I remember reading this article about Turkey in
the Economist in 2010. I was reminded of it during a recent trip to Istanbul. I
was required to give a presentation in Turkey’s most secular city on a Tuesday
so I agreed with Sandie that we’d go there for a long weekend beforehand. Once
grandparents had agreed to lend their child supervising support, we started to
look forward to a childfree weekend for the first time in a number of years. After successfully
installing children in Biarritz we then headed off to Turkey via Paris.
The trip passed off without any real incident, the only scandal being when we realized that the air miles I had used for Sandie’s ticket entitled her to a more privileged seat, and meal, on the second flight. In typical woman of the 21 century style Sandie did not forgo the experience and lapped up the extra benefits whilst I slummed it back in cattle class. Naturally I bemoaned the whole situation on Facebook but I found little moral support from my oldest childhood friends. In actual fact Sandie had done a super job preparing the whole weekend (not just the flights). Essentially she had planned a half-day “classic” visit on the Saturday with dinner in the evening, a full day “off the beaten track” visit on the Sunday complete with Albanian slum villages and local car boot sales, and an easy day on Monday with more walking, shops and a birthday present for me. We stuck almost perfectly to that plan, except for the birthday present. When we did a quick cross check with the guide book on the way home we’d realized that we’d done pretty much everything they had suggested (and more)… the pain in my feet definitely testified to that.
The first day we were guided by a young 25-year-old secular Muslim called Salih who had taught himself a very respectable level of English without ever having left the country. We spent the second day with the 37-year-old pony-tailed Potal who said that he and his (delightful) wife had decided that they would not have children in Turkey given the current state of the country. Both were very secular and extremely hard working. Both were very opinionated, but in a very good and passionate way.
A number of things struck me as we visited the city and as they taught us many interesting things about both Istanbul and the country at large. The first is that as a Western European I found more reference points, and felt more at home, in Istanbul than I had in places such as Bucharest, Budapest and Bratislava. As much as I genuinely like Eastern Europe, this felt more like Paris or London. Except that maybe the Turkish people were friendlier and more pleasant. Maybe it was their greater sense of pride in being Turkish and Istanbulites? Maybe it is because they don’t take so much for granted? Atatürk only established the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The 10 years after that saw a steady process of secular Westernization through Atatürk's Reforms, which included the unification of education; the discontinuation of religious and other titles; the closure of Islamic courts and the replacement of Islamic canon law with a secular civil code; the recognition of the equality between the sexes and the granting of full political rights to women on 5 December 1934; language reform; replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with the new Turkish alphabet derived from the Latin alphabet, and the reform of the dress law (including the outlawing of the wearing of a fez). Turkey is very much a new country.
On the other hand everything felt very raw. Salih and Potal were, like everyone else we came into contact with, very nice. But you didn’t have to dig deep before you touched upon their passionately held views. Every time the question, “when you’re having dinner with your friends, what are the major topics of conversation?” was asked, it was clear you had opened up a real Pandora’s box… In parallel to this overt friendliness there was also a very real feeling that things could boil over at any stage – the 10 buses of armed police on a Sunday afternoon near the government buildings lying ready in case anything happened, or the 3 full buses of riot police on Saturday evening encircling a peaceful demonstration of about 20 people objecting to Russia’s activities in the Caucuses, all belied tension and fear. Despite what the western media tell us, the recent riots in Taksim Square (where we had our hotel) were absolutely not because of the uprooting of some trees. I also doubt that the unrest in Ankara last week was caused by proposed disruptions to a critical migration route for birds (sic). The riots are as a result of a generation of passionate Turks who believe Erdogan is incompetent, and that he is doing everything he can to remove the liberties, freedoms and rights that are not even 100 years old as he seeks to establish himself as a new type of Sultan. I believe this because Potal and Salih helped me see an alternative view to that which is often reported at home. Potal also explained to me all the reasons why he participated in the demonstrations and how the tear gas the police used on them must have been “special tear gas” (read chemical weapons), because he still has not recovered his sense of smell since the incident earlier this year. He also explained to me how they are using Facebook (even more effective than Twitter apparently) to organize their demonstrations and revolutions, and at how the government are so inept at trying to counteract their digital efforts. Yet he also talked about how frustrated he became when the demonstrations started to feel more like a Sunday afternoon picnic and social voyeurism. His struggle, and that of many Turks like him, is real. And let me remind you not to be fooled by his ponytail. Polat is a 37-year-old entrepreneur who works close to 80 hours a week if not more. Maybe I am naïve, but it seems like the fight that Polat and his contemporaries are fighting to protect their livelihood and their nascent democracy, is different to the Parisian demonstrations to protect the 35-hour working week.
As our all day Sunday day trip finished after dinner, we said goodbye to the other (mainly American Jewish) tourists. Potal invited me to go for a few beers with him and his wife. I was amused by the fact that after a few beers we would normally finish the evening with a donner kebab, however the Turks don’t actually do that – they typically stop and have a bowl of sheep soup (feet and all, therefore I preferred the safer lentil option) before heading home. However by the time I stumbled back to the hotel around 2AM my overriding thought was that we are both the same age, that we both have the same preoccupations (work, children, the future), but yet we have such different lives, and all that because of the luck of being born in an English speaking Western European country. I wished Potal and his wife well on their struggle and I invited them to the South of France (they are particularly interested in doing the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage). As I did that however I was scared that if they did come, maybe they’d see the apathy and laziness in many Western European democracies. I feared that that might take the edge off their fight today, and that that in turn might allow Erdogan be even more successful in his quest for power…
The trip passed off without any real incident, the only scandal being when we realized that the air miles I had used for Sandie’s ticket entitled her to a more privileged seat, and meal, on the second flight. In typical woman of the 21 century style Sandie did not forgo the experience and lapped up the extra benefits whilst I slummed it back in cattle class. Naturally I bemoaned the whole situation on Facebook but I found little moral support from my oldest childhood friends. In actual fact Sandie had done a super job preparing the whole weekend (not just the flights). Essentially she had planned a half-day “classic” visit on the Saturday with dinner in the evening, a full day “off the beaten track” visit on the Sunday complete with Albanian slum villages and local car boot sales, and an easy day on Monday with more walking, shops and a birthday present for me. We stuck almost perfectly to that plan, except for the birthday present. When we did a quick cross check with the guide book on the way home we’d realized that we’d done pretty much everything they had suggested (and more)… the pain in my feet definitely testified to that.
The first day we were guided by a young 25-year-old secular Muslim called Salih who had taught himself a very respectable level of English without ever having left the country. We spent the second day with the 37-year-old pony-tailed Potal who said that he and his (delightful) wife had decided that they would not have children in Turkey given the current state of the country. Both were very secular and extremely hard working. Both were very opinionated, but in a very good and passionate way.
A number of things struck me as we visited the city and as they taught us many interesting things about both Istanbul and the country at large. The first is that as a Western European I found more reference points, and felt more at home, in Istanbul than I had in places such as Bucharest, Budapest and Bratislava. As much as I genuinely like Eastern Europe, this felt more like Paris or London. Except that maybe the Turkish people were friendlier and more pleasant. Maybe it was their greater sense of pride in being Turkish and Istanbulites? Maybe it is because they don’t take so much for granted? Atatürk only established the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The 10 years after that saw a steady process of secular Westernization through Atatürk's Reforms, which included the unification of education; the discontinuation of religious and other titles; the closure of Islamic courts and the replacement of Islamic canon law with a secular civil code; the recognition of the equality between the sexes and the granting of full political rights to women on 5 December 1934; language reform; replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with the new Turkish alphabet derived from the Latin alphabet, and the reform of the dress law (including the outlawing of the wearing of a fez). Turkey is very much a new country.
On the other hand everything felt very raw. Salih and Potal were, like everyone else we came into contact with, very nice. But you didn’t have to dig deep before you touched upon their passionately held views. Every time the question, “when you’re having dinner with your friends, what are the major topics of conversation?” was asked, it was clear you had opened up a real Pandora’s box… In parallel to this overt friendliness there was also a very real feeling that things could boil over at any stage – the 10 buses of armed police on a Sunday afternoon near the government buildings lying ready in case anything happened, or the 3 full buses of riot police on Saturday evening encircling a peaceful demonstration of about 20 people objecting to Russia’s activities in the Caucuses, all belied tension and fear. Despite what the western media tell us, the recent riots in Taksim Square (where we had our hotel) were absolutely not because of the uprooting of some trees. I also doubt that the unrest in Ankara last week was caused by proposed disruptions to a critical migration route for birds (sic). The riots are as a result of a generation of passionate Turks who believe Erdogan is incompetent, and that he is doing everything he can to remove the liberties, freedoms and rights that are not even 100 years old as he seeks to establish himself as a new type of Sultan. I believe this because Potal and Salih helped me see an alternative view to that which is often reported at home. Potal also explained to me all the reasons why he participated in the demonstrations and how the tear gas the police used on them must have been “special tear gas” (read chemical weapons), because he still has not recovered his sense of smell since the incident earlier this year. He also explained to me how they are using Facebook (even more effective than Twitter apparently) to organize their demonstrations and revolutions, and at how the government are so inept at trying to counteract their digital efforts. Yet he also talked about how frustrated he became when the demonstrations started to feel more like a Sunday afternoon picnic and social voyeurism. His struggle, and that of many Turks like him, is real. And let me remind you not to be fooled by his ponytail. Polat is a 37-year-old entrepreneur who works close to 80 hours a week if not more. Maybe I am naïve, but it seems like the fight that Polat and his contemporaries are fighting to protect their livelihood and their nascent democracy, is different to the Parisian demonstrations to protect the 35-hour working week.
As our all day Sunday day trip finished after dinner, we said goodbye to the other (mainly American Jewish) tourists. Potal invited me to go for a few beers with him and his wife. I was amused by the fact that after a few beers we would normally finish the evening with a donner kebab, however the Turks don’t actually do that – they typically stop and have a bowl of sheep soup (feet and all, therefore I preferred the safer lentil option) before heading home. However by the time I stumbled back to the hotel around 2AM my overriding thought was that we are both the same age, that we both have the same preoccupations (work, children, the future), but yet we have such different lives, and all that because of the luck of being born in an English speaking Western European country. I wished Potal and his wife well on their struggle and I invited them to the South of France (they are particularly interested in doing the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage). As I did that however I was scared that if they did come, maybe they’d see the apathy and laziness in many Western European democracies. I feared that that might take the edge off their fight today, and that that in turn might allow Erdogan be even more successful in his quest for power…
