france – Consequential Strangers

Between 1850 and 1930 Kizwan from the Turpentine Trees of the mountainous regions of Semsûr, Amed, Batman, and Mardin in Northern Kurdistan knows as Bakuri Kurdistan, located in modern-day “Turkey” was collected and made into coffee, which was then exported to France where it was packaged and sold in Europe as Kurdish Coffee.

For over 80 years, Kurdish coffee was one of the most popular types of coffee in France. What made Kurdish coffee different from other types of coffee? It didn’t have caffeine in it. Kizwan coffee is made from fruits collected by the Kurds from the wild pistachio menengic. Ground roasted terebinth fruits, milk and sugar are its main ingredients in the traditonal recipe. But modern branded recipes include coffee.

However, following the proclamation of the Turkish state, a series of systemic discrimination was issued and Kurds were denied their language, music, traditional clothing, and their customs. When the Turks started to rename the cities, towns, and villages of Kurdistan, they also renamed Kurdish Coffee as Turkish Coffee.

Kurds themselves called it Kizwan Coffee, and to this day they do. At the time, however, France and Europe knew it as Kurdish Coffee, and in a short period, it became the most sold coffee in France where it was packaged and sent to the rest of the world. Geographers to this day claim that if you search all of Turkey, you will only find the turpentine tree in Bakuri Kurdistan. This is the tree that Kizwan Coffee is made from.

Kurdish Coffee Served with Chocolate and Water

In 1930, 100 grams of Kurdish coffee was packaged and sold in France, known as “Kurdish Coffee” with a picture of a Kurdish gunman as it’s leading logo. It was marketed as Chicorée au Kurde.

Something, seemingly as simple as coffee, was such a threat to the Turks, that they had to ask the French and European governments to change the name and picture of their packaging.

This is merely one example of the systemic discrimination imposed on Kurds in Turkey, and it’s a “mild” one. However, Turkish coffee has become a household name, an item on every menu and since 2013, it was inscribed in UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It has since been used in fortune telling, written about in poems and novels, and it is one of the most fundamentally well known beverages of our decade. But at what cost?

& her thoughts

Your friends are staggered in the rooms before and after you, while you stay stagnant in an empty, light, mustard yellow room. Everyday you see thousands of people, everyday you stand still knowingly posing for the hundreds of photos, yet you can’t help but feel alone, isolated in the glass box that separates you from the rest of the world. A smile is what you’re known for, and yet you wonder why, “Why does my smile bring such a grand allure? Why?” You ask yourself how is it that people cannot see the hollowness in your eyes, for you wear it like a scarlet letter for the townspeople to see.

There is a melancholic nature to you Mona Lisa, your eyes are sad. You watch the various faces come in and out, and you stand still like you always do, wondering whether they’re truly appreciating you or basking in superiority for being able to visit you. The more you look the more you know, you know this is not how you want to be remembered, this is not how you want to live, because when the camera’s disappear and the people are gone, you’re left in a darkened room in the middle of the night, alone, no companion, no friends, when you’re finally free to breathe and break free from your almost smile, you are left with an everlasting loneliness. You can hear your friends next door talking amongst themselves, laughing at the tourist who had to be escorted out because he dared touch one of the paintings, the Roman Antiquities come to life and start walking around, they stretch their stiff legs and visit the Gudea to discuss the value of religion. Delacroix’s tiger’s come to life, roaming the halls of The Louvre hungry for their next prey. Your friends used to visit you but they saw the sadness in your eyes, don’t see the grandeur of your portrait, and have since been discouraged from coming again.

Oh Mona Lisa, you’ve forgotten to use your words, you haven’t spoken in forever and you’re longing to scream is on the tip of your tongue but you’ve forgotten to. You’re saddened to never see the halls of The Louvre, visit Liberty, leading the people, peak in to visit Bathsheba at Her Bath. You often wonder, what if you were La Belle Ferronnière and she was you. Oh it must be extraordinary to exceptionally ordinary, to walk freely and breathe fresh air, to go beyond the four walls that you’re enclosed in. You lock eyes with everyone that come to see you, you wonder what it would be like if you switched out of your dress and switched into pants, place your hair up in a bun and walk away, visit the Seine, walk by the water, go in and out of the gift shops, oh how wonderful it must be to have someone to buy souvenirs too.

But your reality is that you will forever be enclosed in a glass box, bound by four walls, in an empty room filled with thousands of people. You will forever be alone as the crowds grow bigger. Mona Lisa, you are the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most industrialized, and the most critical work of art in the world, and yet no one knows how misunderstood you are.

Mardin
19/03/2019

Tag: france

How did Kurdish Coffee become Turkish Coffee?

Mona Lisa