Keywords

Introduction

This chapter turns the attention from the collective embodiment of diversity to the individual performance of pluralism as “living with difference” where differences are not internalised, but they are engaged with, respected, sometimes negotiated and sometimes embraced. Conviviality, here, is then explored in interpersonal relations and friendships between individuals, who belong to different ethno-religious groups. I investigate the ways in which the islanders perform pluralism both as sociable sociality and also as doing labour of peace, in the ways in which they control tensions and manage conflicts. As highlighted in the introduction chapter of this book, my take on conviviality bridges multicultural living (living with difference) with shared ways of living (living together in diversity) and people negotiate and navigate between these two. In the previous chapter, I emphasised the embodiment and internalisation of diversity through shared ways of living, enjoying, valuing and performing it. In Chap. 4 and this chapter, I show the ways in which, when the islanders do not internalise differences, they let each other follow their way of living. Similar tastes and lifestyles bring people of different ethno-religious and class backgrounds together; conviviality is practised both in the form of shared ways of living and living with difference, where people perform labour of peace during sociable sociality and also manage of tensions. The last section of the chapter explores the ways in which discourses of toleration can be embedded in the articulation and interpretation of every day tensions due to the tense political context (e.g. between Israel and Turkey) and can be worsened by class difference. Nonetheless, these tensions are solved and managed through labour of peace (talking and reflecting, doing as if nothing had happened, and exchange/transaction of goods). Hence, conviviality, is not passive, non-interference, but is performative and solidaric.

Some recent anthropological studies have explored labour of peace and solidarity among individuals and in the neighbourhood (Chambers 2019; Heil 2014) where individuals fought against common causes (Harris 2016). Labour of peace refers to duties and responsibilities towards the neighbour for the continuity of peace (Bryant 2016). For instance, Chambers (2019) describes performing conviviality as “bridging difference” through gift exchange, interdependence and labour of peace, in the ways in which Muslims and Hindus avoid and solve tensions and negotiate differences. What I try to do in this chapter is to give a comprehensive view of inter-personal relations in the ways in which people practise conviviality both as sociable sociality, labour or peace and solidarity. Therefore, I argue that conviviality cannot be reduced to only sociable sociality, or to labour of peace, or to acts of solidarity, but that it involves all of these practices depending on the different situations of everyday life. The characters in this chapter perform situational performance of multiplicity of identities in the ways in which they enjoy friendship, show solidarity as well as manage and solve conflicts. As I explore the ways in which common interests, tastes and lifestyles bring people together, I also investigate here the complex role of class in inter-personal relations, both among friends and in between employee and employer.

The ethnographic examples in this chapter overlap with the existing literature on “everyday coexistence and neighbourliness” in the Balkans, Anatolia, the Mediterranean, the Levant and South Asia in the ways in which neighbours, regardless of their ethnicity or religious difference, attend each other’s weddings, funerals, important religious days, they eat and drink together, and work together (Bringa 1995; Bryant 2016; Lubańska 2007; Georgieva 1999; Padilla et al. 2015; Ring 2006; Doumanis 2012; Heil 2014; Bigelow 2010; Huseyinoglu 2018; Saglam 2022). In opposition to the term coexistence in the sense of toleration and endurance of difference (see Kaya 2013), Bryant (2016) describes everyday coexistence as everyday practices and performances of living together, which sees conviviality as living with difference and “neighbourliness” (see Heil 2014), as well as “intercommunality” (Doumanis 2012) “intercommunalism” (Bowman 2016, 261) or “intercommunal mixing” (Bowman 2016, 265), and “interreligious relations” and “cohabitation” (Bigelow 2010). Everyday coexistence, conviviality, intercommunality, intercommunalism and intercommunal mixing move away from coexistence as toleration and focuses instead on the practices and performance of pluralism, where individuals from different ethnic and religious backgrounds share space and live together in the neighbourhood. Here again, as in the ebru pattern, one can see the distinct or remarkable patterns; ethno-religious differences are not erased, neither ignored; people identify themselves and others as belonging to a particular ethnic and or religious group. Nonetheless, these patterns are not divided into clear-cut compartments, like that in the mosaic. Joys, pleasures, fights and tension are shared and managed. For instance, when a group of islanders from different ethno-religious backgrounds have dinner together in a restaurant, or at home, while some Rums and Sunni Muslims drink alcohol, some Sunni Muslims do not. They still eat together, laugh at the same jokes, and gossip, but consume different drinks. Islanders do not live parallel lives, but their lives cross each other’s, especially, when the life of an islander is in danger, such as in the blood feud at the end of the chapter, people from different class, ethnicity or religion protect each other.

The Friendship Between the Imam and the Rum Orthodox Priest

I met, Hamdi, the previous imam of the mosque at the garden of Ay Yanni Rum Orthodox church. He drops by the church quite often, to chat, to have tea and to work out, with those, who run the church, the formalities regarding the church and the mosque such as paying the bills. I got introduced to him by Niko, a very knowledgeable Rum Orthodox man, who is in the church committee. Niko introduced Hamdi to me like this: “Let me introduce you to Hamdi. You cannot find an imam like him in Istanbul. For example, he is very open-minded. ‘Another type’ of imam would not be able to survive in Burgaz.” I then introduced myself to Hamdi Ağabey (elder brother) that I was doing research on Burgaz about daily life, different communities living together and their memories. Hamdi Ağabey started narrating, right after:

Write down this anecdote. Five years ago, Dimitra’s (the coffee mark reader, the Orthodox Macedonian) husband, Alexandros, had a heart attack on the boat which was going from Istanbul to Burgaz. He died at one of the harbours in Istanbul, where he was left. The public prosecutor was called to record that he was dead. The Rum Orthodox priest of Burgaz at that time, Pandelis, phoned me and told me to go to Istanbul with him to take the coffin and the corpse back to Burgaz. We rented a boat, went to the hospital to get the corpse. The policeman at the hospital asked us who we were. When we said that we were the imam and the priest of Burgaz, the police got very surprised because normally every religious head is responsible of their own people. How come the imam also comes to pick up the coffin of a Christian? Such a good act! The policeman said that he had not seen something like this in his 34 years of being a policeman. In order for us to pick up the corpse, some documents were needed to be signed off by a public prosecutor on night duty as it was already 1.30 am. The public prosecutor was also very surprised that I, as an imam, was helping out in the process. He said that he would definitely sign the documents for us but we needed to find the municipality doctor. The municipality doctor asked a high price to come and sign. I bargained and pulled the price down. The doctor finally came in his Mercedes. It was 2.30 am already. By 4.00 am we finally got back to Burgaz. We put the corpse in the mortuary of the mosque. There is only one mortuary on the island and it is at the mosque. Whoever dies, no matter which religion they belong to, they are stored in the mortuary of the mosque until the funeral. This is how we live in harmony on the island.

In this anecdote, Hamdi presents himself as a good Burgaz islander, who helps the priest and he wants to highlight that he is there to help whenever he is needed and this is how one should be in Burgaz, where there is, according to him, a harmonious life among different religious communities. Their faith, in a way, those of Burgaz islanders is tied together, in life and when they die, they are together. In this story, he also positions himself on the side of Pandelis, the priest, against the officials, who are probably of Sunni Muslim origin. The fact that he sides with Pandelis and comes to collect the body of the Christian deceased Burgazlı, is also perceived as “different” by the policeman in Istanbul, because every religious head is responsible of his “own people.” Nonetheless, Hamdi also shares the responsibility of picking up Alexandros’ body with Pandelis, because they are friends from Burgaz and Pandelis asked for Hamdi’s company in order to do this duty. While in Istanbul it is surpising for an imam to company a priest to collect the corpse of a Christian, Hamdi would like to imply that it is not surprising in Burgaz. This anecdote can be interpreted as a performance of conviviality in the form of labour of peace and solidarity. Here, the imam gives an example of living with difference among the people, who belong to different faiths and in times of need, they share their duties and keep each other company. This was also similar to how the other religious heads, the Catholic one for instance, interacted with Hamdi. The imam’s wife, Nurgül, told me for example that the Austrian Catholic priest had paid for Hamdi’s education to finish his high school degree as Hamdi had dropped out when he was young. One can also see here that there is inequality in the difference of education as well as socio-economic resources. The Christian priests earn more than the imams, as the minorities’ religious duty personal are paid by their religious foundations (vakıf). While the Christian priests completed their education, the imam did not, and the Catholic priest could financially support the education of Hamdi. Another point is that, as Catholic priests are not allowed to marry, they do not have a family, unlike Hamdi, who also takes care of his wife, who is a non-working house wife, and of his two daughters. What is striking is that the Catholic priest performs the labour of peace, to diminish the inequality of education between him and the imam. The Christian priests have intimate and supportive relations with the imam, they perform labour of peace and show solidarity to support Hamdi.

The friendship between Hamdi and Pandelis is not only about “working together as religious heads,” neither only performance of labour of peace and solidarity. They also share similar interests and enjoy each other’s company. When I went to visit Hamdi’s wife, and his daughters, they told me about the friendship between the imam and Pandelis, the previous Rum Orthodox priest. First of all, they were both supporters of Fenerbahçe football team. His wife said that the imam was such a fan that when there was a Fenerbahce match, he prayed and guided the evening prayer rather quickly, reducing it from one hour to 40–45 minutes so that he and the audience could rush to watch Fenerbahçe matches. Pandelis had Cine5 TV (paid channel) in his house. The Imam’s family used to go to Pandelis’ house to watch Fenerbahçe matches. The daughters liked visiting the priest and his family. Pandelis never offered alcohol to them, they always had teas together. This shows that they recognise each other’s religious differences, when they socialise together, and respect each other’s way of living their life according to their religion. In contrast to the previous chapter, where islanders embody each other’s differences and perform syncretic religious rituals, which I presented there as “conviviality as living together in diversity,” this example of the priest not offering alcohol, and them consuming non-alcoholic drinks together is an example of “conviviality as living with difference” not as toleration, but as practices of everyday coexistence, respecting the ways in which people live their daily life, differently. The imam and the priest share commensality, common interests and hence engage in sociable sociality. It is also not a surprise that Hamdi is not such a close friend with the current priest, because they do not share the same interests and socialise with each other. While Hamdi is still a very good “co-worker” with other religious heads, such as the current Rum Orthodox priest, he is not friends with the current priest, such as going to each other’s homes for eating and watching football matches.

The story of the imam gets more and more interesting because he, in fact, came to the island in 1999 from a city close to Istanbul that has a reputation of having religiously conservative Sunni Muslim inhabitants. I listened to the vaaz (sermons) of imams in different places in Istanbul such as in Kadıköy and Taksim (diverse and secular quarters) and the ones given by Hamdi Ağabey. Hamdi Ağabey, regardless of the audience, who are just Sunni Muslims during Ramadan, but who are mixed (Alevis, Orthodox, Catholics and Jews) at funerals and mevlut,Footnote 1 always refers to all the prophets, who came before Muhammed, names them, brings his gratefulness to Atatürk (who implemented secularism in Turkey) for having founded Turkey and wishes the continuity of peace. In contrast, other imams, to whose sermons I listened, warned the public of the possible sins they might be thinking of doing, telling them not to drink alcohol like gavurs (a derogatory term used for non-Muslims) for example. While the sermons in other imams in Istanbul include words of intolerance, those of Hamdi are tailored for Burgaz islanders, where he refers to different religions, their prophets and also show gratefulness to Atatürk. Therefore, his sermons embrace diversity of religions, living with difference and in diversity. We can also see here how he himself internalised the values of being Burgazlı, through conviviality and cultivated Burgaz habitus. By working together with other religious heads, by hanging out with Pandelis he practised and performed conviviality, as sociable sociality, as labour of peace and as solidarity. He has become a Burgaz islander. Niko also marked that another type of imam would not be able to survive on the island. This also hints to us that whoever lives on the island, as well as religious heads should know, practise, perform, understand and appreciate living with difference and in diversity.

Furthermore, the imam’s wife said, “The imam is only imam in the mosque but a human being outside.” She meant that the imam is a religious leader in the society, but this is not only, who he is: being a Sunni Muslim and an imam is only one part of his life and in daily life, outside of the mosque, he is a human being like everyone else. His religious identity and religious leadership do not take over his overall character. I hung out mostly with Nurgül, his wife and his daughters and sometimes he also joined us having tea or coffee when he passed by home. It was important for me to understand his multiplicity of identities, as an imam, husband, father, as a friend, as a Fenerbahce fan (in opposition to me supporting Galatasaray) a co-worker, and as a Burgazlı. For instance, with Pandelis, his friend, he performs sociable sociality based on common interests, and also labour of peace and solidarity as a religious leader. With the Catholic priest and the current Rum Orthodox priest, he performs more labour of peace in the form of living with difference.

The fact that the imam is supported by the Catholic priest and the Rum Orthodox people who are in charge of the Orthodox church demonstrates that there are not competitions between these religious heads. While the Orthodox and Catholic religious heads are in support of the imam, the imam is also appreciative of Christianity and makes it explicit when he delivers the sermons in the mosque. While there is competition in the form of antagonistic toleration (Hayden 2002, 205), between the non-recognised Alevis and the Sunni Muslims, who are seen to dominate the Alevis (see Chap. 8), in the case of Christian priests and the Sunni Muslim imam, it is not a matter of tolerating each other, rather it is conviviality as living with difference, an embracement of each other’s religious differences and being respectful towards each other. They do not do so only through talking about living together in peace but they also perform it in their actions, through helping each other out. In the following ethnographic example, I delve into employee and employer relations between a Sunni Muslim verger and the Rum committee member, who runs the Orthodox churches.

A Muslim Family Takes Care of the Rum Orthodox Church

I met Zümrüt on a winter day in January 2010, at the embroidery class. The attenders are all women, permanent inhabitants, mainly Sunni Turkish Muslims and a Kurdish woman. While the other women were embroidering flowers and animal patterns on their fabric, Zümrüt wanted to embroider a big cross and she was looking for a cross pattern. I call the elder women teyze, which means aunty, and the younger ones, abla, which means elder sister. So, I approached Zümrüt as Zümrüt Abla.

Deniz::

Zümrüt Abla, I can find some cross patterns on the internet, print them and bring them to you. What kind of a pattern do you want?

Zümrüt::

Deniz, can you bring me a big cross pattern, not a plain cross but a decorative and elegant one? Thank you so much.

Deniz::

Yes sure, what are you planning to do with this cross pattern?

Zümrüt::

I want to make a big cross for Niko Ağabey (elder brother). He is my boss and he is so nice. If I embroider a big cross on a big piece of fabric, he will be very happy and then we can put it in the church.

Deniz::

I know Niko! He is in charge of the churches, isn’t he? And how come he is your boss?

Zümrüt::

I am the verger of the church on the top of the island. Niko Ağabey (elder brother) is in charge of the bills and formalities of the churches. In spring and summer, my family and I, live on top of the island and we take care of the maintenance of the Metamorphosis church and in winter, we live at the centre of the island. You should come visit me on top of the island, it is so beautiful. Especially, in the spring, the poppies grow; the grass is green and smells fresh. It is like heaven on earth. I will show you the church as well.

I did not expect a Sunni Muslim family to take care of the Rum Orthodox Church and that she called her boss ağabey which means elder brother. So, I wanted to know how she moved to the island and became the verger of the church. I knew that the churches were only open during the summer time and there would not be a mass on an Easter day in Burgaz. However, the weather was nice, not so hot and it was not raining, so I decided to climb to the top of the island to visit Zümrüt Abla on the Easter day, 3 April 2010. When I visited her, she brought me a book, some photocopies and her poetry notebook. She was interviewed a few times by Austrians, Turkish journalists and students as “the Muslim, who takes care of the Rum Orthodox church.” When I was flicking through her poetry book, where she wrote about welcoming the spring on top of Burgaz, coincidentally, we heard some people entering the garden of the church. A French tourist couple came to visit the church as the guests of a Turkish and Greek couple, who lives in Burgaz. I did not know how much this couple knew about Zümrüt and the church but the French couple and I were both interested in finding out how Zümrüt takes care of the church. I found myself in the middle of translating in Turkish and French the conversations between Zümrüt and the French couple.

The French woman (FW): How is it to take care of the church and to live on top of the island with only your family and no neighbours?

Zümrüt::

I feel alone sometimes but the nature and looking over Istanbul and to the other islands makes me grateful to have moved to Burgaz and enjoy this panorama.

FW::

So where are you from? How come you started to work here?

Zümrüt::

When I was young, with my friends, we used to clean the mosque in our village in Sivas, in Anatolia. I married my paternal uncle’s son and came to Istanbul as a bride in 1987. While working in Istanbul, my husband developed good relationships with the Rums. These Rums, who lived in Istanbul also had houses in Burgaz. When they proposed us the job of taking care of the church, my husband and I accepted. I said: “both mosques and churches are the houses of God. Why wouldn’t we take care of the church?”

When the French woman heard that Zümrüt, as a Muslim, took care of an Orthodox Christian church, she had tears falling down her eyes and she said: “While there are wars between different religions, it is very touching to see a Muslim woman taking care of a Christian church, this is very moving and impressive.” When I translated the French woman’s response to Zümrüt, Zümrüt did not react as if she was doing something spectacular or extraordinary as a Muslim, who takes care of the church. For Zümrüt, this was not a favour but a natural act.

After the French couple left in awe with their Turkish and Greek hosts, by talking to Zümrüt and visiting her more regularly, I learnt more about the ways in which she did her job and how she changed since she had been doing the work. Through the interactions with the Rums and in order to do the job properly, Zümrüt and her son picked up a few Greek words which are used in the mass, like ψωμί (psomi—bread), κρασί (krasi—wine), νερό (nero—water). They know about what to do with the ritualistic items during the mass. Her little son, aged nine, always puts out the candles of the church, carried the ritualistic items such as the incense, bread or wine and held the big keys of the church. Zümrüt knows the meaning of rituals, she paints and cleans the church and shows it to visitors. She added: “I clean the diamonds of the chandelier, one by one, I don’t even clean my house that meticulously.”

After having listened to the story from Zümrüt’s side, I also wanted to know how Niko, and the rest of the islanders interpret the fact that a Muslim takes care of the Orthodox Church. The sad part of the story was told to me by Niko. He said, “Today Rums do not want to take the job of taking care of the church.” I was surprised and asked why. He explained that “first of all, there are not many Rums left to take care of the church and the ones. Those who remained in Burgaz are all educated, with good jobs and they do not want to do this job.” Zümrüt works for Niko and Niko, as well as the Rum community, need Zümrüt to do the job. There is mutual dependency between them. Zümrüt’s case of taking a job in Burgaz is similar to other Muslims, Sunnis, Alevis and Kurdish labour migrants from eastern and south-eastern Anatolia, who usually first moved to the big city, Istanbul and then they find links to other places, through hemşeri, those, who come from their home town. So, for Zümrüt, she and her husband met their future Rum bosses in Istanbul and then came to Burgaz to take the job. Zümrüt and her husband accepted the job out of necessity. As they took care of the church, they were given free accommodation and salary. Zümrüt articulates that she had very good experiences with Rums in Istanbul, as people and as employers. Zümrüt and his family, greatly respect Niko, their boss, whom they refer to using a kinship term “elder brother” and are grateful for their job and their life in Burgaz. Zümrüt could have just done the basic jobs of taking care of the church; however, she takes care of the church as if it is her own house, through cleaning the diamonds of the lantern one by one. She even wanted to embroider a big cross on a big piece of cloth that would be put on the alter table of the church, to give it as a present to her “boss” Niko Ağabey.

Hence, the relationship between Niko and Zümrüt is not only an employee–employer relationship. Niko’s wife told me that Zümrüt’s son’s circumcision ceremony/celebration, which is an Islamic practice, took place in the garden of the church. The Rum community is appreciative of how well Zümrüt and her family are taking care of the Orthodox Church. To thank the family, Rums did the circumcision celebration in the garden of the church. Chambers (2019, 792) points out: “Conviviality can be essential in maintaining labour relations—particularly in contexts where work, labour, production and sociality constantly intermingle” (Chambers 2019, 799). In the relationship between Zümrüt and Niko, we can see that labour, interdependence, and sociality are intertwined. “The salience and strength of conviviality is produced in a non-bounded context that is intersected not only by the social but also by the economic and instrumentality” (Chambers 2019, 792). Nonetheless, the relationship between Zümrüt, her family, Niko and those, who run the church goes beyond interdependence, instrumentality, and bridging difference. Their relationship shows gratitude and embracement of religious differences as a performance of living with difference.

The stories of Hamdi, Pandelis, Zümrüt and Niko are inspiring, nonetheless, there is also a dark side, or a shadow in their story. What Niko said (“there is not many Rums left to take care of the church”) is significant to understand the overall embracing attitude of Muslims towards Rums. According to Niko’s estimation, there are around 40 Rum families, who live on Burgaz in summer, and maybe about 4–5 families live permanently. As a result of the homogenisation and Turkification policies (see Chap. 2), during the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the building of the modern Turkish nation, the numbers of the non-Muslims, notably the Rum community diminished significantly. Non-Muslim minorities, especially the Rums are no longer perceived as “a threat” by the national authorities. The islanders, especially the Sunni Muslim elites, who have lived on the island for generations are very nostalgic of the good, happy days when many Rums used to live on the island, celebrating all together the religious festivals and days, going to the five gazinos all together, hearing Rum music, smelling rakı (an alcoholic drink similar to ouzo), singing and dancing day and night. I was told by my Sunni Muslim informants that Hristos, where Zümrüt lived alone with her family, was a very active place where people used to go to have picnics, go to masses in the Metamorphosis church and celebrate the grape day, Easter and Christmas. Today, Easter and Christmas are not celebrated as there are not many permanent Rum inhabitants on the island in winter. One of my Rum informants had told me that they used to climb up to Hristos on the 5th of August in the afternoon with food, drinks, blankets, go to the grape mass, spend the night there and wake up to go to the morning mass. Today, there is no big celebration in that church. For example, in 2010, on the 5th of August, we went up to Hristos, there was the mass and we came back down after the mass. Zümrüt as a person, who moved to the island in 2000, found herself in the middle of the embracing nostalgia between Muslims and Rums and became part of the conviviality. As Burgaz islanders lost their friends to homogenisation, they hold onto the remaining ones, by performing conviviality with an extra care.

In this section, through analysing these examples, I suggested that in daily life and social interactions, religious differences do not always bring tension between individuals. The friendship between the imam and the Orthodox priest showed that, in daily life, individuals form intimate relations because of shared common interests, and their religious differences do not always create boundaries. Even though a Muslim family took the job of taking care of the church out of necessity and for economic reasons, the relationship between Zümrüt and Niko goes beyond employee and employer relationship. In Zümrüt and Niko’s interactions, class difference and mutual dependency played a positive role in the ways in which they showed an embracing attitude towards their religious differences. Nonetheless, in the next section, I turn my attention to the management of every day tensions and crisis situations, by embedding them within the socio-political context and tensions on the island.

Tahin-Pekmez Dessert

During my fieldwork in 2009, I had come across several non-Jewish informants, who had articulated that the Jewish community was exclusive. It is important here to address the socio-economic and political contexts, to understand why the Jewish community was perceived to be exclusive. After Israel created walls in the West Bank in 2000 and the continuous violence between Hamas and the Israeli state, some people in Istanbul associated the Jews in Turkey with the Jews in Israel, sometimes, with the Israeli state. In the Turkish press and in public, the violence between Palestinians and Israelis was taken as an issue between Muslims and Jews. On 3 March 2009, a famous female singer, Yıldız Tilbe, in a daily TV women’s programme said that she was against Israel attacking Gaza; and even yelled “Damn Israel!”. The political tension and the worsening relations between Israel and Turkey Footnote 2 (see Brink-Danan 2011, 96) including Tayyip Erdoğan’s “one minute” aggression against the Israeli president Shimon Peres in Davos in 2009 (Bennhold 2009) and the Mavi Marmara incident on 31 May 2010 (Booth 2010), when an Israeli navy flotilla attacked Mavi Marmara boat which was bringing aid to the Gaza district and killed 9 Turkish activists, made the Jewish people in Turkey feel anxious and reluctant to talk. One of my Jewish informants in Burgaz pointed out that 100 Jewish families left Istanbul following the tensions between Israel and Turkey already in 2010.

As Burgaz is not isolated from the political context within Turkey, security control was implemented in the synagogues in Istanbul after the synagogue bombings on 15 November 2003. The same rule applied to the kal in Burgaz. When I attended one of my best friends’ wedding in Neve Shalom in Istanbul in 2010, I went through the security check, the invitation she sent to me had to be shown with my identity card, and when I passed by the first door, the second door got closed to ensure a stronger security (see Brink-Danan 2011, 84–85). There is no such door system in the kal of Burgaz, but the security stands at the door and knows who is from Burgaz and who is not. The head rabbi of the Jewish community and some other rabbis also visit the synagogue in Burgaz during important Jewish religious days; security checks are conducted at the door. While all the other religious places of worship in Burgaz (the mosque, Catholic chapel, the Rum Orthodox churches and Alevi cemevi) are open to everyone, without security checks, and people from different faiths attend each other’s funerals, religious days and ceremonies at these worship places, the kal of Burgaz is only open to Jews and the non-Jews need permission from the head of the kal or to be invited by a Jewish Burgazlı.

Later on, during my fieldwork, I realised that the closeness of the Jewish community as articulated by the non-Jews was more of an issue of class difference than religious exclusivity. The permanent Muslim inhabitants and the wealthy Jewish summer inhabitants had limited interactions, which were mainly economic transactions. This class difference, in addition to the political tension between Israel and Turkey created a divisive effect between the wealthy Jewish summer inhabitants and the permanent working-class Muslims. In winter, when I formed closer relations with the permanent working-class inhabitants, I realised that some of the working class on the island was not happy with the way they were treated by the Jewish inhabitants. I heard from the corner shop owner (a Zaza Alevi Burgazlı) that the Jews in the Blue Club treated the workers in a disrespectful way in contrast to the mixed Sports Club members, who treated their workers in a friendly way. Another time, another two corner shop owners (Sunni Muslims) were gossiping about the Jews and said that even though the Jewish customer saw that other people were waiting to be served, the Jewish one jumped in front of the queue and said that s/he needs to be treated quicklier as s/he was in rush. Another restaurant chef said: “Jews always negotiate and bargain about prices before they eat and if you want to earn money on the island, you have to know how to treat the Jews.”

Discourses of toleration can be embedded in the articulation and interpretation of every day tensions due to the tense political context (e.g. between Israel and Turkey) and can be worsened by class difference. Nonetheless, what I would like to show in this section is that these tensions are solved and managed through labour of peace (e.g. talking and reflecting, exchange/transaction of goods) and that belonging to similar class backgrounds and having a similar lifestyle creates intimacy and shared ways of living among people from different ethno-religious groups. Furthermore, at moments of crisis, when a life of an islander is in danger, differences in class, ethnicity and religion subsume, when islanders jointly offer to help to protect the islander. Hence, practices of conviviality are not passive, non-interference, but are performative and solidaric.

You have already met Hakan, the chef and owner of the Zeytin restaurant and Ethel, Orli and Osman, the clients of Zeytin. This ethnographic anecdote includes them and some of the clients of the restaurant. It was the end of my first summer in Burgaz, October 2009. Orli and I spent the day together in the Social Club and decided to have dinner in Zeytin restaurant with Ethel. In late afternoon, Orli called Gül, Hakan’s wife and the cook of Zeytin, to pre-order cacık (tzatziki) and shrimp. When Orli and I came back from the SC, in the late afternoon, Orli and I chatted for hours, she showed me her house, pictures on Facebook and we did not realise how the time had flown and that we were late to go to Zeytin restaurant.

We had agreed with Ethel, Gül and Osman that we would come around 19.30 but Orli and I managed to get there around 21.00 and Ethel came even later, which started the night already with a bit of tension. Osman was then sitting with the other table. In most situations, it would have been fine to keep the chef or the cook of a restaurant waiting, especially in Istanbul, but, in this situation Gül and Hakan were also their friends, so it was like keeping friends waiting. That night, I sat with Ethel and Orli. The cook, Gül, had joined the next table, with Osman, Hrant and other non-practising Muslims and was eating dinner with them, while she was also serving at the same time. As these customers eat here very often, the client/customer relationship are blurred with friendship and this brings with it a lot of tension, because it is difficult where to draw the lines between friendship and clientship. Even though, Ethel, Orli and I, were sitting at two separate tables, the conversations of the two tables were joined. Osman, who was sitting at the other table, joked: “o cemaatin kadınlarıyla gezme çünkü onlar hep geç gelirler” (“Do not hang out with the women from that (Jewish) community, because they are always late”). It is a stereotype of Jewish women that they give a lot of importance to how they look and take a long time to put on makeup and get ready. Furthermore, Orli and I did not feel like drinking that night. People from the other table interfered many times asking, “Why aren’t you drinking? Come on, have some wine or rakı.” While we were having our main meal, the next table had already eaten their dessert. They had had tahin-pekmez dessert, where you mix tahini and grape molasses. Osman always asked for tahin and pekmez, mixed them himself and treated friends at the next tables. Osman kept turning towards our table and talking to us, and Orli kept joking and asking him when he would offer us his tahin-pekmez. As Orli was asking Osman for tahin-pekmez, Osman kept asking Gül, the cook to bring more tahin and pekmez. Gül was eating at the table of Osman, but also was going back and forth to bring orders. Gül said from the other table “There isn’t any tahin and pekmez left” and Orli did not hear that and kept asking through joking “Osman, when are we having tahin-pekmez?” several times. At one point, Orli and Gül got both tense and Gül came to our table and told Orli: “You are always late and I told you that there isn’t any tahin-pekmez left anymore and you kept asking. I can offer you another dessert, like rice-pudding or I can go and buy some tahin and pekmez from the next shop. What would you like?” Orli got offended, she said any other dessert is fine. When Gül left, Orli told me “Gül should have served me more nicely and professionally because I am the customer.”

In the meantime, Hakan was having a conversation with Ethel. Hakan was sitting in between the two tables and drinking more than usual. A famous kebab restaurant from Bursa another city had just opened a new branch on Büyükada. Ethel had been there to eat and said: “That restaurant in Büyükada is the same as in Bursa.” Hakan kept arguing with Ethel: “No! It cannot be the same as the chef and the ingredients used are different even though it is the same chain!” They both kept arguing over and over the same thing. The tension was building up from that side as well. Orli yelled for Ibrahim, the waiter, to ask something and Gül said: “Ibrahim left to his hometown in Muș, due to family problems.” Gül did not explain more. Gül’s face and eyes were red, she looked way more tense than a normal day. Maybe she had even cried.

After the meal, Osman and Hrant played backgammon as usual. By this time, the customers on the other table had left and it was only Hakan, Gül, Ethel, Orli, Osman, Hrant and I remained; sitting near each other at random chairs. From the tahin-pekmez tension, they jumped to discussing one another’s hospitality. The hospitality across tables in the restaurant reflected, on the one hand, the inner calculations of the islanders, which was similar to Derrida’s (2000) problematisation of unconditional hospitality. According to him, “Pas d’hospitalité” presents a contradiction because it means “no hospitality” and “step of hospitality” at the same time (Derrida 2000, 75). Therefore, hospitality is not an altruistic behaviour but embeds what goes in the mind of the host and the ones, who accepts the hospitable behaviour, what each thinks the other expects and also the wider political, ethical and social codes of the society (Derrida 2000). On the other hand, hospitality in the form of food exchanges embeds the management of emotions and tensions and the articulation of tensions (Ring 2006, 86). Orli justified herself as being hospitable by saying: “Osman, you, my husband and I are very hospitable to each other. You always offer us tahin-pekmez and my husband offers you drinks. The people at that table where you sat, that the group is too much into themselves.” The group she mentioned was the ones, with whom Osman and Hrant were sitting. Osman replied back “Orli, you call that group too much into themselves but the Jewish community is also into themselves. Why there are two social clubs on the island, and the majority of one of the clubs is Jewish? Why do Jewish people live like in a ghetto? I know that you, Ethel, Fortune, you guys hang out with everyone, you are open. What I want to say is that this kind of separation of living side by side comes from the Ottoman millet system.” Orli started to cry in the middle of the conversation and people thought it was due to what Osman had said. Orli then explained (while Gül was in the kitchen) “No, it is not because what Osman said, it is because of Gül. She should have treated me better. She knows the hard times I had recently. I am always nice to her, why isn’t she a bit more careful?” The fact that Osman can joke about a stereotype of Jewish women, together with Ethel and Orli, two Jewish women, while they were in a mixed group of Jews, Armenian and Muslims, marks the intimacy between these people. In the previous chapter, Osman, Hakan and Fortune had intervened with Ethel’s religious practice that as she had felt ill that then she should not have fasted. People can also insist one other to eat more or to drink more. As these people in the restaurant spend so much time together in a rather intense way, they then give themselves the right to say whatever they think, to joke about stereotypes and the small tensions of everyday life, such as Orli making Gül wait several times, can build up and accumulate and hence turn into an out spurt of release of awaited emotions that were left on suspense. In this moment when Orli started to cry, the cause of the tension, why Orli had gotten offended, was due to not being treated “professionally and nicely” by Gül. Gül raised her voice, lost her patience and told Orli that she always made her wait, probably because Gül had been seeing Orli like a friend, to whom she can articulate and express her frustration. However, with other customers, she needed to be “professional,” not get angry with, or at least not to show it. In contrast, Orli, at that moment saw Gül like the owner of the restaurant and wanted to be treated “like a client,” but also, she expected Gül to have recognised the hard times she had and hence to behave more carefully. This tension was caused due to an accumulation of everyday sociality, a blurring of friendship with clientship. But this tension was also misinterpreted by the other people in the restaurant, as a boundary that was crossed by Osman, who had stereotyped Orli’s being late as an attribute of Jewish female community, which was then thought of or was interpreted to be offensive. Orli, then, refused to be served another dessert. We finished our meals and Hrant and Osman asked us to go for a walk; they had something to tell us.

When we went for a walk, we learned the main cause of Gül and Hakan’s tension at the restaurant. Hrant explained:

The waiter, Ibrahim, received a call from his father, who told him to leave the island as soon as possible to come back to Muș. Ibrahim’s uncle had killed his kanlı [the man, with whom he had blood feud] eight months ago. Now, the relatives of the victim are looking for Ibrahim to kill him in revenge. This is why Hakan and Gül were very tense and sad that night. Gül had even cried that Ibrahim was in danger. So don’t take Gül’s tense attitude personally, Orli. Gül was very sad and tense. I suggested hiding Ibrahim in my house but Ibrahim did not want to and he followed his father’s order. Deniz, write this in your thesis. Half of these Kurds who came to the islands were the ones, who escaped from kan davası [blood feud]. I was an employer at construction business, and I had a lot of Kurdish employees, who told me that they came to Istanbul in order to escape from the blood feud at home.

Orli, Ethel and I were shocked to hear about the extension of the blood feud to Burgaz. The revengers could have come to the island, to the restaurant, threaten the owners of the restaurant, or maybe kill Ibrahim or someone else, who knows? We could have found ourselves stuck in the middle of a blood feud. After the walk, Orli wanted to drop by Zeytin restaurant and order and buy the rose jam that Gül makes. Orli wanted to make it up with Gül and told me later on that she especially dropped by Gül to order this jam, not because she needed it but she wanted to end the night with good terms with Gül. I was standing with Ethel, Hrant and Osman waiting for Orli to come back from her talk with Gül and hence I do not know the details of what they talked. At the end of the night, Orli tried to approach Gül to repair the broken moment of tension, and not with Osman as she was not offended by his joke about Jewish women.

Then Hrant dropped Orli, Ethel and me to Orli’s house. It was already 1:00 am in the morning. Another argument started between Orli and Ethel. Ethel criticised Orli: “Orli, you are too vulnerable and sensitive. You take everything personally. See they were tense because of the blood feud and you took it personally.” Orli replied: “Gül should have been nicer to me anyways, as I am a client. You know sometimes they are also not nice to you either.” Ethel said: “I consider them as my friends and I don’t mind being criticised or joked about. When you are friends, you joke, you criticise, you yell and it shows intimacy. But as you are vulnerable, you cannot deal with criticism or being told off!” They kept arguing over the same event for couple of hours, raising their voices to each other until Ethel decided to leave abruptly. The next morning, Orli and Ethel called each other and behaved as if nothing happened between them. They also decided not to tell Gül and Hakan that they knew about the blood feud and that they would talk to them as if nothing happened. One way of dealing with these tensions was also pretending as if nothing happened and not to make a big deal out of things.

Ring (2006, 80) describes the suspense and endurance of tension as a mechanism of sustaining peace, instead of the discharge of tension. Ring (2006) argues that there is a lot of emotional labour that goes into the performance of everyday life among the female neighbours in the apartment, where women, through all sorts of exchange, giving and borrowing food, seeing and visiting each other, helping and so on manage and regulate their emotions and hence sustain the daily peace. Violence, instead, is not the resolving of this tension but the refusal of it. For instance, not to visit the neighbours too often, or returning a borrowed item right away instead of holding on to it is a kind of violence, where a woman wants to solve the tension by discharge it and avoid its suspension. Entering into a relationship as a friend or neighbour, exchanging things, visiting and so on bring out duties, obligations, care and so on. Therefore, conviviality as living togetherness requires the management of tensions, emotions, labour of peace and is different than coexistence as side-by-side living, avoiding contact, exchange and performance of labour of peace. Too much, intense interactions, such as eating 2–3 meals a day in the restaurant, hence, requires a lot of labour of peace, and the sustenance of tension and toleration. In this complicated case between Gül and Orli, Gül was already tense because of Ibrahim’s blood feud case, which might have brought a lot of worries, “Is Ibrahim’s life in danger? What if those, who are looking for him, come to the restaurant? What will happen to him, now, that he left? How can she manage the restaurant without Ibrahim?” and hence Orli joking at that time and asking, “Osman, when will you give us tahin-pekmez?” could have been the last thing she could have sustained and tolerated and hence she expressed to Orli, all the frustration she had in the form of an accumulation of all the times she has tolerated Orli being late. “Bardağı taşıran son damla” means literally the last drop that made the full glass of water to spill, and in English, it was the last straw. This was the last point of Gül’s patience and endurance of the whole situation and Orli happened to be the last drop, the last straw.

Being late for dinner, the exclusive group at the restaurant (regardless of ethno-religious differences), fights among friends, and blurred client/friendship relationship were convivial tensions. Tensions among the friends were managed through articulating and expressing whatever you want to tell your friend and “get it out,” without having the need to filter your thoughts or feelings. You do not always need to tolerate and sustain tension with your friends, you can say things that can “hurt” (dost acı soyler, “real” friend talks bitter) and then the next morning you behave as if nothing happened. Nonetheless, this tension was also interpreted as a matter of coexistence/toleration. Osman attributed Orli’s behaviour of being late as a stereotype of Jewish women. When Orli was talking about being exclusive as a group; Osman referred to the exclusivity of the Jewish community by saying, “Oh, Jewish people are into themselves.” When Orli made a similar criticism of the people seated at the other table, she did not suggest that their cliquishness was related to the fact that most of them were secular Sunni Muslims. Orli explained to me later that that particular group, of around ten people, do not include anyone else in their clique, regardless of the ethnicity or the religion of the person. They are just an exclusive group. This was in a way similar to high school dramas, in which people have their small groups and exclude others. Orli defined this group’s exclusivity as a matter of conviviality: people are into themselves not because they share the same ethnicity or religion but the same interests, tastes or ways of being, like an exclusive friendship group. But what is interesting is that after Orli said that “that group was too much into themselves,” Osman automatically attributed “exclusivity” as a matter of coexistence/toleration and thought of the exclusivity of the Jewish community, but on the other hand, he also recognised that not all the Jewish people were a closed group, as some individuals—including Fortune, Ethel and Orli—were close friends with people from different religious groups. Every day tensions of conviviality, such as making someone wait, can build up and become more pronounced in tense situations. Despite the fact that these tensions might be attributed as tensions of coexistence/toleration, they are managed and solved through labour peace such as talking and reflecting, doing as if nothing happened, and with small exchanges/transactions.

Concluding Remarks

Glick-Schiller describes conviviality in friendships as mutual sense of humanness and domains of commonality based on cosmopolitan sociability (Glick Schiller et al. 2011; Glick Schiller and Çağlar 2016; Glick Schiller 2016). I depict conviviality in friendship as what friends share in common such as interests and hobbies. Hence, I do not argue for a cosmopolitan ethics drawing on common humanity but I show how people, who share similar tastes, interests and hobbies perform friendship. In Burgaz, sharing common interests brings people together regardless ethnic, religious and socio-economic differences. Therefore, sharing common interests can make us understand cohesion and fragmentation among the people, as a part of sociable sociality and solidarity within conviviality, instead of coexistence and/or toleration between different ethno-religious groups. Therefore, cohesion, fission/groupings and tensions are not necessarily rooted in ethnic or religious difference but in sharing similar interests, tastes and style of living, where class plays an ambiguous role. Sharing similar socio-economic backgrounds transgress ethnic and religious boundaries.

Nonetheless, class difference creates, on the one hand, interdependence between the permanent islanders of Sunni, Alevi and Kurdish backgrounds and the wealthy summer inhabitants from different millets, on the other hand, it exacerbates tensions between wealthy summer inhabitants and lower-class permanent islanders, due to the political tension and issues of security (after the synagogue bombings). I explored inter-religious, inter-ethnic friendships and employee-employer relationship to show the ways in which sociable sociality, shared practices, interests/hobbies and labour of peace create friendships between the islanders. In the example of the friendship between the imam and the Rum Orthodox priest, I highlighted the arbitrariness and organic aspect of friendships, and of practices of conviviality not as toleration but as shared ways of living based on common interests and tastes, as sociable sociality and also as living with difference, when people do not internalise each other’s differences but differences are accepted, welcomed and embraced as a practice of sociable sociality. In the relationship between Zümrüt, the Muslim verger of the Rum Orthodox Church and Niko, who runs the formalities of the church, I explore the labour of peace and embracement of difference, which goes beyond mutual interdependence and instrumentality between employee and employer relationship. I ended the chapter, with a crisis situation around tahin pekmez (dessert), when islanders had to control and manage their tensions when Sunni Muslim owners and an Armenian restaurant client protected a Kurdish islander, from a blood feud. In Burgaz, conviviality is not only sociable sociality and fleeting encounters, neither non-interference; people’s lives cross each other. At times of crisis, like in the blood feud, the Armenian man, who belongs to upper class, offered to hide the Kurdish waiter, when his life was in danger.

As we have seen and will see throughout the book that political tensions, issues of security and feeling insecure create mental breaks of coexistence/toleration in people’s perceptions and hence impact conviviality, in the ways in which the islanders might attribute exclusivity, class difference and convivial tensions to communal boundaries and present it as a matter of coexistence, toleration or intolerance. Even though Osman attributed the roots of the so-called exclusivity of the Jewish community to the millet system, Jewish people had not lived in ghettos during the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, unlike other European cities (see Brick-Danan 2011, 34). Rather the doors of the synagogues being closed was a matter of security, based on the politically tense context of the last couple of decades. The bombings of the synagogue in 2003 and the fact that the kal in Burgaz closed its doors to non-Jews, were interpreted almost as an offensive act by the non-Jews in Burgaz. The doors of all the other worship places are open to everyone regardless of religious affiliations. This security issue was interpreted as religious exclusivity and was against the ethos of conviviality in Burgaz, where doors should be open to everyone.