan women of better income who could afford to read her, but also somewhat attracting the men of a more traditional background who found little reason to challenge her views and could see into her arguments.
"She was a courageous person, a hero" said Turkey's renown novelist Yasar Kemal during yesterdays ceremony. For Istanbul's governor Muammer Guler, she was "an undaunted defender of women rights".
Many believe Asena was an era on her own as Turkey's first and foremost outspoken woman rights activist who will go into contemporary history for her values of equality and freedoms and clearly needs to be recognized as a stringent feminist who managed to survive in an even more stringent Muslim society dominated by men.
But if that is true, the society mentioned is clearly one stripped of male prejudice, as she hated no gender herself but wanted only to achieve an understanding and everlasting peace.
Even her coffin was taken to the Tesvikiye mosque for prayers in company of her most loved instrumental song "Were Rivers Join".
Duygu, say those who knew her first hand, was a woman who became the voice of the silence of women through her dedication to women's rights.
Her name, to some Turks, echoed secret meanings. Duygu itself meaning 'Feeling' or 'Emotion' in English. Her surname Asena, 'a female wolf' worth great respect in Turkish mythology.
This week, Turkey lost not only a dedicated activist in rights and freedoms overall, but a supporting sister, a caring mother in mind, a reflection how this country that stands secular only in its richer cities pounded by crimes against women and so-called honor killings on an almost daily basis can produce off-springs who can actually match and even outrun any struggle for freedoms and equality in contemporary and supposedly more tolerant western societies.
"A Woman Has No Name" was her 1987 first novel which broke the barrier of Turkish best-sellers triggering a movement in this predominantly Muslim country decorated by machismo as far back as 30 years ago, creating not only a brand new image of liberation and hopes of it, but an image that a woman has a mind of her own; and equally matching needs and rights. A woman that had an identity.
So famous was her very first real work of literature, that it challenged the machismo culture and publishers to meet growing demand, and go into its 40th print while building up to becoming a record-breaking film.
Yet when it was suddenly banned by the "Prime Ministry Board of Protecting Minors From Mischief" which, presumably, assumed its decision was based on public welfare, she never surrendered but fought on and appealed against the ban and won. Not only to see in excess of 50 prints of her book afterwards, but to also see it become a bestseller in neighboring Greece and become a hit even in faraway languages such as German and Dutch.
"Actually There is No Love" she titled her second challenge of expression, continuing the theme in "A Woman Has No Name" as a sequel, read throughout Turkey, Greece, German and Holland in native languages.
"Heroes Are Always Men" came later, as a third and perhaps, say some, more daring challenge, consisting of 14 short stories that evolved around the title of the book which many Turkish men may have originally preferred to ignore, yet since its first print in 1992 did a total of 18 repeat prints on popular demand.
By then, already working on women's rights and issues through her regular articles in the media, Duygu Asena had become a symbol of women's rights and freedom as well as a promising future for Turkey's more westernized or semi-liberated women, predominantly those living and working in the better parts of larger metropolitan cities.
Writing for the Kadinca [Womanly] and Kim magazines as well as newspapers and becoming involved in all aspects of women affairs, Asena published her fourth book "There Is Nothing That Has Changed" in 1994, a collection of her articles in Kadinca. Out of tradition the book was sold through newspaper stands within a week, with initial sales reaching a total of 70,000 copies, it broke a record.
"There Was Love in the Mirror" was Asena's fifth book, doing a total of 12 reprints in four months and establishing her as one of the country's most loved woman writers.
Yet in the household, some men regarded her an evil influence and image, where particularly changes started to take place.
"When one day I couldn't take it any more, my husband said 'whatever you are learning, you are learning from this woman' and tore up every copy of Kadinca and Kim magazines that Duygu had produced" explained Antalya Women Consultation and Solidarity Center's Hicran Karabudak in a recent interview with bianet's Ayse Durukan.
Womens rights defense and solidarity group Mor Cati volunteer Birgül Akay recalls how Asena was once assaulted by men saying "How much does bread cost? Tell us that. Leave women's struggle alone."
Yet from books to newspaper and magazine articles, public appearances to activities, Asena never gave up, never cowered. As stated by the Canakkale Womens Counselling Center (ELDER) "She said 'Feminizm' and was declared an enemy of men. Even those of her gender had problems understanding her".
But today when Turkish women talk about women's rights, the identity of women or can openly refer to themselves as feminists without the fears of the 1970s and 1980s, they do so in particular thanks to Duygu Asena, her work that has opened an era of hope and greater freedoms, a recognition of identity for them.
Her novels created most of today's feminists who this Tuesday were there to pay her their final respects in the knowledge that her memory, concepts and struggle will live on. (İİ/YE)