KEBABBLE Gory matricide
fixates a nation By Fazile
Zahir
"There was a little girl who had
a little curl, Right in the middle of her
forehead, When she was good she was very very
good, But when she was bad she was horrid."
FETHIYE, Turkey - In Turkey, as all over
the world, women are expected to behave better
than men. Men who commit crimes are often regarded
as simple victims of their own appetites,
Neanderthal in their inability to exercise free
will when it comes to sex or violence while women
are their restraining influence. Women step in to
stop fights and make peace, they keep men under
monogamous pressure and loyal to home and children
and they bear the burden of imparting civility to
their potentially brutal
male offspring. They are
the moral cornerstones of society.
When a
man commits a crime this is an extension of his
masculinity but women offenders attract
disproportionate approbation not just for the act
they have committed but also because they breach
sacred notions of what it is to be female. Basak
Aydintug is an attractive 21-year-old law student
who has, in the last week, unbelievably managed to
garner nearly as many column inches and TV minutes
as the possible closure of the ruling Justice and
Development Party. Like Madonna she is referred to
by her first name only. What she did to merit this
extreme attention was kill her mother.
Basak raised the alarm around 4 am that
her mother, Olcay Aydintug, had been killed and
claimed that she had disturbed burglars as one of
them was astride her mother with a knife.
Examination of the crime scene by the police found
no signs of forced entry and Basak was taken into
custody. Within four hours she broke down and
confessed to slitting her mother’s throat and then
trying to kill herself (newspaper pictures showed
her with wounds to her own neck).
The media have investigated and presented every
aspect of her life and the fatal final argument that
she had with her mother. Sabah newspaper has
even reproduced and analyzed doodles that she drew
the day of the killing. She has been portrayed as
the attention-starved and deadly product of negligent
working parents. Raised with the help of her
grandparents from the age of four she suffered
from disturbed sleep patterns and black rages. Her
mother, a doctor who had worked as a psychiatric
assistant for three years, preferred to manage the
problems herself rather than seek outside
psychiatric help as she feared that Basak would be
labelled and stereotyped. The problems seemed
manageable until her teens when mother and father
(also a doctor) divorced and Basak's home life
fragmented. Although her mother had custody, the
long hours she worked meant that Basak spent more
time at her indulgent grandparents and perhaps
this fostered the beginnings of serious
resentment.
A letter written by her father
to the national press gives more clues as to the
dynamic between mother and daughter, "Olcay was an
excellent scientist and clinician but she had one
fault, she had very rigid rules ... it wasn't
possible to stop Olcay's hot temper ... university
is the chance to enjoy 'excessive freedom' and
become detached from one's studies and Basak fell
into this group. Her lessons came second but her
lack of academic success wore her down."
Olcay seems to have been a
harsh taskmaster with high expectations that
her daughter was failing to fulfill.
Basak's fortuneteller (interviewed in Sabah)
mentioned that she also had a traumatic lovelife, dumped
by the boy she loved and recently taking up
with a new boyfriend. The differences between
mother and daughter's attitudes must have been
exacerbated by the fact that Olcay came from a
broken home with an alcoholic father but had risen
above all this to marry a respectable, hardworking
man and to have become a nationally renowned
doctor at the top of her field.
However,
Basak's father says the two women remained drawn
to each other, "Olcay was always calling Basak to
come and stay with her. Generally, Basak could
only stand one night there and would then return
to her grandmother's house. But even though they
argued each time they were together Olcay would
continue to ask her over and Basak would go."
Basak's fortuneteller explained how she
was often sad for her mother and how hard she had
to work to make her living. Despite their problems
Olcay obviously occupied an exalted position in
Basak's psyche. But perhaps as strong as the love
she had for her mother was a similar level of
hostility and fear.
Basak explained to the
police that on the evening of the fatal assault
her mother had phoned her after 8 pm to find out
where she was. When she told her mother she had
lost her way after getting off the bus her mother
had called her a liar, a dog and a common
prostitute and warned her not to come home that
evening or it would be the worse for her.
Like an insect unable to resist the lure
of a Venus flytrap, Basak went to her mother's to
get her university books and a charm she had had
made for good luck. Though she was afraid of
Olcay's reaction, on her mother's question "So
exactly what have you been up to?" she told her
that she had spent the afternoon having another
amulet made to ensure success in her studies.
According to her statement her mother
called her "retarded" and told her, "You won't
finish a law degree like this, you'd have trouble
even finishing a home study course." Olcay then
went to bed and a short time later Basak went into
her mother's room, sat on the bed, and cut her
throat.
Psychiatric explanations as to why
a woman might murder her mother are indications of
a high rate of mental illness, mainly depressive
or psychotic disorders. The risk of parricide
increases with the presence of unidentified or
untreated mental illness. Basak's father's letter
stated that she had been receiving psychiatric
help but never lasted long with any one doctor and
that she didn't take the medicines prescribed with
any regularity.
Her fortuneteller said she
had seen Basak take up to eight or nine Seroxat in
one day - as opposed to the prescribed one per day
- and to wash them down with alcohol. Basak's
father stressed that despite her problems she had
never shown any tendency to violence but that,
like her mother, she had a strong temper and when
she was angry never knew how to modulate her
voice.
Neighbors confirmed his statement
saying that in the weeks before the murder they
had heard Basak screaming at her mother, "I'm your
only child, you should do everything for me, you
earn enough ... why won't you buy me a car?"
Basak displayed elements of behavior that
may have been caused by brain dysfunction. Her
impulsive and demanding behavior and the
uninhibited relationships with men can be
indicative of frontal lobe problems.
In
fact Basak's murder of her mother shows many of
the characteristics of parricide, most
perpetrators are under the age of 30, the events
almost always take place in the parent's home, the
child often lives with the victim and the
murderers frequently use painful methods and
excessive violence when committing the murder.
Academic studies into matricide (from
Canada in 2007) suggest that daughters who kill
their mothers are invariably schizophrenic and
that 17% of offenders attempt suicide after the
offense. Although matricide by daughters is
extremely rare, in most cases where these occur
the mother and daughter live alone together and
the mother is domineering. The mother-daughter
relationship is characterized by mutual hostility
and dependence.
On the lengthy list of
crimes, matricide is perhaps the rarest and most
abhorred. The status of mothers in society is
sacrosanct, every imaginable device is employed to
defend their inviolability. Ancient and modern
religions elevated them to godhood; Mother's Day
is set apart for honoring them, and the swear
words which declare her derogation are the most
violently reacted to of all. Cynics might say that
mothers need all these safeguards because they
inspire fear and animosity in equal measure to
love. The fact that Basak broke all these
taboos - and the gory method she used to kill - go
some way to explain the extraordinary amount of
attention she has received. However, it's
certainly not the whole story. The day after
Olcay's murder another lady, Sebahat Gulbeyaz, was
slashed to death by her daughter, Benal Sonmez,
who subsequently hid her mother's head and arm in
a box.
Benal, too, was receiving
psychiatric care and also lived at home with her
mother, but here the similarities end. Basak is
attractive even in her prison clothes, slim and
willowy with long blond tresses that fall
delicately round her pretty face. Benal is dumpy,
puffy faced and has a conservative hairstyle.
Olcay was a middle class professional, an
attractive and well-maintained 53-year-old with
shiny black hair in a neat bob. Sebahat looked
careworn and old and covered her hair with a thick
black headscarf. Benal has not engaged much public
attention, nor has her mother.
Olcay has
received post-mortem exhortations as to her
brilliance as a person and doctor; Basak will
probably have a film made about her. It seems that
the Turkish media, as well as being obsessed by
cases of women turned bad also has a taste for the
most photogenic murderesses.
Fazile Zahir is of
Turkish descent, born and brought up in London.
She moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been
writing full time since then.
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