Jump to content

Mustafa Olpak

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Racklever (talk | contribs) at 19:26, 10 October 2016 (Ref needed for death). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Mustafa Olpak (October 1953 in Ayvalık[1] - 4 October 2016 in İzmir[citation needed]) was an Afro-Turkish writer and activist. His book Kenya-Girit-İstanbul: Köle Kıyısından İnsan Biyografileri has been compared to Alex Haley's Roots.[1]

Biography

Olpak's ancestors, of Kikuyu ethnicity from today's Kenya,[2] were enslaved around the year 1890, brought to Crete and sold in Rethymno. Following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the family settled in Ayvalık.[3] Olpak married a Turkish woman named Sevgi in İzmir after his military service.[4]

In 2006, Olpak founded the first officially recognised organisation of Afro-Turks, the Africans' Culture and Solidarity Society (Afrikalılar Kültür ve Dayanışma Derneği) in Ayvalık.[5] The opening ceremony was attended by Ali Moussa Iye, the Chief of UNESCO Slave Routes Project.[6][7] A principal aim of the association is to promote studies of oral history of Afro-Turks, a community history of whom was usually ignored by official historiography in Turkey.

The Turkish film Arap Kızı Camdan Bakıyor[8] ("The Arab Girl Looks from the Window," released with the English title of Baa Baa Black Girl)[9] discusses how his grandfather was purchased as a household slave by a Turkish family, but later moved to Istanbul after the Turkish Revolution.[10]

Bibliography

  • Tariş Direnişleri ve 12 Eylül (Tariş Resistances and 12 September), with Sevgi Olpak[11]
  • Kölelikten Özgürlüğe: Arap Kadın Kemale (From Slavery to Freedom: "Arab" Woman Kemale) 2002
  • Kenya-Girit-İstanbul: Köle Kıyısından İnsan Biyografileri (Kenya-Crete-İstanbul: Human Biographies from the Slave Coast), İstanbul, Ozan Yayıncılık, 2005 ISBN 975-7891-80-0

Filmography

  • Arap Kızı Camdan Bakıyor ("The Arab Girl Looks from the Window," released in English as Baa Baa Black Girl), Director:,[12] Narrator: Mustafa Olpak,[13] 46', 2007, Turkey[14]

Notes