Ottoman pomp without Ottoman power and a true Ottoman phallus

Standing in Europe, you can see Asia in the background. Apparently, the hostile British fleet was also visible during the First World War from here.

Once upon a time, the Ottoman Empire was a true global power. Its armies laid siege to European capitals while at the same time roaming the Maghreb and battling the Persian Empire on different scenes of the global theatre. Societies in northern Africa, southern Europe, the Middle East and adjacent regions were influenced by the opulent sultans, the gruesome janissaries and the aspiring architects likewise. By the late 19th century, short before it seized to exist, European politicians would refer to the aging giant as “the sick man at the Bosphorus”. But even then, the pashas would reside in palaces of oriental splendor.

One of which I visited recently.

It’s a good time to talk about palaces in Turkey. It might have come to your attention that the current pasha, Mr. Erdogan, now resides in Turkey’s new presidential palace, usually refered to as “his” (Mr. Erdogans) palace, even in his own speeches. The entire topic is a very controversial one. The structure is the biggest government building on the globe, it’s built inside a natural reserve, no-one really knows how expensive it was, it coincidentally has the same name as the president’s former party (Ak Saray, Ak Parti; Ak meaning “white” or “pure”), etc. The general impression one would get while reading up on the whole story is that Mr. Erdogan built a pompous home for himself on everybody’s back and is not intending to ever leave it, which is kind of a worry considering that we are talking about the residence of the head of state.

In this situation, it is interesting to take a look at the Ottoman correspondence, the Dolmabahce Palace located in Besiktas, Istanbul, which later was the summer residence of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who also died in here before being immortalised by Turkey’s ongoing quest for identity.

Quick summary of Atatürk’s popularity. Yes, that is a tie.

Talking about Turkey and identity; it is not surprising that the modern day local power feels drawn to the glory of past days. Highly succesful TV-soaps about life in the Harems and a president seeing himself personally responsible for Muslim sanctuaries far away from Turkey’s national borders are only part of the picture. The Turkish-German University’s construction being postponed by months because Ottoman architectural elements are missing is another part of it. My initial response to finding out about this was to ask whether timber-frame and Prussian stucco are also envisioned. They aren’t. But in case it bothered you; if the Kemalists were in power rather than the Islamists, instead of Ottoman elements it’d be a compulsory statue of Atatürk required on the campus. And none of Adenauer.

The Dolmabahce Palace as you can see it as of today is not the one it would have been one hundred years ago. The times of the young Republic have left its traces. For example, the Harem’s* most famous room nowadays is the private chamber in which Atatürk perished. The clock still shows the time of his death and his furniture is untouched, including what apparently was his favorite painting. Naturally, it is a very emotional place for most Turks.

What was stunning for me personally though was the overwhelming abundance of space. The majority of the rooms consisted literally of nothing but Ottoman style chairs and couches, usually neatly arranged around nothing in specific. There were a few rooms which obviously had an actual purpose – such as the library or the pompous great hall (they placed a table under the giantic chandelier so that no-one would feel tempted to stand directly beneath it). Apart of these, the extensive rooms and halls of Dolmabahce were home to a strained ensemble of beautiful yet somewhat isolated furniture. So much of them, that my favorite palace game – “Point out things you’d totally have sex on” – got boring pretty quickly.

Given that the general room arrangement was just remotely similar a century ago, it becomes very clear that his palace was not as much the hardline nerve centre of an Empire, but a place for social mingle and to, well, show off. Which is fair enough for me; it’s an awesome palace and enjoyable to visit, interesting also under other aspects than the one I pointed out here. The semi-secret passages for the female residents caught my attention, for example, just as some of the stories around Atatürk and the parrot. There was a free, wild parrot!

Looking at the jewel of Ottoman empirical architecture gives you some idea about the true purpose of administrative buildings. Obviously, the residents of Dolmabahce had no need for 285 rooms and 46 halls, given that in the end, most of them were reduced to enchantingly pretty waiting rooms. Still, someone saw a need to built it this big and it does look amazing lying on the shore of the Bosphorus.

It’s technically forbidden to take pictures inside Dolmabahce, so this is the only one from inside. You see me trying to comprehend why someone would put an overdimensional vase head high in front of a mirror.

Ak Saray isn’t situated at the side of the Bosphorus. If you google for some pictures, you will even notice that all the good views are made from an arial perspective. It’s not as suitable as a tourist attraction as Dolmabahce, as it isn’t meant to be. Naturally, it misses out on the beauty of the comparably small Ottoman counterpart. All it is, is big. In fact, Ak Saray is estimated (!) to have around 2000 rooms, and I already wonder how many of them have no further use but hosting a few nice chairs and couches.

This all being said, if Dolmabahce was the charming, yet expensive coronet of the Ottoman Empire (in fact, one of them; they had several), then Ak Saray is something like the over-dimensional cowboy hat a cliche Texan likes to wear while parading his masculinity as if anybody questioned it. It’s a pretty big hideaway for something so small as a single individuals self-esteem, but then again, I can’t recall anybody saying something along the lines of “Oh boy, look what an awesome Porsche this guy is driving, I bet his package is really big”.

I like to finish this piece with a sentence I read in a book of Terry Pratchett, whom I adore. I can’t remember the exact quote, but it’s from a prince talking about his country’s monumental pyramids, constantly reminding the inhabitants of glorious eras. These pyramids, the prince senses, are pinning his country to the past. But after all, monuments are seldomly built for future generations.

This picture of my cat has nothing to do with anything.

* “Harem” refers to the private rooms of the sultan and has tragically little in common with the Western interpretation.

What’s your countries story?

Once upon a time, a dictator forced all his citizens to be united in looking up to him. All that remains is his footprint.

Many people who knew me back when I was an Erasmus student asked me why I went back to Istanbul. I never hid the fact that it’s not specifically my favorite city. It’s crowded, loud, the traffic is a mess, and other issues. Alas, I returned, partially, because Turkey is a fascinating country to observe. For instance, I believe that Turkey has been looking for a common identity for quite a while. Perhaps since the fall of the once powerful Ottoman empire.

The struggle that is going on is very open, not only in terms of Taksim and Gezi protests, but also in regard to the “Kurdish question” or the constant revision of school books (recently, the militaristic address written by Atatürk himself has been exchanged by one of Erdogan).

Constructions of the Cologne Cathedral were halted for almost 400 years, until in the 19th century, the Prussians decided they needed monumental symbols of national identity.

Between the Dardanelles and Diyarbakir, some strive to define Turkey around its Islamic heritage, others want to reach out to liberal western democracies. To some, Turkey is a nation-state, and those who don’t believe in the nation are traitors. But to some, the concept of the nation is secondary to their cultural identity, making them dangerous in the eyes of the public. I think that the result of this smouldering uncertainty are frequent unrests, yet it also helps explaining why so many Turks are drawn to an almost religious worship around a leading father figurine, finding its matches only in dictatorial personality cults.

How is collective identity being established? In a way, by changing the perception of history into a common one with a certain narrative. The narrative around Atatürk, for example, includes a heroic fight against foreign villains, a power emerging from the ashes of an empire, and a stern man who unites the proud Turks under one banner. This is exactly what you see on the big statue on Taksim square, a square that has recently been refered to as the “ugliest square of the world” by the current Prime Minister. Naturally, his party has its very own narratives.

Sadly, all institutionalised narratives, even the ones employed by democratic parties, are simplistic. Simple messages sell better. Very efficient would be the populist, crude, both uniting and isolating “It’s us against them”-mentality. Currently, leading AKP members throw their political enemies in a pot and stir; PYD is the same as PKK, ISIL as PKK, etc. It’s not so how similar those really are. What is important is the sole claim, since drawing a line between a perceived “them” supposedly creates an “us”. Making out collective enemies is a field in which the Christian, right-wing AfD of Germany and the Islamic AKP of Turkey strangely overlap. Fertile ground for dehumanizing your opponents.

Racism, sublime or in-your-face, is an issue all societies have to deal with. It’s pretty much like bills; they’re a pain in the ass to talk or think about, but ignore them and soon people will knock on your door with big sticks, either to make you pay, or because they think you’re not like them and thus deserve to die.

The problem with racism is that, even though we’re technically not born racist (or aware of the concept of race*), we are born with an inclination to bring order into our mental worlds by categorisation, such as good and evil, disgusting and tasty, straight and gay. This wasn’t problematic if we were also born with the innate capability of deconstructing our own categories. Sadly, human beings are terribly badly manufactured and we have to learn many lessons by ourselves. Hence, I always think it’s incredibly stupid when magazines title stuff like “We thought racism in football had been defeated”. Racism, just like sexism or fast food restaurants, grows back, as it poses the simplest answer for complex questions.

Also, racism has surprisingly little to do about actual foreigners in your country. The GDR behind its wall didn’t allow Thai factory workers to mingle with the German population. Today, eastern Germany has a significantly smaller immigrant population – but more crimes against foreigners than the west. It’s also the area in which extreme right parties gain the most votes. The assumption is that in the west, Germans got used to immigration and noticed that strangers are not so different to themselves. An exception to this is the governor of Germany’s richest federal state of Bavaria, a professional polemic who’s an expert at ignoring facts to the benefit of boasting his follower’s self-esteem. Pretty much like the GDR government.

Cute tour guide in Bratislava. Nothing to do about the topic, just cute.

A similar example would be Russia. In my experience, speaking out against foreigners, especially from central Asia, is socially accepted and rarely considered racism. The glaring beacon of tolerance, though, is the most beautiful city of Kazan, a cultural crucible between Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. A place where it’s not uncommon to meet blonde, blue-eyed, Muslim Russians who speak a Turkic (though not Turkish) language.

Coming back to the topic of narratives, it is useful to look at the impact of racism and its likes (other than the impact of boots on the heads of poor minorities). There are economical impacts, such as foreign investors staying away or being kept away. Also, white males rather than able people being lifted into powerful positions is a problem in most countries. But there’s also the other impact I noticed; once you start subtracting people out of the sum of humanity you care about, you don’t really stop. The list of people who’re “us” shortens according to your current needs, possibly until the Macbeth-ian scenario in which the only person you cared for in the beginning is left, which is yourself.

In this light, I’m never surprised when polemics get caught in corruption scandals. To an extent, we’re the artisans of our personal morales; if a politician abides from being empathic towards perceived stranger groups, why would he be empathic towards anyone? Ultimately, every group is constructed, artificial in that sense.

The danger is invoked by populists all over the globe. They warn of “them” taking what is “ours”, but everyone can be made part of “them”. Liberal authors and journalists experienced this in McCarthy’s USA same as farmers found themselves suspects in a perceived all-Russian conspiracy during the Stalinist era. German language knows the term “Mitläufer” for a person who doesn’t directly support a radical movement, but also abides from opposing it, either due to personal benefit or neglect. Actually, a big portion of German language literature, from Zweig’s “Buchmendel” to Tellkamp’s “Der Turm”, focusses around such “Mitläufer” trying to withstand the storms of their times by ducking. Ultimately, the tides turns against them.

A pioneer of sexual science, Arthur Kinsey, once claimed that “the living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects”. It is foolish to give into paranoia and isolationism. The world, each country and each human being are the complex sum of numerous identities. Maybe, here at the Bosphorus, or anyplace where political tectonics grind against each other, the desire for simple answers is carried to the surface quicker.

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* It actually is “just” a social concept, as biological research has shown. The only people to whom genetic differences between groups are interesting are anthropologists and their likes. If you have to google “anthropologist”, you probably don’t need to care.

Is that tear gas or are you just unhappy to see me?

I used to tell my anxious relatives back in Germany, that in Istanbul, if you try, it’s easy to avoid street warfare and tear gas shelling. It’s still easy – though hampering – to get around the barricades. But I was totally wrong about the tear gas. As a foreigner, I believe to be obligated to not get involved in protest. In the past week, nevertheless, I was gassed twice while sitting in pubs and minding my own business, and today I witnessed a protest being dispersed in daylight attack. The second time I was gassed, yesterday evening, was rather harmless. But last week we had to run up to the highest floor of the pub. Still no idea what exactly happened that day. In this very moment, however, in Taksim and Kadiköy, barricades are being stormed again. Reason enough to write.

Tear gas selfie. The protest came to us, not the other way around.

At first, to something seemingly off topic: In Turkey, there’s general conscription. Each family has or had offspring in the army. Sons of families living in western Turkey usually are sent to the eastern areas, into the provinces with a high Kurdish population. The Turkish army – that’s everyone’s children. Attacks against them inevitably are interpreted as attacks against all Turks. Like this, the “Kurdish question” is almost everyone’s personal business in Turkey. This is understandable, yet possibly intended. And even though the conflict thankfully has lost momentum as opposed to the 90s, when the PKK went around killing Turkish teachers to stop a perceived “turkification”, the trauma still lies deep. Mind you, though, that not every Kurd is automatically a supporter of the PKK or even independence. Especially actions against teachers have left a generation of Kurds without education, posing not only an economical problem for the region until today.

In western media, Kurdish peshmerga often get away rather well. Underdogs fighting suppression, female fighters without the stigmatic head scarf – that looks good to western eyes. It looks heroic. Heroes and terrorists – you can certainly find both in a population that’s estimated to count between 25 and 30 million individuals.

Obviously, this isn’t even a glimpse of the entire context you have to be aware of when thinking about today’s protests in Istanbul and general curfews in eastern Turkey. Probably, it’s safer to just assume that one knows barely anything. As a matter of fact, I had to ask around a lot to get an idea what was being protested against. Apparently, the protesters demanded more action from the Turkish side against ISIS, especially considering the situation for Kurdish fighters in Kobani. Earlier, protests in Kadiköy had usually been pacifist. Now how does this fit in? I recall that during World War II, the Nazi army was slaughtering Polish insurgents in Warsaw, while the Soviet forced waited only an artillery strike away, having the Nazis do their dirty work by eliminating potentially rebellious young Poles, yet later glorifying themselves as the liberators. Perhaps, Kurds and friends of the Kurdish movement (which includes many left-wing or alternative thinkers) are afraid of a similar scenario? I do not know.

Whatever may or may not be the reason for the protests, even if they would have been focussing around something as trivial as a new burger at McDonalds or something as obviously wrong as poisoning wells out of spite, it didn’t justify the routine reaction of the police force. In the middle of the day, in one of the centres of public life, they tear gassed the entire area to disperse some two or three hundred mainly peaceful protesters. I know they were peaceful because I saw them. First I walked between them to get to my gym, later I was working out and having an excellent view of the scene when the charge began. Anti-riot methods against something that clearly wasn’t a riot. The question is: why?

Police marching up a main street in Kadiköy. All pictures are from a video I found here: http://videonuz.ensonhaber.com/izle/kadikoy-deki-kobani-eylemine-polis-mudahalesi

In case you ever wondered what tear gas smells like; imagine a mixture of rotten eggs, the sensation of suffocation and the genuine insight that your local administration can’t handle tension. But it is good at letting everybody know how it deals with problems without solving them. I looked for empirical research or official statements – Turkish or otherwise – arguing the use of tear gas. I couldn’t find any, even though I still think it would be an interesting read. Either way, in such a statement you wouldn’t find what very certainly is the key reason for the use of tear gas. It’s a form of collective punishment. A few cans are enough to let the entire area know who’s in charge. Ideally, residents will put the blame on the protesters rather than the police force. In either case, no-one will change his or her opinion on the subject in debate based on getting shitloads of toxin into his or her eyes. All tear gas does is dig the trenches deeper. That is not only the trenches between supporters of different ideologies, but also between the young generation and the police. “Us and them” doesn’t work out well for anyone in the long run.

What is worrying me about this is not only that I had to deal with red eyes and a trainer almost vomiting. Naturally, I worry about the health of individuals protesting (like the negotiating lawyer who got a tear gas can thumped against his head in an act of actually individual punishment) or the health of Turkish society. Tear gas also turns into an accepted way of dissolving protests in other parts of the world. Ferguson, Vienna, Hamburg – the use of tear gas isn’t new, but I fear it’s on the rise.

Sadly, I didn’t find a view that includes the gym, but I’m looking at the water gun from the left. Saw the beam, not the vehicle.

So let’s be very clear about this: Tear gas is a chemical weapon. It’s forbidden in warfare, though strangely allowed in domestic riots. It’s the last thing the police can do before live fire. It doesn’t hit only those with malicious minds, but everyone, peaceful protester and supposedly uninvolved bystander alike. Using tear gas is enforcing state control for the sake of state control. And last but not least, it doesn’t end riots, it postpones them.

As seen, and smelled, again and again in Istanbul.

This stuff is already panic inducing when you can’t see it. One might recognise the coloured balls on the side from an earlier article of mine.

Update: Meanwhile, protests got more intense all over Turkey, including violence from both sides. Obviously, I don’t support violence from either side, as it just provoces even more violence from the respective other faction(s). The current events show once again the administration being stranded in case of dispute, and also, sadly, exposes the fragility of Turkish-Kurdish relations.

Realms of Concrete and Flesh

I might have an odd view on cities, strongly influenced by the opening scene of the magnificent “Amélie”. I perceive every cluster of human dwellings, be it a household, a campsite, a village or a metropolis, not as a single entity, but as a composition of the subjective habitats of every individual living there. An example; when I think about the town where I used to study until recently, I naturally have a different Bielefeld in mind than any other former or active of its residents. To me, the trams were like veins, pumping the students, workers, guests from one end of the city to the other. Each place of importance is connected to the tram lines and I remember their position according to the nearest station. Places I traversed regularly, like the uni, are represented with more detail in my mind than sites I rarely visited. Quarters not connected to the tram system are shadowy lands hidden in the mist of ignorance. It is obvious, though, that other residents or non-students would imagine the parts of the town they are accustomed with in full colour and light, while the uni or my dorm would be faceless voids like their homes are to me.

What is true for the medium-sized Bielefeld or smaller realms such as your grandparent’s bathroom is also true and unimaginably more fascinating for the colossal crucible of matter, time and life that’s called Istanbul. Every block is the periphery of someone’s world. Each time you pass a street, you are unknowingly entering someone’s domain. For me and most other foreigners, Istanbul is pictured from high flats in the central districts or from the view you have when taking a ferry over the Bosphorus. Alas, many natives have lived in the outskirts of Istanbul and never even seen the sea. For them, Istanbul has nothing to do about water. Instead, it might be perceived as a forest of mono-coloured concrete buildings, each filled with friends, hazards, competitors, customers, strangers. Moreover, each 500-tenant block, itself an organism stuffed with warm-water-veins and an electric nervous system, is filled to the top with stories. Stories not only of the living inhabitants, but also of the physical and immaterial objects, such as the graffiti on floor five which informs us of Emres love to Ezgi; two imaginary individuals who’s real-life counterparts might have not seen each others in decades, just married or might be separated by death.

The complexity is even more beautiful if you add another dimension, which is time. My flat, rather my little house, is two hundred years old. One room features the star of the Ottomans on the ceiling. I’m wondering, who was it built for? Back then, it would probably have been a middle class or upper middle class residence. Maybe an officer? A tradesman? After the end, fall or rise of their lineage, who lived here then? Did a poet write his verses in the room I’m sitting in right now?

These are the thoughts that go through my head when looking at the numerous skylines of Istanbul, a city that old, that at least ten big Wikipedia entries are needed to tell its story. Maybe more. I lost count at eight.

Anyways…I’m back abroad, so from now on, I’ll start posting again!

In unrelated information, I’m still available. *Overly explicit winking*