Since our arrival in the city we've been seeing the Turkish flag everywhere.
Literally everywhere.
In Istanbul Orhan Pamuk described the riots in 1955 that began against Istanbul's Greek population and eventually targeted the rich as well. He believes that the only reason the rioters didn't attack his family's house was a small Turkish flag hanging in the car out front. We've taken the precaution of buying a few flags of our own just in case.
Clayton and I were talking about the prevalence of the Turkish flag in the city while overlooking the hills from Galata Tower yesterday. I'm planning to look at who has flags and who doesn't, and how that reflects the distribution of nationalist sentiment among social groups.
Like all good quasi-police states, Turkey has nurtured all the pomp and circumstance that is a necessary trapping of nationalism. The flags are just a part of the attempt to inject national pride into the populace. Yet I wonder how far that injection has percolated into the populace. Drawing once again from Pamuk, it seems like the upper class has the most invested in the government and as a result should be measurably more nationalist using the flag metric.
While the urban poor are typically more attracted to causes and social cohesion, I expect that Turkish national pride will not be the cause they support. The urban lower class is traditionally more religiously conservative than the upper classes, and specifically to Turkey, they make up the AKP's main support base. With Turkey's classes drifting steadily apart, I would expect some level of bitterness from the poor towards the upper classes and their government that has failed them.
To wrap up with an astute observation of Obama's,
Literally everywhere.
In Istanbul Orhan Pamuk described the riots in 1955 that began against Istanbul's Greek population and eventually targeted the rich as well. He believes that the only reason the rioters didn't attack his family's house was a small Turkish flag hanging in the car out front. We've taken the precaution of buying a few flags of our own just in case.
Clayton and I were talking about the prevalence of the Turkish flag in the city while overlooking the hills from Galata Tower yesterday. I'm planning to look at who has flags and who doesn't, and how that reflects the distribution of nationalist sentiment among social groups.
Like all good quasi-police states, Turkey has nurtured all the pomp and circumstance that is a necessary trapping of nationalism. The flags are just a part of the attempt to inject national pride into the populace. Yet I wonder how far that injection has percolated into the populace. Drawing once again from Pamuk, it seems like the upper class has the most invested in the government and as a result should be measurably more nationalist using the flag metric.
While the urban poor are typically more attracted to causes and social cohesion, I expect that Turkish national pride will not be the cause they support. The urban lower class is traditionally more religiously conservative than the upper classes, and specifically to Turkey, they make up the AKP's main support base. With Turkey's classes drifting steadily apart, I would expect some level of bitterness from the poor towards the upper classes and their government that has failed them.
To wrap up with an astute observation of Obama's,
"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."I'll keep my loyal readers informed of the progress of the flag project.
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