Vacation in Thailand - Day 4-5

11 October 2006 – Wednesday – 18:56 – Chaiyapum

Here we have a dial-up connection. Whenever I want to connect to Internet, the telephone dialing sound comes first. Then, that known buzzing sound follows with dings and dongs. After many years with ADSL, I noticed that I have forgotten these sounds. I remembered my first years with Internet. I was at university when I first had chance to use internet at my family home. We were trying many times to get a connection of ten minutes without interruption. To download a program was a nightmare because of frequent disconnection. To send an e-mail was more depending on God’s grace on you and the computer. We were happy with having Internet at home but the torture of wasting a lot of time in front of computer screen was inevitable. Later on, I had ADSL in Bangkok. No dialing, no buzzing, no disconnection… As soon as the computer is ready to work, the connection is installed. Although I do not have interruptions any more, I still waste a lot of time in front of computer screen due to the other kinds of obsessions. I visit news sites, read sports news, look for funny pictures or videos, download unnecessary programs and even chat with old friends. All these things made me away from writing and reading decent things. But here, I discovered the glory of my old days, of those dial-up days. Because connection is too slow here, I am easily discouraged from surfing. Only today, I read more than 100 pages fiction and almost 50 pages of biography. I had a run of 6 km and had a very nice siesta at the backyard. All these things are hardly to be done if I have an ADSL connection because screen of computer sucks me in and I forget all other necessary things in my life. I wish I could go on this way even when I return home. I have ADSL at home but I am planning to uninstall it. The Internet I can use in school would be enough to survive. I can send and receive e-mails at school. I can even update my blog. The only thing I need is a strong will to stay away from my obsession of being connected! The fear of being unconnected is another sign of strong attachment of modern people. We are attached to technology in a way that we can not live without it. Then it does not become technology because technology means the science of tool making (Techne: Tool in Greek, Logos: Word, wisdom, science) and tools are useful as long as we use them to make our lives easier. If we feel miserable after losing our tools, can they still be considered as a benefit for living?

Anyway, today was very quiet and slow. I spent all my day reading, writing, sleeping and eating. One story I heard from J amazed me in the morning. In the village, a girl and a boy fell in love and had sex. The girl’s family gets mad when they learn about it. They first wait for the boy’s family to come and ask to girl’s family for marriage. After a reasonable time passes and no sign of movement from boy’s family, girl’s family goes to boy’s family and ask them what is going on! Aren’t you gonna come and ask my daughter for marriage? The boy’s family says it is too early for us, we can come around next February. The girl’s family wants a guarantee for this. Then boy’s family pays 25,000 Baht for their word but girl’s family rejects the money since it is too low to book their daughter. J said she did not know what happened next because she had to leave the conversation at that moment. But the part I have listened was enough to understand the concept of marriage and honor in Isan community. If my daughter lost her virginity because of your son, then they have to marry. This is understandable in all kinds of traditional societies. I guess many Bangkok residents still think by the same way for their daughters. What amazes me is asking money for a guarantee. It is like buying a car and asking money for booking. If you want to book my daughter, then you have to pay me some money. Then, I will keep her for you. I can not say it is a good way to make the young people happy but certainly it is peaceful. It does not harm the youth. Quite the opposite, it tries to save their future. I heard much worse stories in my own country. Honor killings are still part of modern life in Turkey and many other Muslim countries in Middle East. Especially in SouthEast Anatolia region is quite famous with this kind of horrible murders. I read many stories about how the father chooses the youngest member of the family and that member kills the daughter just because she had a relationship with a boy before getting married. They choose the youngest one to commit the murder because they believe the younger one gets less punishment.

I started to read David Lodge’s novel today. This is fifth novel I am reading from Lodge. What I like in his novels is his funny style of ridiculing intellectual people. He has no limit in criticizing the society and its well-known figures like administrators, academics, writers, theologians etc. I at the same time read a biography of Kafka written by Ronald Hayman. When I get tired with Lodge’s funny style, I return to Kafka’s black-white world. When I feel almost drowned in Kafka’s pessimistic world, I return the colors of Lodge. They together make up my day easily… I will finish probably Lodge much earlier than Kafka but no problem. I have one more novel from Lodge, waiting for me after Paradise News.

Right now, some guests are drinking beer and whisky at the backyard. J invited me but I refused to join. First because I don’t drink whisky and secondly I am writing. It is very tempting to join for a bottle of beer but I should not stop writing now. If I stop, I can not start again this evening. This is my weak point and I am trying to be stronger… Another thing, it might be contradictory for a man who ran 6 km to stay healthy in the afternoon and drink alcohol to destroy his day achievement.

Well, J came again and said they are insisting for me to join them. I guess, it would be better to join them as a foreigner guest –or actually husband of the owner of the house-. I will continue writing as soon as I feel ok after the consumption of a few bottles of beer. Let’s see…

21:22 – Just after a bottle of beer

It is interesting! There is grandmother suffering from liver cancer in living room. Everybody knows she already passed the no-return point. Sooner or later, she will die… May be this month, may be next month. There are guests coming to visit her, holding her hand to tell her a few nice words. Her life long friends, neighbors and people from other villages come to see her before she departs from this earth for the next journey. There are daughters of grandmother waiting in queue to be the next one to take care of her. And there are sons and son-in-laws drinking at the backyard, laughing loudly and speaking funny things. It looks like contradictory for me but this might be a cultural bias. In these people’s belief, death is not something that you have to mourn for! I did not see people crying after the death of an old person. But I remember very well how my aunt got crazy when her mother dies after a second stroke. I remember my father’s silence for a few days after my grandmother’s death. It is very different here. People react more naturally toward the death in these small villages. It might be because of their religion or it might be because of other sociological reasons. Buddha was definitely against the mourning after death because it is irrational. However, how can a human being stand to lose a loved one easily? It must be difficult. Right now, grandmother is sleeping. In the same room, there are kids and some elderly people watching TV. In the same room, there are two more elderly women sleeping although they are not sick. They came to visit grandmother but they fell in sleep. The women at the backyard are washing the dishes of dinner.

Yesterday, I was sitting beside the grandmother. I asked her a few things about her health but could not get a clear answer. Then, the old lady who was holding grandmother’s feet turned to me and held my hand. She was at the same age with grandmother and they were friends for the last 70 years. She was holding my hand and looking into my eyes deeply. I expected her to say something in Thai but her daughter told me that she can not speak anymore. She lost her capability of speech a few years ago due to the Alzheimer disease. I tried to look her eyes and the lines on her face. She was an 80+ woman with thousands of stories to tell but she lost her voice before she dies. I tried to understand what she wants to say by looking into her hopeful face! It was an envious and instructive look! It was saying that “know yourself when you are young” , it was saying that “I would give everything to be same as you again”, it was saying that “ I am old and my friend is dying beside me, look and learn” , it was saying that “life is a gift, do not waste it’… She held my hand for almost 3 minutes without changing the expression on her face. It was like we were both frozen n time and waiting for a magical word to break the circle. Her deep gray eyes, the lines in her face, thousands of wrinkles on all her body, the sad expression in her looking soon made me away from the place I was present. I remembered my own grandmother and somehow I remembered Ursula, the main female character in the novel “One hundred years of Solitude” . Surprisingly, there is one Ursula in Lodge’s novel as well. She is also old and she is dying of cancer too.

After she left my hand free, I felt the anxiety of losing a life-long friend. I have never lost a closed friend. Nobody I know died of accident or lost life with a sudden death. I only saw deaths of old people in my family. This is why I could not really solve the puzzle of her looking. She was losing her friend of last 70 years. They went to school together, they married around the same time, had children and grand children… A whole life passed together. Then, suddenly the friend who was always “out-there” has gone or basically declared the “defeat”. This pain seems unbearable even for a young mind. Does she get used to it when she sees more and more people around her disappearing? Can we get used to the idea of death?

Vacation in Thailand - Day 2

11 October 2006 – Wednesday – 10:32 – Chaiyapum

I woke up with the sunlight filling every corner of the room with ultimate life. I felt the lightness of being in a vacation and this lightness told me that stay in the bed for longer. However, we had a schedule and according to the schedule we had to see a doctor at 8 am in the morning. Then there was nothing to do. All the lightness of morning disappeared and a heavy burden slowly settled on my shoulders. Someone was pulling me out of the bed and I had no right to complain about anything, which might lead to a future baby. We both took shower and got dressed quickly. As soon as we were ready to go out, we left the room for breakfast.

While having breakfast, I had a chance to have a look at the newspaper. My eyes swiftly found the news about Turkey and the prospective law regarding so called “Armenian Genocide”. France tries to pass a new law, which bans denying the genocide. I thought about this before and I could not find any difference between article 301 in Turkey’s Penal Code and France’s prospective ban. What does France try to do? Do they want to promote freedom of speech in Turkey by banning freedom of speech in their own country? Holland already has a law like this and a few ethnically Turkish politicians in Holland suffered from the consequences of this law recently. But isn’t this law contradictory to Europe’s fundamental principles? Why should someone be arrested just because he/she denied the genocide? There are historians who believe there were no genocide but mutual killings as a result of Armenian uprising for independence and joining Russian army to fight against Ottomans. I am not a historian and I do not have authority to say whether there was or was not a genocide during the First World War. But I am certainly against the idea of a law, which punishes everyone who denies the genocide or punishes everyone who says there was genocide. Genocide is an important issue to be discussed by historians, not by politicians. If there are claims about it, those who want to express their opinions can come together and exchange ideas until they reach a common point. However, both sides (Turkey and Armenia) seem reluctant to solve the problem in the sense of scientific thinking and historical accuracy. I guess keeping the enemy somewhere near and always alive can help the nations to have a nationalist youth. This makes politicians’ job easier in terms of gaining votes during the elections. Article 301 is an ambiguous statement and it can be used to penalize the people who barely use their right of freedom of speech. Turkey is trying to solve this problem in recent days by changing the Article 301. However, if a European country passes a new law similar to article 301, then I can understand Turkish people’s reaction. Those who are supposed to teach –I never thought that Europe can be a good example for human rights- human rights and democracy behave like a child. Then why should Turkey do what they say but not what they do?

Some Turkish officials tried to say that France should look at their own history. I think not only France but all Europe must look at their own history and apologize from the nations which are still suffering from aftermath effects of colonialism. Was England different in India? How did France kill thousands in Algeria? Didn’t Italian fascist army kill thousands in Libya? Did Europeans admit their selfish politics during their glorious years of imperialism? None! Those who keep saying that European civilization raised upon reason and science are forgetting to add a few things. If the geographical explorations did not bring wealth from South Asia and Africa, they would never be able to achieve enlightenment. At the end, enlightenment itself is a myth (as Adorno says) and it is raised upon blood and tears of the people in third world. However, European politicians never accept this fact as if it never happened. If France wants to give a lesson to Turkey about human rights, they first have to stop sucking the blood of African nations. Secondly. as I wrote above, denying/admitting a particular event in the history should not be a crime because it can only be considered as freedom of speech. If it is wrong, then historians have to answer, not the prosecutors. It is the same thing when Holocaust is taken into account. There are still imprisoned writers in Europe just because they denied the size of Holocaust. One French writer has been arrested just because he said there should not be that many Jews killed in Holocaust. He gave historical evidence in his article but at the end it was not enough. He was arrested for denying the genocide.

* * *

After the breakfast, we went to see the doctor. It took much shorter time than I have expected. Actually, we did not get what we wanted to hear and left the hospital with despair. We needed to see the doctor next day again. Then J went to see her friend T and I went to buy books from Dasa. I sold the books I have bought and read in Vietnam and bought four books in exchange. It was a good deal because I only paid 130 Baht for four books. (Two David Lodge novels, one novel about Burma and one biography of Kafka) Then I went to meet with another friend S. We met at a Starbucks Café and talked about usual things like books, art, and design and her/my future. After a long conversation, I went back to my hotel room to take a hot shower. Nothing happened after I returned to hotel because I did not want to move any more. I just laid on the bed and started to read one of my new books. The day ended with J’s return.

Vacation in Thailand - Day 1

10 October 2006 – Tuesday- 11:53 / Chaiyapum

Here we are, in Chaiyapum again! This place reminds me Parmenides of Ancient Greece. There is no change or basically change is an illusion for the people who come from changing world. Whenever I come to J’s village, I feel the static feeling of being, the heavy odor of things that remain the same for long time. Things stay the same here. The crazy momentum, which holds the dynamics of Bangkok, does not give even a small portion to this place. People are the same as if they were hiding behind the bushes when we were away and whenever we arrive here, they show up to say “jae ae” to us. I easily feel the oldness of the traditions, coldness of water in the bathroom and friendly hugs of my dirty dog. But this time, there is a difference. J’s grandmother is very sick and doctors sent her home so that she can live her last days peacefully with her children and grandchildren. Right now, I can see her from the place I am sitting. She lies on the floor and J is holding her hand. They both talk with very little voice. It is like once we die, our voice also dies and becomes extinct for the people we leave behind. The voice we like to listen and find comfort in hearing it will disappear one day. All the voices, all the faces, all the breaths are temporary and we are here just to prolong the process. Buddha is right! Suffering is inevitable. She lays there without a voice –I guess she only speaks when she needs water or food- and we, the younger people around her continue our daily lives without considering the treasure of this old voice, soon to be closed to all kinds of intrusions forever. I have just read Marquez’s last novel, “The Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores” and there the writer mentions about being an old person in a young society. Unfortunately, I left the book at my house in Bangkok so I can not quote from it.

Before starting to write about this place, I want to write my first day in Bangkok. Then, I can write journal of two days in each day and catch the present day after 3 days.

We arrived at the new airport Saturday afternoon. It was around 2 pm and both of us were excited with the new airport because like everyone, we have been bombarded by the news and advertisements about the size and facilities of the new airport. When the airplane approached to airport, I had a chance to look at it from the top. It looks beautiful with an extraordinary architecture and a large land it covers. I was imagining how beautiful the interior design could be before we enter the airport. However, it did not take long for me to notice the problems in the airport. First, there was shortage of toilets. I entered to one toilet and there were 6 guys waiting in front of me to answer the nature’s call. But the taps and lavatories were ultra-modern with both style and technology. I would rather to have simple taps after a quick pee. I gave up the queue to find another toilet but later I ended up in the same place because I could not find another one near to the place we were at that moment. After the toilet problem, we had another problem in luggage reclaim. The band was working with a constant speed but the bags were falling from a high level to a lower level with a great force of gravity that the sound created by the free fall was not comfortable. It is like you are waiting someone to throw you an egg and the ultimate end for the egg is being cracked. After a reasonable time, we got our luggage and went to find a taxi. Then real nightmare started. It was so crowded –even more crowded than Chatuchak Market on a Sunday afternoon- and there were luggage carts everywhere. They were left at the middle of corridors because one of the elevators does not work and people have to use the stairs to go down in order to find a taxi. I complained about the carts but soon later I did the same thing. I left my cart at a corner where it will not bother people walking and took my bags on my shoulders. I realized that it is not the only elevator, which is out of order. There were at least three elevators, which re not working and causing bottlenecks. Then we went to find an ATM to have some Thai Baht. There was one SCB machine and it refused to pay me money after my several trials. Then we used J’s card to withdraw money from her account. Somehow it worked and with a few thousands Baht, we started to look for a taxi. In the old airport, finding a taxi was as easy as washing hands in a small river but here it is challenging. There were so many people and a few taxis. They were charging 50 Baht from the passenger, which I consider as normal for an airport. We found a taxi without waiting long but I sensed the complaints in people’s faces.

Before 4 pm, we were at the hotel we reserved a week before. Either we were lucky or the airport was not that bad, I felt ok about the new airport as a passenger who only needs basic facilities. As this is Thailand, I can understand that look is more important than content. They construct a huge airport with magnificent architecture but they forgot to install enough toilets! It is same as constructing nice looking buildings for schools but not caring about the education! As I wrote above, I am a simple-minded person and do not think very complicated when it comes to my personal problems. However, if you are looking for a little bit more privacy and easiness, then there were many things to complain about new airport. Here is an example which complains a lot, thanks to Uli for sending me this article: http://www.asianewsnet.net/biz.php?aid=4999

I will continue writing about Saturday afternoon when I return from Khon Kaen. Now we have to go to buy some necessary things for grandmother.

10 October 2006 – Tuesday - 19:01

As soon as we got in the taxi, I felt that we are in Thailand. The driver was speaking a clear Thai version of English with a lot of laughter. He first complained about the new airport and then he started to talk about any other things he might have heard a few words about. When J said, she is from Chaiyapum he started to speak some Isan words. When he learnt that I am from Turkey, he mentioned Hakan Sukur. Then our conversation has traveled around “My peln rai” , “Ohh my Buddha!” and “Saturday afternoon traffic” Actually, there was no traffic until we get closed to Sukhumwit where we booked a small hotel by internet. It was so easy to find it since the address was clear and the driver knew the shortcuts. As soon as we checked in, we left the room to buy telephone credit and have an Isan-style lunch (Guy yung, kao neio and som tam). While we were having lunch at a small restaurant in Siam Square, I saw four students from my previous school. Two of them were smoking and the other two were trying to tell them something either about cigarette or about where to go next! I left the restaurant and went to say them hi. Whenever they see me, they threw their cigarettes. I pretended that I did not see them smoking. We exchanged a few words and I returned to the restaurant. I also told them I might come to visit their class if I have time on Monday.

After lunch, we went to another shopping place that we could not find in HCMC easily. MBK and Discovery Center are two of them. I don’t really enjoy browsing in these places but just because I want to feel the dynamism of Bangkok, I wandered there aimlessly. Then I saw two friends. C and E usually go everywhere together if they have chance. E bought a new phone for his friend. Both of them have good model of mobile phones in their pockets and they are simply proud of them. They usually show them to the people in any occasion just to make sure that people around can appreciate their choice of modern communication gadgets. If they see my mobile phone, I guess they both will not hide their disgust because my phone is at least 4 years old, has no color, relatively large and has no GPRS connection. Even if I want to sell my phone, the dealers pay 150 Baht only. But I am still using my phone. It works perfect. I can call and get called. I can send SMS and I can get SMS. What else do I need? I don’t have any reason to update it and I hope I will never have. Many of these technology gadgets make the things necessary in people’s eyes by changing the paradigms of fashion. This is how advertisement industry works. If you can make a tool, which can have access to Internet without a cable connection, then the first thing you have to do is to make people believe that it is very necessary for modern life. Then, you can sell it. This is very crucial especially for young people because they are the most vulnerable ones under the attacks of advertisements. They spend carelessly just to look cool. A few months later, the things they bought just to look cool become out of fashion and they need to update them again. At the end, this is a vicious circle with no end. Who wins? Those big bosses with big pockets are the real winners. How was the world before mobile phones, Internet or digital cameras? Were our parents missing something in their lives? Does Internet really help people learn something or is it more or less another entertainment tool? How many people in developing countries use Internet just to increase the volume of their knowledge and produce new knowledge? Basically, the question is does technology really serve people to make the life easier or it waits people to serve to it and make the life more miserable for the ones who can not afford to have it?

After leaving these two friends on BTS station, we went to see J’s friend. She used to work in a hospital before and now she works as a health consultant in a company. Actually, she is ex-girlfriend of my Scottish friend B. She tries to sell these new-fashion health products. One of the many ways of making people waste their money in the name of health. The contradiction in these companies is between what they say and what they sell. They claim that eating vegetables and fruits can prolong our lives and can enhance our life expectancies. Then one should ask why don’t you sell fruits and vegetables but a magical product which is supposed to have everything we need to be healthy? Then we have to pay very high amount of price for a bottle of fruit-vegetable juice.

After measuring our health scale, the salesgirls found that we both need this product immediately. What a surprise! They did this by a machine, which sends a blue light through my finger and gives me a point for my health status. I got something between 30-40 and this means unsatisfactory. After I said I would not buy it, we sat nearby and chatted about usual things. B asked me about her in his last e-mail and he wanted me to inform him about her well being. She was ok but apparently missed him a lot. Although she said she is ok, her face and eyes were saying a different story. I assured her that I would inform B about her health and her emotional turbulence that she passed through. I took her photo to send to B. J promised her to visit her place Sunday afternoon.

Leaving her behind, this time we went to see another friend with his girlfriend. We first went to Kinokuniya bookstore in Paragorn where I bought Marquez’s novel. Then, we went to play bowling. At the end of the first evening in Bangkok, we arrived at the hotel as exhausted. In one day we met many friends, ate a lot of Thai food and walked up down in shopping areas. Once we arrived at the room, I felt the silence of Bangkok one more time. It was quiet! Neither a motorcycle engine nor a car’s honk which are both indispensable (a sine qua non) for HCMC can be heard! I stopped breathing in the bed to listen the voice of the city but there was nothing coming. I felt happy one more time for having this silence at the middle of the city. A good sleep without any interruption was waiting for me…

Letters from Vietnam 34

4th October 2006 – 13:18

I have been away from blogging for almost 10 days. It is partly because of heavy work but the real reason is I restarted to write / edit my short stories. This makes me slow in blog keeping business. I should not mind as long as I do write a page per day. It is going well and I think after coming back from Thailand, it will be much easier to write.

The semester is over. I marked all the papers and sent a small sample to Melbourne to be moderated by the course coordinators. It is nice to be free. Yesterday and today, all I have done is working on some challenging math problems and try to focus on next semester’s classes. I already planned my first lesson for Discrete Math and I will complete the plan for Statistics in next two days. Without having a stressful mind, life is so easy and peaceful… I wish it will continue this way next semester.

I read the news in this morning and almost burst into laughter when I saw the news about Turkish guy who hijacked a passenger airplane just to avoid from military service. What a stupid excuse to hijack a plane! This just reminded me what I will do next! May be I should do the same thing to be exempted from military service. The guy says he did this because he is a Catholic and he does not want to serve to a Muslim army. Well, well, well… What else? First, Turkish army can not be considered as a Muslim army. There is no religion in the army. There is no even ideology in Turkish army except for Kemalism which is the main ideology of Turkish Republic. If you say you are a Catholic, nobody will care about your faith. As long as you are a Turkish male citizen, you will be summoned to military service. No matter you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Buddhist. If this guy starts a new fashion, I am afraid we will see the funniest hijackings in the next years. Imagine a man hijacks a plane because he is agnostics and he does not want to serve a Christian army! What about gays! They may ask for exemption from army service too. What about those who are against wars? This never ends!

Today, there is news in the newspaper about ethnic minorities in Vietnam. According to Vietnam News, Ministry of Education offers bilingual education to the ethnic minorities so that they will not forget their own languages while they learn the official language of the country. This might teach something to my country’s stubborn politicians! In Turkey, learning Kurdish has been legalized a few years ago. Then, private courses have been opened. Whenever some small irregularities have been found in the implementation, government closed the courses. It is still an ongoing process in Turkey and the debates are not over yet. Why doesn’t the state school teach Kurdish to the Kurdish people? Isn’t it more under the control? The Kurdish kids can learn both languages at school. They can learn how to appreciate Kurdish and Turkish literatures at the same time. It should not be difficult. Most of the children know nothing about Turkish when they start primary school in Eastern Turkey. Whenever they start learning Turkish, they are also asked to read and write. This makes the life more miserable for them. When they go home, they still speak Kurdish with their parents. Instead of making their life more difficult, state should start bilingual school and special curriculum for these schools. In these schools, students must learn both languages to a certain level. After this certain level, they have to focus on the official language of the country more since the there is no university which offers education in Kurdish. Bilingual Education is one of the best solutions for the Kurdish and other minorities in Turkey. However, Turkey does not admit that there are ethnic minorities in Turkey. According to the constitution, every citizen of Turkey is considered as a Turk (not even a Turkish). This mean there are no Kurds in Turkey, there are no Greeks, there are no Armenians, and there are no Suryanis etc… If Turkey can admit that there are some non-Turkic people in this country, they can start solving the problem.

Actually, I was planning to write on obsessions in my life but the news I saw changed my direction. I am trying to have more self-discipline in these days to get back to fiction writing. The novel I have started a few months ago is still waiting. I will continue writing it and try to finish it before the end of my third semester in this school. I don’t want to promise and make it more stressful for myself but having a target might help me to achieve something which may not look achievable in normal conditions.

Letters From Vietnam 33

23rd September 2006 – 08:51

Things change rapidly. In last three days, a military coup ousted the current parliament, Elif Shafak has been acquitted and tomorrow Ramadan starts.

I would like to write more about Shafak’s trial since I am particularly interested in freedom of speech in my country. I watched the news on BBC on the day of trial. Ultra-nationalists were waiting at the entrance of the courthouse and they were preparing their slogans and posters. They put the EU flags on the ground but there were swastikas at the centre of the circle of stars on the blue flags. This was ironic since many Turkish nationalists believe that the genocide committed against Jews during the Second World War is an exaggeration and it actually happened in a much smaller scale. When it comes to compare their betrayers with Europe’s fascists, swastika becomes important to them. It symbolizes blood and terror. Same thing happened aftermath of Pope’s speech as well. A Turkish deputy minister compared Pope’s words with those of Hitler. Isn’t it a contradiction?

Then trial took only 20 minutes to be adjourned. This trial was making Turkish and International press busy for very long time but it was simply for nothing. I think everybody knows that novel characters can not be judged and EU pressure on the trials can not be ignored. Nothing would insult Turkishness more than a decision of jailing a writer because of her words in a novel. Turkey should consider this trial as if Turkey herself has been in trial in terms of general ethics and human rights. However, the article 301 is still valid and I am sure there will be more victims in the future for these kinds of crimes. Prime minister flashed a green light for changing the Penal Code and asked Opposition Party to have a meeting to discuss the details. Let’s wait and see how far they can go!

Other than this event, I do not really think much. My days are passing with daily works. Actually, we already finished the final exams. I have to start marking the exam papers. I have applied to use five days of my annual leave this October. It has been approved so I will be in Thailand between October 7 and October 16. I am hoping that I can meet many friends and speak a lot of Turkish. I have been away from speaking Turkish for almost four months, feeling strange a little bit. I eve stopped writing in Turkish. I consider this as a dangerous situation since at the end I am a Turkish-language writer. What I write in English is usually away from aesthetical beauty and artistic perspective.

For this reason, I started another blog which will be only in Turkish. I will start to publish old stories one by one. After that I will start to write in Turkish as well. This actually means that I will d a lot of editing for the first two months because I already have more than fifty short stories written in Turkish. They need to be edited one more time before being published under my name. The address of this new blog is http://aliarican.blogspot.com/ and it has a link on the side bar of this blog.

Other than writing, I have played frisbee last weekend and looking forward to play again very soon. It does not require much technical skills except for running and throwing the disc with a proper angle. It is fun and needs a lot of energy.

I am currently reading Roald Dahl’s collected stories. I have read four stories so far and they all seem nice. His stories so far focus on unhappy marriages and their ironic conclusions. He has a good style and I believe his resolution parts need a little bit more taming. They end with a final cut which sometimes feel me I am in a vacuum. Before I am ready to end the story, the story ends itself.

Letters from Vietnam 32

20th September 2006 – 08:57

“There she is!” the crowd shouted as if an eagle has seen the running prey in the woods and bowed its head down to hunt. They were ready with their weapons in their hands. As soon as she left the car, the angry crowd walked toward her until the police barrier stopped them. They were lifting their hands to the air and throwing water bottles, pens, plastic cups and even newspapers. When one of the pens hit her head, she looked at the pen rolling on the ground. “Very ironic” she thought! “Because I used my pen to write what I thought, I am here now. And now they are throwing me pens” She walked to the court room with swift steps. Beside the police, there were four guards protecting her from the angry crowd. They were saying known words: “Turkey belongs to Turks”, “Yankee go home”, “Love or leave” etc… “There is nothing new!” she thought, “nothing creative!”

The paragraph above could be a good beginning for a story which can advertise Turkey’s well-known Article 301 of Penal Code. I will not write the story because I don’t know many details about the Turkish courts. Instead of writing a fiction, I will suffice with a little essay. Let’s start with Article 301:

1. A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.
2. A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.
4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

One first should define Turkishness and insult to Turkishness in better words. How can one insult Turkishness? According to the prosecutors, if you claim that Turks killed Armenians during the Word War I, you have insulted Turkishness because it is a well-known truth by the all Turkish official ideologist that Turks did not kill Armenians, neither attempted to kill one innocent person. According to our well-known truths, Turks are the most innocent and honorable race the human history has ever seen! Turks are the “white spoon extracted from the milk” and it is an insult to claim the opposite. If one says we have done bad things against some other ethnic minorities in our country, this becomes an insult because it contradicts with the definition of Turkishness. Actually, using the phrase” ethnic minority living in Turkey” is already an insult to Turkey’s unity since according to our constitution every citizen living in Turkey is a Turk. It is ok to insult Kurds, Armenians or Greeks. It is ok to say the malicious lies about all other nations or nationalities but Turks!

At least 15 writers, editors or publishers already have been prosecuted under the article 301. Tomorrow Elif Shafak will face the trial for the words of the characters she invented for her novel, Bastards of Istanbul. Isn’t it stupid? These guys who call themselves “Unity of Jurists” have no idea about how to read a novel. If we judge the writers for the crimes which are committed by the characters in the novels, then almost all the writers must go to prison including the ones who write historical novels. Can we judge Dostoyevsky for Raskolnikov’s murders? Can’t they understand why one writes a fiction? Creating novel characters means replacing yourself with a new identity and trying to think in different way, looking at the world with someone else’s eyes. It has nothing to do with putting your own opinions by using the words of one character. If she wanted to write her own opinions, I am sure she has the capability to insult Turkishness in an essay or in a newspaper article. She wrote a novel because she wanted to attract the attention of the people to the sufferings of certain group of people who live in this country without much voice. A good novel reflects the writer’s opinion in the views of different characters. Every character might carry something from the writer but at the end this is not a necessity. Writer can hide himself/herself behind all the characters and make himself/herself totally invisible.

In addition to this, the article 301 does not put a clear line between insult and criticism. Criticism is not a crime but insult is a crime. Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted for saying Kurds and Armenians have been killed in this country. I don’t understand where he insulted the Turkishness? If Turks did not kill thousands of Armenians, then what Pamuk said can be considered as a “lie”, not an “insult”. If Elif Shafak’s characters said something against the official ideology of Turkish Republic, it is because there are people speaking like that character in this country. Can we deny the words of Armenians and Kurds in a novel where we talk about their lives? Isn’t it writer’s job to give voice to everyone evenly so that the reader will have a clear understanding of the lives of these people? Isn’t it unfair to show Kurds and Armenians lived/living in Turkey without any problem? Isn't it the biggest sin to ignore others' pains, acting blind and deaf for those who suffer? I think this is one of the most nonsense trials in the history of the Republic. Let’s wait and see where the comedy goes!

I also wonder now if I have insulted Turkishness by writing this page. I am not a famous writer or not even a real writer but does it matter if I insult Turkishness in an essay which is posted on internet? According to the article 301, section 3 my punishment must be one third more than the ones who write their words while they were in Turkey.

Here there are some links about the trial of Elif Shafak and other issues related to the article 301:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_301_(Turkish_penal_code)

http://www.pen.org/printmedia.php/prmMediaID/694

http://books.guardian.co.uk/voicesofprotest/story/0,,1827872,00.html

Letters from Vietnam 31

19th September 2006

One must accept that all religions have dogmatic sides. There is no way to explain everything in a religion by reason and saying that our religion is rational. Because religions are dogmatic, people use the word “faith” or “belief” when they want to express their involvement with that religion. Following words are from Pope’s last controversial speech:

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

Pope tries to say that violence is against the rules of reasoning and God should not command his subjects to fight in his name. According to his quotation, in Islam, reason is far beyond the faith. Muslims are supposed to believe that “A is good because Allah says so” rather than “Allah says A is good because A is itself good” Pope again gives the idea of one person and ignores the others. One can say that this is a speech and he does not have to mention all the sects in Islam during his speech. I can agree with this if only Pope says there are other sects in Islam and these sects think in different ways. And the example he gave is a very extreme example which is even not accepted by most of the Muslims around the world. God may not be bound by his own word because He is the word himself. It is impossible in Islam to separate Allah and His Kelam.

If we look at the Kelam schools in Islam we can see three main ideologies in the sense of free will and rationalism. They are Mutazili, Ash’ari and Maturidi. Their differences are wide to see easily and they represent different worldviews as well as different philosophies.

Mutazili is considered as a rational approach to Islam. It was definitely affected by Greek rationalism and it gave a lot to Western world. They celebrated the power of reason and human intellectuality. Although their rivals blamed them for being so rational and ignoring the importance of revelation, they actually tried to find a midpoint between reason and revelation. According to Mutazili, human reason is not sufficiently powerful to know everything and for this reason humans need revelation in order to reach conclusions concerning what is good and what is bad for them. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu) Basically, reason and revelation are not against each other and they behave in cooperation to approve the existence of God and his will. According to Mutazili, one can know what is good and what is bad without revelation. In summary, reason and revelation complement each other and can not dispense with one another.

Ash’ari is the most common kelam school in today’s sunni Muslim world. In contrast to Mutazilite school, the Asharite denied the priority of reasoning. According to them, God is beyond human’s capabilities and He is above everything, including human intellect. This means one can not know the good and bad without the help of God’s revelation. The man has free will but this free will can do nothing unless God’s will allow him to do a thing. One of the most influential figures in Ash’ari school is Imam Ghazali. He wrote the book against the philosophy and philosophers (mainly against rational philosophers like Ibn-i Rusdh, Ibn-i Sina and Farabi). Many modern scholar thinks that Ash’ari put an end to philosophy in Muslim world. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash)

Maturidi can be considered as a slight deviation from Ash’ari towards Mutazili. According to Maturidi, an unadided human mind is able to find out some of major sins without the revelation. Because of this, everyone in this world is responsible from finding God even though the message of God had not reached him. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maturidi)

As a conclusion, Islam has the colors of diversity in itself. Today’s muslims, although Maturidi and Ash’ari are majority, believe that God created human’s reasoning and everything in this universe to be understood. Then, if there is anything which seems contradictory to God’s words, a devoted muslim probably would say that God knows the best. This might be considered as an ultimate submission but doesn’t the word “submission” mean “Islam”in Arabic? It is dogmatic and it gives very little space for reason to make the right decision. I really wonder how it works in Christian religion. Can we really say that Christianity is based on rational assumptions? Can a devoted Christian do the good things just because his reasoning tells him to do so? Isn’t it similar to Islam? Christianity tried to use reasoning methods to prove the existence of God for long time but as I know, they all come to a dead point after the sharp answers from philosophers or even from Christian scholars. Today’s Christians believe in God just because this belief makes them happy –rather than they feel rationally obliged to believe-. I guess it is the same thing in Islam. Here is a nice article which can be a good answer to the so-called rationalism in Christianity. It is written by Russell and still considered as one of the shortest and sharpest answer to Christian rationalist. Enjoy it... http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell0.htm

Letters from Vietnam 30

17th September 2006 – Sunday – 19:14

If the words come out of the mouth of a respected person, “who said it” is as important as “what is said”. If you are a leader of a large religious community, then everything you say can be considered as the opinion of your community. This is normal and that is why those who are holding high positions in religious institutions must be very careful with their words. A few days ago, Pope had a speech in which he mentioned several topics which could be considered as “touching faithful Muslims’ feelings”. I have read the controversial passages several times. I tried to find something insulting but there was nothing that kind in his speech. What he has done is simply ignoring a basic element in a speech.

If you quote from someone in your speech, after quoting you have to mention your own opinion on it, either you agree or disagree. If you don’t do it, as a default, your audience will automatically think that you agree with the person you quote from. Pope did a similar mistake in his speech. Here is the part of his speech which caused problem around the globe:

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...”

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

First of all, we have to be aware that he makes this speech in a university environment where people respect all kinds of opinions regardless of who says it. Pope himself might feel the confidence of this during his speech. This might cause some kind of ease in his words. Actually, he mentions the good sides of this relaxed environment just before the above quoted paragraphs. He mentions an academic who once said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. This citation might have been done to indicate the existence of dialectical environment. He also might have had the desire to show the level of Christianity reached in the sense of freedom of speech. If we look at the Muslim countries, we can see a lot of opposite examples which are showing how intolerant they are when it comes to converting to another religion or insulting others’ religions.

Secondly, he actually wants to discuss faith and reason. However, the example he chose has some elements which can go further than this topic. “Violence and faith” can be considered very different from “faith and reason”. In his citation, the emperor of Byzantium mentions the ayet (not the surah as he says since surah is something like a chapter. Qur’an consists of surahs (chapters) and each surah consists of ayets (set of sentences or a sentence) “there is no compulsion in religion” and he also adds that this ayet is from the early period of Islam, when Muhammad was powerless. Basically, what can be misunderstood is as soon as Muhammad got enough power, the religion had a new shape which commands attacking to infidels. This is a very controversial comment. Although Pope does not say his own opinions, staying silent is not so different from agreeing.

I would also like to say the information is wrong! Pope makes a big mistake in the sense of history of Islam. If we look at the history of Islam, we can see the number of Muslims increase with an arithmetic rate until the Hudaybiye Peace Pact which is signed by two parts, Muslims who live is Medina and non-Muslims who live in Mecca. Before this date, number of Muslims was around a few thousands and their population was limited with Medina. During this pact, number of Muslims increased exponentially. Whenever the pact was violated by either part, Mohammad conquers Mecca with more than 10,000 soldiers. What does this tell us? The peace pact lasted for only nineteen months and no blood spilled during this time. Can we say Islam spread with the force of the sword! Later on, there might be wrong implementations of Qur’an and this might have caused misunderstandings in Western world. But in essence and especially in prophet’s implementation, there was no violence. This is clear and accepted by almost all the Muslims around the world.

In addition, one might ask how Christianity spread to Africa, America and Far Asia. Who did 8 crusades toward holy land by promising poor Christian villagers the kingdom of God? Who went to America and killed thousands? Can we deny the bloody history of Christianity? Didn’t Christians attack on infidels in the name of God? I am sure Pope knows about the history of Christianity and he is aware of the similarities. Both religions had dark ages. Inquisition was part of Christianity and this institution burned the philosopher/mathematician Bruno, put Galileo in house jail and refused everything against Aristotle’s opinions. Christianity today seems more tolerant than it was before but it did not happen in one day. This tolerance was a costly process. It took so many lives before coming to this point. Islam definitely needs similar revolutions and needs to renovate itself for the sake of other faiths and people of other belief systems. One might say that Islam is already tolerant enough to all religions but we all know that this tolerance is not enough to make it a global religion. When I saw the young Pakistani (or Afghan) man who wants to convert to Christianity but his death penalty has been announced by the Islamic law, I doubt on this so called “muslim tolerance”. When Muslims burn foreign embassies or Christian churches with an excuse of an insult, I doubt about this tolerance.

There is another problem in Pope’s speech. He mentions emperor’s words but does not mention what the Muslim scholar told him in reply. Isn’t is unfair when you want to compare to people’s opinions and giving right to speak to only one of them. I don’t know what the Persian scholar told him but I am sure if the quotation would include his opinions, people around the world would have thought that Pope does not agree with the words of emperor.

Unfortunate scenes again populated TV screens after Pope’s speech. In Middle East, some Muslims tried to burn two churches. This might give more right to people of other religions to criticize Islam and misunderstand it. If Muslim clerics say Islam can not be associated with violence, they have to show it to the world. Whenever someone insults the religion or even whenever someone is misunderstood, Muslims go on protests, burn buildings and hurt innocent people. Is this the way to show Islam is not associated with violence?

Today, Pope apologized from the Muslim world and said he has been misunderstood. He is right! He has been misunderstood because he said things which are open to controversial interpretations. It is an important issue that Muslims’ protests forced him to do so. Muslims around the world behave like naughty children as if their toy is taken from their hands and they have right to cry until the toy is given back. Pope did the right thing as a wise person and as a good example for Christian kindness. I am so sad that Muslims will not understand this kindness as a great behavior but as a victory. Muslims around the world must see that Pope apologized because he worried about the repeat of the cartoon crisis and he definitely does not want this. They have to keep this in their minds and keep working on inter-religious dialogues because there is no other way that can let all of us to live on this earth without hurting each other. I hope things will calm down soon.

I did not yet mention the last paragraph of my quotation of Pope’s speech. In this paragraph, he talks about the position of reason in Muslim faith. I will write about it in my next entry.

Letters from Vietnam 29

17th September 2006 – 09:02

What do we understand from the word “fiction”? A fiction could be considered worth to read when it gives a remarkable path in our binary (or in Allan’s suggestion, m-ary for m equals to at least 2) tree. At the end, the tree itself is so large and so diverse. Each non-cyclic path with a reasonable length can be a story. This means, if a story starts with 10, then it already discarded all other beginnings of 00, 01 or 11. The writer must be aware of the fact that each decision of “yes” contains at least one more decision, which can be “no” in binary tree, can be many other possible decisions in an m-ary tree. Basically, writer’s job is to find the best path which describes the idea which is in his/her mind before writing the story. Once you kill A in your story, then A can not be back unless you are writing another story! If a writer wants to write different ends for the story, it is quite possible but he/she must be admit that each end creates another story. I prefer to read a story with only one end since a story means a “convergent series of events”. If it diverges again at the end, it makes a hole in the heart of the story.

Let’s now take a small part from Borges’ story:

“Not in all,” he murmured with a smile. “Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy”

Here we see a “forking path” in one story. From the point of context, we know that A and B are friends or they are behaving like friends. Then suddenly, time frame changes! We are in another time frame! This leads me a certain contradiction if we stay in the same story. As time frame moves, then story must move too. There is no point in keeping contradictory events in one story to make it against common sense. When I say common sense I mean simple scientific facts which we believe they are true without doubt.

I believe nothing in the universe is contradictory as Pope said in his last speech. If there is something looks contradictory to common sense, it is because the common sense is wrong. A good example for this how the emergence of quantum mechanics challenged to classical determinism in Western Science. Newtonian Physics suggesting that if we know the current situation and all the contributing factors, we are able to guess the future. However, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle showed that there is a limit in the certainty of our predictions, which is determined by Heisenberg Constant. Time may or may not be sequential. Actually, we all know that time itself has different frames in different speeds. Twins Paradox is about two brothers at the same age, one goes to interplanetary journey with 0.8C and the other one stays on earth. For the one stays on earth, time goes as usual and after 50 Earth years, he becomes 50 years-older. However the other brother who travels with 0.8C time would be much slower. He might come back to Earth as a guy who got just few years older. Is this against the common sense? Of course not! Common sense has no idea about the concept of time in high speeds. At the end, common sense must obey the scientific facts, not the vice versa!

As a conclusion, in his fairly complicated story, Borges tries to show us something different, something which has never been attempted. I am sure he knows what he is doing and I am sure he is aware of the contradictions. As (From Allan’s article) Carter Wheelock says “he wants to question his own trial”. A story can be created as a labyrinth but time must be something above the lanes of the labyrinth because time is the only non-moving frame for the people on this earth. Borges’ story can be considered as a fantasy fiction with cleverly built fantastic concepts. However, it is not the writer but the inconsistency in the system of the concepts in the story will ultimately kill the story itself. Once, you try to build more details on it, the system will not survive and collapse immediately. It is actually worth to try to keep an inconsistent story alive as long as it takes. The logical and physical difficulties can challenge the writer and each attempt to solve the paradox can enhance the writer’s imagination to one step further. But, the more the writer continues to build up contradictory concepts, the more the story will be out of sense because the reader will lose the point in reading the story. It is the exactly same as trying to solve an inconsistent system of linear equations. We can play with them, we can get different mathematical expressions, we can substitute one with another but eventually the result will halt!

But still, one thing keeps me busy about the story which ends where it starts! I think this has been tried by many writers many times and we can even see the Hollywood versions of this type of stories. I wrote one (The Story) long ago and there is still a half story (The Tenth Chapter) which waits to be ended with a surprise resolution. One day I will complete it.

Tomorrow, I will write on Pope’s comments about Islam and some other daily things… Here is a link to full speech of Pope: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_09_06_pope.pdf

Letters from Vietnam 28

15th September 2006 – 08:46

If we want to give a second name to Borges, the best word could be “Borges the Illusionist” as Allan mentions in the first paragraph of his analysis of the story “The Garden of Forking Paths”. Borges tries to write in a way that at the end we believe what we should not! He plays with words and/or with philosophical concepts to allure reader’s mind. Many of his works are potentially open to philosophical discussions and hard to understand in one time reading because the reader needs some background in philosophy or physical sciences to grasp the main idea behind the stories. One of his short essay, Borges and I, is a good example for this alluring fiction. I have translated this very short work long ago so I remember the trick he wants to play. He first tries to single out himself from the identity Borges. He –let’s simply call him B- is not Borges and does not be known as Borges. Since everything he does is attributed to Borges, he draws a picture depicting the trouble of being Borges. Basically, B is the real person who wants to do the crazy things but the identity of Borges –given by the society for his works- stop him doing so. At the end of the essay, he asks the question which turns the whole picture upon itself. He asks “Who wrote this essay?” Although he wants to sign as B, this name is unknown to others. So he signs as Borges and again he becomes victim of the same cyclic razor. I use the word “cyclic” in the sense of “ends where it begins”. The self-contradictory cyclic fiction is one of the many distinctive characteristics of his stories.

In the story of “The Garden of Forking Paths”, he mentions time as a central problem. According to the writer, time can be considered in a different way, not as an infinite line but as an infinite labyrinth which sometimes diverges and sometimes converges. As he is using the fiction to show the labyrinth property of the time, he talks about a novel in which time is not described in conventional way. It is described as “forking paths” which can be one of the best expressions of the time if you are looking at the future. I define time as “a rootless binary tree”. It is rootless because we always start at one point which is not beginning of time. I call it binary because for every decision we make, there is an alternative one. Basically, for the point we are standing now we have infinite number of futures which can be depicted as branches of a tree. Present is the root and future is the branches. The word tree itself eliminates the cycle problem. Time can not be cyclic because once you have cycle, you will have a contradiction. As Allan quotes from Eco, we can not go too far with inconsistency. At the end, paradoxes and contradictions will overcome the artificial world. Let’s imagine a situation: We are at the root of the tree which is actually a branch of another larger tree. Let’s use the number 1 for each decision to right branch and 0 for each decision to left branch. Then 100101 becomes a path with 6 edges. After taking 6th step, we have a unique past which can not be changed. “Everything happens to a man, precisely, precisely now” the narrator says in the story. It is because we have the marks of all the points we have touched and 100101 becomes what we are! The present is the only time being we live! Future is a fantasy of branches, past is a unique path going back to the root of everything which defines present. Borges mentions the labyrinth as “it encompasses past and the future”. This is basically another inconsistent idea which can not survive long once you built the details on it.

Imagine a novel which gives all the possible outcomes for the each event in the story. We will start with (0,1) and then we will go with (00,01,10,11) and then (000,001,010,011,100, 101, 110, 111) etc… At the end we will have 2^n different stories in one big mega-story. Then why don’t we call it a “story collection”. Since the story “001011011” will be very different from “1011000101”, is it possible to call it one novel? It is same as our lives. We all have one sequence of numbers although we had chance to have a different one. Different people have different sequences so this makes us different. Time serves us in a way we wish! If we call the each sequence as “personal times” then we can call the bigger set of all personal times as a unique “Time”. This seems to solve the all paradoxes. There is a unique time and all other personal subsets are small parts of it. It is wrong to use the same word for both. Similar paradox can be seen in following example:

Which of the following statements is incorrect?

a. 2+2=4
b. a+b=b+a
c. All men are mortal
d. Bangkok is capital city of Thailand
e. None of the above is incorrect!

Because the statements given in a, b, c and d are correct; then we likely to answer e. But we have to be careful! It asks the incorrect statement! The statement in the choice e is correct. Then we can not choose e either! This paradox is called Russell’s Paradox in Mathematics. It leads to many other developments in the theory of sets but here the solution is so simple. If we separate the concept of “statement” and “information”, then we can have a better understanding of the problem. The sentences which are given in choices a, b, c and d are called statement. Then, we measure their truth value. They are all true. Then consider choice e as not a statement but information only. So the choice e has a different category from other choices. Then, now we can answer e because it is not a statement. We answer e not because it is the direct answer of the question but it does not create any contradiction with the question and with the mathematical logic. At the end, a question like this confuses the examiner’s mind and creates mess around the problem since it is not well-defined. Whenever we talk about not-well-defined concepts in our works, we can have attention because they are confusing. Borges likes to do this a lot!

Now it is time to go to class… I will continue more on the story and Allan’s article… It is really rewarding! I really enjoyed writing the above paragraphs…

Untangling the Problem of Time in “The Garden of Forking Paths

Following article has been written by Allan Adasiak, on one of Borges' amazing stories, The Garden of Forking Paths . I am now writing my comments on both the story and Allan's article. I will post it this evening or tomorrow morning.

Untangling the Problem of Time in "The Garden of Forking Paths"

“The Garden of Forking Paths” (Borges) is a literary labyrinth about a literary labyrinth, both created by the master illusionist Jorge Luis Borges. This paper examines one aspect -- “the abysmal problem of time,” (Borges 2420) -- and produces a variety of interpretations. The results are amazing and suggest that Borges’ maze has succeeded in getting many people lost. But then, perhaps they couldn’t help themselves: it is a universe in which we are not really free to choose.

In Borges’ story, Ts’ui Pen, a prosperous and scholarly Chinese official, created the labyrinth called “The Garden of Forking Paths” some two centuries ago. Although searched for, it was never found until located during World War II by Dr. Stephen Albert, a missionary turned Sinologue, who is one of the major sources of ideas about it. Yu Tsun, a spy for the Germans who is Ts’ui Pen’s great grandson, is the other major source. Various commentators on the story provide further thoughts which are offered for perspective.

When Ts’ui Pen died many years ago, he left behind a long, perplexing, and incomplete literary work that he said would encompass more characters than any other in Chinese literature. Also surviving him was a legend of a maze that would be infinite. As Dr. Albert tells the story, Ts’ui Pen, a provincial governor, scholarly, learned, a famous poet and calligrapher “abandoned all this in order to compose a book and a maze.” (Borges 2418) Albert has studied the book for years, even translating it from Chinese into English. He has also been fascinated with “…the curious legend that Ts’ui Pen had planned to create a labyrinth which would be strictly infinite.” (Borges 2418)

Dr. Albert is the most knowledgeable person on Ts’ui Pen and his maze, which no one has been able to find. Second to him is Ts’ui Pen’s great grandson, Yu Tsun, who has developed a keen interest in the book and the maze. Yu Tsun says the book “is an indeterminate heap of contradictory drafts. I examined it once: in the third chapter the hero dies, in the fourth he is alive.” (Borges 2418) When the two men meet they discuss the book and the labyrinth, and Dr. Albert tells Yu Tsun, “I know that of all problems, none disturbed him so greatly nor worked upon him so much as the abysmal problem of time.” (Borges 2420)
One conventional definition of time is “The system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.” (Emphasis added.) (Random House) Thus, the usual view of time is that it requires sequential relations; or that it must have events of indefinite and continuous duration that succeed each other. Borges’ view is far grander than this. For him the past, present, and future co-exist, and there are many, perhaps an infinite number, of each of them.

What causes Albert to realize that Ts’ui Pen’s book was in itself the labyrinth he planned to construct is this fragment of a letter from the old gentleman: “I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths.” (Italics in Borges’ original) (Borges 2418). As Albert explains, “The phrase ‘the various futures (not to all)’ suggested to me the forking in time, not in space.” (Borges 2419) Albert’s discovery is that “. . .to no one did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing.” (Borges 2418) The book is “A labyrinth of symbols,” he corrected. “An invisible labyrinth of time.” (Borges 2418) He elaborates as follows: In all fictional works each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts’ui Pen he chooses--- simultaneously--- all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and fork. Here then is the explanation of the novel’s contradictions. (Borges 2419) And finally, “In the work of Ts’ui Pen, all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings. Sometimes, the paths of this labyrinth converge: for example, you arrive at this house, but in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another, my friend.” (Borges 2419)
This is indeed a staggering vision of time and space – one that overwhelms and bewilders the imagination. However, this is not all Borges includes in his sweep. Yu Tsun, who is descended from the creator of the labyrinth, has the tradition of Chinese culture and scholarship in him, and it contributes to his own perceptions of time.

Early in the story, Yu Tsun reflects, “everything that happens to a man happens precisely, precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen; countless men in the air, on the face of the earth and the sea, and all that really is happening is happening to me.” (Borges 2415) In other words, all mankind’s actions combine to bear present fruit in Yu Tsun’s life as he lives it – or in anyone’s life. Later in the story, he explains a particular action by saying, “I did it . . . for the innumerable ancestors who merge within me.” (Borges 2415) This reinforces his earlier statement.

Less abstractly, Yu Tsun remarks early in the story that he felt “an invisible, intangible swarming” that “in some manner prefigured” events. (Borges 2419) Later in the story this idea is amplified when he says, “Once again I felt the swarming sensation of which I have spoken. It seemed to me that the humid garden that surrounded the house was infinitely saturated with invisible persons. Those persons were Albert and I, secret, busy and multiform in other dimensions of time.” (Borges 2420)

Taken collectively, these statements show Yu Tsun’s view that he exists in what some mystics have called “the eternal now” and that everyone actually exists in it, whether they are aware of it or not. His remarks pertain to time as perceived from any particular point, rather than time as moving along a path. This “moving” time is what we ordinarily perceive, including time that passes while we are reading.

From Dr. Albert’s point of view, “He (Ts’ui Pen) believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times… embraces all possibilities of time.” (Borges 2420) Or, as he explains elsewhere, “Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures.” (Borges 2420) Albert also refers to “… the curious legend that Ts’ui Pen had planned to create a labyrinth which would be strictly infinite.” (Borges 2418)

Within the context of the story, “infinite” can be taken to mean, “unbounded or unlimited; boundless; endless,” (Random House) and we would seem to be free to make a multitude of different choices. But that is not true. Yu Tsun tells us of “an invisible, intangible swarming. . . ” that had been “. . .in some manner prefigured.” (Borges 2419) To “prefigure” is to indicate the future existence of something. Premonitions such as this imply that the future is already determined so that it can be foretold – meaning that there is no choice, no free will. Albert confirms this view and makes it more inclusive, saying, “In all fictional works each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts’ui Pen he chooses--- simultaneously--- all of them.” (Borges 2419) If a man chooses all alternatives at once, then there is nothing left to choose, and there is no free will. Curiously, this inclusive choice of all futures by Dr. Albert brings him to Yu Tsun’s feeling of the convergence of past and future in the now… the eternal now.

The original Spanish of the title to “The Garden of Forking Paths” may provide an indication of the way Borges views the story. He uses the word “se bifurcan,” from “bifurcarse”, which means, “to fork, branch off, divide into two branches.” (“bifurcarse.” Univ. of Chicago Spanish-English dictionary) This could be taken to suggest the opportunity for people to exercise choice as they travel along the forking paths. However, “se bifurcan” is reflexive and consequently means “they fork themselves.” This suggests that the paths are independent of the chooser, and that they already exist – leaving the multiple futures in the story pre-determined.
Dr. Albert, however, says, “He (Ts’ui Pen) believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times… embraces all possibilities of time.” (Borges 2420) Additionally, Dr. Albert himself tells Yu Tsun, “Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures.” (Borges 2420) So Borges the writer is subsumed in Ts’ui Pen’s creation, and Ts’ui’s “growing, dizzying net” is of events and time that are pre-determined.

In summary, when a person is moving through time, he sees the forks and branches and believes he is independently making choices that actually are already made for him. When a person remains still, he feels the simultaneity of multiple parallel events or worlds. The number of apparent choices in a given world is infinite, and the number of worlds is also infinite. A person simultaneously chooses all of them at any given instant – an act that precludes the existence of free will and choice. Ts’ui Pen’s book/garden is infinite in time, and since any person is always changing, he keeps reading the book/maze differently forever.
With all of this established, Borges turns everything on its head in the last paragraph of his story. Up until now, Yu Tsun, a German spy, had been fleeing certain capture by the English. His regular communication with German headquarters had been cut off, and he decided that the only way to communicate the name of the city that the Germans were to bomb was to kill someone with that name and get the story of the killing into the newspapers, which his boss reads carefully. The city was Albert. The story would say that Yu Tsun was arrested for the murder of Dr. Albert. Now, however, Yu Tsun says in his statement to his captors that the Germans bombed the city of Albert “yesterday.” And, he says he read that news “in the same papers that offered to England the mystery of the learned Sinologist Stephan Albert who was murdered by a stranger, one Yu Tsun.” (Borges 2421) So, the article on the murder of Stephan Albert containing the information the Germans needed was published in the same issue of the paper as the story of the bombing they conducted. In other words, the newspaper article told the Germans that the city of Albert was their bombing target after they had already bombed it! Either Borges made a mistake, or he has chosen at the very end of this story to destroy the elaborate structure he created.

Concerning this type of writing, Naomi Lindstrom comments in a note in her book Jorge Luis Borges – A Study of the Short Fiction that Carter Wheelock “sees Borges stories as multiple examples of the attempt to create stories of mythic portions while at the same time questioning that very attempt” (qtd. in Lindstrom 153). Borges certainly turns on himself or his work in this instance and causes “The Garden of Forking Paths” to collapse at the last moment of the story.

Surprisingly, there is little examination or commentary in the literature concerning the idea of time in “The Garden of Forking Paths”, even though Borges makes its primacy as an element in the story extremely clear. As Albert tells Yu Tsun, “The Garden of Forking Paths’ is an enormous riddle, or parable, whose theme is time” (Borges 240). Nothing could be clearer, yet the literature yields only fragmentary observations.
Marian Via Rivera declares bluntly, “If Borges’ fictions draw on labyrinths and are concerned with the disorder facing our sense of reality, they also deal with the contingency of immediate reality.” (Rivera 207) However, she does not consider the actual lack of contingency in “The Garden of Forking Paths.”

John Sturrock gives his interpretive view that “Borges keeps his finger steadily on the old paradox of determinism which is that, once they are done, deeds can be seen to have been determined, even though we know, before they are done, that we are not free to do them.” (Sturrock 152) This confirms the fatalism of Borges, and adds to it a knowledge that we act as slaves to the future.

Sturrock also observes: “No matter how often paths may fork we should bear in mind that they all lead somewhere. Each successive bifurcation is the starting point of a fiction: or, more accurately, of two fictions, only one of which will normally be realized.” (Sturrock 190) While this is true of Borges’ construction in “The Garden of Forking Paths,” it fails to critique the bifurcating structure for being too restricted: for not including branches of three or more possibilities, and for not allowing for dead ends or instant failures.
Edwin Williamson reaches a surprising conclusion about the labyrinth, namely that “The plot is highly teleological, in as much as agent and spy are each pursuing specific goals, but as the action reaches a dizzying climax at Stephen Albert’s house, a villa surrounded by a garden of forking paths, the alert reader will pick up clues that betray the fact that all three ostensibly hostile characters – Yu Tsun, Madden, and Albert – could in principle swap roles in different dimensions of time.” (Williamson 259) (Emphasis added.)

Gene H. Bell-Villada says: “The subject of time (or rather its denial), in addition to pervading T’sui’s book, figures prominently among Yu’s inner thoughts – anticipating and paralleling Albert’s exposition, but also suggesting inherited family attitudes and the transmission of philosophical concerns over generations. . . Yu’s musings inadvertently present piecemeal and thematically reinforce the obsession once nourished full time by his great-grandfather: that is, the simultaneity and convergence of all past, present, and future experiences, regardless of passing time.” (Bell-Villada 95-6) Yu has been caught in and by the great, complex net of time that was his great-grandfather’s dream.

In contrast, Umberto Eco applies logic to Borges’ garden and dismisses the whole thing. Eco, according to William L. Ashline, “has argued that logically impossible propositions cannot constitute worlds. In order to construct a world, one must be able to make inferences about it. In a situation in which both p & -p can be asserted, anything at all might be inferred and the construction of a world becomes exceedingly difficult. Any possible world, therefore, cannot violate the laws of noncontradiction and excluded middle.” (Ashline, EBSCO)

Eco goes farther than a mere logical argument, according to Ashline. “The problem for Eco is not that such worlds cannot be conceived, but that they cannot be described in adequate detail.” ("Such a world is in fact quoted, but it is not constructed, or--if you want--extensionally mentioned, but not intensionally analyzed", Eco is quoted as saying.”) Ashline explains, “Thus, Borges's "Garden of Forking Paths" would serve as an example of Eco's notion of impossibility: we can mention a garden of forking paths but we cannot realize or analyze such a text given the forms of textual presentation available to us.” (Ashline. EBSCO)

Concerning the end of the story, Michael Holquist exclaims, “This is the essence of Borges: a combination of conventionally well-made plot and a twist that calls into question the assumptions about time and knowing that attend all plots.” (Holquist. Literature Resource Center) Actually, time itself is twisted at the end of the story, and Borges leaves us with a situation like one in which a child is born before its mother is – that is, a situation where the Germans bomb their target before they have the information to do so.

Mark Frish grants Borges a partial victory over the infinite and complex labyrinth he has created. "Borges seems to suggest that one can create a sense of order within an impenetrable, chaotic labyrinth, and that with the help of certain man-made signposts, travel from one part of the labyrinth may certainly be possible. However, deciphering the overall, ultimate structure and order of that labyrinth proves impossible." (Frish) This is moderate, balanced, and tepid: Borges cannot know and work with what he created, except in a limited way.

But no sense of restraint and balance holds back the unknown author of the following, who declares that “The spatialization of time in “The Garden of Forking Paths” can be seen in the way in which space overcomes time. Events take on a linear displacement, and patterns are formed through the travels in space rather than through the events unfolding on the time line. It also creates a kind of meaningless infinity, as well as displacement from time through alienation.” (Romance Quarterly) This is certainly not tepid. It boils over with inconsistent clichés, plunging us ever forward through a world in which “Events take on a linear displacement”. . . “as well as displacement from time through alienation.” The careful reader of such words must get either intellectual fibrillations, or stimulation of the vagus nerve.

In conclusion, we see by examining the idea of time in “The Garden of Forking Paths” that part of the problem in understanding the story is that Borges would have us consider time from two different perspectives simultaneously: that of a point in time and that of motion along a line of time. The result is as disorienting as a Picasso portrait with the face shown both in profile and in full front. Borges’ unusual ideas of time create further difficulty in understanding, involving such things as simultaneous multiple causality, parallel universes, and a lack of actual choice and free will. As to whether his ideas are valid, the answer to that question depends on the questioner. Like religion or the belief in God, if a person is predisposed to believe in Borges’ labyrinth, he will accept certain texts and arguments without much difficulty. If a person is predisposed to doubt, he will side with the skeptics. Logic will not sway the believer, and intuitive feeling will not move the skeptic. This author concludes that time in Borges’ labyrinth is fatalistic and impossible. Of course, somewhere in “the Garden of Forking Paths” there is a place where everyone can be right.

###Works Cited

Ashline, William L. “The Problem of Impossible Fictions.” Style 29.2 (Summer 95): n pg. Online. EBSCO. 26 July 2006
Bell-Villada, Gene H. Borges and his fiction. U. North Carolina P. 1981
“bifurcarse.” The University of Chicago Spanish-English Dictionary 5th Ed. Ed. David Pharies. Pocket Books div. Simon and Schuster New York 2003
Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Garden of Forking Paths.” The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Lawall, Sarah N.. Vol. F. New York: Norton, 2002. 2414-21.
Frish, Mark. You Might Be Able to Get There From Here: Reconsidering Borges and the
Postmodern. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2004. Online. Article First 26 July 2006
Holquist, Michael. “Jorge Luis Borges” Mystery and Suspense Writers: The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage. 2 v. Ed. Robin W. Winks. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998. Online. Literature Resource Center. 26 July 2006
Lindstrom, Naomi. Jorge Luis Borges – A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, U. Texas, 1990
Random House Webster’s Electronic Dictionary and Thesaurus, College Edition, Version 1.0; 1992
Rivera, Marian Via. “A Journey into the Labyrinth: Intertextual Readings of Borges and Cortazar in Julio Menem’s Los Amantes del Circulo Polar (1998).” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 10.2 (Dec. 2004): 205-12
Romance Quarterly. Online. Article First. 26 July 2006

Sturrock, John. PAPER TIGERS: The Ideal Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1977
Williamson, Edwin. Borges, a life. New York:Viking Penguin, 2004

Letters from Vietnam 27

13th September 2006 – Wednesday – 19:12

It was a hot afternoon. We tried to find an ATM for more than 20 minutes since the one behind the market was closed. Isn’t it ironical? People have ATM cards so they can have access to their accounts even at the weekends. But some banks close their ATM booths at the weekends. After walking towards city center we have found one in a shopping centre. There were two couples inside the booth so I started to wait. It seems like either they didn’t know what they were doing or they were having some kind of fun with the machines. Without making it a bothering issue for myself, I continued waiting. Later, one young man came to ATM and although he saw me waiting there. As soon as one couple left the booth, he entered the booth. I called him and told him that I was first. He ignored my warning as if he did not understand my words. He was a Vietnamese guy and I really did not expect him to understand. However, the gestures I showed by my hands and the expression on my face should have told something to him. At that moment, a young girl appeared beside me. She told him something in Vietnamese. I thought she warned him but it seems he did not care her words either. Then I stopped waiting outside. I entered into the booth. The other couple left the booth and I took the ATM they were using. The young guy used the one beside me and seemed angry. I didn’t say a word. He left the booth then I stayed a few more seconds to complete my job without any rush. Then I left the booth.

I am mentioning this incident here because this is third time the same thing happened to me within 3 months. People here never respect the queue! They just pass to the front side and try to behave as if they did nothing wrong. This makes me sick! Similar ignorance can be seen in traffic too. Last week, I was crossing the street during the green light. I was at the middle of the road and the light was still green. An expensive-looking car with a lady driver inside tried to come over me. I stopped at the middle of the road and pointed the green light. She saw it and made a sign to me with her hands meaning ‘hurry up’. She might think that I am slowing her down because I am crossing the road. I did not move for a few seconds, stood still in front of the car. Then the light for me became red. I walked a few steps to stand between two lanes. She moved with her head was moving to left and right as if she was saying to herself “what a trouble!” I was not regretful! After this incident, I have decided to do the same thing all the time. I might teach a few things to a few people even though it does not seem many in millions…

After withdrawing the money from ATM, we walked back to the Ben Than circle. There was a nice restaurant beside the market. Because it is a central area, there were so many tourists in the restaurants and most of them were eating Vietnamese noodles (Pho). We ordered our food. While waiting for the food, a little girl approached to us and asked if we could buy the things she sells. I usually respond peacefully to these little kids. But this time, because I was still angry with the guy at the ATM, I just rejected her even before she opened her mouth. She did not have a chance to tell me what she wants! At the moment I did not feel the pain but I felt that I did something very wrong. There was a French-speaking Vietnamese guy sitting just 5 meter away from us. He called the girl. The little girl went to him. He talked with her in Vietnamese and later I guess he asked her if she was hungry (I should have asked at the beginning!!!) Then, he ordered noodle soup and coconut juice for her. He and his French partner sat with the little girl and watched her while she was having her luxury lunch. At the same time, I was in shame! I was eating my own food but it was becoming more and more difficult to swallow. What did she do to become a street girl? What did I do to become a person who can reject a little girl without looking at her face? Neither she nor I chose to be what we are now! The question of Pamuk in his novel 'The White Castle' fits this sitaution very well: Why am I what I am?

After lunch we went to buy several things for J but my mind was busy with my shameless behavior. This reminded me the warning given to Prophet Muhammad when he ignores to talk with a blind man (http://www.al-islam.org/ENCYCLOPEDIA/chapter1b/1.html) . Qur’an gives a very straight warning to prophet for his behavior. To look down to poor and weak is one of the worst things one can do to himself. It is being blind to others’ problems and being ignorant to others’ lives. If I look down to poor, this shows only how selfish I am. The beggars fill the streets for only one reason: To teach us that we are still human (although rich or important or powerful or famous or clever or etc…) and they help us to keep ourselves to behave like humans. Otherwise, in a world of rush and money, we will not be able to remember the words like “mercy”, “favor”, “help” , “compassionate” etc…

I was thinking my childhood. I myself sold things on the streets when I was a child. I remember the weekends I used to sell cold water in the open markets. It was quite profitable job and I was making good money. But I remember not a single incident that I have been insulted or looked down. People usually praised my work since I was helping my family or at least to myself!

While I was going back home in the bus, I turned J and told her that we should have done it… She nodded slightly… I looked at outside from the window. There were people running away from the rain. A few children were playing in the water without caring about the weather. I looked at their eyes, the cheerful expression, the hope… I said to myself: Next time! Definitely I will do it… I will see the hope in a little girl's eyes while she was filling her empty stomach...