NOTES FROM TURKEY
Barry Yourgrau
Huffington Post, NY
Posted September 10, 2007 | 12:57 PM (EST)
A couple of weeks of the hard life on Turkey’s Aegean coast. We’re
north of Bodrum, the Turkish Riviera resort that the Ertegun brothers
of Atlantic Records fame helped make very popular, and very crowded.
But here where we are is away from the mobs, on the other side of the
peninsula. On waking, clump down from the house past the bougainvillea,
down the rocky slope of olive trees and flower-speckled shrubs to the
private jetty, and flop in. You’re splashing in the sea of Homer,
pretty much. Or rather, Herodotus, who was from Bodrum when it was
known as Halicarnassus in Ionia. The Aegean being saltier than the
rest of the Mediterrean, you float without effort.
Maybe not paradise. But pretty close.
We’re guests of our friends Engin and Nuri. She, for want of a better
phrase, is the grande dame of Turkish cuisine; he’s a business
tycoon. All the other Scrabble players and novel readers on the
jetty are wealthy, too. And distinctly cosmopolitan. An Iranian-born
international finance type from Washington, D.C., another from Pakistan
with Russian houseguests; high-power Turkish lawyers who studied
in the States and do work for Murdoch; Turkish writers and artists,
including an internationally known novelist and singer; a Libyan-born
Italian from Istanbul married to yachting Englishman. Et cetera.
Not our regular social set; but hey, live and let live under this
lazing sun.
Disliking Bush?
I wouldn’t say people here "dislike" Bush. Feelings range more
accurately from resigned or toughened disgust (Turkish businessmen)
to a state of permanent, barely coherent rage (the foreigners),
which flares daily with updates from the Herald Trib or Newsweek
International or on Al Jazeera/English on cable.
But the only truly virulent anti-Americanism so far has come from a
prominent radical English movie producer, I’ll call her Sarah, here
on her way to take Engin’s cooking classes a couple hours inland. We
were all agreeing with her happily until she badmouthed Monterey Jack
cheese, which for us is really crossing a certain line. After she left
(she was fine company, generally), we fell to yacking about the ill
effects of English class consciousness — Sarah being ferociously,
but also vulnerably, working class. How happy the Brits we know in
America are, despite Bush, to be out of England.
Sarah herself raised a particular political stigma for the UK regarding
Iraq, over and above America’s: What’s to be done about a government
that went to war despite the overwhelming opposition of its citizens?
What does this mean for a "democracy?"
Turkey’s Issues
The Turkish contingent here have their own political
preoccupations. Many businessmen voted for the AKP, the triumphant
so-called "moderate" Islamic party, in the July elections. AKP is
conservative and very business friendly, the main champions of the
push to join EU. But everyone on the jetty is nervous what this will
lead to socially. Turkey’s parliament will be voting on changes to the
constitution that might whittle at the precious heritage of Turkish
secularism. Headscarves, for instance, are banned from official
public buildings. With cooperation from Turkey’s main nationalist
party (conservative too, albeit secular and ultra-nationalist,
historically), AKP probably has the votes now to lift this longstanding
prohibition. So the headscarved wife of newly elected President
Gul will not cause a ruckus (she’s getting a fashion jazz-up by an
Austrian designer, by the way).
The fear is that all this will be a thin end of the wedge to patiently
Islamic-ize public life. Secular Turks feel squeezed between the
encroaching rock of Islamicism on the one side, and the interventions
of the army, which is secular but also at least quasi-fascist, on
the other. The fear is one will have to pick one’s poison.
The other issue here, not widely spoken of, but explosive, could turn
Turkey very anti-American overnight. The U.S. Congress has on hand an
Armenian genocide resolution. The Anti-Defamation League in America
has long opposed it, for reasons of Israel’s alliance with Turkey. But
recently the ADL allowed that the term genocide indeed applies. This
is a matter is of extraordinary sensitivity to most Turks, secular
or religious, who feel no unambiguous genocide took place. Given
America’s moral standing these days, any such resolution would be
seen as the most provocative and insulting hypocrisy and intrusion.
Even champions of genocide acknowledgment among Turkish Armenians, such
as murdered journalist Hrant Dink have felt outsider pronouncements
are counter-productive. I’ll be writing more about this upcoming.
Blue Voyage
But back to sunny things. It’s big sailing country here, and one of
the pleasures is Blue Voyage — lazing along the coast for a few days
in a boat (either your own or a rented one). You anchor in a quiet
cove and spend the day loafing in the water and the night on deck,
after cok (much) raki, sleeping under the stars, with the Milky Way
adrift overhead like a hazy old superhighway.
On days when the wind blows, though, any open-water crossings back to
port can be adventures in seasickness. I’m told that ginger capsules
can help.
Should have packed some.
And tomorrow is September 11…
Thanks to Uber.com, where this piece appears on my blog, Brain Flakes.
Also appearing on Smirkingchimp.com.