Türkiye Confidential
On the waterfront in Kadiköy, on the Asian side of Istanbul, in the November afternoon sun, a musician with a man-bun and beard plays on an electrified acoustic guitar. Old men and young women sit with their phones on video, capturing plaintive Turkish tunes accompanied by seagulls who dance on water and shore. Humans stream by, slow or quick, old and young, women in abayas and hijabs, in miniskirts with flowing hair, in cargo pants with locks half-shaved. The waves and sunbeams bob. Ships glide to the music as they enter and leave the harbor. Soft shadows embark and disembark from ferries like tides, ebbing to the rhythm of the guitar.
In my list of best things to do in Istanbul, watching and being part of this waterfront scene is at the top. Other best things? Drink tea from small, glass, pear-shaped cups. Pet kittens. On the European side, where the Bosporus Strait is wide, sit at the café near the Sultan’s palace, watch Russian and Ukrainian ships pass, and dream of world peace. Wake up to the sound of the early morning call to prayer. Shop for eggs at the store that makes flatbread. Write in a coffee shop with a cat on your lap; climb hills until—by the end of a month—it gets easy-er. Eat lentil soup, or, as they say in Turkish, drink lentil soup. Practice Turkish. Listen to the lyrical sound of the language, more beautiful perhaps because you do not understand it. Find podcasts on Turkish politics and think about the neighborhood you are in: Russia, Ukraine, and Romania across the Black Sea; Cypris and Egypt across the Mediterranean; land bordering Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Bulgaria and Greece; Moldova, Lebanon, and Azerbaijan a planetary stone’s throw. You are in Asia and Europe, close to North Africa, in a country that is Balkan and Arab, East and West, North and South, at the center of consecutive historical empires with tentacles in three continents.
Think about ways this unique place is like every other unique place, rife with corruption, teaching lessons about resilience, exhaustion, and the healing power of art. It is a place, like all others, still recovering from one pandemic, transforming due to climate change, and blaming immigrants for everything hard, while leaning on newcomers to make workloads lighter, prices cheaper, and food more interesting. More than three million refugees from Syria are in Turkey. Like dozens of other countries, most notably the United States, immigrants are convenient scapegoats and inspire nationalist bigotry. Refugees from Ukraine who come through on their way to Europe, do not experience the same disdain, which is surprising since the former are Muslim and the latter Christian, but understandable when you consider the influence of Europe on sensibilities here, where bigotry against Arabs is ubiquitous.
Think about time, and size when you are in Istanbul. This place is so old and so young! It was Constantinople until 1930; seat of the Persian, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. The Turkish nation, by contrast, is young. (When we got on the Turkish Airlines flight in Boston, the pilot announced: Today is the 101st anniversary of the founding of our republic. I had a friend who was 101.)
The city is recently supersized. It grew from one to nineteen million (counting Syrian refugees) in seventy-five years. In 1950 it was as big as it was in 1530 when it was the center of Rome. In the last five decades, wooden mansions holding three generations came down and apartment buildings went up. Today homelessness is rare but families are doubled up in one-bedroom flats. The old gardens are gone but some trees remain, like those outside our back window: a favorite spot for mourning doves and crows.
Go to the collective coffee house in Kadiköy, called Antika, where radical survivors of the coup of September 12, 1980, and their younger followers gather; where the public can take courses on radical drama, Marx, anarchism, and feminism. The Collective is a place where all kinds of left ideologies flourish. Many members are or were affiliated with Devirmciyol, (translated to Revolutionary Way) others with the Left Party, which began as the Freedom and Solidarity Party. Others are radical feminists or eco-warriors. (subject of blog post Wounds Speak).
Catch a public ferry to Adalar. Ada means island in Turkish. To make a word plural, add “lar”. Walk around the Büyükada Island, six miles. Try to be cool about a pack of wild dogs following you. Climb to the monastery where the views are astounding. Go to the much smaller island of Burgazada and wind your way up in concentric circles to the apex, clocking the same number of miles. Your beloveds will make fun of you for saying that the view is different around every corner and that the boats look like they are floating. You mean the boats look like they are sitting on clouds as the water appears white in the distance. And the views! require constant notice – constant oohs, ahhs, and failed efforts to form words that describe the beauty of sea and city from your bucolic perch.
Read a book of non-fiction by the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. Gloss over his privileged reminisces. Sit with his descriptions of East and West. Think longer about this Pamuk-ism:
‘Peace and nationalism. You can have one or the other. Not both.’
_____________________________
PS. I know, I know, I know, this post is about Istanbul, not all of Türkiye. The title is a joke—soon-to-be-stale-as-leftover-dinner-buns-on-Black-Friday-U-S-of-A. It only floats on this day – November 27, 2024—in the United States, among people who listen to cooking shows on National Public Radio.
PPS I am writing at least three more blog posts: Istanbul In and Out which is more of a visitor’s guide including impressions of a Turkish bath and major tourist sights. Wounds Speak, about history, dissident politics, and progressive activism in Turkey; and a so-far-untitled third about being on the edge of Europe/Asia/ the Middle East in November 2024, when Trump wins a second election. They will be out by December 5. And maybe a fourth, called Soft: More impressions.
Istanbul inspires me to struggle with words.
