TURKEY AND ITS ROOTS, BRIEFLY
This time destination is home: the streets, the sky, the mountains, the sea; all the things I grew up with, or by, or on, or under. How I love visiting this land. It is such a rich universe with its people, Turkish, Kurdish, Laz, Circassian, Jewish, Armenian, Greek, Arab and many more; with its corresponding language variety, as you walk on the streets in Izmir, you may hear multiple languages some from tourists, but some from its residents; with its nature, savoring a sunset by the water, Aegean, is like no other; strolling in its wild life preserve, an open air zoo, is refreshing, hiking in its mountains is coming back home; and thinking of its history with its good and bad is eye opening to say the least.
Anatolia, on which Turkey and its peoples live has always had a logistically important place in history: Serving as a geographic bridge between Asia and Europe and even as a gateway to Africa from both, put Anatolia in a unique position throughout the history. Anatolia, home to the old cultures of antiquity, following the southern wave of the big migration out of Asia became the new home for the Turkic tribes of Central Asia moving toward the west. One of those tribes "Osmanogullari - The sons of Osman" grew to become the owner of the land, eventually overthrowing the unconquerable Byzantine Empire. Not only that (but also because of that), Ottomans grew to become an insatiable imperial power stretching its claws onto three continents, carving out as much land as possible, and ruling numerous peoples in its territories as other imperial powers of the old world, Spanish, British, Portuguese, French were sailing to and conquering the new world.
Turkey in red
I had read a book on Ottoman Empire, written by a British researcher, in which Istanbul, in her hay-day was described as the Paris, London, New York of today, cities that everybody would like to visit, live in, become part of to reach the most up to date art, science, business and politics. Istanbul was where numerous world languages were spoken, where numerous nationalities and ethnicities lived side by side, where everybody wanted to migrate to. Those were the days before the WWI, before allies invading Istanbul and before ethnic cleansing took place in an attempt to eliminate Ottoman-ness and replace it with Turkish-ness following the Turkish Independence War. I wish there could have been a way to preserve that rich, very rich diversity along with claiming and sustaining sovereignty. Although Istanbul's "world city" persona declined to a certain extent after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's significance remained due to its political conjuncture.
The next significant role Turkey played in world history was during WWII when it became the "limiting membrane" ahead of Hitler's Germany's expansion to outside of Europe to the south of the Black Sea. One good thing the Turkish administration of the time did to serve not only peoples of Turkey but probably the entire world also, was to play the game of politics in a very refined way with both sides of the equation between Churchill and Hitler. This kept Turkey out of WWII and saved allies the burden of having to fight Germany in yet another front.
Currently, Turkey is, one more time, rising (or pretending?) to become a "key player" in world history, now in the Middle East, the reality of which is arguable in my mind as we saw very clearly in the negotiations between the world and Syria that the current Turkish pri-minister attempted leading with no success. The Turkey of the last century, that had shaken off its past with its islamic socio-cultural identifiers, toward a more modern and enlightened future has gradually been forced to revert to that past under well planned, political agenda based on re-molding of the society back to an islamist one by the use of the educational system. This plan in fact has been in the process of implementation since after WWII under unfortunately the auspices and encouragement of the western "developed" world, yet another near-sighted foreign policy supported by administrations of post-WWII. The pace and patience and subtlety of this plan have always reminded me of those of "bolero"; invisible baby steps for several decades that escalated to moderately, visible moves for another couple of decades, still difficult to interpret for most of the society in terms of the major repercussions they bore within them, only appreciated by politically keen intellectual eyes and minds, finally topped with the last decade's marching of islamists to all layers of the state including the underground hidden state structure. I am curious about what I will hear this time from my brothers and friends about what is happening in Turkey politically lately.
With these thoughts I drift into sleep with my neighbor already snoring next to me: Quite unlike me but I end up sleeping pretty much most of the 10-hour flight from Chicago to Istanbul this time. Off and on, I think, I slept for about 6 hours. Probably because the flight left at 10 pm and after the service, when the lights were turned off, it was midnight central time and I was ready to go to sleep. As a result, I was quite energetic when our airbus landed in Istanbul, the only problem was that it was 4:30 pm Turkish time. When my brothers and sisters in law left my mother's apartment after our reunion dinner, it was 12 am with no sleep in my wide open eyes. However, with meditation, I was able to put myself to sleep probably around 12:30 am only to wake up at 3 am. It was around 6 am when I was able to drift back to sleep. At 9 am I woke up with calls from the "gevrekci" boys down on the streets. My mother's apartment building is in a pleasant neighborhood in Izmir. It is on a hill high enough to give us an almost panoramic view of the Izmir Bay from both the front and rear balconies of the apartment. There is a small neighborhood park, a school, and a tennis court in front of the apartment building, which provide an expanse of open space, unusual in an urban setting in large metropols of Turkey. The green space in the front, the hills around in the distance, beyond which is the Aegean make this apartment quite pleasant.
If not exactly this, it is pretty close to what we see from my mother's apartment, Izmir Bay in the distance
Every morning, boys from 8 to 18 years of age cover the streets of the city on foot selling a baked good called "gevrek" similar to bagel. They carry a wooden tray of 3 ft in diameter on their heads over a doughnut shaped soft cushion that enlarges the contact surface between the tray and their head. The tray is piled with gevreks. Gevrek with cheese is almost staple food for breakfast in Turkey, especially in Izmir. In other cities they sell baked goods similar to gevrek, a terrible shadow of it that they call simit, acma and other names, none of them tastes or feels like gevrek. The proof of that is that all of them are sold as "Izmir simit" or "Izmir acma" or "Izmir gevrek" to convince the buyer that it is as good as what you find in Izmir. As soon as you take a bite you know that it is not true.
This time destination is home: the streets, the sky, the mountains, the sea; all the things I grew up with, or by, or on, or under. How I love visiting this land. It is such a rich universe with its people, Turkish, Kurdish, Laz, Circassian, Jewish, Armenian, Greek, Arab and many more; with its corresponding language variety, as you walk on the streets in Izmir, you may hear multiple languages some from tourists, but some from its residents; with its nature, savoring a sunset by the water, Aegean, is like no other; strolling in its wild life preserve, an open air zoo, is refreshing, hiking in its mountains is coming back home; and thinking of its history with its good and bad is eye opening to say the least.
Anatolia, on which Turkey and its peoples live has always had a logistically important place in history: Serving as a geographic bridge between Asia and Europe and even as a gateway to Africa from both, put Anatolia in a unique position throughout the history. Anatolia, home to the old cultures of antiquity, following the southern wave of the big migration out of Asia became the new home for the Turkic tribes of Central Asia moving toward the west. One of those tribes "Osmanogullari - The sons of Osman" grew to become the owner of the land, eventually overthrowing the unconquerable Byzantine Empire. Not only that (but also because of that), Ottomans grew to become an insatiable imperial power stretching its claws onto three continents, carving out as much land as possible, and ruling numerous peoples in its territories as other imperial powers of the old world, Spanish, British, Portuguese, French were sailing to and conquering the new world.
I had read a book on Ottoman Empire, written by a British researcher, in which Istanbul, in her hay-day was described as the Paris, London, New York of today, cities that everybody would like to visit, live in, become part of to reach the most up to date art, science, business and politics. Istanbul was where numerous world languages were spoken, where numerous nationalities and ethnicities lived side by side, where everybody wanted to migrate to. Those were the days before the WWI, before allies invading Istanbul and before ethnic cleansing took place in an attempt to eliminate Ottoman-ness and replace it with Turkish-ness following the Turkish Independence War. I wish there could have been a way to preserve that rich, very rich diversity along with claiming and sustaining sovereignty. Although Istanbul's "world city" persona declined to a certain extent after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's significance remained due to its political conjuncture.
The next significant role Turkey played in world history was during WWII when it became the "limiting membrane" ahead of Hitler's Germany's expansion to outside of Europe to the south of the Black Sea. One good thing the Turkish administration of the time did to serve not only peoples of Turkey but probably the entire world also, was to play the game of politics in a very refined way with both sides of the equation between Churchill and Hitler. This kept Turkey out of WWII and saved allies the burden of having to fight Germany in yet another front.
Currently, Turkey is, one more time, rising (or pretending?) to become a "key player" in world history, now in the Middle East, the reality of which is arguable in my mind as we saw very clearly in the negotiations between the world and Syria that the current Turkish pri-minister attempted leading with no success. The Turkey of the last century, that had shaken off its past with its islamic socio-cultural identifiers, toward a more modern and enlightened future has gradually been forced to revert to that past under well planned, political agenda based on re-molding of the society back to an islamist one by the use of the educational system. This plan in fact has been in the process of implementation since after WWII under unfortunately the auspices and encouragement of the western "developed" world, yet another near-sighted foreign policy supported by administrations of post-WWII. The pace and patience and subtlety of this plan have always reminded me of those of "bolero"; invisible baby steps for several decades that escalated to moderately, visible moves for another couple of decades, still difficult to interpret for most of the society in terms of the major repercussions they bore within them, only appreciated by politically keen intellectual eyes and minds, finally topped with the last decade's marching of islamists to all layers of the state including the underground hidden state structure. I am curious about what I will hear this time from my brothers and friends about what is happening in Turkey politically lately.
With these thoughts I drift into sleep with my neighbor already snoring next to me: Quite unlike me but I end up sleeping pretty much most of the 10-hour flight from Chicago to Istanbul this time. Off and on, I think, I slept for about 6 hours. Probably because the flight left at 10 pm and after the service, when the lights were turned off, it was midnight central time and I was ready to go to sleep. As a result, I was quite energetic when our airbus landed in Istanbul, the only problem was that it was 4:30 pm Turkish time. When my brothers and sisters in law left my mother's apartment after our reunion dinner, it was 12 am with no sleep in my wide open eyes. However, with meditation, I was able to put myself to sleep probably around 12:30 am only to wake up at 3 am. It was around 6 am when I was able to drift back to sleep. At 9 am I woke up with calls from the "gevrekci" boys down on the streets. My mother's apartment building is in a pleasant neighborhood in Izmir. It is on a hill high enough to give us an almost panoramic view of the Izmir Bay from both the front and rear balconies of the apartment. There is a small neighborhood park, a school, and a tennis court in front of the apartment building, which provide an expanse of open space, unusual in an urban setting in large metropols of Turkey. The green space in the front, the hills around in the distance, beyond which is the Aegean make this apartment quite pleasant.
Every morning, boys from 8 to 18 years of age cover the streets of the city on foot selling a baked good called "gevrek" similar to bagel. They carry a wooden tray of 3 ft in diameter on their heads over a doughnut shaped soft cushion that enlarges the contact surface between the tray and their head. The tray is piled with gevreks. Gevrek with cheese is almost staple food for breakfast in Turkey, especially in Izmir. In other cities they sell baked goods similar to gevrek, a terrible shadow of it that they call simit, acma and other names, none of them tastes or feels like gevrek. The proof of that is that all of them are sold as "Izmir simit" or "Izmir acma" or "Izmir gevrek" to convince the buyer that it is as good as what you find in Izmir. As soon as you take a bite you know that it is not true.
gevrek, crunchy, warm waiting for a slice of turkish tulum cheese along with a glass of turkish tea
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