Those who look for errors in metaphor

Metaphors, similes, various word games and jokes are gestures of language that go beyond language's relatively more concrete level and add colors and dynamism to our ordinary perceptual world. When resorted to in complex situations that the literal workings of language are thought unable to express, such gestures ease, refresh and beautify our world of understanding.

Radical linguists in fact say that even the most literal level of language is ultimately a metaphorical level that carries the world to the level of meaning. The debates on the subject are long, but that is not our topic today.

Taking the metaphors we use in daily life too seriously and out of context, to the point of forgetting that they are metaphors and starting to point out all the contradictions they contain, is, I suppose, a problem to do with poverty of language.

Yet our forebears said "there is no error in a simile." What is meant is not that the fit between what is likened and what it is likened to must be perfect; on the contrary, it is merely a reminder in advance that such a fit cannot exist anyway, and so it is no feat to jump at once on the errors of a simile when one is made. After all, as the very name metaphor indicates, it speaks not of an identity but of a similarity, and the wise do not forget this. Otherwise you would spend your whole life correcting every figure of speech you make.

That Turkey is a "mosaic society" is, in the end, a metaphor, and the relationship between the two terms is, as the name suggests, a makeshift one. It is a comparison made with only one aspect in view. In other cases other figures might better express the nature of society, but this figure expresses that society forms a sturdy and aesthetic structure together with its differences. Other comparisons might liken the same society to a salad (inspired by the American multicultural tradition) or, staying even more faithful to our own cultural tradition, to ashure. In both, the reference is less to the appearance of society than to the taste that the experience of living within society leaves in a person.

The intent of those who set marble against the mosaic is also clear. But for them to go on and shower marble with praise against the mosaic is a futile effort. Where do they get the idea that marble is sturdier than mosaic? Those who know a little about construction know that, on the contrary, mosaic is far sturdier than marble. Although marble is a purer, monolithic stone, it is a far more fragile stone, good for one blow, whereas a mosaic of a certain thickness, with its mortar well mixed, is a very solid composition. It is evident that those who set out to produce a metaphor for the Turkish nation from marble do not know this business.

Good heavens! Have we too taken the metaphor more seriously than we should, or what?

In truth, the concept of the mosaic society is, in Orientalist literature, one that is attributed especially to Muslim societies and carries no very positive connotations. Because Islam, which had ruled for centuries over the societies of the Middle East or the Balkans, failed to homogenize the cultures of these societies, this was seen, in the imperial remnant and in the age of nation-states, as a disorder difficult to deal with.

However, the label of mosaic attributed to the Islamic society, which the Orientalists thought failed to meet their homogenizing expectations, did not seem like such a bad idea. When you look at it with another eye and another mission, you can pay a great many compliments to the strategy of Islamic society of accepting the "other" as the "other" and therefore neither annihilating nor transforming it.

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While the echoes of the Prime Minister's Congress speech, in which he commemorated 14 great people excluded by the regime, continue, one must also not neglect to make a warning. We are passing through an environment in which embracing the people of Turkey who are far from one another is meaningful and "beautiful." Yet it must not be forgotten that all these people correspond to very different political or existential stances.

This "embracing" discourse must not turn into a totalitarian discourse in which everyone is gradually compelled to embrace everyone. Such integrating, unifying discourses need not turn into an apolitical or anti-political invitation to end all the debates over the differences among people..

This gesture too must be kept within measure.

Not everyone needs to act on behalf of all of Turkey at all times. No one should be expected to look at Turkey always from above and with an embracing perspective, because after a while this expectation may turn into a separate affliction in which all problems are postponed and voicing injustices and problems is characterized as "spoilsportism"… This too must be kept in mind.