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Thursday, February 21st, 2002 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerI am seriously pissed off.
In Muslim countries we have this festival called Kurban Bayrami in Turkish and Eid al-something-or-other in Arabic. In English it translates as "Feast of the Sacrifice" - it commemorates the event where God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and at the last momnet substitutes a sheep for the boy. Good Muslims and Jews celebrate this event, ignoring the fact that any father who would be prepared to kill his son, even for God, needs serious professional help. Looked at less literally, it's a good injunction to eschew human sacrifice, which was probably the point of the original story.
Anyway, there's this tradition in Turkey that whatever quarrels exist between people, these festivals oblige us to make up. People visit all their relatives, including the ones they hate, and make polite conversation. Of course this is a golden opportunity for my evil mother-in-law to try and sink her claws into my wife. We tried the normal excuse of going away on holiday (although we're both actually here in Ankara) but of course this won't wash. Nalan's sister is spending the holiday with her fiancee's family, and that is perfectly acceptable, but it doesn't work with us, because Evil Mother-In-Law knows that I would never visit in any case. Lots of screaming over the phone.
Why can't people just leave each other alone?
If any of my Western readers have absorbed the propaganda about how bad it is that the family has disintegrated in Western society, and how wonderful traditional extended families are, please wake up. Traditional families are a hotbed of violence, incest and general nastiness, and best avoided if you have the choice.
In Muslim countries we have this festival called Kurban Bayrami in Turkish and Eid al-something-or-other in Arabic. In English it translates as "Feast of the Sacrifice" - it commemorates the event where God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and at the last momnet substitutes a sheep for the boy. Good Muslims and Jews celebrate this event, ignoring the fact that any father who would be prepared to kill his son, even for God, needs serious professional help. Looked at less literally, it's a good injunction to eschew human sacrifice, which was probably the point of the original story.
Anyway, there's this tradition in Turkey that whatever quarrels exist between people, these festivals oblige us to make up. People visit all their relatives, including the ones they hate, and make polite conversation. Of course this is a golden opportunity for my evil mother-in-law to try and sink her claws into my wife. We tried the normal excuse of going away on holiday (although we're both actually here in Ankara) but of course this won't wash. Nalan's sister is spending the holiday with her fiancee's family, and that is perfectly acceptable, but it doesn't work with us, because Evil Mother-In-Law knows that I would never visit in any case. Lots of screaming over the phone.
Why can't people just leave each other alone?
If any of my Western readers have absorbed the propaganda about how bad it is that the family has disintegrated in Western society, and how wonderful traditional extended families are, please wake up. Traditional families are a hotbed of violence, incest and general nastiness, and best avoided if you have the choice.
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Date: 2002-02-26 12:26 pm (UTC)