Kurban Bayramı In Comics

Hi folks,

It’s the week of Eid al-Adha (Bayram in Turkish), and I’m taking some time to recharge and connect with friends and family.

I thought I’d leave you today with a few panels of bayram-related comics. I’ve translated them and gave you some context in italics.

Turkey has a very rich tradition of comics. It’s centered around weekly magazines like Uykusuz, Bayan Yanı and Leman. These are printed on standard newsprint and sold at supermarkets and newspaper stands. They contain a lot of single panels such as the ones below, but also sequential stories. There have also been a lot of graphic novels coming out in recent years.

There is often a strong political dimension to these comics, and it’s definitely on my list of things to write about on Kültürkampf.

For now, I hope you enjoy these.

Sheep: continue, continue, I’m just bungee jumping.

Burhan: They’ve all forgotten us on bayram again. Nobody has come to kiss our hand Nermin.

Nermin: maybe they’ve been slaughtered Burhan.

Burhan: excuses, excuses.

People visit the homes of their elders during bayram. It’s 3-4 days, depending on which of the two bayrams it is. You usually start with people who are the closest, such as grandparents, aunts and uncles. When you visit, you kiss their hand and touch it to your forehead, like so.

Sheep 1: Gather the herd! Tomorrow morning we attack the farm!

Sheep 2: Attacking the farm? Are you crazy? They’ll make us all into kavurma! [a kind of braised meat.]

Sheep 1: That’s going to happen anyways if we don’t attack.

Man: Hell, even you, I was only able to buy on credit.

Sheep (nervous): that’s alright, we could work together and pay it off… right?

The presidency of religious affairs actually put out a statement this year that it was permissible to purchase sacrificial animals with credit cards. They just warned people that if they couldn’t pay off the card’s debt at the end of its monthly term, they’d have to pay interest, which was a separate category of sin.

Of course the question that occurs to me (and surely not only me) is whether the sawāb (spiritual reward from good deeds) from a sacrifice would be enough to cover the sin of credit card interest. There’s potentially a big loophole there.

TV: a bull that has gotten away from its owner has wreaked havoc on traffic…

Bull 1: hey that’s Ferit!

Bull 2: run my lion, run!

Bull [possibly Ferit]: brother I’m calling to wish you a happy bayram. It’s a sin to remain on bad terms on bayram…

Human: I’ll slaughter you, whatever it takes, I’ll find you and slaughter you!

Bull: You are my elder, I respect that.

Sheep 1: That cloud over there looks like a sheep with its head cut off.. doesn’t it?

Sheep 2: Your mental state has been getting worse as bayram is approaching.

Sheep: you’re now thinking “I wish I had slaughtered this asshole in bayram” aren’t you?

OK, so I switched out the curse word here for something else. The sheep is using the word “ipne” which is a derogatory term for gay people, but it’s only that in a narrow sense. In a broader sense it’s just derogatory, much in the way “bastard” isn’t necessarily about someone’s parents. I don’t think there’s any offense intended towards gay people here, so I included it.

I like the idea of the sacrificial animal cheating destiny, even turning the tables on its oppressor. It’s one of the ways these kinds of comics face the absurdity of daily life. It’s wild to think that due to historical contingencies (first panel), we all get up on a set day of the year, go to mosque before sunrise (men only), slaughter mammals of a certain type, then go spend time with our families (often while eating said animals).

The artistic convention here is to turn the animals into people, which gives us an upside-down view of bayram. Every artist worth his salt, after all, knows that that’s the way you have to look at something to represent it accurately. You draw the bayram you see, not the bayram you think you see.