"Save me from bloodguilt, o, God!" Psalm 51
Revelation visits us in the ordinary moments when someone or something leads us in the path of new way of seeing. To explain it is to grapple with language that has served different purposes before and now is trying to describe a new reality that is more intuitively than logically understood.
The topic of revelation today is the long history of hurt and pain exchanged between Muslims and Christians in Bulgaria. I read about it in the history books. Now I hear distant echoes of something that is more felt in the silences, than in the words of stories told by women over 90. I felt completely at home in my town where I learned more and deeply about my people, my family roots and the values we hold so dear.
Philipovo
Today I went to Philipovo - the only Muslim village in the municipality of Bansko. It is a beautiful place in the heart of the mountain, surrounded by lush green and rocks, a home of 700 people. A newcomer is easily noticed and welcomed. Met the mayor Kazim Hodja and was graciously introduced to the secretary Erfe Totalu. She took me around town to visit the oldest women and start the interviewing process.
It was a strange new feeling of being close to home, but not quite home. A different culture with clues I could not respond well to. The first two women we met started slowly, but then progressed into telling stories soaked in losses. The third woman Fatima was born in 1915. She sat outside her little house on the steps and looked at me with eyes holding almost a century of history...
and no trust. She told disconnected stories, stopped herself to look into the world only she knew and at times stared at me - the stranger, the "other-faith" one. The interview said so little, yet what it said hit hard.
"We hid when we were children up in the woods close to the vines, they told us to hide."
"Who did you hide from?"
Long silence.
"They renamed us when Mustafa was born, gave me a name I liked, then change it. I was angry. They called him Rumen."
Long silence.
"Grandma, tell her a holy prayer."
"No, not to her, she is from another faith."
Silence.
I read about the renaming of Bulgarian Muslims last year - wrote a long paper with analysis. The stories were striking. The renaming, as the mayor called it "the baptisms" were a total of six - Bulgarians trying to wipe clean the years of Muslim rule in Bulgaria (Bulgarian pain and loss).
The last and worst one that is still remembered in Muslim villages started in 1986 when all Muslims were renamed, the Party gave them Bulgarian names - renamed their children, fathers, grandfathers and whole families. Hundreds of people sold all they had and crossed the border with Turkey to seek safety. Soon Communism collapsed and democracy brought them freedom and the right to have their names back. Many returned home.
I know little of them. These are Bulgarian Muslims, not Turks, there are different stories about how they became Muslims and when. I will not go into this now, as history and myth battle for the right of a group to have identity.
Today the young people and those of later years took me in with amazing hospitality - a humbling experience. But there was a divide between this old woman and myself. She and I, we were not the same, we were not of the same people. The same story I was being told she knew differently - from life experience.
Learning to allow silence in is a lesson. Sitting in her silence on the porch was an opportunity to see the old stories with new eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment