Yeşim Başaran

It’s been a year since Esmeray has started performing a stand-up show called ‘Sack of the Witch.’ Besides performing every Friday night in a bar, she introduced her play in Bilgi University, Boğaziçi University and METU. ‘Sack of the Witch’ is presented on internet through those sentences: ‘The Sack of the Witch is on its way. It is a solo stand-up written and performed by transsexual feminist Esmeray. The performance is based on her own life story. Esmeray became aware of her gender identity during her early youth when living in Kars and immigrated to Istanbul before becoming 18 in order to live a relatively manageable life. After working in certain jobs, Esmeray became a sex worker first as a gay, then as a transsexual. After she became acquainted with women’s movement and feminism, she gave up sex labor. Esmeray is still working mornings at Amargi on a professional level and selling stuffed mussels in Istiklâl Street between 7-12 pm.

‘The Sack of the Witch on its Way’ is the story of a feminist resisting violence, nationalism and patriarchal values both as a transsexual and a Kurd within the intersecting domains of discrimination. Esmeray encountered feminism during her transition from homosexuality to transsexuality and then she gave up sex labor and participated in women’s movement. Her play introduces the relations based on gender, ethnicity and class, which she has observed both in Kars and in Istanbul, from a feministic perspective and in a humorous manner.’

I watched Esmeray’s performance first in the Gay Pride of 2007. Since the performance took place in a very small place, many people had to turn back. And we, having managed to find a small corner to shelter, watched Esmeray, who has shared her life story in an unusual style, on our seats without ever moving for one second. We were laughing on the one hand at what Esmeray was uttering, on the other hand at the simultaneous translator who was first laughing then translating to the French guests of the pride week. Throughout the performance, I was repeating myself silently that ‘everybody should watch this performance.’ Thereafter, I watched Esmeray in the premiere together with hundreds of people. From then on journeys of Esmeray were amplified; day after day her life story has reached more people.

Esmeray is uttering her own life story in ‘the Sack of the Witch.’ When coming to the stage with a tray full of stuffed mussels, she responds to the applauses: ‘I am selling stuffed mussels every day, why do you applaud me today?’ And then she begins to tell her life story. When she tells, she talks about nationalism, gender discrimination, immigration, sex labor. The audience is laughing at many things, we laugh at many things. After all we are watching a stand-up show, and its humorous component consists of the contradictions of our lives.

The Sack of the Witch, combining the arts and activism, challenges their language as well. Esmeray, composing the main text on the basis of her own life, transformed it into a piece of art with the support of experienced actors and actresses. Most of the experiences she transmits are about isolation, desperation and pursuits. These experiences are about the existence and resistance of transvestite and transsexual women whose self-expression is no longer possible when sentences like ‘Transvestites terrorized once more!’ occur in newspapers and in television. These experiences are about people who cling on to life and earn their livelihood after they had to immigrate because of economic, social and political hardships. These experiences are about sex workers who belong to one of the social segments totally ignored by society, but who at the same time try to handle those realities. It is about experiences concerning womanhood and manhood which we perceive as immutable categories and which penetrate to the core of our lives.

Sack of the Witch is a very powerful show. Taboo concepts are handled naturally; conditions related to illegality are reflected without ever losing connections with reality. The audience is sometimes laughing at the foundation which legitimizes those taboos. The essence of the text relies on Esmeray’s interpretation of social assumptions which have been included into her self-recognition process, and thus on the possibility that these assumptions of thousands of years may be questioned by everyone. Take this story as an example. Esmeray, being a boy, was aware of his effeminacy, but he wanted to be a complete girl. Therefore, he veiled himself and began to spin, saying ‘now I come of age.’ While he was spinning quickly to reach the skill of her elderly sisters, his brother stroke Esmeray’s head. And thus Esmeray was dispelled out of his own reality, was stunned, and could not give a meaning why he was beaten. Later he believed that he was beaten because he became now a real girl, and that made him happy. See, every women and girl around him was beaten.

Sack of the Witch introduces a very genuine interpretation about the problem of identity in relation to popular debates: in Turkey she is a Kurd, in her village and in the city she is a transsexual woman, in Istanbul she is an immigrant far away from her roots, she is a laborer being harassed by her bosses, she is a sex worker in the back streets of Beyoğlu, she is most inferior in regard with the moral ranks of society. Recently concepts such as otherization and identity struggle tend to be discussed in Turkey. Every single day we encounter articles and discussions which mention the risks of identity struggle or which emphasize the mistakes of the efforts for understanding different identities. Discussions concerning these topics are conveyed usually by those who have a centralist stance with respect to full range of identities. These discussions often highlight the problems of efforts for understanding those identities. The common point of almost every debate is ‘to create a new language and a new manner of associating’. However, only a few persons take the risk for establishing a ‘new language’. Only a few people criticize their own efforts instead of the others. While the debates which are conveyed through theoretical discussions have to widen our horizons the critique concerning identity struggle unfortunately introduced before any steps has been taken for it.

The show of Esmeray has the power to provide us with new horizons concerning the identity struggle. First of all, it is a show prepared by the subject of the aforementioned topics, by a person who has experienced many identities and is alienated. Once more through this piece of art it is proved that we need our own experiences to understand the alienation issue. However, we know that the mechanisms of alienation are so strong that they can interfere with our sharing of our experiences. For example, a suffering transmitted through television may become an object as spectacle. We cannot contact with the subject whose experience we listen to because the manner of the speaker who introduces the person to us is determinant.

Naturally, people suffering want to be heard, that their sufferings to be known, and to be handled in a just manner, and their rights to be restored. And naturally people have to call and to tell other people. But the superior voice introducing our experiences has a determinant role in the perception and assessment of our experiences. Since many realities which gradually come to the surface are introduced that way, we tend to watch the subjects, by transforming them into victims, i.e. by objectifying its subject. The show of Esmeray has the power to reach the hearts of the audience who have this habit. Esmeray does not allow the audience to victimize her when she transmits her negative experiences. On the contrary, the audience encounters a strong human being who had her own pursuits; the audience hearkens to her, and has to question not the state of the other, but its own.

Esmeray take measures in her show because she is used to be driven back through the sentence ‘but you do not resemble other transsexuals.’ Through the things she tells she sentences the possible approaches of the audience who does not understand the transsexual identity, but tends to whitewash itself through the aforementioned sentence. ‘I am not your sister Esmeray. I am a transsexual whom you have alienated and ignored.’ Hence, there is not an opportunity left for us to get rid of the heaviness we feel because we have alienated a certain segment, even if we love Esmeray. We are forced to introvert, introspect and have to face ourselves in order not to alienate others.

While struggling for our identities, we may centralize an identity, and thus render it unquestionable. We believe that if we question the fallacies of the identity struggle, the mistakes of it, we may strengthen the mechanisms of alienation. And we are right to a certain extent. Everybody is so ready to link all of the problems of the world to alienated identities. When there are people who regard Marmara earthquake as a punishment because of the existence of transsexual people, when there are people who believe that homosexuality or transsexuality is a psychological disorder or immorality, people may not be enthusiastic to question themselves. However, the Sack of the Witch introduces us methods for solving these problems. While exposing the injuries alienated identities have to suffer, she criticizes herself time to time. Moreover, the observer has the opportunity to assess this critique in its own context. For when Esmeray talks about the hardships she has suffered, she talks about the negative sides of her reactions as well. Thus, she provides us with a ground where we can establish democracy. She repeats that we do not have problems with our identities, but our approaches.

You have to watch the Sack of the Witch. And you have to permit this stand-up to have an influence upon your life. For this show provide us with important clues about how to watch, how to listen to, how to tell. I mentioned the strong aspects of the play. Indeed one may find mistakes; the play may be strengthened through criticisms. For example, I feel disturbed because of one sentence in the advertisement which I transmitted in the first paragraph. In this sentence an expression ‘during her transition from homosexuality to transsexuality’ is used. In this announcement it is told that in the personal experience of Esmeray (it is true for other peoples’ personal experiences as well) she make a transition from homosexuality to transsexuality. Maybe this sentence is true to a certain extent. Maybe there are people who first define themselves gay, and then transsexual. However, in our culture where homosexuality is defined as a transition to transsexuality, this sentence is deficient and thus corroborates the present prejudice. I told these for the observers who do not believe in the assumption that every homosexual will become a transsexual after some time.

What I wanted to say is: watch the Sack of the Witch. It is performed every Friday in Beyoğlu. If you are not in Istanbul, do not worry that you cannot watch her. Get organized wherever you are and invite Esmeray. Do not hesitate to face your prejudices, and your dominant character traits. Do not be afraid to grasp life more deeply. I did not tell you what it is told in the Sack of the Witch. I only wanted to mention one point I found important: how the story is told. I wanted to mention how we may tell ourselves. If you want to be more informed about Esmeray and the Sack of the Witch, I recommend you to read the comprehensive interview with Esmeray which you may find in the website of Feminist Kadın Çevresi (Feminist Woman Circle)

From Amargi- Issue 8