DURKET SÜREN

Trabzon- ln Turkey, where hate speech, racist attacks, violence against women, children and nature have been increasing, women form networks and through these networks they draw attention to the importance of being together and being organized without marginalizing no matter which region they come from. Cazılar (meaning witches) of the Black Sea, a group of women activists who grew up listening witches’ fairy tales and continue the tradition of witch, form Trabzon Cazıları (Witches of Trabzon) and stand against the system and emphasize peace and non-violence by organizing women's festivals. Even though the festival organized by them between 13 and 15 April this year was postponed to the pandemic, the Cazılar have been mentioned most often in the Black Sea Region. So how was the Witches of Trabzon trying to expand the narrow women’s spaces and to make their voices heard founded?

How do they organize festivals carrying their brooms? What kind of reactions do they get from the people of the region by organizing festivals in a period of war, destruction and injustice? We interviewed Türkün Sümerkan from Witches of Trabzon.

You were one of the few women who took part in the foundation of Witches of Trabzon. Can you talk about the witches? Who are these witches?

It was 2015, it was a period that we came together with big-hearted women and talked about our troubles and wounds, and started thinking about what we could do if we came together. Actually, we were very few people. We were six-seven people, but we were so excited. We started asking ourselves ‘What can we do’ and then we said let’s organize a festival. Our excitement reached to peak and our team was really a great team, you know, there is always a tendency to not work collectively across the country and in the Black Sea region, if you work collectively, it is the peak. It is very difficult for two persons to come together and to work together. But we were so awesome women and we came together and work together. No one was tasked, there was no hierarchy, it was very egalitarian, but we had our own concerns. Those concerns were peace, equality, justice, gender equality, LGBTI people, locality, women in nature and nature.

We always turned our faces to these issues, because we all had concerns about these issues. We worked on how we can say our words through a festival without frightening the people of the region. At that time, the president of Trabzonspor made a statement and said, “If we die we'll die like a man, we won't live like a woman,” and his statement caused reactions from all around of Turkey. And then we turned his speech into a slogan, “Live like a woman”. The name of our first festival was “Live like a woman”. 

So what kind of work did you carry and how were the reactions to your festival?

We announced our festival only on internet, I mean on social media but the people flocked to Trabzon Art House’s garden, showroom, meeting room. What we wanted to talk about were things that could not be talked about much in a place like Trabzon having a closed society. So to speak, we said our words on the stage with participants during a truly peaceful festival that lasted for three days, without marginalizing or blackening anyone. Then, we told ourselves ‘we are very tired, we think we will not be able to do this again’ but believe me, starting to prepare for a new festival did not take even a month. 

You organized your second festival during the conflict period in the "eastern" region of the country. And you slogan for the festival was “Let’s turn these dark days into sunlight”. How did you, witches, react to that process in a city like Trabzon where racist attacks happen time to time?

Indeed, at that time, very dark days were happening in the world, particularly in our country. We wanted to turn those dark days that we could not see, witness, but read and watch from the media outlets into the sunlight with a little bit of hope. For this reason, we said, “Let’s turn these dark days into sunlight”. Hoping is maybe a better feeling than the truth itself. If we didn’t talk about a mother who lost her daughter in Cizre and couldn’t bury her but put her in a refrigerator, who would talk? That’s why our name is Cazı. Those who say what other people cannot, don’t obey rules, reject tradition are withes. We said that if being witches means that, then we wear it like a sweater and continued on our journey. 

We try to show the reality of women of Trabzon, to do the best we can do and to push it. Our events are not only for the women living in the city, they are also for the people fighting for the green road project, for the women who stood against the stone quarry to be built in Tonya, all of these are the subjects of our festival. The witchery will continue like this in the Black Sea. Our number is increasing day by day. 

You organized your fourth festival in 2019 and said, “No to violent love”. I think you wanted to draw attention to the reality of "love" that causes femicide and violence.

Yes, because love is experienced differently on these mountains and these lands. We talked about the biology of love. We asked what love is. A woman stood up among the guests and could say her child was homosexual. This was a huge success for us. We stretch our arms a little longer, trying to embrace everyone as much as we can. After our last festival with them motto, “No to violent love”, many women came to ask us, “What are the conditions of being a witch? How can I be a witch? Women from other regions offer us to organize Witch Festival together. This is very precious for us. So we do the right things. Maybe one day, we take our brooms and organize a traveling festival.