TR

Next Year in Jerusalem

“In this house, you will learn that it is difficult to be a stranger. You will also learn that it is not easy to get rid of being a stranger. If you miss your own country, you will find more reasons to miss it here every day; but if you manage to forget it and love your place, we will send you to your home country and you will start a new exile, as you will once again be unwarranted. ”

(Maurice Blanchot, Apres Coup1)

We go somewhere every day. We take a step forward and make the push to take us there. I think the action ‘‘to go’’ corresponds to the same expression in every language. For example, we leave home every morning to go to work or go to school, and when the time comes, we return to our home again. Although this is mostly done of our own volition, there may also be times that this is made necessary. Today, we are witnessing millions of Syrian migrants roaming around us like ghosts who were forced to leave their homeland behind and have scattered all over the world. Before they even know why they are leaving, they have already gone, perhaps tearfully, only to find a space to live. Children, who are still too young to realize the reality of the situation, have left to find new shelter. In fact, they may even liken themselves to a plant in the place they go as they take r oot in their new homeland.

We do not use the verb “to go” only for changing positions. “You know, children never become adolescents, but the moment comes when we want to leave childhood to go elsewhere, to be something else.” 2 As Jean-Luc Nancy points out, if we accept a place, we all leave childhood and set out to become adolescents and adults. But why is it that while “going” is something we do every day, can we not leave behind the anxiety that we caught from that strange homeland? We take a step forwar d and think for a moment. Don’t all the “Walking Ones” take a step forward? We give our backs to where we leave and we “go”. Our face is never turned back towards the side we leave. Why is it that this strange and incomprehensible feeling is what anchors us to the place we have left? As we go, we also leave a part of ourselves behind. This also brings a split.3 When we go on a trip, we leave behind a friend, a lover, or an animal companion that we love. Although this split happens between the place we leave and the place we go, we are actually dividing ourselves. We have to leave parts of ourselves behind, but at the same time, we take a part of ourselves to the place we go. We have to take it or it will not be a departure.

This ambiguous anxiety is not only due to splitting. We always “go to Neverland.” It is the country that does not exist. While we may not have much of a clue about this place, we are left in a limbo of what we may come across here. It is much like falling into a dark well. The uneasiness of the “Walking Ones” is, in part, due to always being human. When it comes to animals, we cannot speak of a departure for certain. In order for us to talk about “going” there always should be a place to leave, but it is not possible to say that animals have such a stable position. They have habitats rather than a place where they sustain their lives. They always go somewher e they know.

“To Go means to leave [a] part of what is always familiar for a part, a place, a part of life that is unfamiliar, and which we have never known before.”4 While going to a new place may make us nervous, in the end, we finally arrive there. As soon as we arrive, we activate our most primitive impulses and start sniffing around; if this is a new home, we try to touch things, but the fear of the unknown does not allow us to go any further. We like to give some time. It is true that we have arrived somewhere, but is it really possible to arrive “somewhere”? But to reach a state that no longer divides itself or changes itself; is it possible to be someone who doesn’t go anywhere else? Perhaps we may think that this is death. In many beliefs, we say that the depiction of death is as the last trip where one goes somewhere, they cannot return from. Although the destination reached is the land of the dead, we still continue to reach out to our loved ones. The memories of the deceased are still with us. That is, they have stayed where they left us.

The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus, who survives a thousand obstacles but continuously delays his return. It is the story of not arriving. After the Trojan War, which took nearly a decade, many of his soldiers were able to return home. But it takes another ten years for the cunning Odysseus who angered Poseidon to return to his homeland of Ithaca he misses. “Odysseus is finally there, but actually not at all; everything is in another way, in another claim.”5 He had changed so much that only his dog Argos recognizes him, but it is not only him that has changed. His homeland has become unrecognizable to him. He does not even realize that he has r eached Ithaca. Neither his wife, nor his father recognize him. He begs the gods by saying, “Don’t they believe in transformation anymore?”6 The cunning Odysseus is recognized at last, but he will have to set off again. Even though the gods delayed the dawn and extended the night so that he could spend time with his wife, he could only stay one night in his homeland. He goes into a new exile that Homer did not write, but we are able to guess, just as Maurice Blanchot mentioned.

We encounter a similar story in Vergilius’ Aeneas. As Troy collapses, Aeneas travels to Italy, the land promised by the gods, carrying his homeland on his shoulders. He will arrive in Italy, but it costs him to abandon his native language and be sentenced to Latin. “Troy is dead, let its name die as well.”7 says the Goddess Juno, who has a grudge against the devout Aeneas. This is neither the fate of Odysseus nor of Aeneas. Going means already heading to the ‘promised land’s anyway. The most important thing is the impossibility of arriving there. As Jews promised to each other on each Passover Feast, “Next year in Jerusalem”.

1Maurice Blanchot, Sonradan Sonsuz Yineleme, Kabalcı Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1999, s.37

2 Jean-Luc Nancy, Gitmek/Yola Çıkış, Monokl Yayınları, İstanbul, 2012, s.17 3 A.g.e. sf.18

3Ibid p.18

4Ibid p.22

5Barbara Cassin, Nostalgia, Kolektif Kitap, Istanbul, 2018, sf.31