First Day of Class

Today I (mostly) took a break from sight-seeing.  It was the first day of my 4-week language course... my reason for coming to Istanbul in the first place.  The class was hard to say the least.  It is mostly speaking, which I hope will help me with day to day stuff here. 

After class, in search of a new Turkish-English dictionary, I walked down Istiklal Blvd., a major street which begins at Taksim square.  Istiklal is a shopping/tourist district best described as Boston's Newbury Street on LSD.  A mass of tourist traps, high end shops, American chain stores and street vendors where people watchers can spot scruffy American backpackers, Arabian Gulf royalty and everyone in between.  Istiklal is located in Beyoglu, is surrounded by tiny, winding streets which seem to be more densely packed with structures than elsewhere in the city.  This district started off as the home of Genoese merchants and has long been defined by the Galata tower which defiantly rises up from the tangle of streets below.  It was built by the Genoese in 1348 and served as a watchtower for most of its existence.

In current events, good news and bad news.  In good news, they have detained someone in connection with the bomb that went off last Wednesday.  In bad news, the convoy of the Prime Minister and his entourage was attacked again, this time by protesters after an election rally for his party (which is expected to win).  I'm hoping the American media picks up the story so I can find out what exactly they were protesting.  The Turkish media is relatively free, but as I wrote before, laws make it easy for the state to prosecute (and persecute) reporters who run afoul of it.  This may explain why the article from the Turkish paper makes no mention of the protester's motives.

And now, to lighten the mood, a sokak kedi on my balcony.

Bosphorus Walk Part 2

Yesterday, I walked north up the Bosphorus from Arnavutkoy.  It was finally sunny and warm, your stereotypical Mediterranean weather.  I visited the enormous Fortress of Europe, built by Mehmet the Conqueror during his campaign against Constantinople.  Its walls and towers climb up the steep hill on the European side of the narrowest part of the Bosphorus.  Across from the Fortress of Europe is the Fortress of Asia, its smaller and older twin.  As you can see, visitors are allowed to climb up the narrow, unguarded stairways and walk along the ramparts... which of course would never happen in the US.

While at the fortress, I had one of those "small world" incidents.  I ran across a woman who I knew from a Turkish class I took in DC who now works at the American Consulate here.  She was at the fortress with her husband and very pregnant belly taking pictures before she gives birth.  She is one of two people I know in Istanbul, and it was crazying running into her.  We escaped the heat and caught up at a cafe.

I then walked up to the little town of Istinye which has its own mini bay.  This is a view of the second Bosphorus bridge from Istinye (you can also see the bridge in the fortress pictures).

I caught a bus back to Arnavutkoy and spent some time wandering around its steep, winding streets.  Many of these streets end in narrow alleys or steep steps and are therefore better suited to foot than car traffic.  Tomorrow I am moving across the straight to a neighborhood called Kadikoy.  I hope it is as pretty as Arnavutkoy.

Change of Plans

I previously wrote that yesterday I planned to walk north along the Bosphorus from my hostel... only to subsequently remember May 29 was the anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul by the Turks in 1453.  In honor of the holiday, I decided instead to go to the old city and see the Hagia Sophia and some sites related to the conquest.

This gate is literally the "Sublime Porte", the entrance to Topkapi Palace from which the Sultans and their Viziers governed the empire.



I didn't go in the palace, but instead walked around Gulhane park.  This was once the palace's rose garden and is now wooded and open to the public.  I walked up to a high point and had Turkish tea overlooking the place where the Golden horn and Bosphorus meet.

The Hagia Sophia is a place I've always dreamed of visiting.  Built by the great Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 537, its age alone makes it remarkable.  Even now, its grand scale is stunning. Combined with its colorful and intricately detailed interior, it did not fail to live up to my expectations.  No descriptions can really do it justice, it is a place everyone should see for themselves, even sokak kedis.

I next took the metro up to the old city walls, which had held off invaders for 1000 years until Mehmet the Conqueror.  I even found a plaque at one of the old gates commemorating the conquest.  I walked through the gate and followed the street down to the Fatih Mosque where Mehmet himself is buried.  I found a large crowd gathered in the grounds of the mosque.  Most Ottoman sultans and their families were buried in large sarcophagi, which are then covered in cloth and placed in the center of round mausoleums.  Inside Mehmet's tomb there were a dozen or more people praying for the sultan. It was quite interesting to witness, commoners sitting next to an emperor, praying for his soul. 

On my way from Fatih Mosque to the nearest tram stop I ran across a few more interesting sites. The Valens Aqueduct which was built in the 4th century supplied the city with its water supply until the late 19th century.  You can see in the photo that it crosses a major road, necessitating cars to drive under it. 

 

The column of Marcian was built in the 5th century and derives its name from a statue of the Byzantine Emperor Marcian that used to stand on top.

The Prince's mosque was built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in honor of a favorite son who died of disease at the age of 21. 

Istanbul is so packed full of significant, old and/or beautiful things even with a month here I'm sure I won't be able to even start to take it all in!  I will update on today later this evening.

Bosphorus walk part 1

I am currently staying in a gorgeous little neighborhood called Arnavutkoy, situatued about a third of the way up the Bosphorus.  My Turkish classes are starting Monday and are located about 3 miles away in Taksim.  Despite the overcast skys and light rain, I decided to take a walk down the Bosphorus, eventually making my way to Taksim.  My goal was to purchase a transport pass and find my way back to Aranvutkoy via public transportation.

Arnavutkoy is a tiny clump of twisted roads squeezed between a steep hill and the straight.  It has dozens of gorgeous yalis, wooden houses along the shore line which date to the 19th century or earlier.  Many of these ornate structures have elsewhere disapeared and even those in Arnavutkoy are peeling and worn.  Boats boats crowd along the concrete sea wall, competing for space with the dozens of fishermen collecting tiny fish on their multi-hook lines.

Heading south, I walked under the Bosphorus bridge, one of two huge suspension bridges that span the waterway. Just south of the bridge is Ortakoy, another little seaside neighborhood with a gorgeous 19th century mosque and streetside vendors catering to tourists.  It is located on a little clump of land sticking out into the water, giving it great views of the surrounding area.

Two massive, ornate palaces are located along the waterfront.  First I encountered the gates of Ciragan, a 19th century palace which is now a luxury hotel.

 Next I saw the massive gates and walls Dolmabahce Palace, which served as the seat of government for some of the last Ottoman Sultans.  It is now a museum but I decided (due to its hefty price tag) to put off visiting till later.  Its side gates were bizaarly guarded by soldiers in glass boxes (though when I passed later on the bus, the soliders were gone).

I found that just past Dolmabahce is Kabatas, a major transportation hub with access to Taksim square to its north via the Funikular, one of several one stop rail lines in Istanbul.  The Funikular acts as sort of an underground, less steep incline train, bringing you up from the water front to Taksim. I searched for a bus map, schedule or anything resembling this to no avail.  However, the buses have the major stops on their route listed on their windows.  With a little luck, I found a bus the stops just down from my hostel, thus solving my current transportation issues.

Tomorrow, as long as the weather holds out, I plan on walking north along the Bosphorus and taking some more pictures of Arnavutkoy. And now, for Andrea, a picture of a sokak kedi stalking pigeons in Ortakoy.

Sensory Overload

Layers upon layers of buildings, roads, rubble, and people.  Old, new and everything in between piled on top of one another.  There is so much to take in, I want to take pictures of everything, but my better instincts are restraining me.

I arrived at Ataturk international airport at about 930am local time today.  I am going to be writing about Ataturk and his position as a demagogue in Turkey when I return so I was curious to see how he was represented at his namesake airport.  Surprisingly, I only saw one large (but unobtrusive) portrait as I was exiting the terminal.  The airport was dominated by advertisements and shopping venues- no different than those in the US.  On my way to my hostel, I also noticed many billboards bearing English words and slogans and my taxi driver was listening to a song with English lyrics (I believe it was American, but I didn't recognize it). Perhaps this all says something about the outlook of modern Turkey.

Despite the trappings of modernity, the city has an undoubtedly ancient feel to it.  Minarets are still a dominant feature of the skyline.  The call to prayer goes out like clockwork, a hauntingly beautiful sound.  Men sell twisted bread, holding their wares on wooden planks attached to long poles so customers can see them coming.  Narrow streets at 45 degree angles twist and plunge toward the Bosporus. 

One of the most interesting things (for me) is observing how the ancient and the modern coexist.  I saw one of the above mentioned bread sellers at a busy merge point on the highway.  Glass towers rise next to homemade concrete structures and crumbling wooden buildings.  An advertisement for stilettos shares a corner with a pink minaret and banners in support of the Republican People's party (the party of Ataturk, but not currently in power).

My wonder and enthusiasm was tamped down a bit by a New York Times article in my inbox today.  There was a (relatively) small bombing in an Istanbul shopping district yesterday morning that wounded 8 people.  This comes in the wake of a recent possible assassination attempt on the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,which killed a member of his convoy and a bombing last year in Taksim Sqaure, a major transportation and cultural center.  Erdogan is blaming Kurdish separatists for this bombing, which is a fair assessment considering the heirs to the PKK have taken responsibility for the convoy attack.  I just hope the violence doesn't begin to escalate in the next weeks leading up to the election.

In other political news, today was apparently the 51st anniversary of the first of several coups Turkey experienced during the 20th century.  The army has, for most of the history of the Turkish Republic, been widely regarded as the guardians of democracy.  For years Turks have cited it as their country's most trusted institution.  Recently however the army's power and popularity has been greatly diminished.  Military officials are currently standing trial for allegedly planning a coup and today's anniversary was marked with protests.  This is an important demonstration of the fact that not only has the state gotten the upper hand against the military but that, unlike in the past, even if a coup was staged it would not have the kind of public support past coups have been given.

In lighter news, I had a visitor this evening. I heard bells on my balcony, and opened the door to find this little sokak kedi (street cat).  He proceeded to waltz in, take a comfortable seat on my bed and start purring like a machine.  No wonder my allergies have been acting up since I got here.

The "Turkish Model"

The "Turkish Model" of government has been all over the news lately due to the regime changes throughout the Arab world.  Hugh Pope, one of the best contemporary, non-academic writers on Turkey recently wrote a great article talking about the strengths of the Turkish system.  I have been sceptical about the feasibility of transplanting the "Turkish Model" into the Arab world.  There are multiple problems with trying to en masse apply the government of one country to another. In the case of Turkish system specifically, the biggest obstacle to its wide spread adoption in the Arab world is Turkey's official, and strictly enforced, secularity.  Turkish secularism is different from the American concept of the separation of Church (or Mosque) and State, where the government protects religious expression impartially.  Instead, Ataturk borrowed the French take on secularism, called laicite in France and laiklik in Turkey, where the government controls religious expression and prevents it from entering the public space.  When this style of secularism was implemented in Turkey, it was an extreme break with the traditional role of Islam in public life and was only successful because of the untouchable position of Ataturk and the population's inability to mobilize.  Any attempt to implement this kind of wholesale cleansing of Islam from public life would certainly not be tolerated in the Arab Middle East today.
However, viewed in a wider sense, the "Turkish System" is one that other Middle Eastern countries would be wise to emulate.  The Turkish Republic grown and changed since its founding, and largely for the better.  It has become a uniquely Turkish form of democracy that has the support of the vast majority of the population.  Turks want to work within the system, not overthrow it.  Arab countries need to plant the essential elements of a democracy- elections, freedom press and speech, etc.- and to an extent allow them to be amended and shaped by the citizens.  As the example of Turkey illustrates, popularly supported democracies are not created through copy and paste methods, but through organic growth.

Freedom of Press in Turkey

Though the current Turkish constitution technically guarantees freedom of speech, it also allows for the government to curtail this freedom.  Freedom of speech is no where without restriction but the categories of restricted speech in Turkey are particularly broad and vague.  For example, it is illegal to insult "Turkishness" or the person of Ataturk, the founder of the modern Republic of Turkey.  A broad definition of what it means to insult "Turkishness" in particular is used to prosecute intellectuals, artists and others who draw the ire of the state. Prominent examples include the novelists Elif Safak and  Orhan Pamukand the assassinated activist Hrant Dink.
In the past few years, the government has has used these laws and others as excuses to ban internet sites.  YouTube was banned for two years and google blogger, this blog site, was banned from the first week in March until just a few weeks ago.  Now the government is considering making internet filters mandatory.  Though they claim the filters will give the option of unfiltered content, the Turkish people have every reason to suspect otherwise. 
Turkey is no where near the level of censorship that occurs in places like China and its citizens are much more willing and able to demand their rights via protest.  However, this trend of censorship is a slippery slope.  Freedom of press and speech are basic to any healthy and functioning democracy.  Without them, free elections are not possible.  It will be interesting to see if there is an increase in internet censorship as the June election approaches.

Merhaba Turkiye

For those of you who don't know me, hi I'm Claire and I'm one year in to a two year Masters degree program at Boston University.  My focus is religion and society in Turkey and the Middle East.  For the past year, I have been in the somewhat awkward position of studying Turkey without ever actually having been there.  Fortunately, that will soon change.  I will be living and learning Turkish in Istanbul from May 26 to June 30.  I will be posting pictures and updates not only about my experiences but also current events in Turkey.  June 2011 should prove to be an interesting time to be in Turkey as there is a general election scheduled for June 12, which could open the way for changes to the Turkish Constitution that would make it more fair and democratic.  The NGO behind the Mavi Marmara's voyage to Gaza last June has scheduled a sequel for exactly one year later.  I hope to not only improve my Turkish language skills but also gain some insight into the current state of Turkish politics and society.  In the United States, Turkey is largely misunderstood and its importance in current geopolitics, economics and culture vastly underestimated.  I hope this blog will help in some small way to debunk stereotypes and stimulate an interest in this multi-dimensional, contradictory and fascinating country.