By: Doğan D. Akman
It never
occurred to me that the very “act of preserving” Ladino in United States backed
up by a set of values could become a “specific political act of resistance”
against President Trump’s America, inter alia, in connection with his executive order which banned the issuance of new visas for citizens of six
countries — Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for 90 days and
putting the refugee program on hold for 120 days “.
The order in question was upheld with an interlocutory
unsigned opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court with respect to citizens and
refugees who “lack any bona fide relationship with a person and entity in the
United States”, pending the hearing of
the government’s appeal on the merits in
the fall sitting of the Court.
I came across the curious metamorphosis
of Ladino, from a dying language to one whose
very preservation supplemented by a set
of values makes a political statement
and prescribes political action, in the article of Josefin Dolsten, dated March 12, 2017, titled Preserving Ladino As ‘Act of Resistance’
Against Trump’s America’ in the electronic edition of Forward.
The scheme in question has been devised
by Professor David Naar of the Sephardic Studies program at the University of
Washington.
According Dolsten, Naar “sees the linguistic
roots of Ladino, which include Hebrew, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic [via Turkish,
after 1514], as providing a way to connect Jews with Latinos and Muslims” not
to mention immigrants at large.”
As Naar puts it: “[Ladino] is a
language of linguistic fusion that is based on Spanish but really brings
together a lot of other linguistic elements that I think give it special
resonance, especially in today’s world, because it serves as bridge language
between different cultures –between Jewish culture, between Spanish culture and
between the Muslim world…Judezmo serves as a bridge, and I think we need
bridges such as this in our time... Speaking Ladino serves as a method of
“reclaiming that heritage and activating that heritage only for personal and
family reasons but for political reasons.”
The preservation of Ladino and
the act of resistance in question consists of Professor Naar “doing his part to
pass … [the knowledge of Ladino] onto the next generation [by teaching the
language to his son] - and with it, ‘a set of values”’.
Naar formulates, the second objective of his scheme as follows: ” One of
[his] goals in trying to teach his son Ladino would be so that he has a sense
of connection and awareness, not only where he comes from but also how the
culture that he is connected to many other people, so that if he sees that
immigrants in general, or Spanish- speaking or Muslims in America are being
maligned, he hopes that [his son] would be inspired to stand up”, and
presumably speak up and defend them
Given the constraints of space I propose
to address only that part of Naar’s thesis that concerns the “Muslim word” by
reference to the Muslims in America.
Naar’s
grounds for making an act of resistance,
to Trump’s order is not easy to fathom
in the light of its characterisation
by Raheel Raza, President of a progressive
organisation named Muslims Facing Tomorrow who declared “[the executive order is] not a ban, and it’s not on Muslims. It is
about a region, not religion.”
Nor is his reasoning that, the
preservation of Ladino by teaching it together with a set of values to the next
generation amounts to an act of resistance that will cause it to stand up against
those who malign the Muslims of the country.
As someone born, raised and schooled in
Istanbul immersed in the Sephardic community of Istanbul, who can read, speak
and write in Ladino and who is familiar with the Sephardic culture and values
in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey and its history, I am mystified
by Naar’s thesis.
I propose to deal with Naar’s
thesis first, with respect to his
characterisation of the language and its effect, and second with respect to the
set of values he proposes to transmit along with the language.
Naar’s thesis that Ladino, through
the process of incorporating Turkish and
via Turkish, Arabic loanwords, became a
language that connects to the Muslim world and is capable of building bridges
to it, and that this is part of the Sephardic heritage, is a romantic take on
the language which is at odds with my world of Ottoman and Turkish Sefardies.
First, with all due respect, this
is the kind of thesis that would be propounded only by an American descendant
of Sefardies, who did not experience any, let alone, all of the trials and
tribulations of living in the Muslim world which generations of Sefardies have
experienced.
It is both inevitable and often
necessary for linguistic minorities to adopt and integrate loan words from the dominant
language of a country. Consequently, it
is not surprising that the Ottoman/Turkish Sefardies over adopted loan words
from Turkish and from Arabic mostly via Turkish. Then again, so did they borrow
words from French after the mid-19th century with the establishment
of the schools of Alliance Israelite and many more than from Turkish and
Arabic.
However, the mere borrowing of
words from a number of languages hardly makes Ladino a “language of linguistic
fusion” any more than it makes the Ottoman and modern Turkish which borrowed a
great deal more from the vocabularies of Farsi, Arabic, French makes it such a
language endowed with a special resonance and use, because it serves as bridge
language between different cultures.
This proposition does not
scrutiny either for Turkish or Ladino.
In the case of Turkish, far from
connecting and building bridges, the Turks came to loath the Arabs during the
decline of the Empire and the loathing turned into deep and lasting, if
presently dormant, hatred when the Arabs sided with the British during WWI.
Likewise, the relations between the Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Turkey, save for
very limited periods of time, have been one of religious antagonism and
hostility.
The mere presence of borrow
words, do not alter a language’s ordinary functions. In some ways, such a
language may reflect some of the elements of the culture of those whose
language it is. The fact of the matter is that, essentially, it remains only one
of the components of a culture and not the defining one at that.
The defining components of
culture comprise among other things, religion, ideology, politics, economics,
history and collective memory. And surely these are the variables that ultimately
determine whether the overlapping vocabularies of two or more languages will be
able to or, better still, allowed to establish links or build bridges to the
people of another or other cultures.
As to the establishment of links
and building bridges between the Ottoman Sefardies and the “Muslim world” are
concerned; history clearly shows that, the Ottoman Turks and more so the Turks
of the Republic, have neither bothered to do so, possibly save on a temporary
basis or fleetingly; they have not been receptive to those the Sefardies
sought, indeed of any non-Muslim minority, short of conversion to Islam.
To the Ottomans, Ladino was a dhimmi language it continues to be
considered the same in Turkey; nothing more than a “Jew language”.
The fact that Ladino borrowed
words from Turkish and through Turkish from Arabic after 1514, did not do much,
if any, good for the Sefardies in the Muslim world of the Empire, Turkey and
Arab countries, save in comparative terms to pre 19th century Europe,
from the reign of Sultan Bayezid II, to the end of the reign of Suleiman I; during
the Ottoman reform period in the 19th century. Even Sultan Bayezid
II, who allegedly received the Sefardies with “open arms” (read “palms”), when
in fact he was doing shrewd business by letting them into the Balkans, was in
fact an oppressive anti-Semite who inflicted much pain on the Jewish community
of Istanbul a segment of which had been forced to move by his predecessor from
the Balkans to the city in order to develop it economically and otherwise.
In fact under the Republic,
Ladino became worse than a dhimmi language. As late as the mid-1970’s, its use
in public places, when audible to Turks, often enough, almost invariably,
triggered outpourings of anti-Semitic insults, abuse which at times turned into
sheer violence. I personally experienced the insults and abuse, when I happened
to be with mother who was overheard speaking Ladino to her friend. And the chances
are that the same thing would still happen nowadays.
In so far as Turkey is concerned,
I associate Ladino with rabid anti-Semitism, being dispossessed of livelihood
in the public services; re-drafted to the army to be issued only pic and
shovels and sent to a part of Turkey, said to be inhabited by the devil, to
break stones and build roads and upon discharge, being dispossessed of their
businesses and assets under an arbitrary tax law designed to do just that, not
to mention, , the odd pogroms in 1934,1951, and one, originally directed
against the Greeks in 1955, the tragic laws and policies pursued during World
War II and always on-going discrimination.
As a matter of fact despite
living in the Empire and in Turkey for over 500
years as loyal subjects; ably
providing yeoman service to the Sultans, the Empire and model citizens
and minority during the Republic, Sefardies are still looked at as “guests” who
are expected at every opportunity to express their gratitude for having been
allowed to settle in the Empire; with any perceived breach of the behaviour
expected of guests drawing accusations of ingratitude.
In the circumstances,
understandably the Sefardies had neither the time nor the inclination, or for
that matter the imagination the think about a link between their cultural
heritage and the Muslim world through Ladino.
.
Based on my life experiences,
observations and book learning on the
subject matter, I have no hesitation to say that that the heritage of Sephardic
culture through the use of Ladino has never been to connect with the Muslim
world, to let alone building the kind of bridges contemplated by Professor
Naar. Such bridges would have been bridges that lead nowhere.
At all events, the links and
bridges between Ottoman and the Turkish
Sefardies and the Muslim world in which they lived are best captured by the
westward immigration of Ottoman Sefardies beginning during the latter part of
the 19th and early 20th century from the Balkans; starting
during the first quarter of the 20th century and picking up speed
since the end of World War II and from
the Arab countries before their massive expulsion in the wake of the
establishment of Israel.
In Turkey, the Sephardic
community that numbered nearly 90 thousand in during World War II, now stands
at around 15,000 and possibly less.
I now turn to the “the set of
values” Naar proposes to pass on to the next generation along with the Ladino
he is teaching his son.
Naar does not identify the
origins, sources, contents and contours of this set.
I suspect it comprises those of
the “liberal progressive” Jews’ take on “Jewish values”. They are certainly not
those of the Sefardies who have had their full of speaking Ladino in the old
country.
In the absence of empirical
evidence to sustain Naar’s thesis, his endeavour and the related act of resistance
is, at best, as a false nostalgia of a fictitious world and cultural cum Ladino linguistic heritage endowed
with a particular set of American Jewish values connections with and that are
certainly not those of Sefardies of the
old Empire and its successor.
And I very much doubt that the
Sefardies of the old country are particularly concerned about the maligning of
the Muslims in America; particularly since the maligning is not gratuitous but based
on evidence of the mischief and malfeasance committed by certain members of and
organisations in that community; except in so far as this maligning may affect
the well-being and security of the Jewish community more adversely than is the
case now.
Sefardies are not the nannies of
the maligned Muslims of the U.S, any more than the Muslim world was that of the
Sefardies.
If connections
are to be made, and bridges are to be built, as a Sefardie of the old country,
I much prefer that the initiative come
from the Muslim community together with a number of firm undertakings that
would include, among other things: to cease subjecting Jewish university and college students to rabid anti-Semitism
on campus; to stop hiring and start firing Imams who in their prayers, curse the
Jews; ask for the death of them all, including “the last one hiding behind the
tree” ; ask that Jihadist be granted the victory over the infidels, with
special mention of the Jews and Christians, and dispossess them of their lands,
as they have been recorded praying in
Canada. And wait until these undertakings start being vigorously performed on
an on-going basis.
A set of values, that requires Sefardies
or those of Sephardic descent with knowledge
of Ladino to stand up, speak up and defend a maligned Muslim community that refuses to give such undertakings and to
perform them, is surely a perverse one.
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