RIP

Peter Brook, Tony-Winning Theater Director, Dies at 97

Tim Gray
Sun, July 3, 2022

NO REVOLUTION WITHOUT GENERAL COPULATION
Peter Brook, the British-born director who won Tonys and Emmys but is best known for his theater work ranging from Broadway’s “Marat/Sade” and “Irma La Douce” to experimental productions like “The Mahabarata,” has died. He was 97.

Brook’s death was confirmed by his long-time publisher, and later the BBC, on Sunday. He died in Paris, where he has lived since the 1970s. One of Brook’s final works, at 92 years old, was “The Prisoner,” which he wrote and staged in Paris as well as the Edinburgh festival and London’s National Theatre. Just this year, he staged directed “The Tempest Project” with Marie-Hélène Estienne, his long-time collaborator.

His career spanned eight decades and included opera, plays, musicals, as well as film and TV productions. After decades of bringing an unorthodox approach to traditional works from the likes of Shakespeare and Puccini, he moved to Paris, where he became even more daring and experimental: In one piece, audiences watched a French theater troupe perform in a language the actors had invented themselves.

Brook’s most memorable productions include the 1964 “Marat/Sade,” which brought dazzling theatricality to Peter Weiss’ complex play about the Marquis de Sade and the inmates at an asylum. When it transferred to Broadway in 1966, Brook won a Tony, and won a second for his startling “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

That Shakespeare production, which debuted in England in 1970, featured a plain white-box set by Sally Jacobs and few props or set pieces. The actors appeared in factory-worker clothes or colorful baggy suits like from a Chinese circus, and swung on trapezes, spun plates and juggled while performing. The result was theater magic, illuminating Shakespeare’s text by making it seem contemporary, playful and accessible.

In Variety’s Jan. 27, 1971 review, Hobe Morrison hailed Brook as “one of the most daringly creative stage directors in the world” and predicted that it would set a standard for future productions. “Dream” featured such then-unknown actors as Patrick Stewart and Ben Kingsley, who decades later told Variety, “That production changed my life.”

Brook was born in London and educated at Westminster and Magdalen College Oxford. His first job as director was for a 1943 “Dr. Faustus” in London. From 1947 to 1950, he was director of productions at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Among his productions was Strauss’ “Salome” featuring sets by Salvador Dali. He later directed operas for the Metropolitan Opera and the Aix en Provence Festival.

He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1950 through 1970, including directing Paul Scofield in “King Lear,” Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in “Titus Andronicus” and John Gielgud in “Measure for Measure.”

In his 1979 memoir “Gielgud: an Actor and His Time,” the thesp wrote, “Peter Brook has become something of a legend now, but in the 1950s at Stratford he was still very young, approachable and jolly….He did everything himself, designed the scenery, found the music, controlled the lighting.” The actor added, “I would do anything he asked me. I trust him entirely for his beautiful taste and marvelous imagination.”

Throughout his career, Brook questioned theatrical conventions and tried to break boundaries whenever possible.

In 1970, Brook and Micheline Rozan founded the International Centre for Theatre Research, a group of multinational actors, artists, dancers and musicians. It then became the International Center for Theatre Creations and established a permanent base, the Bouffes du Nord Theatre.

His theater company became less theatrical and more primal, using myth, legend, music, mime and improvisation. They generally avoided traditional Western theater venues and traveled throughout the Middle East and Africa with their work in the early 1970s. Many pieces were performed both in French and English. Sometimes the actors improvised text, and sometimes they used no text at all.

Aside from many original pieces and works by relatively unknown writers, productions there include “The Iks” by Colin Turnbull (1975); works by Chekhov, Samuel Beckett, Caryl Churchill and Athol Fugard; and adaptations of Mozart and Oliver Sachs.

Brook was influenced by the experimental theater work of Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski and Bertolt Brecht, but he said his greatest influence was Joan Littlewood, whose credits included “Oh, What a Lovely War.”

His experiments were always interesting but not always successful. Reaction was split on his 1985 “Mahabarata,” a two-part, nine-hour retelling of the epic Sanskrit poem that is India’s equivalent of Homer’s works. In a 1987 review when the production toured in the U.S., Variety called it an act of “admirable lunacy,” declaring that there were “two hours of dazzling theatrical brilliance spread out over a nine-hour running time.” The review concluded that in condensing the original, there were few concessions to Western audiences; key aspects of the Eastern mythology were never explained, and the minimalist simplicity and dialog made the tale seem flat and remote.

In 2008, he resigned as artistic director of Bouffes du Nord, handing the reins over to Olivier Mantei and Olivier Poubelle. However, Brook continued to work with them.

In 2014, he was still working hard at age 89. There was a U.S. tour of “The Suit.” He and Estienne, working with musician-composer Franck Krawczyk, adapted Can Themba’s 1950s short story set in a South African Township. The work used four actors and three musicians and everything from songs by Billie Holiday to Schubert and African songs. Also in 2014, Theatre des Bouffes du Nord premiered “The Valley of Astonishment,” the third in a series of plays that he and Estienne spent more than 20 years developing.

Brook’s films were mostly versions of his staged work: “Marat/Sade” (1967), the anti-Vietnam war piece “Tell Me Lies” (1968), “King Lear” (1971) and a 2002 TV version of “Hamlet” starring Adrian Lester. Two notable exceptions were his stark black-and-white adaptation of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” in 1963, and the intellectual “Meetings With Remarkable Men” (1979).

He won a 1984 Emmy Award for “La tragedie de Carmen” (based on a theater piece) and a 1990 International Emmy for “The Mahabharata” miniseries.

His 1968 book “The Empty Space,” in which he advocated continual exploration and spontaneity in theater work, became a bible of experimental theater, translated into more than 15 languages. His autobiography “Threads of Time” was published in 1998, and he also wrote “The Shifting Point” (1987) and “There Are No Secrets” (1993).

He was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur (France) in 2013. Brook was also the subject of a 2014 docu, “Peter Brook: The Tightrope,” made by his son Simon and showing Brook at work with actors.

Brooke was married to actor Natasha Parry for 64 years, until her death in 2015. He is survived by his children with Parry, a son and daughter.

Manori Ravindran contributed to this story.

A statement https://twitter.com/NickHernBooks/status/1543535566242955264?s=20&t=09SrYhIeuCKWW6xc2R-1FQ from his publisher confirmed his death on Sunday.

Peter Brook, Paris-based British theatre visionary, dies at 97

British theatre and film director, playwright and actor Peter Brook poses during a photo session at the Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris on February 27, 2018.

 © Lionel Bonaventure, AFP

Text by:  FRANCE 24
Issued on: 03/07/2022 - 

Peter Brook, who has died aged 97, was among the most influential theatre directors of the 20th century, reinventing the art by paring it back to drama’s most basic and powerful elements.

Brook, born in Britain but resident in France for decades, died on Saturday, French newspaper Le Monde reported, citing the director's entourage.

“Peter Brook gave us the most beautiful silences in the theatre, but this last silence is infinitely sad,” Rima Abdul Malak, France's culture minister, wrote on Twitter.

“With him, the stage was stripped back to its most vivid intensity. He bequeathed so much to us,” she added, saying he would remain “forever the soul” of the Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris where his work was based.

An almost mystical figure often mentioned in the same breath as Konstantin Stanislavsky, the Russian who revolutionised acting, Brook continued to work and challenge audiences well into his 90s.

Best-known for his 1985 masterpiece “The Mahabharata”, a nine-hour version of the Hindu epic, he lived in Paris from the early 1970s, where he set up the International Centre for Theatre Research at the Bouffes du Nord, an old music hall.

A prodigy who made his professional directorial debut at age 17, Brook was a singular talent right from the start.

He mesmerised audiences in London and New York with his era-defining “Marat/Sade” in 1964, which won a Tony award, and wrote “The Empty Space”, one of the most influential texts on theatre ever, three years later.

Its opening lines became a manifesto for a generation of young performers who would forge the fringe and alternative theatre scenes.

“I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage,” he wrote.

“A man walks across an empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre...”

For many, Brook’s startling 1970 Royal Shakespeare Company production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in a white-cube gymnasium was a turning point in world theatre.

It inspired actress Helen Mirren to abandon her burgeoning mainstream career to join his nascent experimental company in Paris.

African odyssey

Born in London on March 21, 1925, to a family of Jewish scientists who had emigrated from Latvia, Brook was an acclaimed director in London’s West End by his mid-20s.

Before his 30th birthday he was directing hits on Broadway.

But driven by a passion for experimentation that he picked up from his parents, Brook soon “exhausted the possibilities of conventional theatre”.

His first film, “Lord of the Flies” (1963), an adaptation of the William Golding novel about schoolboys marooned on an island who turn to savagery, was an instant classic.

By the time he took a production of “King Lear” to Paris a few years later, he was developing an interest in working with actors from different cultures.

In 1971 he moved permanently to the French capital, and set off the following year with a band of actors including Mirren and the Japanese legend Yoshi Oida on a 13,600-kilometre (8,500-mile) odyssey across Africa to test his ideas.

Drama critic John Heilpern, who documented their journey in a bestselling book, said Brook believed theatre was about freeing the audience’s imagination.

“Every day they would lay out a carpet in a remote village and would improvise a show using shoes or a box,” he later told the BBC.

“When someone entered the carpet the show began. There was no script or no shared language.”

But the gruelling trip took its toll on Brook’s company, most of whom fell ill with dysentery or tropical diseases.

Mirren later described it as “the most frightening thing I have ever done. There was nothing to hold onto”.

She parted company with Brook soon after.

He “thought that stardom was wicked and tasteless ... I just wanted my name up there”, she told AFP.

‘The best director London does not have’

Brook continued to experiment at the Bouffes du Nord, touring his productions across the globe.

His big landmark after “The Mahabharata” was “L’Homme Qui” in 1993, based on Oliver Sacks’ bestseller about neurological dysfunction, “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”.

Brook returned to Britain in triumph in 1997 with Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” and his wife, the actress Natasha Parry, in the lead.

Critics hailed him as “the best director London does not have”.

After turning 85 in 2010, Brook relinquished leadership of the Bouffes du Nord but continued to direct there.

Eight years later, aged 92, he wrote and staged “The Prisoner” with Marie-Hélène Estienne – one of the two women with whom he shared his life.

The real-life story was based on his own spiritual journey to Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion to shoot a film called “Meetings with Remarkable Men” in 1978.

It was adapted from a book by mystical philosopher George Gurdjieff, whose sacred dances Brook performed daily for years.

Soft-spoken, cerebral and charismatic, Brook was often seen as something of a Sufi himself.

But Parry’s death in 2015 shook him. “One tries to bargain with fate and say, just bring her back for 30 seconds,” he said.

Yet he never stopped working despite failing eyesight.

“I have a responsibility to be as positive and creative as I can,” he told The Guardian. “To give way to despair is the ultimate cop-out,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Opinion: 'Islamophobic' remarks put pressure on India's Modi

While the Indian government has taken steps to control the diplomatic backlash from Gulf countries over the anti-Prophet comments, Smita Sharma says the real challenges for Prime Minister Modi are at home.

Modi will have to juggle the internal outrage as well as external protests from the Islamic world

In March 2016 at the inauguration of the World Sufi Forum Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed delegates to "the ancient city of Delhi."

"Like our nation, the city's heart has place for every faith, from those with few followers to those with billion believers," he said. "And you represent the rich diversity of the Islamic civilization that stands on the solid bedrock of a great religion." 

A month later, Saudi Arabia conferred its highest civilian honor, the King Abdulaziz Sash, on Modi.

On June 5, 2016, Modi was in Doha at the invitation of Qatar's Emir. In a joint statement after their talks the leaders "welcomed exchanges and dialogue between religious scholars and intellectuals of both countries and the organization of conferences and seminars to promote values of peace, tolerance, inclusiveness and welfare, inherent in all religions."

In an ironic twist, on June 5, 2022, Qatar's Foreign Ministry summoned the Indian Ambassador in the wake of the controversial remarks about the Prophet Muhammad made by two ruling BJP officials in Delhi who have since been dismissed.

Fallout from the Gulf

Smita Sharma

The Modi government has been caught in a backlash from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The political row has quickly turned into a religious issue. Social media outrage calling for protests against Modi and the boycott of Indian goods started trending while Indian Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu was in Doha on an official visit. 

Keeping in mind the regional sensitivities, the Indian embassies in Qatar and Kuwait described the remarks as not reflective of the Indian government views but those of "fringe elements."

Crucial economic ties

With Muslims making up just over 14% of India's 1.3 billion population, Modi will have to juggle the internal outrage as well as external protests from the Islamic world. Arguably the importance of the business ties between India and the Gulf is driving the government's reaction. 

Indian exports to the GCC nations in 2020-21 stood at $44 billion. These six countries account for nearly 65% of India's annual remittances of more than $80 billion with some 9 million Indians living in the region. India imports around 40% of its oil from the Gulf. Energy supplies have become even more crucial as a result of the war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, India signed a comprehensive trade deal with UAE.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has invested political capital in the region for strategic and economic gains and has now been forced to control the diplomatic damage.

But it needs to listen to the voices of Muslim citizens within the country. The spate of assemblies by emboldened Hindu nationalist groups; the increasing cases of hate speech, the physical abuse and mob lynching targeting minorities, often enabled by a tacit silence or a dog whistle from the state, will keep the diplomatic pot boiling.

How will the world's largest democracy deal with the growing unrest?

Can the BJP maintain domestic order?

Sections of society today, including many journalists in newsrooms, cheer the act of collective punishment through bulldozers. The selective razing of houses of those accused of rioting and violence without any legal trial should prey on the conscience of the world's largest democracy.

Many of the autocratic countries lecturing India hardly uphold human rights or freedom of speech. But democracies must strive for higher values. Vitriolic discussions on many pro-government television news channels, often compared to Radio Rwanda fanning communal hatred against minorities, must stop. 

Protests in a democratic country must remain peaceful without inciting arson and violence. There can be no justification for public calls for capital punishment and beheadings by some elected Muslim lawmakers among other extremist voices.

"The tallest of our leaders, such as Maulana Azad, and important spiritual leaders, such as Maulana Hussain Madani, and millions and millions of ordinary citizens, rejected the idea of division on the basis of religion. Let us challenge the forces of violence with the kindness of our love and universal human values," Modi said at the World Sufi Conference in 2016.

The question is whether he can he drive home this message and douse the fires within.

Smita Sharma is an independent journalist in Delhi. She is a Contributing Editor with India Ahead News, Visiting Faculty at the Kautilya School of Public Policy in Hyderabad.

Edited by: Rob Mudge

ISIS WAR ON SUFIS
Afghanistan’s Sufis Are Under Attack

Recent bombing of a mosque in Kabul shows the growing security problems facing the Taliban government

Fazelminallah Qazizai     

Afghan followers of Sufism recite poetic verses from the Koran at the Pahlawan Mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan / Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images

As I passed through my final years of high school in Kabul, it did not cross my mind that I might be able to go on and study at university. My father had just died from a long illness and, like so many Afghan teenagers, I was already thinking about how I might be able to support my family. We were poor enough that I had only one set of shirt and trousers to wear to my last two years of classes, so I knew I would have to find a job sooner rather than later.

I graduated from school in 2006 and, although times were tough on a personal level, there was a sense of optimism in much of the country back then. It’s true that security was starting to deteriorate, but memories of the 1990s civil war were still fresh in everyone’s minds, and there was a widespread belief that the international community would not abandon Afghanistan again.

After trying and failing to find a job with various NGOs for reasons none of them cared to explain, I was persuaded by one of my younger brothers to visit a local Sufi — “tasawwuf” — mosque in the hope that it might change my luck. I must admit that I initially laughed at his suggestion, not because I disliked Sufis but because I was skeptical of any practices that went against my belief in the more traditional tenets of Islam. I regard myself as a socially progressive Muslim who shows his devotion to God in conventional ways. I could not see how a visit to this particular mosque might be any better for me than praying in my usual mosque or at home. In the end, however, I agreed to go there to boost the morale of my brother and mother.

We cycled to the Khalifa Sahib mosque in Aladdin, a neighborhood in west Kabul near Parliament and the American University, and sat down to talk to one of its scholarly custodians. I remember him being a kind man who listened quietly from under his flat white turban as I explained about my futile search for a job. He then took out some paper talismans and told my brother to burn or smoke one at night. Another one he gave us was to be put in a glass of water, dissolved and drunk the next morning.

We obeyed his instructions and, while my luck didn’t change in the short term, it did eventually. I later found work as a journalist and graduated with a degree in Islamic law from Kabul University. I do not attribute this change in fortune to the Sufi mosque, but I have always looked back on that visit with fondness. I was a young man — a boy, really — going through a hard time, and it meant a lot to me to receive the kindness of a stranger, however eccentric his advice might have been.

Unfortunately, this memory of a more innocent time has taken on a melancholy hue in recent weeks. On April 29 an explosion ripped through that same Sufi mosque after Friday prayers. At least 10 people, and perhaps more than 50, were killed. There is confusion about whether the blast was a suicide attack or the result of a bomb planted at the scene, but it was not an isolated incident. A week earlier, on April 22, the Mawlawi Sekander Sufi mosque in the northern city of Kunduz was hit by a similar attack that killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens more. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that blast and is also believed to have been behind the bloodshed in Kabul. With Shia Muslims as well as Sufis being increasingly targeted, it is clear that attempts are underway to ignite a sectarian war in Afghanistan. History suggests this will not work, but nothing is certain anymore.

Sufism has roots in this country that are far older than the kind of ideology practiced by the Islamic State. While Afghans are often wary of its more esoteric aspects — such as the way worshipers engage in “dhikr” (chanting) to show their devotion to God — its mysticism has traditionally been a source of comfort for many people here. The sick visit Sufi shrines in search of cures for cancer or depression; infertile women go to them looking for the miracle they need to have a child. This has started to change in recent years and of course it would be better if everyone trusted in science, but it seems churlish to rebuke Afghans for finding hope wherever they can. During times of darkness we occasionally need artificial light.

Sufism is not a sect or a type of jurisprudence but a form of Islamic belief that emphasizes the mystical, peaceful aspects of our religion and prioritizes inner contemplation. As far as the Islamic State is concerned, this is enough to make Sufis idolators. But attacks such as the one on April 29 in Kabul are attacks on the heritage and culture of all Afghans. We do not have to be Sufis to understand and appreciate the role that Sufism has played in our history.

There are four main Sufi orders in Afghanistan and the wider region: the Chishti, the Qadiriyya, the Suhrawardiyya and the Naqshbandi. The Chishti originated near Herat in western Afghanistan, and some of our greatest poets were Sufis. The most famous of them, Jalaluddin Rumi, was born in Balkh in northern Afghanistan in the early 13th century. The United Nations cultural agency (UNESCO) celebrated his work in 2007, the same year I went to the Sufi mosque in Kabul. The U.N. secretary-general at the time, Ban Ki-moon, described Rumi’s work as “timeless” and praised his “humanist philosophy.” We Afghans also claim Abdur Rahman Baba, a 15th- and 16th-century Sufi poet from Peshawar, as one of our own and continue to draw inspiration from his writing.

Afghan Sufis fought against the Soviet occupation of our country in the 1980s, just like more hardline jihadists. Three of the seven Sunni mujahedeen parties during that time were led by Sufis. They may not have been as militarily effective as their rivals, but their followers still made enormous sacrifices in the name of defending Afghanistan and Islam.

Although the Taliban’s relationship with the Sufi community is complex, it is certainly not openly hostile. Afghan Sufi scholars have been vocal in their support for the current government and often refer to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the minister of interior, using the honorific “Khalifa” — a title traditionally given to Sufi disciples who reach scholarly levels of enlightenment. The respect seems both genuine and mutual, and it is arguably a good example of the compromises we Afghans need to make if we want our country to move forward. The shamans who always used to roam around Kabul collecting alms are no longer visible on the streets and seem to have been discouraged from carrying out their rituals in public since the Taliban’s takeover, but that is the only sign I have noticed of the Islamic Emirate possibly acting against Sufism.

This cordial relationship between the government and the Sufi community may be only a small cause for optimism, but it is worth noting. Given the increased activity of the Islamic State of late and the criticisms that have rightly been leveled at some of the Taliban’s more repressive social policies, we need to recognize that there is still some cause for hope. Whether this can be built on may well depend on whether security gets significantly worse.

A month after the attack on the Sufi mosque in Kabul, the Taliban marked the sixth anniversary of the death of their former leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2016. To honor his memory, several senior officials attended a commemorative event on May 22 in a wedding hall in Kabul, the kind of place that would once have been the scene of raucous late-night parties. Although the atmosphere was measured, the meeting was revolutionary in its own way. The former head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha and current deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, used the occasion to call for girls’ schools to be reopened and for women’s rights to be respected. Even that meeting, however, was not allowed to pass peacefully. An explosion hit several vehicles parked outside, causing unknown numbers of casualties. This time a group calling itself the National Liberation Front claimed responsibility. Exactly who they are and what they want is unclear.

These kinds of mysterious attacks took place regularly under the governments of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, and the Taliban will be keen to ensure they do not get out of hand. This spring we have often been without electricity in Kabul because the pylons in the north of the country that supply the city are being routinely targeted in sabotage operations. On the streets here no one is quite sure whether to blame rebel groups linked to the old Northern Alliance or hostile states — or, perhaps, both. Even as I write these lines at home now, I have just heard an explosion in the near distance. I will wait for the sound of ambulance sirens or a call from a friend or relative to find out if anyone was hurt.

Fazelminallah Qazizai is the Afghanistan correspondent at New Lines

June 1, 2022

“Letter from Kabul” is a newsletter in which our contributors provide their own unique glimpses into life on the ground in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

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 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SUFI 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SUFIS

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ISIS SUFIS 

Miran Maa — the female saint of Lyari

Even at the peak of Lyari's gang wars, the shrine of Miran Maa was the one place no gang leader dared to desecrate in any form.

Amal Hashim 

Published May 12, 2022
A short drive past Baba-i-Urdu Road and the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital, Lea Market’s ghanta ghar [clock tower], numerous colonial era buildings and down narrow, winding lanes with speed breakers too high for a car to navigate comfortably, stands the shrine of Lyari’s only female saint — Miran Pir, also known as Miran Maa.

The area, Lyari, is one of the oldest quarters of Karachi and has of late, come to be known as one of its most violent. Per some historians, Lyari existed as a goth [small village] before present day Karachi was established in 1729 as a fortified trading post.

According to Zubair, the current khalifa of the shrine, his ancestor, Jamal Shah, bought the six acres of land on which Miran Maa’s shrine is located, when he moved here from Baghdad in 1645. However, apart from a house for his family, the land remained vacant until 1693 when Jamal Shah, honouring the wishes of his murshid, Ghous Pak — one of the most important Sufi saints — built a quba [empty structure in which he could demonstrate his power] and a mosque.

The shrine of Miran Maa. — All photos provided by author

Over time, a cemetery also named Miran Pir was added to it. As per Zubair, the name Miran Pir was one of the 11 names of Ghous Pak and the space was created for those who venerated him.

But how did a space associated with one of the holiest men in Sufi Islam become a woman’s shrine?

Legend has it

Miran Maa, also known as Bibi Pak — on account of her dying as an unmarried virgin — came to Karachi approximately 162 years ago. Legend has it that she was on her way back from Hajj to Gambat in upper Sindh — where she commanded a respectable following due to her affiliation with two important Sufi households — but fell ill and was given shelter at the home of one of her disciples. According to the Khalifa, she could see the minaret of the mosque from her room's window and instructed her brother and disciples to bury her within the quba built for Ghous Pak.

After her death, her disciples brought her to the space and tried to honour her wishes. However, they were stopped by the Khalifa of the time, Raza Muhammad I, who declared that, like everyone else she should be buried in the Miran Pir burial ground. The condition he placed for her burial inside the quba was that its doors should open by themselves, thus indicating that the space was meant for Miran Pir. Her disciples agreed.

According to Zubair, Raza Muhammad I instructed everyone else to leave while he stood near the mosque and kept an eye on the doors to the quba. When they miraculously flung open at some point during the night, he declared that Miran Maa could be buried there.

Since then, the space created in honour of Ghous Pak has come to be associated with Miran Maa, a female saint, who is venerated for her piety and connection to God. The people of Lyari — Sindhi, Baloch, Memon, Kutchi — pay homage to this shrine and its inhabitant. Newlyweds flock to the shrine immediately after their nikah to gain Miran Maa’s blessing; unwed women come to her shrine to ask for good marriage prospects; and people facing fertility issues, illnesses, or problems with their children prefer praying at the shrine rather than going to a doctor.

When we visited the Miran Maa shrine, we found the Khadima [female caretaker] sitting adjacent to its front door. With her back to the graves of the khalifa's ancestors, she was busy making amulets for “fever that doesn’t go away” and other illnesses. She invited us to go in and pay our respects to Miran Maa before talking to her or the khalifa, saying that was the adab [custom].

The female caretaker making amulets for some fakeers who visit the shrine regularly


Upkeep of the shrine

According to the khalifa, the shrine is washed and painted every year after the 12th of Rabiul Awwal — the third month of the Islamic calendar.

The current structure of Miran Maa’s tomb is new — the old Gizri stone and red brick structure was demolished in 2008 and replaced with more modern materials and elements — except for the carved wooden door and the engraved marble plaque on top of it.

The first thing one sees from the door is a great green umbrella held up by wooden pillars on the four corners of the grave, completely covering it on three sides. Only one side is left open, facing a wall, for women who are allowed to go inside. The khadima instructed us to walk around it in an anti-clockwise direction, saying that was the correct adab.

The air inside the tomb felt cooler than the weather outside even as the bright LED lighting bounced harshly off the glistening white tiles. Colourful streamers and Quranic calligraphy adorned parts of the walls. Amid all this, in the center, lay Miran Maa’s grave — the only part of the shrine that had been left untouched in the renovation process. Built of marble engraved with abstract and flower motifs, it was covered with a green chaadar, engraved with verses from the Holy Quran — and strings of roses.

The grounds on which Miran Pir’s shrine is located also hosts other asthanas — such as that for the Satiyoon Bibi (Seven Sisters) whose original tomb is in Sukkur, or for Shah Pariyoon (Royal Fairy), or even Khwaja Khizr, the fabled saint of Sukkur who is believed to have saved Rohri, Sukkur, and Landsowne Bridge during the 1965 war.

Interestingly, the figures to whom these three asthanas are dedicated to are revered by Hindus and Muslims alike, especially in their native regions. According to Zubair, the asthanas were built recently so that women who could not travel to the original resting places of these personalities could still pay their respects to them from here.

Asthana of the Seven Sisters. The woman seen here is a fakeer at this asthana and sits here from 8am till the shrine closes after Maghrib prayers every day.


A female saint?

The idea of a female saint in Islam has not found acceptability among all schools of thought. For instance, some Sufi teachings by saints such as Farid-al-Din Ganj-i-Shakar state that a female mystic or saint is just “a man sent in the form of a woman,” whereas others such as Suhrawardi and al-Ghazali do not believe that female mystics can exist.

On the other hand, Ibn Arabi challenges this idea by saying that men and women were equal in everything, including “all stations of sainthood”, going as far as to say that female mystics can also achieve the status of shaykh (spiritual guide).

Perhaps it is the teachings of Ibn Arabi that influenced Lyariites rather than those of al-Ghazali or Baba Farid when they gave so much importance to Miran Maa.

According to Zubair, even at the peak of the gang wars in Lyari, the shrine of Miran Maa was the one place no gang leader dared to desecrate in any form. In fact, while almost no part of Lyari was spared from the fighting, Miran Maa’s walls remained untouched and the gang leaders actually paid for renovations or any other work that was needed for the shrine, including the annual urs and the chaadar that is placed on her grave.

The space in the compound where the jirga was held.

As an unwritten rule, no fighting could take place within the confines of the shrine and no weapons were allowed inside. He added that the leaders would meet here, and any decision taken by the informal jirga that emerged was considered binding upon the participants.

Although Miran Maa’s story takes place well after the British conquest of Karachi, there are many other stories and shrines and temples that date back well into pre-colonial times. This article is a modest attempt at documenting what’s left of this rich inheritance before it, too, disappears.


The author is a Social Development & Policy graduate whose primary interests lie in researching the cultural and tangible heritage of Karachi.

Buddhist chaplains on the rise in US, offering broad appeal

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Wedged into a recliner in the corner of her assisted living apartment in Portland, Skylar Freimann, who has a terminal heart condition and pulmonary illness, anxiously eyed her newly arrived hospital bed on a recent day and worried over how she would maintain independence as she further loses mobility.

There to guide her along the journey was the Rev. Jo Laurence, a hospice and palliative care chaplain. But rather than invoking God or a Christian prayer, she talked of meditation, chanting and other Eastern spiritual traditions: “The body can weigh us down sometimes,” she counseled. “Where is the divine or the sacred in your decline?”

An ordained Sufi minister and practicing Zen Buddhist who brings years of meditation practice and scriptural training to support end-of-life patients, Laurence is part of a burgeoning generation of Buddhist chaplains who are increasingly common in hospitals, hospices and prisons, where the need for their services rose dramatically during the pandemic.

In a profession long dominated in the U.S. by Christian clergy, Buddhists are leading an ever more diverse field that includes Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan and even secular humanist chaplains. Buddhist chaplains say they’re uniquely positioned for the times due to their ability to appeal to a broad cultural and religious spectrum, including the growing number of Americans — roughly one-third — who identify as nonreligious.

In response, study and training opportunities have been established or expanded in recent years. They include the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School and the Buddhism track at Union Theological Seminary, an ecumenical Christian liberal seminary in New York City. Colorado’s Naropa University, a Buddhist-inspired liberal arts college, recently launched a low-residency hybrid degree chaplaincy program. Nonaccredited certifications such as those offered by the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care or the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are also popular.

“The programs keep expanding, so it seems clear that there’s a growing demand from students. And the students appear to be finding jobs after graduation,” said Monica Sanford, assistant dean for Multireligious Ministry at Harvard Divinity School and an ordained Buddhist minister.

In the past, Buddhist chaplains were often hired by the likes of hospitals and police departments specifically to minister to Asian immigrant communities. During World War II, they served Japanese American soldiers in the military. Today, however, they are more mainstream.

In a first-of-its-kind report published this month, Sanford and a colleague identified 425 chaplains in the United States, Canada and Mexico representing all major branches of Buddhism, though the researchers say there are likely many more. More than 40% work in health care, the Mapping Buddhist Chaplains in North America report found, while others serve in schools, in prisons or as self-employed counselors.

Two-thirds of respondents reported holding a Master of Divinity, another graduate degree or a chaplaincy certificate. Most of those working as staff chaplains also completed clinical pastoral education internships and residencies in health care and other settings.

Maitripa College, a Tibetan Buddhist college also in Portland, has seen increased interest in its Master of Divinity track since its launch 10 years ago, said Leigh Miller, director of academic and public programs. It appeals to a broad range, from older Buddhists with 20 years of practice to new college graduates who just started meditating, from spiritual seekers to people with multiple religious belongings.

Hospitals and other institutions are eager to hire Buddhist chaplains, Miller said, in part to boost staff diversity and also because they are adept at relating to others using inclusive, neutral language.

“Buddhist chaplains are in the habit of speaking in more universal terms, focusing on compassion, being grounded, feeling at peace,” she said. “A lot of Christian chaplains fall back on God language, leading prayers or reading Bible scriptures.”

Meanwhile, training in mindfulness and meditation, as well as beliefs regarding the nature of self, reality and the impermanence of suffering, give Buddhists unique tools to confront pain and death.

“The fruit of those hours on the (meditation) cushion really shows up in the ability to be present, to drop one’s own personal agenda and to have a kind of awareness of self and other that allows for an interdependent relationship to arise,” Miller said.

Buddhist chaplaincy also faces challenges, including how to become more accessible to Buddhists of color. The Mapping Buddhist Chaplains in North America report found that most professional Buddhist chaplains today are white and have a Christian family background, even though nearly two-thirds of the faith’s followers in the U.S. are Asian American, according to the Pew Research Center.

Traditional Buddhist communities tend to be small and run by volunteers so they often lack the resources to offer endorsements to chaplains — a necessary step for board certification, which is often required for employment.

And non-Christian chaplains can struggle with feelings of isolation and a need to code-switch in Christian-founded health care institutions where crosses hang on walls, prayers are offered at staff meetings and Jesus and the Bible are regularly invoked.

Providence Health & Services, a Catholic nonprofit based in Washington state that runs hospitals in seven Western states, is one Christian health care system seeking to change that.

Mark Thomas, a chief mission officer in Oregon, said the system employs 10 Buddhist chaplains not despite but precisely because of its Catholic identity. The aim is to ensure patients get good spiritual care however it best suits them.

“Many patients resonate with some aspect or even just a perception of Buddhism,” said Thomas, citing practices like meditation and breathing that can help them cope with suffering. “These tools have been enormously valuable.”

Laurence, the hospice chaplain at Portland’s Providence Home and Community Services, grew up in London and felt called to Buddhism after witnessing poverty, violence and racism as a caregiver in Mississippi.

She said that as more people become unchurched, many patients don’t have a language for their spirituality or it’s tied up with religious trauma. Laurence supports them in whatever way they need, be it through Christian prayer, the comfort of a cool washcloth on a forehead or a Buddhist-inspired blessing.

“For some people the language of Buddhism is a respite,” she said. “It doesn’t have the baggage, and it feels so soothing to them.”

Freimann, her patient, said she has practiced Eastern spiritual traditions and therefore was delighted to receive Laurence.

“I don’t think of God the way traditionally religious people do,” Freimann told her during the visit. “What a joy you’re here. … It would be so much harder to talk with a Christian chaplain.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Gosia Wozniacka, The Associated Press

With spate of attacks, Islamic State group begins bloody new chapter in Afghanistan

A bombing at a mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 29 killed at least 10 and wounded dozens more. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

KABUL (NYTIMES) - The first blast ripped through a school in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing high school students. Days later, explosions destroyed two mosques and a minibus in the north of the country. The following week, three more explosions targeted Shi'ite and Sufi Muslims.

The attacks of the past two weeks have left at least 100 people dead, figures from hospitals suggest, and stoked fears that Afghanistan is heading into a violent spring, as the Islamic State's affiliate in the country tries to undermine the Taliban government and assert its newfound reach.

The sudden spate of attacks across the country has upended the relative calm that followed the Taliban's seizing of power in August, which ended 20 years of war. And by targeting civilians - the Hazara Shi'ite, an ethnic minority, and Sufis, who practise a mystical form of Islam, in recent weeks - they have stirred dread that the country may not be able to escape a long cycle of violence.

The Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan - known as Islamic State Khorasan - has claimed responsibility for four of the seven recent major attacks, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist organisations. Those that remain unclaimed fit the profile of previous attacks by the group, which considers Shi'ites and Sufis heretics.

With the attacks, the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate has undercut the Taliban's claim that they had extinguished any threat from the Islamic State in the country. It has also reinforced concerns about a potential resurgence of extremist groups in Afghanistan that could eventually pose an international threat.

Last month the Islamic State claimed it had fired rockets into Uzbekistan from northern Afghanistan - the first such purported attack by the group on a Central Asian nation.

"ISIS-K is resilient; it survived years of airstrikes from Nato forces and ground operations from the Taliban during its insurgency," said Mr Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Programme at the Wilson Centre, a think tank in Washington, using an alternate name for the Islamic State Khorasan.

"Now after the Taliban takeover and the US departure, ISIS-K has emerged even stronger."

The Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate was established in 2015 by disaffected Pakistani Taliban fighters. The group's ideology took hold partly because many villages there are home to Salafi Muslims, the same branch of Sunni Islam as the Islamic State. Salafists are a smaller minority among the Taliban, who mostly follow the Hanafi school.

Since its founding, the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate has been antagonistic toward the Taliban: At times the two groups have fought for turf, and last year Islamic State leaders denounced the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, saying that the group's version of Islamic rule was insufficiently hard line.

Still, for most of the past six years the Islamic State has been contained to eastern Afghanistan amid US airstrikes and Afghan commando raids that killed many of its leaders. But since the Taliban seized power, the Islamic State has grown in reach and expanded to nearly all 34 provinces, according to the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan.

After the Taliban broke open prisons across the country during their military advance in the summer, the number of Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan doubled to nearly 4,000, the UN found.

The group also ramped up its activity across the country, said Mr Abdul Sayed, a security specialist and researcher who tracks the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate and other radical groups. In the last four months of 2021, the Islamic State carried out 119 attacks in Afghanistan, up from 39 during the same period a year earlier. They included suicide bombings, assassinations and ambushes on security checkpoints.

A boys’ school in Kabul that was bombed last month. 

PHOTO: NYTIMES

Of those, 96 targeted Taliban officials or security forces, compared with only two in the same period in 2020 - a marked shift from earlier last year when the group primarily targeted civilians, including activists and journalists.

In response, the Taliban carried out a brutal campaign last year against suspected Islamic State fighters in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Their approach relied heavily on extrajudicial detentions and killings of those suspected of belonging to the Islamic State, according to local residents, analysts and human rights monitors.

For months this past winter, attacks by the Islamic State dwindled - raising some hope that the Taliban's campaign was proving effective. But the recent spate of high-profile attacks that have claimed many civilian lives suggests that the Islamic State used the winter to regroup for a spring offensive - a pattern perfected by the Taliban when it was an insurgency.

A student wounded in the attack on a school, which was in an area of Kabul dominated by Hazara Shiites. PHOTO: AFP

While the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate does not appear to be trying to seize territory, as the Islamic State did in Iraq and Syria, the attacks have demonstrated the group's ability to sow violent chaos despite the Taliban's heavy-handed tactics, analysts say.

They have also stoked concerns that, sensing perceived weakness in the Taliban government, other extremist groups in the region that already have reason to resent the Taliban may shift alliances to the Islamic State.

"ISIS-K wants to show its breadth and reach beyond Afghanistan, that its jihad is more violent than that of the Taliban, and that it is a purer organisation that doesn't compromise on who is righteous and who isn't," said Dr Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace.

The blasts have particularly rattled the country's Hazara Shi'ites, who have long feared that the Taliban - which persecuted Afghan Shi'ites for decades - would allow violence against them to go unchecked. The strife has also caused concern in neighbouring Iran, a Shi'ite theocracy.

Many Afghan Shi'ites have been on edge since suicide bombings by the Islamic State at Shi'ite mosques in one northern and one southern city together killed more than 90 people in October. The recent blasts, which mainly targeted areas dominated by Hazara communities, deepened those fears.

Relatives mourning Mohammad Hussein, who was killed in an explosion outside the boys’ school in Kabul, on April 27, 2022. PHOTO: NYTIMES

Late last month, Mr Saeed Mohammad Agha Husseini, 21, was standing outside his home in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul, a Hazara-dominated area, when he felt the thud of an explosion. He and his father raced to the school down the street, where throngs of terrified students poured out its gate, the bloodied bodies of some of their classmates sprawled across the pavement.

His father rushed to help the victims, but minutes later Mr Husseini heard another deafening boom. A second explosion hit the school's gate, fatally wounding his father.

A week later, Mr Husseini sat under the shade of a small awning with his relatives to mourn. Outside, their once-bustling street was quiet, the fear of another explosion still ripe. At the school, community leaders had been discussing hiring guards to take security into their own hands.

"The government cannot protect us; we are not safe," Mr Husseini said. "We have to think about ourselves and take care of our security."

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Opposition head displaces Ankara, Istanbul mayors as Erdogan's next election rival

Republican People’s Party head Kemal Kilicdaroglu has entered the running for the Turkish opposition’s presidential candidate.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chair of the Republican People's Party, arrives at his home after a power outage in Ankara, Turkey, on April 21, 2022. - ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images

Andrew Wilks
April 28, 2022

ISTANBUL — The lights were back on in Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s Ankara home on Thursday after a week without electricity in protest at surging energy prices.

The end of his protest — he had refused to pay his electricity bill since February — coincided with Kilicdaroglu emerging as the most likely candidate to face President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an election scheduled for June 2023.

As leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey's largest opposition party, Kilicdaroglu is the de facto head of the Nation Alliance, a electoral coalition of four opposition parties that formed for the 2018 elections.

In recent months, he has said he would be “honored” to be the alliance’s presidential candidate but refrained from indicating whether he would run.

Speaking on Tuesday, the day after philanthropist Osman Kavala was jailed for life in a case viewed as deeply unjust by many, Kilicdaroglu called on supporters to “join me or get out of my way right now.”

His rousing speech was interpreted by unnamed CHP insiders speaking to local media as a declaration of his candidacy. The Cumhuriyet newspaper, which has ties to the CHP, reported that other opposition party leaders backed the move.

Previously, two other prominent CHP figures had been touted as the likeliest candidates: Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. Both won office in the 2019 local elections, replacing incumbents from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey’s two largest cities.

Since their victories, Yavas and Imamoglu have adopted wide-ranging policies to improve public services and root out corruption and mismanagement.

Before he turned to politics, Kilicdaroglu was a civil servant who rose to head the social insurance agency. He has often been characterized by his bureaucratic background and criticized for not connecting with ordinary voters.

Critics have also pointed to his record since taking over leadership of the CHP in 2010, during which the party has failed to gain more than 26% of the vote in four parliamentary elections.

“It’s only natural that Kilicdaroglu becomes the candidate of the opposition because he’s the president of the largest party in the Nation Alliance. He’s the leader of the main opposition party,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara. “Yes, he has a track record of losing elections against Erdogan but he also has a track record of experience.”

He added, “Because he’s a senior figure, his candidacy cannot easily be contested by other people in his party or even by the other parties in the alliance.”

Kilicdaroglu’s pivotal role in forming the Nation Alliance, which has coalesced into a group promising wide-ranging reforms and a return to Turkey’s parliamentary system, is also seen as an achievement that now presents a united front to Erdogan.

He was also instrumental in helping the newly formed Iyi Party, now the second largest party in the alliance, to compete in the 2018 election by lending 15 CHP deputies shortly after the party was formed in a break from the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). The MHP is allied to the AKP as the People’s Alliance.

A year earlier, Kilicdaroglu embraced a new form of Turkish politics when he set off on a 25-day Justice March from Ankara to Istanbul to protest the imprisonment of a CHP lawmaker.

The march by the party leader, then 68, attracted support from a wide spectrum of government opponents. Islamic State suspects were arrested for planning to bomb the demonstration.

One concern for CHP campaign planners will be Kilicdaroglu’s Alevi roots. Alevis, who largely adhere to Shiism mixed with Sufi beliefs, are Turkey’s largest religious minority and have historically been subject to prejudice and pogroms.

“First of all he’s an Alevi in a Sunni-majority country. That will certainly have a negative impact on his chances; we don’t know by how much,” said Unluhisarcikli.

Journalist Murat Yetkin said Kilicdaroglu’s background could provide an avenue of attack for the AKP, telling Al-Monitor, “As soon as Kilicdaroglu is announced as a candidate, [the CHP] are worried that him being Alevi could led to black propaganda under the table, or perhaps openly, from Erdogan and the AKP that will deter conservative voters, the vast majority of whom are Sunnis.”

However, as the leader of a centrist, social democratic party, attracting Turkey’s vast right could prove to be the main obstacle on Kilicdaroglu’s path to power.

“It’s doubtful whether he’s the best person in the alliance to gain support from right-wing voters, ideally including from the AKP and MHP as well,” said Unluhisarcikli. “Other potential names that have been mentioned, first and foremost Mansur Yavas, would find it easier to attract AKP and MHP voters, as well as the votes from the right-wing parties in the Nation Alliance.”

This weakness could be countered by nominating opposition politicians from the right, such as Iyi leader Meral Aksener, for his cabinet if he wins, he added.

Turkish opposition

Courting Turkey’s disenchanted electorate

Despite the economic crisis and Turkey's increasingly undemocratic track record, surveys show the ruling AKP is still the party of choice. So what exactly is holding back the opposition? Ayse Karabat reports from Istanbulp

March 2022 saw the release of Turkey’s official annual inflation rate. The figure – 61 percent – was met with disbelief by many Turkish citizens, including Baki Ersoy, MP for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Like many Turks, Ersoy complained about the recent price hikes, saying the government should stop turning a blind eye to reality. Consequently, he was forced to resign from the MHP, a staunch ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The official inflation rate produced by The Turkish Statistical Institute (TUİK) was directly countered by the Independent Inflation Research Group (ENAG). This group of prominent independent Turkish economists found the country's annual inflation in March to be 142 percent. ENAG could face serious repercussions for challenging the official figures. An AKP bill proposing imprisonment for those who publish alternative statistics without using TUİK-approved methodology is currently awaiting ratification.

Yet other parameters are also indicative of growing fatigue towards Erdogan's government. The official unemployment rate is over 10 percent, more than 1,400 doctors have left the country due to poor working conditions and the tally of femicides continues to grow by the day. A recent survey conducted by Yeditepe University and polling company MAK revealed that 64 percent of young people aged between 18 and 29 want to leave Turkey because they see little hope for the future. 

Other polls suggest, however, that the AKP, which has been in power since 2019 and has seen its popularity wane, is still some four to five points ahead of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Plenty of reasons not to vote AKP: ENAG – Turkey's Independent Inflation Research Group – found Turkey's annual inflation in March to be 142 percent, more than double the official figure issued by government body TUIK. Unemployment is officially running at over 10 percent, more than 1,400 doctors have left the country due to poor working conditions and the tally of femicides continues to grow by the day. One recent survey revealed that 64 percent of young people aged between 18 and 29 want to leave Turkey because they see little hope for the future

From identity- to class-based politics

Turkey is a highly polarised society, based largely on differing identities and lifestyles. This is also reflected in the population's voting behaviour. Regardless of income levels, most conservative, religious citizens and some nationalists vote for the AKP and its ally, the MHP, while citizens with secular ideas and modern lifestyles support the opposition, dominated by the CHP. This societal division dates back to the founding of modern Turkey in 1923.

The CHP, established by the founder of the republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, supported a headscarf ban in the 1990s and early 2000s in public spheres and universities. In 2010, it was the AKP that lifted the ban. The ruling party remains adept at reminding the public about former grievances caused by the CHP. Leader of the opposition Kemal Kilicdaroglu has even criticised his own party’s past mistakes – such as the headscarf ban – several times.

He has also acknowledged mistakes made by the Turkish state, including harsh taxes imposed on non-Muslim minorities during the early decades of the republic, in which many believe the CHP to have been complicit. When and if his party comes to power in the next election, Kilicdaroglu has promised reconciliation and acknowledgement regarding those events. He has not, however, provided any details as to how his party intends to go about this.

According to Kilicdaroglu, there needs to be an end to politics based on fuelling tension and polarisation. "They are trying to stay in power by consolidating the masses using tensions and polarisation. This style of politics needs to end," he said in interview.

Bekir Agirdir, general manager of KONDA polling company and prominent political analyst, says that lifestyle-based political behaviours and voting habits are changing. Surveys conducted by KONDA reveal that "as unemployment, poverty and inequalities in income distribution increase, class tensions come to the fore and identity tensions are replaced by class tensions".

How to unite the country? Turkey has a history of polarisation along cultural, religious and ideological lines. Despite pleading for an end to politics based on fuelling division and preaching reconciliation, CHP leader Kilicdaroglu must offer more than solidarity with the working class. Committing to ongoing social support for the vulnerable and a 'strengthened parliamentary system' is a good start

On the other hand, it remains hard to assert that switching to the CHP and its leader, Kilicdaroglu, whose Alevi origins mark him out as a member of a historically persecuted Shia sect, will be easy for low-income conservatives. For his part, Kilicdaroglu is careful not to mention his Alevi or Kurdish origins, preferring to demonstrate his solidarity with the people on class issues, such as unpaid bills, rather than identity.

Unpaid bills

On 20 April 2022, Kilicdaroglu began a week of sitting in the dark in his flat in Ankara. His electricity had been cut off after he refused to pay his bills in protest over the 127 percent increase in electricity prices. He said he wanted to stand in solidarity with the 4 million Turkish households that were reportedly unable to pay their electricity bills last year.

Things are no different when it comes to gas. Prices increased by 93 percent last year; more than 1 million households were unable to pay their bills. In response, the government introduced state gas relief: more than 200,000 households applied for it within the first three days. This new social benefit comes on top of an estimated 22 million people who already rely on the state. The AKP is particularly proud of the increases in social benefits it has achieved since coming to power in 2002. The opposition, however, claims that citizens would not have to rely on the state were the right economic policies in place.  

Some are afraid that if the AKP loses power, they could lose their benefits. They also fear losing their jobs in the public sector. There is a widespread belief that to secure public sector employment, which accounts for six million of the country's 22 million jobs, you need good connections.

The CHP is trying to convince people that both these fears are groundless. After all, when the opposition party won local elections in Ankara and Istanbul in 2019, staff recruited by the former AKP authorities were neither sacked nor replaced. CHP municipalities have also introduced social support programmes such as "pending invoices", a website where families in need upload their bills for volunteers to pay.

Such efforts have been welcomed by the public, but the CHP-led opposition has yet to publish a comprehensive economic agenda, explaining how it intends to improve the situation. Just one more reason why voters aren’t jumping on the CHP bandwagon, even if they are unhappy with the current government. Various polls have revealed that some 20 percent of those eligible to vote remain undecided. 

Don't ignore the Kurdish HDP: bearing in mind Erdogan's AKP still enjoys a maximum five point lead over the opposition in the polls, failure to involve the Kurds in any election campaign is likely to end in defeat. With a ten percent share of the vote, the HDP and its voters deserve to be taken seriously – particularly if the CHP is in earnest about reconciliation within Turkey

The CHP and five other opposition parties – the "Nation Alliance" – agree that the main reason for Turkey's current problems is the presidential system, introduced in 2018 after a constitutional referendum. The alliance’s key pledge so far is to change the system to what they call a "strengthened parliamentary system".

This foresees stripping the presidential office of its wide-reaching powers, effecting a separation of the executive. The opposition is also promising to install an independent judiciary, with checks and balances to ensure politically motivated rulings are outlawed.

Kurdish party excluded; no presidential candidate

Although the Nation Alliance’s leaders assured the public they would continue to act together to defeat the ruling AKP, they are still excluding the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which attracts around 10 percent of the votes, mostly from Kurdish-populated areas. The government, especially the MHP, is attempting to criminalise the HDP, many of whose elected mayors and MPs have been jailed. The opposition's hesitation when it comes to including the HDP is preventing them from reaching another 10 percent of voters at least – a crucial margin if they want to defeat the AKP.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has boosted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s approval rating, which had been declining steadily. The public believes his diplomatic efforts towards regional peace and stability are valuable during such turbulent times.

The opposition has yet to present a joint presidential candidate. They say they will decide once a date for the election has been announced. But by the time a date is set, it may be too late for the opposition to campaign – and what momentum they had may be irrevocably lost.

Ayse Karabat

© Qantara.de 2022