Gallivanting around Gallipoli

We spent the day touring the peninsula in the Dardanelles where the Gallipoli Campaign was fought during World War I. Exciting!

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Beginning in the nearby town of Çanakkale and continuing throughout the afternoon it was clear that the tour was tailored to a very specific crowd - Australians and New Zealanders. Our tour guide spoke English with a truly bizarre mix of Turkish and Australian accents, and all the local restaurants were decorated with stereotypical Australian widgets. My favorite may have been the Boomerang Bar and Grill, which was apparently named on the assumption that visiting Aussies would say "Hey, boomerangs! We've got those back home! You've got our business, mate!"

The astute among you will have already deduced the cause of this bias towards our cousins in the Southern Hemisphere - most of the Allied forces at Gallipoli were from the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and most of the foreign tourists coming to the battlefield are from the same countries. Our tour jumped from one ANZAC cemetery to another, highlighting the major offensives and losses of the Allies. The little attention paid to the Turks concentrated mainly on their respect for the ANZAC forces, both during and after the campaign. Ataturk's quote about the battle was featured very prominently.

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"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly. Therefore rest in peace, there is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lay side by side, here in this country of ours... You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

All in all I was impressed by Turkey's ability to repackage its one victory in WWI as a foreign tourist destination.

But there's more to the story! Dr. Shields and I spoke with our tour guide about the obvious ANZAC bias in our tour, and he assured us that in recent years a very different tour has been developed for Turkish tour groups. War memorials were erected soon after the battle by the Turkish government, but were removed in the 1930s to make room for ANZAC memorials that took their place. I can only imagine how galling this must have been to Turkish nationalism. Presumably it was deemed necessary as part of the effort to integrate with the West.

In recent years the government has erected Turkish cemeteries alongside the ANZAC cemeteries. The ANZAC cemeteries, and more particularly the annual ANZAC Day, have a pretty obvious nationalist theme alongside their express purpose as a war memorial, but they've got nothing on the Turkish cemeteries. According to our tour guide, the government (and particularly AK Party) has been working to rebuild Turkish pride surrounding the Gallipoli campaign, recasting it as a nationalist religious shrine for the Turkish martyrs who fell at Gallipoli in defense of Islam. Every day, AKP foots the bill to bring busloads of conservative-minded lower class Istanbullus to Gallipoli to be reminded of the martyrs of yesteryear.

The Turkish casualties buried in the Gallipoli cemeteries are referred to as religious martyrs (which is not particular to Gallipoli, admittedly - the staunchly secular military refers to all of its casualties that way) and gazi - the Turkish word that is essentially equivalent to mujihadeen. The Turkish cemeteries include prominent mihrab, the key component that makes a mosque a mosque, reemphasizing the religious air of the sites. It seems pretty incredible for these to be funded by an ostensibly secularist state (particularly at a battlefield where Ataturk himself was the commanding officer!).

Dr. Shields commented on the danger of AKP attempting to hitch Islamism onto the nationalist machine that Turkey has perfected over the years, but didn't expand on where that danger lay. As we stood at the remains of the ANZAC trenches listening to our tour guide speak in an Australian about the conditions of the ANZAC soldiers on campaign, and a Turkish tour guide stood twenty feet away at the Ottoman trenches telling a headscarved crowd about (presumably) the conditions of the Turkish martyrs on campaign, I ticked off the potential dangers in my head.

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Equating national pride with Islam and Islamism with national identity can help to rapidly expand the party's support base, but it might increase the risk of eventual conflict with a military and Kemalist elite that find such manipulation of their own manipulation of the public perception distasteful.

While most Islamist parties have in the past been virulently anti-Western, AKP has distinguished itself by pushing for both Islamism and Westernization. While encouraging Turkish nationalism may help their push for Islamism (though it's unlikely), glorifying a battle between Turkey and the West as a clash between Islam and the infidel can hardly help their attempts at Westernization.

Secular nationalism and Islamism provide diametrically opposed sources of social cohesion that allow Turkish polity to swing from one extreme to the other - it's not a particularly stable system but it works. AKP's decision to equate itself with its ideological opponent may make for good propaganda in the short run but if the ideas become too inextricably linked it could be catastrophic for both movements later on. So long as the two remain separate, there is always a viable alternate base for national cohesion. But if, as Erdoğan once claimed, democracy is a train from which one can disembark on reaching one's destination, perhaps nationalism is a bus from which one can do the same.

As we finished at the trenches and continued our survey of ANZAC cemeteries, we noticed that the bus of the faithful had broken down. It was being pushed to the next Turkish shrine by a number of men determined to continue the pilgrimage.

Maşallah.

Ha!

No one talk to me about my camera being inferior to all those 10-pound bricks people are hauling around. If my camera was so terrible, could it have taken... this?

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I win.

Eyups and downs

We went up the Golden Horn today to see Eyup, which is the name of Muhammed's standard bearer who fell during the Prophet's attempt to take Constantinople, the mosque complex that was built around his tomb by the Ottomans, and the entire city district surrounding that mosque. We visited all three.

The district of Eyup seemed, by and large, much like every other district of Istanbul. The sun shone, the flowers bloomed, etc. The one startling difference was the considerable portion of the area that's been set aside as a huuuuuuge cemetery for those wishing to be buried close to Eyup (the man, not the building or the district). Dr. Shields noted that, apart from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Eyup's tomb is one of the closest connections Muslims have to Muhammed, so it's pretty key.

Eyup Mosque is the primary site for boys' circumcision ceremonies, which take place when they are around ten (!) years old. This is apparently done regardless of the day-to-day religiousity of the child's family, meaning that Turks from every point along the spectrum of Islam seen in Istanbul collect at Eyup. They provide a fascinating picture of Turkey's struggle to be Western and Muslim simultaneously.

At one end you have fully covered women approaching Eyup's tomb with all due reverence, touching the screen that surrounds it with trembling fingers, occasionally weeping in the process, and backing away from the tomb as they leave. Somewhere further along the spectrum you have well-dressed women wearing fashionably-colored headscarves that are so badly positioned it's clear they've worn one perhaps twice before in their life. At the absolute far end of the spectrum you have our tour guide for the day, who, when I asked about the people praying towards Eyup's tomb and how that squares with Islam's forbidding praying towards any kind of intercessor between man and God, laughingly replied "Oh, ignorant people believe all sorts of silly things about religion."

As I reflect I suppose this isn't too different from the religious spectrum in the States, yet somehow the spread in Turkey seems more... dire. Perhaps because we've had 250 years to get used to the separation of church and state while Turkey's only had 75, perhaps because secularism and Islamism can be (and are) the founding philosophies of major political parties, I am far more unsure about Turkey's ability to reconcile disparate religious elements.

Come full circle

Our two-week excursion around the prominent places of Turkey is imminent. To bid a temporary farewell to the city we know and love so much, we hosted a grand soirée on our terrace this evening. Fruits, nuts, cheeses, and... well... a whole lot more fruits were the centerpiece.

At one point I was talking with a rather bemused Hande (our redoubtable Turkish teacher) after she'd been accosted by Edward and had some high-fiving strategy explained to her. Clearly clueless as to what had just happened, she turned to me and said "Fransiz kaldim."

Now, not speaking Turkish I had zero idea what this meant. "Fransiz kaldim yourself," I replied. "I'm glad you think so?"

She explained that the phrase translated as 'I was French' and was used colloquially to mean that you were being slow and weren't getting the point of a discussion. I laughed and commented that that expression said a lot about Franco-Turk relations, with which Hande agreed.

Considering 150 years ago the Turks were building Dolmabahce to be like the French, and 75 years ago Ataturk was trying to drag Turkey towards French Europeanism kicking and screaming, colloquial expressions that equate Frenchness with stupidity seem like something rather new. Or, if not new, perhaps hearkening back to an earlier era when the Ottomans regarded the Europeans as a bunch of unwashed barbarians hitting each other with sticks.

Cheers to dysentery!

Gentle readers. I have been doing my best to keep this blog chronological in its updates, even when that means delaying the interesting, nay, gripping, nay, riveting tales of my exploits by several days. I have done this in the name of Science and Modernity. This post, however, is not about me. It is about you. It is a public service announcement to all those who might someday go to Turkey.

WHEN IN TURKEY, A BRAGGART'S CLAIMS THAT HIS DIGESTIVE SYSTEM IS PROOF AGAINST THE WORST THE COUNTRY HAS TO OFFER MAY COME BACK TO HAUNT HIM.

The following is a morality tale. Attend. Those of you with fainter hearts may not want to continue.

For the past several days the brave members of BFRS:Turkey have been falling victim, like monkeys off the bed, to a variety of stomach ailments. Me being me, I stood strong against all these ailments, and dismissed those who suffered as the mean possessors of inferior constitutions. Yet tonight I find myself eating my words (but little else), for the latest to be struck down by the foul plague over Istanbul is yours truly.

The stage was set earlier today when I downed a ginourmous loaf of bread and half a can of strawberry jam for breakfast. Why did I do this? I don't know - it seemed like a good idea at the time. I felt a little queasy afterwards but I continued with my day. I saw some sights, I read some readings, I did the general Istanbul shuffle. I finished the day, like any good Istanbullu does, with a döner.

Returning to the flat I engaged in a series of academic pursuits for a period of a few hours. Feeling a need to relieve myself (and feeling, I will admit, slightly gaseous as well) I made for the water closet, only to discover that the water closet wasn't so watery after all - our water had been cut off. An act of the utilities company? An act of nature? An act of God? You be the judge.

Feeling some gastronomic distress, I determined to man up and wait out the lack of water. The next several hours were characterized by growing intestinal discontent and the looming conviction that the water had better resume soon. In the end, at about 12:30, I allowed that the Man, whichever Man it might have been, had won, and I had lost. I headed to the loo resigned to relieve myself regardless of the consequences.

So picture me perched, now, on the potty, growing gradually less gassy. I became aware of a rumbling in my chest. "Good heavens," I said aloud. "That's quite a rumbling in my chest." And these are, of course, my exact words, recorded verbatim for authenticity's sake. "This would be a singularly inconvenient time to projectile vomit." But of course, that is what I did.

My potty perch had been transformed into an inelegant sprawl upon the floor. My innards were leaking out from both ends, and as I lay there in the welter of my gore I could barely imagine the time I'd have cleaning the bathroom with no running water. Again I heard a rumbling in the distance. "My word!" I said aloud. "How many rumblings can a single night have? God, sir, have some heart!" And God did. The rumbling became a roar, and the water returned, and I reflected in silence on the lessons I'd learned. Bulimia's not a good way to make oneself thinner, and we all should beware the one dollar döner dinner.

Because, in all seriousness, I suspect that the döner dinner did it. This could be an illusory connection brought on by it being the last thing I ate, or by me being very graphically reminded of having eaten it about an hour ago. But what do you think, readers who have read this far? Was it the döner? Was it the tea with jam and bread that I had for breakfast? Was it the water, bottled though it may have been? Or was it Feruz Ahmed's Turkey: The Quest for Identity, which I have been incapable of finishing? Which was the culprit? I welcome your input.

A final thank you, however, goes to God. I don't know who turned the water off, and ultimately I don't care. I do know that the providential timing of its return could only have been due to divine intervention, and for it I am truly grateful.

You should all thank me that there are no pictures in this post.

Panic.

Some of us just took a casual stroll around the neighborhood and found three mosques we'd never seen, one built by Sinan, a charming cafe at which we'd never eaten, and many other things we'd never suspected existed.

I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO SEE EVERYTHING WONDERFUL IN THIS CITY.

Sorry there's no erudite observations today. I'm too busy being frantic.

Assimilator or assimilatee?

But about that Hagia Sofia thing. It is phenomenally huge. Seriously. Words cannot describe how big this thing is. Apparently, after it was built Emperor Justinian came in, looked around, and said "Solomon, I have outdone you." So yeah, it's pretty big, about as big as Justinian's ego.

Aya Sofya began, of course, as a Byzantine church.

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But it was converted into a mosque soon after the Ottomans set up shop in 1453 (by soon after I mean immediately after - Mehmet took the city on May 28th and Aya Sofya was rededicated as a mosque later that afternoon).

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Obviously the minarets took a little bit longer to be put up.

Aya Sofya typifies the Ottoman practice of converting churches into mosques. They became quite adept at it, though really it wasn't a particularly complicated process - put up some minarets, plunk a mihrab in the corner, whitewash anything explicitly Christian, and, last but not least, affix some big ole seals of Islamicity to the whole thing.

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Interesting thing about the big circley things in Aya Sofya, actually. They're too big to have been brought in through the gates, so they were probably built on site inside the building. Wow!

For several hundred years the Ottomans did a pretty good job of assimilating anything useful from the West (and for a while there was little enough of that) and making it Turkish. Somewhere, though, that changed. They went through a brief period where they should have been assimilating a lot more than they were (the printing press was ignored for a terribly long time). Later, as it dawned on them that the West was in many ways winning the race towards... um... winning... they began trying to assimilate themselves into the West in whatever ways possible. The Ottomans eagerly imitated European cities' love of tulips and European militaries' love of bands, not realizing that both of these things were originally Ottoman characteristics that the Europeans had themselves imitated centuries before. Such examples are humorous, yet they're also rather tragic at the same time. The Ottomans were clearly capable at one point of discerning which European innovations to imitate, as well as doing some innovating themselves. Yet at some point they seem to have lost that and begun imitating Europe wholesale.

Thank God they're not doing that anymore.