Travelogue: Turkiye

The long-promised travel blog is here!

During my trip, I made a list every night (bullet points) of things that had happened that day. What’s I’m gonna do here is take those lists and expound on them a little, day-by-day.

Day 1 – Arrival in Istanbul

First thoughts in Istanbul: Continent number four, baby! North America, a layover in Germany, two months in Africa, and now Asia!

Drat. We landed on the European side of the Bosporous. Still on continent number three.

First sights in Istanbul: frickin’ evergreen trees! And sycamore trees! Grass! Clean streets! Nice houses! Blue skies! Unmarried young people holding hands in public! What is going on?

At the airport, we piled into a tour bus (this would become a theme on the trip) and met our Turkish tour guide, Eren. “Like a girl’s name,” he told us, “but I assure you, I am completely straight.”

We arrived in Istanbul on Turkey’s independence day, October 29. Turkish flags everywhere you can imagine. Patriotism is a big deal there. By the end of the trip, most of us had become Turkish nationalists, including myself. Part of the reason is their flag. It’s awesome. A red banner with a white Islamic crescent and star. Simple, powerful, elegant. Maybe some of you saw the astronomical event a few nights ago where Jupiter, Venus and the moon were really close together. According to legend, centuries ago, an Ottoman general was walking through a field at night where a battle had taken place the day before, and saw the moon and Jupiter reflected in a pool of blood around a Turkish soldier. The general thought to himself, (and I’m paraphrasing) “Hey! That would make a pretty kickin’ flag.” And so it is.

Central to Turkish nationalism is Turkey’s national hero (and my personal hero): Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. As an Ottoman general in the First World War, he rose to national fame as a brilliant strategist. When the Ottomans lost the war, and the Ottomans signed the Treaty of Sevres, which divided modern-day Turkey into six pieces, five of which would have been doled out to the Allied powers, resistance committees sprang up across Turkey. Hoping to capitalize on Kemal’s fame, the Ottomans sent him to put down the rebellion. Kemal said, “Screw that,” and used his army to organize the committees into a national resistance movement against the Allied invasion. Facing overwhelming enemy forces, Kemal won a stunning victory and saved his country. What a man. (My country was an Allied power, and even I’m excited about it.)

Anyway, the Ottomans sentenced him to death for his efforts, so he overthrew the sultan and the caliph and made Turkey a republic, which he became the first president of. He made Turkey a completely secular nation, abolishing gender inequalities, standardizing education, even changing the Turkish alphabet from Arabic letters to Roman letters – a change the entire country adopted within three months. (America can’t even switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius.) Almost singlehandedly, he did what foreign policy realists today claim is impossible to do – brought democracy, equality and modernity to a Muslim country.

The first picture we saw of Ataturk (Kemal’s adopted surname, which means “father of the Turks”) was a portrait hanging near the airport exit. It certainly wasn’t the last. His face could be seen on billboards, pennants, and multi-story banners draped on the sides of office buildings. In nearly all the shops and restaurants we went to, his framed portrait could be found. On one stretch of road near the Bosporous we drove on the first day, the wall running alongside the road was adorned with photos of Ataturk every five feet for the length of at least a half-mile. After a while, it became almost absurd: Here’s Ataturk riding a tractor. Ataturk eating doner. Ataturk inspecting horses. Ataturk putting on socks. As we quickly realized, every denomination of Turkish currency carries Ataturk’s face. Pretty much, he receives the kind of adoration you’d have to be a living dictator to receive anywhere else in the world.

The impact Ataturk had is immediately noticeable. I mentioned the hand-holding thing, right? OK, good. The whole culture just felt so much more “at-home” to me. (Of course, this is after living in Cairo for two months.) People walked in small groups, or by themselves. There’s an intangible that America and Turkey have in common. Individualism – that’s the word I was looking for. Female dress ran the gamut, from standard American to conservative Muslim. On our free day, one girl in my group decided to just walk around Istanbul, by herself, with no clear direction in mind – which wouldn’t be a good idea in Cairo. Plus, it’s just a nicer place – cleanliness, nicer, wealthier housing, traffic lights that drivers actually obey.

The Westernization has its downsides, too. In Egypt, I never feared getting attacked or robbed, not even on the street after ten o’clock. I wasn’t exactly afraid in Istanbul, but I wouldn’t have wanted to go places by myself at night either. In Egypt, I carried my wallet in my back pocket. In Istanbul, I got in the habit of putting it in my front pocket, and kept that habit all the way through Jerusalem. When I got back to Cairo, I did it without thinking about it. Never saw drunk people on the streets of Cairo, or prostitutes like the ones that frequented our hotel in Istanbul. (At least one guy in our group got solicited by a pimp while we were there.)

Paradoxically, the most prominent architectural feature of Istanbul is mosques. Mosques everywhere. Big, beautiful mosques that would be tourist attractions anywhere else in the world are a dime a dozen in Istanbul. In Egypt and Syria, the mosque design is pretty much a box with a minaret, a courtyard with a minaret, or, in Cairo, the rented-out first floor of an apartment building and a jury-rigged bullhorn. In Istanbul, it’s a huge dome with two, sometimes four minarets jutting into the sky, and sometimes a courtyard to boot. (The Mohammad Ali Mosque at the Citadel in Cairo is in the Ottoman style – Ali was an Ottoman ruler.) And despite the rift between Arabs and Turks, the call to prayer still issues five times a day, in Arabic. It sounds nicer too.

Our first afternoon, we got on a ferry and took a boat tour around the Bosporous, the tiny strait that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and separates Asia and Europe. It was gorgeous. New England-style architecture, mingled with ancient Ottoman fortresses and mosques, all perched on hills covered in evergreens sloping down to the water. Afterwards, we got to explore the area by the ferry dock. There was a beautiful mosque, a bridge connecting Asia and Europe, and a bunch of restaurants and shops. We looked at some books, ate some delicious fruit-filled waffles and baked potatoes prepared the Turkish way, and then raced to the bus, which had been holding up traffic waiting for us. (Dr. Dave: “Nice work guys. All those drivers know: the Americans did this.”) The bus took us back to the hotel, where some of us (no names), snuck onto the roof to watch the Independence Day fireworks.

Our hotel wasn’t that nice, but there was a big lobby where we could hang out during downtime. Plus, I got to room with Thomas, which was awesome. It was also very close to the Sultanahmet, a shopping area next to the Bosporous and the Hagia Sophia, one of the oldest, most beautiful church/mosques in the world. The first night, we hiked down to the Sultanahmet, ate some Turkish delight and drank some Turkish apple tea (essentially hot cider, but very good), and posed for pictures by huge posters of Ataturk. All in all, a great first day.

Day 2

Today we visited Koch University, a beautiful campus northwest of Istanbul. After a lecture on Turkish foreign policy from a professor there, we had a group meeting with Turkish undergrad students. One member of our group asked the students their opinion of Turkey’s ruling conservative AK (“Justice and Development”) Party. Almost immediately, an argument broke out between the Turkish students, a near shouting match over whether the AK Party were reformers serving the people or the Taliban in reformers’ clothing. At first I was totally disoriented; I didn’t know how to respond. Then I realized the cause of my disorientation: after living in the Middle East for two months, I was seeing Middle Easterners argue about politics amongst themselves in front of me (a westerner) for the first time. I don’t remember the arguments the students used, and it doesn’t matter to me. Just seeing an argument about politics happen was breathtaking.

I haven’t blogged about this yet, but in the week before we left on travel component, we had a meeting at the MESP villa with Muslim young people who work for the Cairo-based Islam Online. It didn’t take us long to figure out that they hadn’t come to discuss interfaith issues so much as present a united front against any “misunderstandings” we might have about Islam. After living in Egypt for two months, and after a similar experience at Cairo’s al-Azhar University the week before (which I will also blog about later), we were pretty much fed up with the propaganda. To go from that to Koch University was quite a shock.

Another huge contrast between the Islam Online meeting and the Koch University meeting: in our “discussion” group at the Islam Online meeting, we were discussing women’s rights in Islam. One girl in our group brought up sharia law in Saudi Arabia. Our Muslim counterpart quickly objected: “Saudi Arabia does not have a religious government.”

Er…what?

Flash-forward to Koch University, where a Turkish student corrected me when I said that the US and Turkey were both secular republics. “The US is not secular,” she said. “You have ‘under God’ in your pledge of allegiance.”

Hard to have bigger viewpoint gap than that.

When we asked the Turkish students if there was anything they wanted us to know about them, they gave a pretty basic list: “We don’t ride camels. We are not Arabs. We use silverware. We are not terrorists.”

Especially remember that they’re not Arabs. One of the girls told us exactly how she felt about Arabs: “They are betrayers [in WWI, I presume], they are uncivilized, they don’t give their women any rights. It’s disgusting how they treat their women. Their lands are full of oppression and inequality.” Maybe Turkish students should start studying in Cairo. It sounds like there’s a little tension there.

One other Turkish student floored us by suggesting that the United States had used its influence to bring the AK Party to power in 2002. That President Bush would have orchestrated an election victory for a quasi-Islamist party inside a crucial regional ally months before he sought to use that ally as a launching-pad for the invasion of Iraq (an idea the AK Party shot down in an overwhelming vote) is absurd. But she believed it, and so do many others. This, I’m told, is an example of “Sevres Syndrome” – an extreme paranoia on the part of the Turks about the motives of the West, dating to the aforementioned Sevres Treaty. Paradoxically, because Turkey’s secularist establishment doesn’t always respect free speech and freedom of religion, the religious AK Party has been the driving force behind the effort to get Turkey into the European Union, which would require Turkey to shed its restrictions on speech and religious practice, thus strengthening the AKP. In response, the secularists have accused the religious Islamic party of collaborating with the colonial West against the Turkish nation. Hence the “The AKP is a tool of Europe and America” line. Turkish politics is my favorite.

Today, we had our first run-in with the topic of the Armenian Genocide. I intend to do more research on this next semester, but for those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, during World War I, the Ottomans essentially cleansed northeastern Turkey of its Armenian population, killing over a million of them in the process. Most historians consider this action the first genocide of the 20th century. But in Turkey, you can be (and people have been) prosecuted for affirming the reality of the Armenian Genocide. According to the Turkish line, the Armenians were collaborators who were peacefully moved to another area of the Ottoman Empire, and some of them died on the way (but not one million). It was a war, after all.

Last year, the Democratic congress tried to pass a resolution labeling the Armenian Genocide a “genocide.” Turkey threw a fit, threatening to stop US military shipments through its territory and invade northern Iraq (which is controlled by the Kurds. Kurdish terrorists have been causing a lot of havoc in Turkey lately.) Bush eventually convinced Congress to drop it, but Obama has pledged to pass the resolution (which is one reason why Obamamania is a little subdued in Turkey.)

The professor who spoke to us on Turkish foreign policy said that the genocide issue is one of three issues dividing Turkey and the US (the other two being Iraq and Iran). That’s right: one of the biggest issues Turkey has with America is the possibility that the American congress might pass a nonbinding resolution which declares that the Ottoman Empire (not the Republic of Turkey) committed genocide over ninety years ago, and which makes no policy changes. Turkey is willing to sever military ties with one of its oldest, strongest allies over it. Honor is a big deal in this part of the world, I guess.

We spoke to many Turks on this subject – journalists, diplomats, AK Party reps, students – and out of all them, only one was willing to admit that the Armenian Genocide happened. He was a human rights lawyer we met on the last day. All the others were convinced that no genocide occurred, and that any killings were an unplanned part of the rough-and-tumble of World War I. To see that level of entrenched nationalist ignorance of established historical facts was disturbing to me. From my point of view, denying past mistakes opens the possibility of repeating those mistakes. If present-day Turkey took a more enlightened approach to its minorities, from the Alevi Muslims to the Kurds, I might be less disturbed.

This day, I ate lunch at a restaurant near our hotel with Andrea, CJ and Jason. We were talking about the genocide, and some of us started raising our voices. Suddenly, Andrea looked around and said, “Guys, we should probably keep our voices down.” We all realized that we were surrounded by Turkish people eating lunch, at least some of whom might speak English. Immediately, we lowered our voices and changed the subject. I think that’s the first time I censored myself in the Middle East.

Dr. Dave, Barrett and Andrea put together a huge “reader” for us that covers the politics of all the countries we visited. Today while reading the Turkey section, I came across this passage, which was a good, and amusing, intro to the headscarf issue for me:

Just two weeks after coming to power, the AKP government faced the first major challenge to its Muslimhood model. Protocol required Bulent Arinc, the new speaker of parliament, to see secularist President Ahmet Sezer off at the airport. Since Mrs. Sezer would be there, protocol required that Arinc bring his wife as well. The following day, the photo on the front page of all the major newspapers showed President Sezer shaking hands with a veiled Mrs. Arinc. It did not take long for Sezer to remind the AKP government that this had been an illegal act, not to be repeated. Veiling is not permitted in the political arena, whether in parliament or on the airport runway. Several days later, the heads of the branches of the military [which has overthrown four governments since 1960] paid the new government a routine welcome visit. After spending twenty minutes with the prime minister, they spent exactly two minutes, as timed by waiting journalists, in the office of Mr. Arinc. The message was clear. AKP was not to step over the line again.

Essentially, Turkish secularism, as defined by Ataturk and his ideological heirs, demands that religion be completely absent from the public square. Based on this doctrine, the Turkish courts have forbidden Muslim women from wearing the headscarf or the veil in government buildings, including universities. Since this effectively excludes conservative women from public life (about 64 percent of Turkish women wear the headscarf), it’s a huge issue in Turkey, and the AKP has tried several times to change the secularist status quo to make more room for religious freedom. We heard a lot about the headscarf while in Turkey.

The standard question Turks we meet – students, waiters, shopkeepers – have for us: “McCain or Obama?”

Day 3

Today we took a bus to the headquarters of the AK Party in Istanbul and met with some of the party’s representatives. The lobby of the building is a bundle of contradictions: Upon walking in, we were greeted with a huge poster of the Turkish Prime Minister’s face, adorned with the AK Party logo – a light bulb. Above the reception desk was a portrait of Ataturk, who forced Turkish men and women to shed traditional clothing. Seated at the reception desk was a woman in a headscarf. Craziness.

The AK Party reps made a fairly good case for their party. They pointed to the tremendous economic growth Turkey has made since they defeated the secularists and came to power, and pledged that Turkey would soon join the European Union. My only unanswered question is, if the conspiracy theorists are right, and the AKP is planning to install sharia law, what will stop them once they rewrite Turkey’s (admittedly flawed) constitution and fill the judiciary with their supporters? Is it possible that the AKP is taking EU reforms just far enough to ensure that the military gets out of politics, and then planning to reverse course and form a theocracy? I’m already thinking like a Turk.

After our meeting with the AK Party, our group went to tour the Hagia Sophia, the world-famous church built by the Byzantines, turned into a mosque by the Ottomans, and finally established as a museum by Ataturk, the man. The place is huge. (Apparently, for many years it was the largest building on earth.) The central chamber is probably five stories tall, and decorated with six huge circles bearing the names of Allah, Mohammad, and the first four Islamic caliphs. Christian influences are still present, though. Archeologists have been restoring many of old church’s frescoes of Mary and Jesus. One of the biggest Christian frescoes is on the wall directly above the mithrob, the alcove found in all mosques which points to Mecca – only this mithrob points exactly halfway in between Jerusalem and Mecca. (Originally, Mohammad had his followers pray towards Jerusalem, only changing it to Mecca after the Jews refused to support his rule.) Because of details like that, many people believe the Hagia Sophia symbolizes the coming unity of the world’s religions.

The second floor of the Hagia Sophia wraps all the way around the central chamber, and has huge arches and balconies opening into it. On this particular day, all the second floor windows were open, and there was a warm Istanbul autumn breeze blowing through the place, completing the mood of peace and awe. It was a good day to visit.

Free time at the hotel is great. I spend it, variously, playing poker with Thomas, Brian and Barrett (the stakes are ice cream bars), reading the Chronicles of Narnia aloud with Austin and anybody else who wants to join, and watching Arrested Development on Scott’s computer. (“AD” is, in many ways, the official pirated TV show of MESP.)

Interesting note: YouTube is blocked in Turkey. Apparently, there are some videos on YouTube that mock Ataturk, so the entire thing is inaccessible from Turkish computers. That’s a first for me.

Day 4

This morning, we met with representatives of the Journalists and Writers Foundation, essentially a front group for the Fethullah Gulen movement. Fethullah Gulen is a Turkish religious figure who promotes an extremely tolerant brand of Islam. He is very popular within the AK Party. Unfortunately, he is basically living in exile in the US right now, not wanting to face some lingering charges brought by secularist prosecutors. However, his influence was evident not only from the fact that a Turkish parliamentarian was at our meeting, but from the copies of Foreign Policy magazine we received proclaiming Gulen the world’s “leading public intellectual.” (The choice was based on the votes of the magazine’s readers – Gulen’s people got the word out pretty fast.)

What can I say? They gave us a delicious breakfast, showed us a really cheesy promotional video, emphasized how much they loved us over and over again, held a Q&A session with us in which only three questions were asked, showed us a music video condemning racism and murder, told us they loved us again, and then sent us off with huge goody bags. I wasn’t the only one who felt like they’d been to a cult meeting.

In all seriousness though, it was extremely refreshing to learn about a Muslim leader with a serious following who advocates peace, love and tolerance to that extent. And if the AK Party can be considered the fruits of that movement, then it’s already contributed a ton to Islamic reform.

This afternoon, we visited the old palace of the Ottoman sultans, right next to the Hagia Sophia. They picked a beautiful place to build their palace – on a hill overlooking the Bosporous. The palace is extremely well-preserved, and was really fun to walk around. The place basically consists of big grassy areas, interrupted by buildings every once in a while. More like a park than a palace, really. The palace also houses museums containing Ottoman artifacts and – here’s the rub – Muslim religious relics. Get this: I got to see King David’s sword, the rod Moses used to part the Red Sea, a saucepan used by Abraham, the turban of Joseph, and the arm and head of John the Baptist (the head was inside an opaque case). No lie. What? Don’t you believe me? They were clearly labeled! I saw them myself. I don’t appreciate that attitude. No, I didn’t get pictures, we weren’t allowed, but you should believe me anyway. We’re going to talk about this later.

In all seriousness, I was amused by the museum’s attempt at historicity. The labels that went with the relics were all deadly serious: They said things like, “Moses’ rod – 12th century,” “David’s sword – 10th century,” (BC, presumably), when David’s sword looks exactly like a Christian medieval sword, and Moses’ rod looks pretty good for 3000+ years. There is a kind of earnestness to Islam that Westerners usually reserve for science and history.

The museum also had some relics from the Prophet Mohammad on display (which I was slightly more inclined to believe in): most of his beard, one of his teeth, his cloak holder, his sword, his bow, and the rock from the Temple Mount that his foot was seared into when he ascended to heaven to meet with all the prophets of the past. There were also early copies of the Qur’an on display, with illustrations of Mohammad sans a face, in keeping with the “Thou-shalt-not-portray Mohammad in any way” tradition in Islam.

After the palace walk, we had free time, so some of us went to visit the Blue Mosque, across the street from the Hagia Sophia. After the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, I think the Blue Mosque is my favorite mosque of the trip. For one thing, it’s frickin’ huge, and has six huge minarets jutting into the sky. For another, it’s the best example of the Ottoman style that I saw: big, spacious courtyard next to a huge dome. For another, there are two big Egyptian obelisks next to it. Don’t know why, but it’s kind of cool.

Afterwards, Josh, Jason, Scott, Sarah, Danielle, the Emilys and I decided, “Hey! We should go to the sea.” So we walked the six blocks or so down to the Sea of Marmara, the tiny sea that divides Europe and Asia and connects the Mediterranean Sea in the south to the Bosporous and the Black Sea in the north. There were tons of guys fishing off the shore, and we sat along the shore next to them. Next to the shore, we discovered something you will never see in America – a free, outdoor exercise park. There were manual treadmills, pullup machines, rowing machines – it was sweet. Later, we ate lunch at a restaurant, where I accomplished a personal first – eating a whole pepper on a dare. All in all, a good fourth day in Istanbul.

Day 5

Free day! No speakers, no meetings with politicians or journalists. The majority of us decided to use the day to take a ferry to some of the islands off the Asian coast of Istanbul. So technically, this day marks my first day in Asia. We got off at the last island the ferry stopped at, rented some bikes, and started exploring. The island was great: no cars, lots of touristy restaurants, nice neighborhoods, and best of all, a bike trail across the nearly-uninhabited far side of the island. Jon, Scott, Chelsea and I set off on bikes through the forested far side of the island, stopping for a while at a beautiful cove where we had a great view of the Sea of Marmara, sans Istanbul.

Turkish delight of the day: fresh kiwi juice.

Day 6

Today, we visited the US consulate in Istanbul and spoke to two of the State Department officers there. The consulate is literally designed like a fortress. It’s perched on a high hill, surrounded by a wall. The actual entrance to the place is a few stories below the wall. You have to walk through bulletproof glass to get into the compound, and then take an elevator up through the hill to get into the consulate itself. Dr. Dave likened it to a Crusader castle, and I can definitely see it. Apparently, the consulate was moved to its current location in 2003, and designed with al Qaeda’s 1998 truck bomb attacks on our embassies in Africa in mind. Ten trucks could drive into this place and explode, and the people inside would probably be fine. Last June, there was actually a shooting attack outside the consulate – three Turkish policemen and the three attackers were killed. I don’t know how the gunmen planned on getting inside.

Before our meeting, Jon asked one of the aides if he could use the bathroom. The aide pointed him down a certain hallway, before another official stepped in and said, “No, he’s not cleared to go in there.” I guess it was the bathroom where they plan their secret support for the AK Party. (JK!)

After our meeting, we had a nice chat with one of the women who helped arrange it. “Istanbul is so crowded,” she explained to us. “The drivers here, if you haven’t noticed, are crazy. The traffic is just terrible.” Before we got on the bus, Dr. Dave recommended that she apply for a transfer to the embassy in Cairo.

The bus dropped us off at Taksim square, a really nice shopping area in historic Istanbul. Brian, Dr. Diaa (the MESP assistant program director) and I went out to eat fiteer, a kind of Turkish pizza/meat thing. Afterward, Brian and I agreed that Diaa is pretty much the coolest Arab we know.

Something I saw in Istanbul today that I never would have seen in Cairo: an ad featuring the back of a topless woman modeling blue jeans. It was all I could do to keep from yelling, "Haram! Haram!"

Something else I realized today: Turkey has a Saturday-Sunday weekend, instead of the Friday-Saturday weekend in Egypt.

Tonight we heard from a Turkish Christian pastor who spoke to us about the struggles he faces as a Christian in Turkey. As a secular republic, Turkey grants all its citizens freedom of religion, but as with most things in life, and the Middle East in particular, it’s not that simple. Turkey is 99% Muslim (a far higher proportion than any of the other countries I visited), so Christians are a tiny, often misunderstood minority. That dynamic, combined with a fierce Turkish suspicion of all things Western (remember Sevres syndrome?) often makes for a hostile environment. The pastor who spoke to us has suffered violence from both his Turkish Muslim neighbors and harassment from the police. He claims that the military actively monitors him and other Christian leaders and missionaries. In 2007, Turkey was rocked by the brutal murder of three Christians in Malatya, at the hands of two Turks aged 19 and 20. The pastor told the story of how one of the widows from the attack forgave her husband’s murderers on national TV, which he said “did more work than 10 million missionaries.” Like many people, the pastor suspects that the attacks were directed by the “deep state” – a legendary group of secularists embedded in the Turkish government that is constantly plotting to undermine democracy.

My favorite story from the pastor: one night, some young men broke into his home and beat him fairly badly. A few days later, he was walking through the campus where he teaches, and recognized his attackers among the students. He marched right up to them and said, “I love you, and I am not afraid of you. What is your problem?” He was able to build a relationship with the students, who eventually converted to Christianity.

After hearing from the pastor, we walked to the “street of lights,” a place that Brian, Britta, Grace and Abby had discovered earlier in the week. Their description was accurate: a bunch of seafood restaurants copiously decorated with Christmas lights. (Though I doubt they call them that in Turkey.) Diaa the master negotiator bartered a restaurant owner into getting us all a nice fish dinner for 10 lira a piece. (1 lira equals about 60 US cents.) During dinner, we were entertained by a band of Turkish musicians, but more so by the restaurant owner’s rotund friend, who bounced his belly up and down to the rhythm of the music. Until then, I had never seen Austin laugh so hard. (Though I’ve seen him laugh harder since.)

Day 7

Goodbye Istanbul! We piled into the bus and drove across the Bosporous Bridge into Asian Istanbul, and made the seven-hour ride across the Anatolian plateau, to Turkey’s capital city, Ankara, which was pretty much created by Ataturk out of whole cloth. Shedding the backward past and all that. On the way, I had a delusion about journaling a little bit, and put some pen to paper. I fizzled out after one paragraph. Here it is:

Turkey is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. At this moment, we are driving through the mountains of northwest Turkey, in between Istanbul and Ankara. It’s nothing like I imagined it. The hills are covered in forests, with fields and villages in the valleys in between. Not at all how we normally picture the Middle East. The houses in the occasional village we drive through have a unique style – red tile roofs, white or brightly-colored walls, and evenly-spaced windows. The occasional mosque is in the same Ottoman style we saw everywhere in Istanbul, but painted green or grey to go with the landscape.

Hope that helps.

CJ said to me on the bus today, “So Joel, tomorrow is the day McCain wins!” “Insha allah,” I replied. “God willing.” “Insha allah fil mish mish,” Thomas retorted, which literally means, “God willing in apricots,” which less literally means, “God willing, in the season of apricots,” which really means, “God doesn’t will it, punk.” (Apricot season in the Middle East is very short). Sigh. I might as well accept the inevitable.

Ankara is no Istanbul. It’s much less cultured, less historical, less exciting all around. One of the Turkish journalists we heard from in Istanbul told us that Istanbul is the New York of Turkey, while Ankara is its Washington, DC. I can definitely see the comparison. Andrew, Whitney, Kaeli and I went for a walk around our hotel’s area, and didn’t find much – although we did discover a restaurant that served great monti, a kind of really thick, cheesy soup-sauce stuff. We also met a man who prefers Hillary Clinton to Obama or McCain. It takes all kinds, I guess.

Day 8

November 5, 2008. Really people? I am holding each and every one of you personally responsible for Obama’s actions over the next four years. You know who you are.

I woke up at 7 AM to check the election results on BBC World. Not terribly surprised – and yet, very surprised. President Barack Hussein Obama. Who would have thunk? Is our country ready for this? I never knew we could be so spontaneous as a culture.

Just so you all know, BBC World took a perverse delight in shoving a microphone in the faces of the craziest McCain supporters they could find, and then replaying the clips throughout the night:

Crazy McCain Supporter Lady #1: “I’m voting for McCain because I trust him. I’m afraid of Obama.”

Crazy McCain Supporter Lady #2: “I want to save this country. I’m very concerned about Obama’s upbringing, and the fact that he runs around with terrorists. I think he’s been planted here. [Friend hushes her.] Well, I’m telling the truth!”

Downright embarrassing. Let this be a lesson to us all: our political stupidity does not occur in a vacuum. There are people on the other side of the world watching.

I suppose it’s appropriate that on the day my Goldwater went down, we went to visit Anit Kaber, the tomb of my new political hero. I would describe Ataturk’s final resting place as a rough cross between a mosque and the Lincoln Memorial. It consists of a huge courtyard surrounded by walls of arches, adjoining a set of steps leading up to a huge pillared hall containing the sarcophagus. It took the Turks fifteen years to build Anit Kaber, and they built it on the highest hill in Ankara. The views from the top are pretty incredible.

We had to follow official etiquette and walked in double-file up to the tomb in silence. I didn’t expect us to be the only ones there, but I was surprised by how many kids there were. There must have been six different school groups visiting, at least. Lots of tiny little Turkish nationalists parading around, dressed in matching uniforms, waving Turkish flags or wearing Ataturk buttons. Makes the heart warm.

Apparently, the President of Azerbaijan (another Turkic republic) visited the tomb while we were there, but we were in the underground museums at the time. The museums, besides housing all of Ataturk’s known possessions – his clothes, his swords, his cars, his boats, his library, his stuffed dog (not kidding) – also provide a history of the War of Independence in paintings and dioramas. One of the most disturbing paintings showed Greek soldiers slaughtering Turkish women and children in a town square, while a Greek Orthodox priest holds up a cross over the slaughter, giving his blessing. The museum blurb that went with the painting declared that “historical evidence proves” that the Greek Orthodox clergy incited massacres of Turks. Methinks that if the historical evidence truly proved it, such a statement would be redundant. But hey, I wasn’t there. (Another dubious claim in the museum: After independence, Turkish women changed their clothing styles [read: headscarves] of “their own free will.”)

Interesting sidenote (for me, at least): in some of the historical documents shown in the museum, the Turkish leaders claim that their war of independence – against the Allies – is justified by the principles of self-determination laid out by President Wilson. Good ideas don’t discriminate, I guess.

Also: I’m pretty sure I saw a man praying in the main hall of the sarcophagus. At any rate, he was standing there with his eyes closed and his hands held out. Yep…

I really, really wanted an Ataturk poster, and the Anit Kaber gift shop only sold them in packs of twelve (for eight lira) – so I bought twelve. Enough to make my own Ataturk shrine back in A6 at Dordt. Most of my roommates voted for Obama, so they owe me this.

After Anit Kaber, a group of us went out to eat, and the restaurant we chose, ironically enough, had walls covered in Islamic script, posters and decorations, and more than a few swords.

Tonight, we met with three Turkish diplomats at the Turkish Foreign Ministry, and they gave us their thoughts about our new president-elect. Afterwards, in honor of November 5 – and nothing else – we watched the ever-inspiring V for Vendetta in our hotel rooms, and I resolved to read the original graphic novel as soon as I got back to the States.

Day 9

Today, we met with Orhan Cenghiz, a famous Turkish human rights lawyer who is currently working on behalf of the families of the Malatya Christian massacre. I won’t go into the details of what he told us, but for the first time, I felt like we had met a Turk who was being straight with us. Not that all the others were dishonest, but I feel that Orhan sees his own nation clearly. He is, somehow, able to separate himself from his culture and analyze it independently. It was fascinating, and I wish him the best of luck fighting for human rights in Turkey.

After we were done listening to Orhan, we went out to grab a last meal of Turkish food (not really that good, compared to Egypt’s, Syria’s and Israel’s), piled back onto the bus, and drove back to the Istanbul Airport, to catch a midnight flight to Aleppo.

Up next: Syria!