We saw the line between loving familiarity and being racist. We experienced moments when smiling at a person just because she/he’s familiar in terms of skin color is persistently underlined as not discrimination. We’ve heard from people, abused by the police due to their skin color, that what they experienced was not racism but ignorance. Just like the life itself, we’re on a subject where naming the definitions change from person to person. Despite causing differences in subjective basis, we’re at a point where familiarity of experienced unjust treatment bring people together and separate them. This place is Afro-Turks; Turks of African origin. It may sound different because its common expression is mostly “Arab”. However, especially young people prefer calling themselves “Turk of African origin” recently. Afro-Turks are descendants of those who came to Anatolia via slave trade or other means. Nowadays, not many things are available, belonging to the region where they came from, except for the skin color. The people who settled in Aegean and Mediterranean regions and adopted their cultures for hundreds of years may face problems just because their skin is black. Those who say that they haven’t encountered any problem are the one who have not left the town, neighborhood, in short local places they live. As we stated, it’s quite hard to mention about the customs that people of African origin brought today’s world; nevertheless, a wind from the past covers all around and brings them together. This wind is “Calf Fest” which is defined as a ritual for welcoming the spring. In fact, this fest had been celebrated in İzmir until the law on abolishment of lodges and small monasteries passed. It’s been told that this fest had been celebrated privately in 1950 in towns near Torbali. It was forgotten slowly after that date. Then celebrations began in Bayındır district of İzmir and this year, it was held for the sixth time by Afro-Turk Association. As it’s told; prominent people in Godya, an African community, purchased a calf by the money they collected and sacrificed it during the Calf Fest celebrations that lasted for three weeks. Fest in Bayındır is not more than a symbolic fest. People come together and have picnic on the third Saturday of May. Sacrificing calf is not carried out anymore. Performers and guests from various African Countries such as; Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Afro-Turks attended to this fest, getting more joyful ever year.
