Image Problems and Topography

Turkey, and Istanbul particularly, benefits from the East meets West image of the region, so much that it trades in stereotypes. The food is a proud mix of West Asian and European cuisines, the people are all sorts of tan and brown colors, and the area is even called Asia Minor. Turkey is a fascinating mixture of disparate cultures and languages (now), but the problem is exactly that it’s a mixture, not a solution. The people are friendly in the park forums, but there are severe cleavages in Turkish society. Ethnic, social and religious groups identify themselves by their Turkish narrative, but there is only some overlap in the narratives and completely different readings of Turkey’s history.

Sometimes what we've seen in the political arena is less East meets West, and more East vs. West.

What I expected in Istanbul was some glistening oasis straddling the Mediterranean, which I immediately found wrong, having not consulted a map, apparently. The vibrant Europe I expected was replaced by neighborly köys. The quaint Turkish villages I expected were replaced by incredible traffic and businessmen.  The Islam I expected was confronted by demands for a more secular state, but the secularism I expected is 99% Muslim. This all speaks to my surprising ignorance of everything, especially of the Middle East as it actually exists, but it also speaks to the availability of completely different, authentic Turkish experiences. 

It was made clear to me that the other American interns at Mazlumder had seen a different Turkey and had a slightly skewed image of what was going in Turkey. They were staying in Fatih, the most conservative part of Istanbul, and had to get picked up and dropped off at work. They were losing their minds from the closure and I think that losing the opportunity to wander around and stare or be stared at depressed them. One of their coordinators said there were no good places in Istanbul to drink. That wasn't a joke he told, he outright stated that drinking was not commonplace. 

As I previously hyperlinked, Erdogan has gone on record denying that the national drink is a liquor called rakı, and instead this salty yogurt drink, ayran, and some recent laws have attempted to constrict the drinking culture, but what? People get drunk in Istanbul. There are many liquor stores and the cheap beer is safer to drink than tap water. And even though it's Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) in a majority Muslim state, the bars are by no means empty. That doesn't speak to Turkey as a whole, but you're in Istanbul, the New York (and New York exceptionalism) of Turkey. It's different here, but people argue endlessly about the nature and legitimacy of this difference.

One of the ways you can clearly see the cleavages in society is touring through the town. Fatih has all the ancient mosques and Ottoman and Byzantine buildings with engravings of ancient architects and visiting mathematicians, and the like. If you walked around all day in Fatih and never left (could never leave), as many tourists do, you would think the nation is full of observant Muslims, beautiful and ancient architecture and cheap, knock-off items like you'd find on Canal Street. 

On the other hand, I walked up past my little neighborhood to Levent and I was amazed by the wide streets, carved skyscrapers and smoggy orange sky. There was a hypercorporate Levantine oasis mere blocks from Ortaköy. It was impressive and manicured with cavernous malls and American and European fast food chains, a far cry from the cobblestones blocks away. 

The strangest and most visual difference is on Dolmabahçe road, the thoroughfare I take to work, with its blown up images of Atatürk kissing babies and staring through periscopes. There isn't an attempt to connect the history of the founding of the republic to the realities of the pictures, so they're fixed anachronistically, onto the sides of road where taxi drivers could care less. Likewise, in all government buildings (in a country where the bureaucracy was byzantine, there many state and municipal buildings) a large, more than life size picture of Atatürk is required to adorn the walls. Every building has a corner for Atatürk.

There is a strong connection to Kemalist tradition and the education system here pushes how glorious Kemal Atatürk was with his revolution, and that is apparent with the reverent images of the man throughout Turkey. İsmet İnönü, another founder of Turkey, has a stadium named after him near Taksim. You'll see his or Atatürk's gilded head literally jutting out of buildings. 

The prominent presence of Atatürk in the architecture of Istanbul demands the attention of a deity of a civil religion. Kemalism is an official narrative; even the religious conservative parties have to harken to nationalist sentiments. It's a major voting bloc. What's interesting is that it runs counter to the Muslim narrative of Turkey. The "only functioning secular Muslim democracy" schtick, like the East meets West, unravels when you examine it. The narratives don't coalesce, they stand opposite each other, especially further away from the Kurdish narrative also gaining national credence. The protests of the last two months have shown that the Turkish public takes quite seriously the identity and story of the nation, and go to the streets to demand their own narrative.

Turkey is facing serious image problems, not just in the region and in the Western media, but from inside. It hasn't sorted out its own history, still fighting Armenia on the semantics of genocide from 100 years ago. The Kurdish people have only been able to speak Kurdish openly in recent history. Declaring yourself a non-Muslim on your state identification takes incredible effort and only certain groups, like the Rum Orthodox Christian people, have permission to do it. 

"Turkey is a nation of contradictions" is also a stereotype, but it's accurate. Turkey is a nation of disparate realities, village life and pleated shirts and 300,000 Syrian refugees and EU aspirations and secular folks in the streets and 99% Islam. I don't think secession is the most viable solution to the problems created by these contradictions, but Turkey needs to find some common ground. 

None of these groups are disappearing. No one is going to drastically change their life, at this point. The government and Turkish society needs to find ways to better integrate these groups and halt the polarization deepening the ridges between them. It starts with new rhetoric and education. 

I don't know where it goes after that. Maybe I'll take a class.

Coups and armies, democracy and legitimacy

Outside of Turkey, my current knowledge seriously wanes, but the action is making me want to write a lot more about it. The situation in Cairo mirrors some of the possibilities in Turkey, even though the clashes in Egypt are much more violent. It's the same problems. It's legitimacy, it's democracy and it's disaffected folks disconnected from their governments and leaders. The same course of action is erupting all over, whether it's protests or clashes or coups. Bear with me.

On June 30th, massive protests erupted in Egypt  with folks demonstrating against the government led by democratically elected President Muhammed Morsi. The autonomous Egyptian military on July 1st issued an ultimatum that they would intervene in 48 hours if protests continued. The protests continued and the Military deposed Morsi on June 3rd. After the overthrow, there were protests and celebrations in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the 2011 protests, with laser shows and everything.

There have been some arguments about whether this deposition was a coup or not. There are some Egyptian protesters and allies rallying for the redefinition of the word "coup," in part because coups are illegal under the Egyptian Constitution and states under coups receive less international aid from the United States, a major beneficiary. I think, despite the financial concern, that the whole argument is bunk and missing the point. Of course it's a coup, but more importantly, it's a coup by the Egyptian military, a governmental, social and economic institution which existed under previous Egyptian authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak,

After Mubarak who was forced to step down in 2011 after months of violence between government supporters, the military and protesters, the military took temporary control of the government until elections were held in Summer 2012. Their short rule marked a period of increased violence, that slowed but did not end after Morsi, the candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood, took office. The military was also the organization that deposed the King of Egypt in 1953, and has since become autonomous and powerful in its own right, without ever being an democratically elected institution.

I wrote two years ago that what threatened Tahrir Square and the Egyptian revolution was the military, and it still is, I think.

The news of the Egyptian clashes struck me as cut and dry bad. Sharif, my roommate, used to live in Egypt and has a keen interest in the politics there. He was appalled by the celebrations of an organization that is as despotic with a striking history of violence. The military had a role in torturing many of the "dissidents" under Mubarak and get half the criticism as the former regime. There was violence under Morsi, who was sort of corrupt, but the criticism he received was more pointed because of his leadership of an Islamist organization

and the military offers a counterpoint.

My relationship with autonomous militaries is different and has changed since I've been here. In Turkey, there is some sentiment that the army of the past, the "guardians of Kemalism" as they say, should have taken down Erdogan after the protests, handily, as they have in the past. Now, however, the Turkish military is not in the position to overthrow, but because it's been weakened by AKP (a move lauded by European and American spectators) and because it's made some agreements with AKP and Erdogan to not plan some coups.

But some of my friends, when talking about the absence of the military, have to keep reminding themselves that it's good for democracies that militaries are not autonomous, but it's a struggle! Turkish dissidents can no longer be comforted by the fact that the military will overthrow the government if it strays too far from Kemalism anymore. Even if it's good for democracy, it's a reminder that times have changed and that the opposition forces are weaker.

And at first I felt the same way. "These protests would be over a lot faster if the military would just step in and clear everything out!" I was excited at the beginning when military folks came in and brought real, sturdy gas masks for the protesters. When they were reprimanded, I felt cheated. It's their job to protect the state, I thought.

But they weren't protecting the state in that instance, they were jockeying for power, if ever slightly. All actions by autonomous militaries are inherently political!

This is the same thing we're seeing in Egypt, and it's unsurprising that the Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters are not letting the coup-via-protest stand. Both parties feel that the opposition is illegitimate and should be fought against completely. And so they have.

But all this is not that simple. I'm ignoring the fact that there are thousands upon thousands of Egyptians in the street, protesting for the military to take over. There has to be something I'm missing.

In talking with my colleagues and friends about the protests, I've found that my misunderstanding was about democracy in the first place. I thought that a clear and recent democratically elected leader removed from office (and put under house arrest, awaiting charges of whatever) was not logical and was the most illegitimizing action the military could take. It was inconceivable to me, but the Egyptian presidency itself is illegitimate right now. The first presidential election was a year ago and as a society, Egypt's coming to terms with major disagreements in ways that look similar to many other nations...

"Coups are a means" as Sharif said to me yesterday, and even though they are not legitimate, the military is one of the most legitimate actors in Egypt. It helped found the state and it's claim to power is stronger than Morsi's for a surprisingly massive group of people. The coup is not legitimate, but is only a means to the larger claim that the military is the most righteous leader of Egypt right now.

My friends have also reminded me that democracy is slow and looks different everywhere. Though I don't think political Islam is dead, regardless of what all the major news is spewing, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt may be banned and denied its NGO status in the aftermath of these protests. That does not mean the people who supported Morsi are leaving Egypt or the people who protested Morsi will be satisfied with their   current state.

The military will impose a leader soon and they'll be building back up to an election in the next years,
or until the next protest...