‘Filistin’e Gitmek’ reveals unknown Palestine, calls people to country

Selma Şevkli is a psychologist and traveler from Turkey. She had traveled widely in the West, but felt drawn to Palestine, which she did not know much about, and applied to volunteer at a camp there. The camp was cancelled, but she was still determined to see the place that she had heard about so frequently in media, starting the journey which later led her to turn her memories into a book.

Titled “Filistin’e Gitmek” (Going to Palestine), Şevkli’s book portrays a Palestine that is more than a war-torn country and proves that it is actually a country where people live despite the war going on around them.

“In Turkey, reactions are generally limited to burning Israeli flags and crying for the Palestinians. Then I thought about this reality. There is a country. We are in a position to do something. My goal was to encourage people to go there,” Şevkli tells Sunday’s Zaman.

Şevkli aims to inspire people, especially young people, to go to the country and says her target audience is those aged between 20 and 30. “The book is mostly unedited. I wrote in a way so as not to bore young readers,” the writer says.

 The 29-year-old writer is fulfilling her aims with a website, too.

“Filistinegonul.com,” which she launched with support from friends at İstanbul Bilgi University, where she received an master of arts in cultural studies, serves to motivate people to visit the country. “In the past two years, more than 15 of my friends have gone to Palestine. I tried to help them find volunteer opportunities, suggested routes and shared my contacts,” she adds.

“Filistin’e Gitmek” consists of three sections, each featuring different trips she took to Palestine. Şevkli did not go to Palestine to write a book, but she felt the urge to write something about her trip because she was full of emotion. She began to write e-mails to her friends about her memories in Palestine because she wanted to share.

“What I saw was a narrative missing in the media. Palestine was coming to attention for its politics, and only through radical people,” she says.

After finishing the first section, before she thought of making a book, she studied at Istanbul Bilgi University’s cultural studies department. Şevkli won a travel writing competition, and her professors encouraged her to turn her memories into a book. In her later travels she continued to write, and that’s how the book came out.

Şevkli says she went Palestine out of curiosity the first time, to observe the second time and for action the third time. She shares her experiences like she tells them to a friend. She does not hide her opinions and feelings. You can read her crying, laughing, being happy, being sad and being scared. Her surprises, puzzlement and astonishment are clear between the lines and with direct expressions throughout the book.

Palestinians not reacting to sad news, Israelis going to the Wailing Wall to pray and support the war, an Israeli soldier stopping a taxi by aiming his gun at the driver who starts to have a friendly chat with the driver after a couple of minutes and the way each city feels like a different country, still heavily controlled by the Israelis, are among the things that the writer invites the reader to puzzle over. One can also feel as Şevkli’s tone of rage towards Israelis increases and as she starts to feel ashamed of herself and her country while reading about the Jews who wholeheartedly try to help.

“I just go because I care. I go to see what is going on with my naked eyes, to see what can be done and to explain to others on my return. And because Palestinians are as human as the rest of us. I go to drink a cup of coffee and have a chat. I go to learn about the feelings of a mother whose son attached a bomb to himself and killed 41 Israeli soldiers with him and to see the motivation of Israeli soldiers who killed dozens in Lebanon. I go to understand whether or not there is a reality other than what I was told,” she says on the 49th page of her book, elegantly venting her frustration with all the questions at the airport en route to Palestine.

At the end of the book, Şevkli notes that something has to be done about Palestine.

Şevkli also says she hopes that more people go to Palestine, also adding that she receives e-mails saying, “I want to be a martyr, tell me how to go to Palestine.” She finds such wishes selfish and says it makes no sense for a civilian to try to fight the strongest and cruelest army in the world in a war.

“Meaningful things can be done with a calm mind,” she says.

Her trips to Palestine have intellectual and action-based results. The writer wants to visit Palestine again. “Palestine has opened many doors in my life. I work with refugees in Turkey now,” she says. No place else in the world, she highlights, spreads as much energy as Palestine. “It is just so inspiring.”

“One sees why war does not stop,” Şevkli says on the historical and religious value of the country.

The release date of the book had been set before the attack on the Mavi Marmara humanitarian aid flotilla took place. Şevkli says the attack may hinder what she is trying to do, which is to attract more people to Palestine, but she also notes that the attempt of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), whose members composed most of the flotilla, is one of the most successful civilian incentives ever.