Division and progress in Turkey

When I arrived in Turkey three months ago, I thought that the main division in Turkish society was between religious people and nonbelievers.

I was completely wrong. I had read dozens of books and learned all I could about Turkey, but I still made a huge error because of flawed preconceptions about Islam and Turkey. Turkey is divided, but not by religion: part of society is modernizing and pragmatic, the other is stubbornly traditional and ideological. Religious people and nonbelievers alike find themselves on each side of this divide.

Westerners tend to perceive the role of Islam as a major fault in Turkish political life, but it is not--or at least, it shouldn't be. Most devout Turks hope for a democratic, pluralistic society that respects their beliefs. Turkish Islam is anything but anti-modern: it is one of the most powerful proponents of greater freedom, equality, and openness in Turkey. Moderate Islam finds itself on the same side as Turkey's nonobservant liberals, who want a pluralist, democratic society too.

The radical Kemalists, led by the military, have more in common with Turkey's few extremist Islamists than most people realize: both are committed to returning Turkey to an imagined perfect past. Both are ideological groups and eschew the pragmatism that characterizes moderate Islam and liberalism. Of course, rightist Kemalists and religious extremists have nothing in common beyond nostalgia for the imaginary, and they have very different dreams.

At first glance, religion looks like the most significant division in Turkey. People's clothing and mannerisms reflect their religious beliefs, and the media perpetuates the myth of a battle between ''secularists'' and ''Radical Islamists.'' But wearing a head scarf or praying five times a day does not make someone radical--it makes him a believer. Yet most Westerners and many Turks conflate the two thanks to a poor understanding of Turkish history and a basic ignorance of Islam. (Needless to say, most Westerners are guilty of both. Surely most Turks know more about Islam, but their view of their own history... well, I've written about that before.)

So, how about history? In the 1920's, the new Turkish government treated Islam like an enemy: most of the modernizing policies of the era weakened the role of Islam in Turkish life. The language reform distanced Turks from the Koran, universal suffrage made women more equal, and the abolition of the Caliphate deprived Turks of their (theoretical) leadership of the Muslim world. Religious leaders were oppressed and believers marginalized. Devout Muslims did oppose these changes 80 years ago and viewed the new Republic as an enemy, but it's incorrect to assume that they still do: that would mean that neither Turkey nor Turkish Islam has changed since then. Both have.

Today, the moderate Muslim community in Turkey (that's the majority of the population, by the way) realizes that democracy and modernity is Turkey's best hope for the future. Turkish Islam is largely a social force today--its political significance is quite limited. I didn't understand this three months ago, and very few people outside Turkey get it. The image of Islam we've been force-fed for the last eight years and more is one of a monolithic, political religion irreconcilably opposed to democracy and modernity, and it's not easy to really shake that perception until you talk with people who are both devout Muslims and reformists.

However, moderate Islam alone will not deliver progress (we'll get to just what that is in a few minutes) because it lacks the tools to challenge the entrenched Kemalist elite: its static interpretation of ''Turkishness'' will only fall if the two main reformist forces--moderate Islam and liberalism--start to work together. There are many significant obstacles to this partnership, most significantly the lingering distrust of religion that is so common in educated, westernizing Turkish society.

I had thought that the AK Party had delivered this synthesis: its attempts to strengthen Turkey's democratic structures seemed genuine. However, its recent implosion indicates that it--or at least Recep Erdoğan, the Prime Minister--is more interested in maintaining power than reform. I'm disappointed, as are many of the liberal Turks who supported Erdoğan, a devout Muslim, in 2003. Elections are soon and it doesn't look good for the AKP: it was elected promising to change Turkey and hasn't followed through.

It may be some time before these two factions can cooperate, but I view it as an absolute precondition to progress in Turkey. Together, moderate Muslims and liberals make up a huge majority of Turkish society, but the rightist Kemalists have effectively divided and ruled for most of Turkey's democratic history.

These men wield Atatürk's legacy like a cudgel: anyone who challenges their plans is branded an enemy of the Father of All Turks. This is duplicitous at best, as their policies are only distantly related to those of the early Republican period. Kemalist governance is long dead; only the mythical Atatürk lives on. That myth is used to maintain the Turkish status quo, benefiting only the deceitful guardians of the great man's legacy--the military and its civilian allies.

What, then, will reform look like in Turkey? My answers are pretty standard: respect for minority rights, civilian control of the military, populist (and sane) economic policies, unrestricted democracy, true freedom of religion, and a strengthened civil society. But it's not up to me.

Turks will have to set their own course, and the only thing that's certain is that Turkey's path will be different from anything we've seen before. Turkey's historical and contemporary circumstances are unique and its solutions will be too, but those solutions will only come if the artificial divisions of Turkish society can be put aside. Am I optimistic? Well, I'm hopeful. But I also know that the status quo is a damn hard thing to change.

Kurds, Turks, and war

I spent my final two weeks in Turkey on a slow, directionless meander through the southeast. Turkey's poorest, least-developed, and most restive region is the home to the majority of its Kurdish population.

It's difficult to say just how many Kurds there are in Turkey; even the censuses here are political. I've met Turks who have said there are no more than two or three million Kurds, while some Kurds have claimed upwards of 30 million. No doubt, both these estimates are way off: a realistic number is probably around 15 million, or twenty percent of the the population.

There are other Kurds in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, but the majority live in Turkey. They speak four related but unintelligible languages which are written with two alphabets. Nationalism is a relatively new phenomenon among the Kurds--before 1923, they were united to the other Muslim peoples of the Ottoman empire by religion. Loyalty was to the clan and then to religious brothers--both those institutions declined following the establishment of the Republic in 1923.

A low-intensity war has plagued the southeast and Turkey as a whole since the mid-1970's, when the Kurdistan Worker's Party (or PKK) launched a campaign for an independent Kurdistan. As the name indicates, it was Marxist-Leninist, but it quickly gained the support of the Kurds, even those who disagreed with its godless ideology.

Today, the dream of an independent Kurdistan is largely dead. A few die-hards still hope for a Kurdish state made of up Turkish, Iraqi, Syrian, and Iranian territory, but most Kurds recognize that such a state would be desperately poor, isolated, and likely wracked by civil war. The new goals are simple: respect and recognition. (That's the official position of the PKK today, and is how most Kurds I spoke with feel as well.)

I spent last Friday night drinking tea and playing board games in a cafe in Batman, an obscure city in the middle of southeast Turkey. Like other cities in the region, its population has swelled during the last 20 years due to an influx of internal refugees: villagers have been forced to leave their homes by the constant fighting between the Turkish military and the PKK. In many cases, the PKK has targeted villages thought to be overly loyal to the Turkish government. However, the Turkish military's heavy-handed tactics have forced even more Kurds to flee to the cities.

Needless to say, I didn't win a single game in this smoke-filled tea house. I never do. I had met a group of guys around my age earlier that day, and had accompanied them to their favorite çayevi, where I quickly became a sensation. Person after person stopped by our table to say hello to me--they usually gave me a few game tips too. (Not that it helped.) As usual, people were surprised that I could speak decent Turkish, which prompted another question: ''Do you speak Kurdish?'' No, no Kurdish.

Around midnight, I got up to leave. As I shook hands on my way out the door, a solitary man called to me in English: ''Come here, I want to talk with you.'' So I walked over and sat down. ''You are a student?'' he asked. ''Studying what?'' History and politics, I said. I explained that I was in Turkey doing a project for my university. ''What do you know about the Kurds?'' he asked.

Truth is, I know a lot about the Kurds. But this is not a topic one discusses with strangers in Turkey: it is potentially dangerous to say the wrong thing to the wrong person, especially in the southeast. So I stalled, saying, ''not much.'' I figured I'd let him set the tone.

Turns out I was sitting in a cafe full of PKK sympathizers. Some of the men who gathered to talk with me--translation provided by my new friend--had lost brothers in the mountains. (And a few sisters. The PKK takes women as well.) To be sure, I asked if they supported the PKK.

''Of course,'' my friend said. ''We all do. They are the only option we have. No one would know about the Kurdish problem if it weren't for the PKK. I don't always like what they do, their tactics... but their struggle is ours too.''

''But who do you vote for?'' I asked. ''The DTP, of course. And before them, DHP. And before them, HDP. Before that, we voted DEP.'' He listed a few other parties--all banned today, except the DTP, which is fighting for its life in front of the Turkish supreme court right now. (Political parties based on ethnic identity are illegal in Turkey--this is usually why Kurdish parties are banned. The DTP case is based on allegations that the party has ''become a focal point of activities against the sovereignty of the state and indivisible unity of the country and the nation.'')

He had a point: the only consistent, reliable advocate for the Kurds has been the PKK. Kurdish political parties are inevitably banned, so no one puts that much trust in them. After all, they don't last long enough to accomplish much. The PKK has been around for 30 years, and doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.

Banning Kurdish political parties has pushed moderate Kurds to the PKK because there are no other alternatives. I blame Kemalism--the national ideology of Turkey. No where is it more destructive than here.

One of the central premises of the Turkish national definition is that all Muslims living within the borders of the Republic are Turks. This is manifestly untrue. Millions of Kurds do not consider themselves Turkish, despite geographic location and a shared faith. Turkish is not their first language, and many do not even speak Turkish. (Almost all of the men do. They're more likely to learn it because they tend to contact ''Turkifying'' institutions--like the military--more than women do.)

Yet it simply cannot be that they are not Turkish. Recognizing that these people are not Turks would be tantamount to admitting that the Turkish national definition--as laid out by Atatürk--is not all-encompassing. At its heart, the Kurdish problem is a social one, but only a brave few Turks say as much. The media, government, and military all insist that it is a ''terrorist problem'': as if terror is motivated only by itself.

No, terror is motivated by a 75-year ban on the Kurdish language and 65 years of a denial of the Kurdish identity. Terror is motivated by an eternity of underinvestment and an unaddressed history of feudalism. Terror is motivated by 30 years of aggressive, counter-productive counter-insurgency tactics. Terror is motivated by villages razed by the army for ''non-cooperation.'' Terror is motivated by 85 years of marginalization, poverty, and bias.

While I don't want to endorse the PKK or its repugnant tactics, I can't entirely condemn the use of violence in this situation. Let my try to explain why.

The Turkish political world is a little box with six sides: one for each of Atatürk's principles. Those who pursue politics outside of that box--beyond the bounds of Kemalism--quickly find their parties banned and their leaders imprisoned. The Kurdish political ideology does not fit in that box, and thus, can't be discussed in parliament or civil society.

That does not make its goals illegitimate. Can we really blame the Kurds for turning to violence when the Turkish political establishment refuses to consider their demands? Attacks on civilians are beyond the pale, but military targets--well, that's war, not terror.

I'll return to the tea house in Batman: my friend said, perhaps correctly, that ''no one would know about the Kurdish problem if it weren't for the PKK.'' The high-profile violence of the 1980's and 1990's focused the world's attention on southeastern Turkey, and forced Turkey to make some political concessions. But now, the world knows of the Kurds, and some progress is being made.

Yet the PKK fights on. I question its motivations. Why does it still fight? The Turkish press has noted that every time political progress on the Kurdish issue is made, the PKK launches another attack--recently, they've killed dozens of soldiers along the Iraqi border. It seems that the PKK fears a political solution, as that would deny its raison d'etat and dry up its support. As my friend in Batman said, ''Happy people do not go to the mountains.''

Until quite recently, Turkish society and the ruling AK Party seemed to be growing more accepting of Kurdish demands, but a spate of attacks on Turkish soldiers appears to have reversed that trend. I suspect that this is exactly what the PKK was hoping for: war is in its interest. As Der Spiegel put it, ''The PKK loses when there is peace, and wins when there is war.'' Will the PKK let another group take its vanguard position?

Not without a fight: Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the PKK, became the leader of the Kurds because he killed all his rivals, not because he was best qualified. He's imprisoned for life on an isolated Turkish island, but is still the figurehead of the entire Kurdish movement. There's no way peace will ever come until a new Kurdish leader, untainted by the PKK, comes along. But the PKK won't willingly relinquish its leadership, and will continue to sabotage the peace process if it feels marginalized.

Likewise, I question just how committed the Turkish military is to finding a solution. The war in the southeast is used to justify massive military budgets and constant interference in government affairs. In short, the state of war allows the military to maintain its power. The generals lose their reason for political omnipotence if the war ends.

I don't think the day-to-day politics of the Turkish/Kurdish issue are that important: what matters are the slow, long-term shifts in public sentiment. This is not a problem that can be solved with a treaty. Although the PKK and the military are combatants, they're proxies for societies that define themselves based, in large part, on opposition to the each other. There will be no peace until Turks and Kurds begin to accept each other as equals and respect the other's culture and history.

Can Turks accept that Kurdish demands are not unreasonable? Can Kurds distance themselves from the PKK? And perhaps most importantly, can both sides find new leaders with a stake in peace, not war?

''You are our guest''

The walk from the Sanlıurfa bus station to the city center is about one kilometer, not a bad distance to cover on foot. In the fading pink light of a southeastern evening, I walked past a dusty soccer pitch where boys played on small fields divided with white stones, the same color as the stone walls of a castle I could see on a hill to the south. I crossed a big road ringing the city like Frogger: one lane at a time, which hardly guarantees safety as Turkish drivers do not believe in lanes.

The road narrowed as it approached the city, squeezing through a series of cemeteries with handsome rock walls. They too matched the castle. All the headstones pointed one way--towards Mecca. Some were painted green, the color of Islam, and many bore seemingly impossible dates. 1322-1986. 1297-1950. Not so: those departed souls lived in two eras, the Ottoman with the Islamic calendar, and the Republican period with the Gregorian. Born in the former, died in the latter.

I found a hotel, left my bags, and walked back into Urfa's streets. The main avenue--Attaturk Caddesi, as usual--was lined with modern shops and banks, but the cobbled sidewalks, narrow alleys, and stately mosques betrayed a much greater history.

I stopped at a lokantı for dinner, where a shelf of goat skulls above the soup pot indicated the province of the floating morsels of meat. I passed on the soup and ordered two lamacun and ayran instead.

By now, the evening had ended and a full moon vaguely illuminated the streets, which were full of shopkeepers closing for the night and boys selling a few remaining simit (a type of Turkish bagel) from metal trays carefully balanced atop their heads. I wandered through the market and found a pastry shop, with a rack of cooling cookies out front. ''What are these?'' I asked the teenager behind the counter. He told me, and asked where I was from. America, I said, and asked how much for one. Smiling, he said, ''Free. Welcome to Urfa.''

I continued to the city's square, below the castle I had admired earlier. Gardens and great expanses of stone surrounded two ponds, full of holy carp: they say anyone who eats them will go blind. A boy asked me, in English, ''Mister, fish eatings you want?'' I bought some fish food and threw it to the already fat carp.

I walked back towards my hotel, stopping to drink a beer in a nearly abandoned bar. Drinkers are rare in Urfa. As usual, I went to bed early. Night life in southeastern Turkey is limited to endless tea and board games, and I can't do that every night.

I returned to the market the next day for lunch. I sat down on a diminutive square stool and ordered, ''one of those.'' The inevitable question came: yes, I am foreign. American. I speak a little Turkish. How? I took a class in America. (I am well-practiced with these words.)

A crowd of curious merchants was gathering, eager to see me and hear my broken Turkish. ''What is America like?'' the men asked me. ''Like Turkey,'' I said. (And really, it is.) ''But you are Christians and we are Muslims,'' they replied. ''Doesn't matter,'' I said. ''Bir dunya, bir millet.'' One world, one people. They liked that, and quickly agreed.

A man handed me a fresh date, and asked about my religion. This was getting complicated fast. I'll try to translate my response directly to English. I said something like:

''My religion? There is none. But there is a god, I believe. But which god? I don't know. Muslim god? Christian god? Jewish god? Hindu gods? Greek gods? I don't know. To know this... difficult.''

It was not difficult for this group: they explained that Allah is the only god, and then said a lot of complicated things I didn't understand. They kept repeating something, and indicated that I should say it with them. People often do this to help me pronounce hard words, but as I reached the end of the phrase, I realized what I had just said: ''There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet,'' in Arabic.

Technically, I had just become a Muslim. That's all you have to do: say those words and you're done. My friends laughed, and asked if I'd like to go to the mosque with them that afternoon. I thought I'd rather return to the bar.

I stood up and asked how much, but the man who had handed me ''one of those'' shook his head and said, ''free, and sit. Tea is coming.'' So I sat, protesting, but the other men chimed in, saying ''you are our guest and you will not pay.'' We drank tea, I asked about their families, I showed pictures of my family, and then I finally stood, shaking hands all around. The crowd I had attracted dispersed. As I walked on, mandarins, dates, and apples were quietly handed my way: sweet evidence of a town's goodwill.

The colors of this market were vibrant and far removed from the manufactured Ottomanism of the west. Fiberglass roofs hung over the alleys, lending a milky quality to the colors. Shiny olives--a dozen shades of gray, and another dozen green--waited for customers in 20 liter buckets. Men and women alike wore pale violet scarves, a color I had seen nowhere else in Turkey. Other men wore puşi, scarves of checkered red and white, creatively draped over their heads and shoulders. Grayish wool stood in huge, puffy stacks outside workshops, soon to be spun. Shoe shine men waited for customers, their hands stained brown by the polish. Golden tobacco sat in bags, and I watched men sample it by rolling a cigarette before ordering, ''yari kilo.''

A loop through the oldest part of town took me by gangs of kids eager to practice their ''hellowhatsyournamewhereareyoufrom.'' ''Hello! My name is Riley. I am from America. What are your names?'' I gave them pencils, and when I ran out, I dipped into my personal stash of pens. Eventually, I could only hand out smiles, which everyone returned.

Sometimes these crowds practice a different English word: ''money, money!'' But there would always be one or two kids, usually the smallest, who would shake their heads and say, with great dignity, ''no, no money.'' I listened to them.

I was sad to leave Urfa two days later. I could tell I was somewhere special: a place of unique beauty and kindness unmatched by anywhere I have ever been. The days after Urfa where disappointing, as nothing could match the spendor of Glorious Urfa. (The prefix ''Sanlı'' means glorious.)

I hopped from town to town, visiting ancient churches and mosques. I stopped at Hasankayf, a ruin that rivals Macchu Picchu's elegance. I was alone there. I drank tea and watched television beamed from Istanbul: difficult to believe it was the same country as the southeast. I met Kurdish men who sympathized with the PKK--they told me stories of torture and brothers lost forever in the mountains. I shared holy perfume brought from Mecca by old men. I played Turkish board games--still haven't won yet.

Winter is coming here and it's time to go to Cyprus. But I'll be back.

Photos from eastern Turkey

If you click on the photo, it'll shrink and reveal its caption. Or, click here to see the show full screen. (Link leads to Flickr.)



I'm in Turkish Cyprus now, which is a lot like western Turkey. The promised post about the Kurds will be up soon.

Once again, thanks to Fabio Cavassini for building the great tool that makes these slideshows so easy.

I am everyone's uncle

I woke up at five o'clock this morning when the call to prayer shattered the silence of downtown Gaziantep: Allah Akbar... Allah Akbar... It lasted around 10 minutes, as usual, and then the quiet of early-morning eastern Turkey returned. My trip has followed a similar pattern: silence, punctuated by bursts of expression. Such is life traveling in a country where I can communicate basic ideas but not well-formed thoughts.

I speak enough Turkish to get around and to explain who I am. I can ask simple questions about almost anything, and usually understand the answer. However, real communication is beyond me. (A recent misunderstanding: a man told me that he had family in the U.S., and I tried to ask if his brother had emigrated. Unintentionally, I asked about his wife, which he found hilarious.)

I can and do make friends, if even for just a few hours: strangely, people always want my phone number, which is pointless because there's no way I could ever have a conversation in Turkish on the phone. But over a tea or a beer, my unwieldy Turkish, plus smiles and hand gestures, is enough to communicate basic ideas. When I don't understand words, I pay careful attention to body language.

Turks are a physically expressive bunch. Certain gestures usually replace words: the right hand over the heart coupled with a smile means ''No thanks;'' a click of the tongue and subtly raised eyebrows means ''no;'' and the thumb and index finger rubbed together means ''good stuff'' or ''expensive.''

When I make these gestures, it confuses the hell out of people. Most memorably, a Russian waitress (and prostitute) responded to my non-verbal ''no'' with a surprised, ''Turk!?'' No, I said, American. She then offered herself to me again (yes, that way...) and when I made a face of disgust, she tried to overcharge me for my beer. Not so fast: as I made the ''expensive'' gesture, I asked the men (who were much more interested in her than I was) at the next table how much for a beer. I left the proper amount on the table, and went out the back door, never to return to that bar and the brothel next door.

So I content myself with long periods of minimal self-expression, and then explode into joyous English (or Spanish, but that's unusual) when I meet people with whom I share a language. Couchsurfing has been a wonderful addition to this trip, primarily because it's helped me find people I can really communicate with. It would be difficult to suspend verbal self-expression, and thanks to Couchsurfing, I haven't had to.

Everything in this part of Turkey has at least two names, sometimes three. This city's official name is Gaziantep, but everyone calls it Antep. (The prefix Gazi, which means ''warrior for Islam,'' was added in the 1920's to commemorate local resistance to the French, who sought to expand their Syrian colony to the south.) Other cities have official Turkish names which have replaced Kurdish ones on maps and signs, but still are known by their old names. These multiple names reflect the multiple ethnic and religious identities of the region--and make buying bus tickets really confusing.

This afternoon, a boy made a face at me as I walked down Antep's main market street. He startled me, and I guess it showed, because looked guilty and said, ''Pardon, abi.'' Sorry, uncle. In Turkey, everyone is everyone's uncle.

I'm sitting outside a tea house (çay alırsınız, abi?) below the hill-top remains of Antep's castle. The hill is entirely man-made, a relic of thousands of years of human presence. Each successive empire has built a new fortress on top of the old, adding to the giant pile of bricks, mortar, and antiques: Ottoman on top of Egyptian on top of Byzantine on top of Hittite...

There's no reason I came to Antep: it warrants only a brief mention in my guidebook, noting its excellent museum (I'll go this afternoon) and pleasant parks. (The latter is a rarity in Turkey, particularly because the parks are thoughtfully sited to separate the industrial and residential sectors of the city. Urban planning in Turkey? It can't be.)

My German hotelier asked me yesterday morning why I had come to Antep: I couldn't say any more than, ''Well, it was kind of on my route.'' (Not that I have a defined route. Two days ago, I was all set to skip Antep and go to the Hatay with a medical student I met, but she didn't invite me. I was probably over-optimistic.)

I don't know why I came, but I haven't found a reason to leave. The weather is nice. People are friendly and curious about me. (I'm finally comfortable with children's stares.) The food is stupendous: Antep is legendary throughout Turkey for its baklava, and I eat way too much of it.

How did I get to Antep? Well, I'll work backwards for a change.

I came to Antep two days ago from Malatya, a modern and unremarkable city four hours north. I spent much of my three days there working on a post about Turkish nationalism (see below) and getting lost in the market. I couchsurfed with Ahmet, a Sergeant in the Turkish army, and more importantly, a drummer in an army band. We drank a lot of beer and had many great conversations about a range of topics--Turkish politics to the Turkish military to Turkish women.

I had come to Malatya by a night train from Ankara. Unfortunately, sleepers were sold out so I spent 16 hours in second class. It was still better than a bus. My time in Ankara was brief: just long enough to drink most of a bottle of Armenian cognac with some Couchsurfing friends and catch the train. (Reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia begins in the bottle.)

I flew to Ankara from Trabzon, where I had returned to visit my friend Dicle, whom I had met three weeks earlier: it was a good choice, as she had made me an apple pie. (It was one of the most caring things anyone has done for me in a long time. Of course, she had no idea how to make a pie, so she looked up a recipe on the internet: it turned out well.) I spent three days there roasting chestnuts, eating wonderful food, and enjoying the company of people I already knew.

Before Trabzon, I was in Erzurum, a frigid city in the northeast. I couchsurfed with Veysel, a veterinary student, and his family, and also met two couchsurfers riding their bikes from Europe to India and Nepal... I can hardly imagine. Aside from being damn cold, Erzurum is situated right in the middle of the biggest hills I've ever seen--I hesitate to call them mountains, because their rolling, soft contours don't look much like the jagged peaks I'm used to. If I had gone up in them, I'm sure I would call them mountains.

Before that, I was in Kars, and you've heard about that.

Despite Antep's unexpected charm, I'll leave for Urfa tomorrow. I still have plenty of places to go, but time is short. I'll be in Cyprus in two weeks. The more time I spend in Turkey, the more time I feel I need.
-----
21 November:
A rather embarrassing correction--a brief look at my dictionary tells me that ''abi'' does not mean ''uncle.'' It's a colloqualism of ''ağabi,'' which means ''older brother.'' Goes to show just how good my Turkish is.

To ask why is forbidden: Turkish nationalism

A few weeks ago, the PKK launched a daytime raid on an isolated Turkish army garrison near the Iraq border. As usual, the attack came from inside Iraq. Seventeen soldiers were killed. This post had been attacked several times before, yet it had not been reinforced. Radio requests for backup were not answered, despite the presence of other Turkish troops nearby.

Needless to say, the Turkish media covered this story nonstop for days: footage of funerals, wailing mothers, and speeches condemning the terrorists dominated the nightly news. Although my Turkish isn't good enough to understand broadcasts, I could understand that two important questions went unasked in almost all of the media: how and why?

One paper finally dared to do a little digging, and found some damning stuff. The Taraf daily published photos that seemed to show that top commanders knew this attack was coming, but did nothing about it. It's still unknown if these photos were real or not, but regardless, the military's reaction spoke volumes about modern Turkey: The new Chief of Staff İlker Başbuğ said warned the media ''to be careful, to be on the right side.'' He denied the authenticity of the photos but provided little evidence, and generally limited himself to threatening the press.

And why? Well, no one ever asked that question. And no one ever does. I've been puzzling over the unusual nature of Turkish political society for several months now, and I've now learned that I'm not supposed to ask why. Things are as they are for a reason, and it's impolite to question. And that's just for foreigners: Turks who ask why are suspected of disloyalty. Turkish society is generally free and open, but certain institutions--most obviously the military--are off limits to criticism. Legal penalties exist, but simple social taboos limit discussion almost as effectively. Nationalism--effectively, a set of shared beliefs and assumptions--guides how Turks understand their country.

It's impossible to understand Turkey without thinking about nationalism. I've made a lot of people uncomfortable in the past two months by asking them about Turkey's unmentionable topics: the Armenians, gender relations, the Kurdish problem, etc. But nothing bothers people more than asking them about nationalism.

Turkish nationalism is a relatively new phenomenon. Its origins date to the late 19th century, at the earliest. During Ottoman times, ''Turks'' were simply the majority in a multinational empire. Islam provided the most important bond, not any ethnic, political, or social nation.

This was not true of the Empire's other nationalities. One of the results of waning Ottoman power was the emergence of national movements (some of which were supported by European states, eager to gain new colonies in Ottoman lands) among the Empire's minorities. The establishment of new (primarily Christian) national states in former Ottoman territories prompted an ideological crisis among the Empire's Turkish elite: what would the direction of the Ottoman state be?

There were three primary choices: Ottomanism, Islamism, or Turkism. Briefly, Ottomanism was about attempting to create a pan-national ''Ottoman'' identity, but it was probably to late for that. Islamism is self explanatory: it would have tied the empire together with religion, but that would have alienated the Empire's significant non-Muslim population. The final choice, Turkism, requires a little more explanation.

Turks in Turkey are part of a recognizable, multi-state nation that stretches all the way to Western China. (There are about 250 million ''Turks'' throughout central Asia.) They speak similar languages, are almost all Muslim, and trace their lineage to the same mythical root. ''Turkism,'' as it was initially concieved, advocated uniting all Turks in a state called ''Turan.'' (There are still some people who would like to see this happen.) The Russian Revolution in 1917 and the spread of Soviet power into central Asia killed this dream, but really, it was never realistic.

During the last years of the Ottoman Empire, different groups advocated each of these, but the model that emerged was a strange synthesis of all three. Ataturk and his allies created a new national identity that had to be taught to citizens of the new Turkish Republic. Zia Gokalp, one of the intellectual fathers of the Republic, put it this way: ''Nation is a group composed of men and women who have recieved the same education, who have received the same acquisitions in language, morality, religion, and aesthetics... Men want to live together, not with those who carry the same blood in their veins, but with those who share the same language and faith.''

Essentially, everyone who lived within the borders of the new Republic, spoke Turkish, and was Muslim automatically became a Turk. Of course, this definition has evolved, but it basically holds true today. (I'm going to write about the Kurdish issue in a couple weeks, and I'll address this again then. Most Kurds are Muslims, and had been united with Turks during the Ottoman era by a shared religion, but the new Turkish nationalism alienated them. For decades, Turkey insisted that the Kurds were really Turks who had forgotten their identity--a clever, if ineffective, way to expand the definition of Turkish.)

Turkish nationalism is an ideological phenomenon: it is driven by loyalty to a set of ideals, not by allegiance to any ethnic or religious group. In some ways, this is a good thing. The Turkish identity is somewhat flexible, and it is possible to ''become Turkish.'' However, it also means that one cannot question those ideals--established, of course, by Ataturk--without jeopardizing one's ''Turkishness.''

Turkey's ideological nationalism strips dissidents of their national identity and labels them traitors. As a foreigner, I am allowed some leeway, but plenty of the things I've said and written on this trip would not be tolerated if I were Turkish. (People just try to get me to understand. I rarely do.)

Some time ago, I asked a friend if he thought it was possible to love Turkey without loving Ataturk. He responded, almost angrily, ''absolutely not.'' To love Turkey to to love Ataturk: such is the official line. Even Turkey's most outspoken opposition parties (there are a few, but they're small) usually express loyalty to Ataturk, even when those professions are rhetorical at best.

Because Ataturk made no mistakes, all Turkey's problems stem from one of two sources: either the government has misinterpreted Ataturk's ideas, or foreign powers are (once again) meddling in Turkey's business. The latter point is hugely important, and expressed nicely in the common Turkish saying, ''There is no friend of the Turk except other Turks.'' (Turkey is not xenophobic: I feel very welcome here, as do most foreigners. However, many Turks believe that when the chips are down, their foreign allies will abandon them.)

It's important to note that several of Turkey's problems are unquestionably of its own making, and arguably traceable to decisions Ataturk made: Turkey's constant problems with its minorities can be traced to some of the young Republic's policies. The perennially unstable Turkish economy is partially the fault of outsiders, but much of the blame can be placed on Turkey and Ataturk's (quickly abandoned) etatism. But because a basic tenet of Turkish nationalism is that it is not Turkey's fault, foreign scapegoats are found and the real causes of these problems are ignored.

Some election day (seçim gün) observations from Turkey

I talked with two old men in my hotel lobby for a while this morning, while we shared bread and cheese. They were big believers in Obama, which I surmised from the way that gesticulated while saying ''Obama güzel! Bügün Amerikada seçim var.'' Okay, that was what I could say; their Turkish was considerably more complicated. But all the same, it was clear they backed the right man. I didn't ask if they thought he was a Muslim...

This afternoon, as I was wandering through a poorer part of Kars, lost as usual, I was surrounded by a gaggle of schoolkids who repeated ''Hellowhatisyournamewhereareyoufrom?'' over and over again. When I said I was American, they all started talking about Obama. We talked for 10 or 15 minutes about the election, and I answered their questions (in a mix of Turkish and English) about politics in the US. They were adamant that Bush had been terrible for the whole world, and asked if anything would change. Inşallah, I said. (Technically, that translates as 'Allah willing,'' but it is also used to express hope.) Then they asked me to take photos of them: they were, after all, just kids. But I was struck by how much they knew, and how much they cared--while I doubt they understand exactly how the US election will impact their lives (it will), they clearly realize that something important is happening today.

When I went to my favorite restaurant tonight, the friendly proprietor asked if I was excited to watch the election: I said I would be in bed, but that I hoped Obama would win. He agreed, as did everyone in the restaurant. I couldn't follow the conversations around me as I ate my dinner, but nearly everyone was talking about Obama.

I'm going to bed in an hour or so, and I'll sleep restlessly, wondering about election results. (And not just the presidency: there are plenty of other important races too.) Plenty of Turks will wake up tomorrow morning and turn on the television to hear the news from the US.

I am not one to get caught up in cults of personality, and I am certain Obama will not be all his supporters (I'm one) imagine. However, Obama has become a symbol of the world's desire for a good, honorable America. Turks like America: I can't say how many people have looked at me enviously, saying, ''I would like to go to America.'' (I never know how to respond.) I think Barack Obama has rekindled the American Dream in much of the rest of the world, and certainly here in Turkey: if America can elect a man like Obama, the thinking goes, I can succeed there as well.

I hope the US can be the good and honorable country these Turks imagine: it won't be easy. Electing Barack Obama is just the first step, and it is largely a question of his personal determination and willingness to confront Washington's entrenched elite, both Democrat and Republican, while simultanously ignoring the pundits who will insist he must ''govern from the center.'' If he wins, the rest of the world will be relieved, but his post-racial, multi-continental identity alone will not make him friends abroad.

Will those Turkish kids I talked with today have a friend in America, working to make their neighborhood--the middle east--safer? Will America welcome them if they want to visit or study? Will America stick up for real democracy in Turkey? Turkey is hopeful, but action, not eloquence, will determine our standing in the world.

And yes, I voted. I mailed my absentee ballot from Hopa, Turkey, where I had to convince reluctant postal workers to open the post office on a Saturday so I could recover my ballot from Poste Restante. I voted in a restaurant, where I showed the waitstaff the darkened oval next to Barack Obama. They liked that. I spent $35 to send it express to the US: worth every penny.

Just the twenty-second person in the 12-passenger bus

I've intended to update for several days, but I've been too busy stuffing myself into Russian-made minibuses, trying to decipher incomprehensible languages, and generally having a good time to write. I am in Kars, a big town in Turkey's far northeast, and for the first time in a week, I have nothing to do. I've just finished two lamacun, a bottle of ayran, and have just started the first of what will be many cups of çay tonight. (That's thin-crust Turkish pizza with no sauce, a yogurt drink, and tea, respectively.) Moments ago, I told a friendly waiter that Barak Obama is çok güzel, and that George Bush has been çok problem. Turkish isn't that hard.

Many of my recent days have reminded me of the classic circus trick ''how many clowns can you fit in a car?'' Except in my case, it's been a question of Georgians, Armenians, me, and 12-passenger vans. The most I've seen was 22--I was the twenty-second. These minibuses are called marshrutka, which I believe is Russian for ''downright terrible.''

Briefly, one memorable marshrutka ride: on the way from Sarpi (on the Turkish-Georgian border) to Tbilisi, I was offered the front seat, which I shared with a chain-smoking Georgian. She smoked those ridiculous thin cigarettes, just like everyone else in the Caucuses, and while smoke curled in front of me and Russian electronica beeped (chorus: ooh. ah. ooh. ah.), all I could think was: your thigh is touching mine. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. I've been traveling in conservative eastern Turkey for too long.

When we finally arrived in Tbilisi at 11 p.m., I threw myself at the mercy of a gang of taxi drivers, requesting that one of them drive me to an aipa otel. (That's the limit of my Georgian vocabulary: it means ''cheap hotel.'') They let me down. Any place called ''Nadya's'' cannot possibly be decent, and it wasn't. I spent the night in a glorified brothel, complete with a full bar downstairs and yelling until the wee hours. Worse, it was thirty dollars. Oh, how unhappy I was. I should have known bad things were coming when my taxi turned onto George W. Bush Boulevard--yes, that's the name of the highway that leads to Tbilisi's airport. It's signed with an illuminated portrait of Our Fearless Leader.

Yerevan was much nicer. I couchsurfed with Trixi, a delighful German women who has made it her mission to reform the entire Armenian education system. Kidding, she only teaches German at one of Yerevan's universities, but is doing her bit to end Soviet-style rote learning in Armenia.

Armenia's capital is a strange place. The first thing a traveler coming from Turkey notices is how tight everyone's clothes are. Next, one sees the shop windows: full of expensive brands and booze! But eyes finally turn to the old women (dressed in neither expensive nor tight clothes) selling radishes on the corner.

I pointed a lot in Armenia. I want this, the index finger says. How many? A handful of fingers answers that. Thank you is a smile, a nod, and a quiet ''merci.'' (I tried to learn ''thank you,'' but it's five syllables long and full of strange sounds. Luckily, everyone understands ''merci.'')

My four days in Armenia were largely devoted to my project: see my previous post for that. But I also found time to spend way too much on unexpectedly good Indian food and excellent Armenian cognac. A high point: drinks at a jazz club with the Croatian deputy minister of defense and the Slovenian deputy minister of foreign affairs. That was rather unexpected.

My return to Turkey was another marathon of marshrutka rides to the Georgian border, where I hitched a ride with a Turkish trucker for the final 20 km to Hopa, the first significant town in Turkey. I was pleased to be able to speak with him: five days of Georgian and Armenian had made me appreciate just how much Turkish I speak, even if I have no regard for grammar. I was particularly happy to ask him a highly complex question: ''Kaç gün yolda?'' ( How many days on the road?) I only knew how to say that because I had seen the Kerouac novel translated to Turkish.

A man in Hopa invited me to stay at his house and promised to teach me an ''ancient, secret Armenian language.'' He was also a communist, gleeful in the world's recent financial meltdown. He predicted the end of imperialism within five years; I told him I was not so optimistic. I normally would have accepted, but I was way too tired and had to be up early the next morning. I think I missed an opportunity there.

Another day of travel brought me to Kars. If the Armenian-Turkish border were open, I could have made it in four hours, but it took me nearly 24 hours of busing. Thanks a lot, history.

Yesterday, I climbed to the top of a big hill and took in the view. There isn't much to see: the area around Kars is mostly steppe, which stretches all the way to Sibera almost uninterrupted.

I spent the evening in a strangely hip bar, compete with traditional Turkish music, played by a youthful quartet. After a few numbers, tables were shoved aside and dancing broke out. I watched enviously for a bit, then screwed up my courage and joined in. I was quite proud myself: I learned the steps quickly, and few missed cues aside, I held my own. I was even briefly entrusted with a handkerchief, which I was to wave in time to the music. I returned to my hotel sober (drinks were expensive) but happy as hell.

Today, I visited Ani, which is a ruined fortress that has been held by Ottomans, Russians, and Seljuks at various times. It was built by Armenians as their capital city around a thousand years ago, and is just across the border from present-day Armenia. I could have thrown a stone and hit a Russian soldier on the over side. (Yes, Russians still guard the Armenian border.) It is a melancholy place: a reminder of a people long gone.

Ani makes the Turkish government uncomfortable, because it is a very visible reminder that this land was one part of a much larger Armenia. The word ''Armenia'' can't be found on a single sign in English or Turkish. Armenian script is all over, though: I even spotted a bit of Armenian graffiti on one church wall, right below an ancient Armenian inscription.

Not surprisingly, the only real restoration that's been done at Ani is of a single Seljuk mosque: archeology, like history, is used as a political tool here. (The Seljuks were an ancient Turkic people, and modern Turkey traces its lineage to them.) The Armenian Christian monuments are slowly falling down, and I get the feeling the Turkish government wouldn't mind if they disappeared all together. It's beautiful. But the overwhelming feeling is one of intentional neglect and silence.

Now I am on my fifth cup of tea--all included in the price of my meal. It is only 7 p.m., but it's been dark for two hours. This will be a challenge for the next few weeks: how to fill the bitterly cold hours after sundown? I predict many cups of tea, backgammon, and books.

Genocide: not as simple as it should be

I am in Kars, a city founded over a thousand years ago by Armenians. They called it ''Kari.'' Those Armenians are gone now, and almost no traces of them remain. I have spent much of the past few weeks (and the past two months, really), asking questions about this, and I have heard some strange things.

Turks call this ''The Armenian Question.'' Like there is a question. Starting in the late 19th century, Armenians were periodically massacred by the Ottomans, who employed both imperial troops and the local Kurds to do their dirty work. (There's a special irony to the role of the Kurds in all this, as they now find themselves under the thumb of the Turks, but I'll get to that in a couple weeks.) These massacres culminated with a near-total genocide of Armenians living in Ottoman lands during World War One: somewhere between one and two million were killed. Modern Turkey's eastern provinces--many of which had Armenians majorities prior to the genocide--were systematically emptied of a people who had lived for millenia.

And what do the Turks say about all this? Roughly, ''Ermenistan yok.'' There is no Armenia, at least historically speaking. According to them, those eastern provinces I mentioned never had more than small numbers of Armenians, which logically leads one to conclude that no genocide could have occurred, because it's impossible to kill people who never existed. The Turkish government, military, and most Turks deny the genocide, despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary.

See, the Ottomans were not exactly quiet about this business of genocide. Mass graves were dug within sight of foreign cameras, international observers roamed about, journalists saw starving children in the streets, ambassadors wrote dispatches to Paris, London, and Washington. There were Armenian Aid Societies set up all over the world, even in Seattle. A decade later, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk aknowledged the genocide, saying that Turkey should expect some sort of international censure for its actions. (That quote sure isn't one Turkish students must memorize.) The evidence is overwhelming. There was a genocide.

I have met a few brave Turks who say just this, but they're rare. (I have spoken with many who admit what happened, but stop just short of calling it ''genocide.'') Almost no public figures are honest about what happened: newspapers wouldn't print those columns, televisions stations wouldn't air those interviews. This national denial has been going strong for over 70 years; it's reached the point that insisting ''there was no genocide!'' is as Turkish as tea houses and barber shops.

I have a hard time discussing this topic with Turks. My role in Turkey is to listen: I ask questions and try to avoid giving my opinion. But how can I stay silent in the face of such an awesome lie? I have heard, on multiple occasions, that it was actually the Armenians who perpetrated a genocide on the Turks, and that western powers created this ''story'' to weaken and divide Turkey. Would I listen voicelessly to someone saying this about the Holocaust?

I try not to respond, but I occasionally fail. One of my most memorable conversations in Turkey started when I was told that Turks could not have committed genocide because they are ''gentle people.'' And those Armenians? Well, they're ''bloodthirsty,'' which proves that they actually committed genocide. I lost it at that point, and started yelling about Turkish denial and insecurity, the evils of nationalism, and the politicization of history. I left that town that night.

I was in Armenia for a few days last week. It is a strange country, but you'll have to wait until my next post to hear why. I spent much of my time with Vahram Ter-Matevosyan, a professor of Turkish history at Yerevan State University. (I contacted him a couple of months ago to ask if he'd be able to help with my project, and he certainly did.) He was kind enough to turn over one of his classes to me for a day, so I was able to talk about the genocide and modern Turkey and Armenia with a group of 15 young Armenians for almost two hours.

It would be difficult for me to wrap all I learned into one post, so I'll try to summarize the key points. I opened by asking what they had known about Turkey before they took Vahram's class, and the answer was ''not much.''

In Armenia, the press only covers Turkey when there's something negative to report, if even then. The schools teach little beyond ''they did terrible things to us.'' The situation is similar in Turkey, where people know little about Armenia aside from the obvious fact that no genocide occurred. This lack of understanding on both sides encourages stereotyping and does nothing to combat hatred: one student told me about meeting a three-year-old Turk who told her, ''I must kill you because you are Armenian.'' (I'm not sure I believe that, but it's possible.) On the other side, the Armenian press is full of Turkophobia, occasionally violent. The average Turk and Armenian have learned nothing about the other, and thus believe what they're told by extremists on either side.

This was a surprisingly non-absolutist group. Everyone favored normalization of relations with Turkey, even if the Turks didn't immediately recognize the genocide. (This contrasts with the general position of the Armenian diaspora, which I'll get to momentarily.) Of course, this was a university class composed of students who had chosen to learn more about Turkey, so one could question whether their views reflect those of society as a whole. I did just that, and they said that while the political and media mainstream constantly trumpet ''no room for compromise!'' Armenians are considerably more flexible. This is particularly true of the post-Soviet youth: a significant majority of them favor improved relations with Turkey.

Now, this business of the diaspora. I had been convinced that Armenians were dead-set against reconciliation with Turkey until Turks recognize the genocide, but found that not to be the case in Armenia. If I were to have a similar conversation with Armenians living abroad, the result might be the opposite. This difference can be explained in two separate ways: first, those Armenians living abroad are almost all descendants of those who fled the Ottomans. Many have relatives who were killed by the Ottomans. Armenians in Armenia suffered as well, but not to the same degree: their ancestors were mostly safe behind Russian lines.

More importantly, Armenians in Armenia suffer because of poor relations with Turkey. The border between the two countries is closed, but Armenia still relies on Turkey for most of its imported goods, which are shipped via Georgia or Iran. Life would be much easier if the border were open. Diaspora Armenians are not hurt by their absolutism while those living in Armenia are.

I will watch this situation with interest for the next 20 or 30 years. (It's not going to end over night.) The youth of both countries seem tired of a conflict they have nothing to do with and hardly understand. Both sides have been programmed by their governments with lines like ''You killed my ancestors'' and ''you are a lying imperialist pawn.'' There are more people every day who question these lines: that makes me hope for progress.

Forget staying silent: my new message, for both Armenians and Turks, is ''don't believe your government or the media, go find out for yourself.''

Turkey stuffing

I am stuck in Erzurum, Turkey for a few hours---I arrived here an hour ago, missing my connection to Artvin by 15 minutes. Oh well. It's pouring, so I don't feel like exploring the city (plus, I'll pass through Erzurum again in about 10 days), which means I either sit for in a dark, smoky bus terminal, or I find an internet cafe (there's one on every block) and write a little about my previous week.

When I last wrote I was in Sivas. It was good to move on from there--no particular reason why, I was just eager to move again. I took a dolmuş to Divriği, and then a train from there to Erzincan. I caught a bus from Erzincan to Trabzon. (It doesn't matter if you don't know where the hell any of these places are--I didn't either until I was just a few hundred kilometers away from them.)

Let me pause for a minute to describe the Turkish ''dolmuş.'' If you translate the word literally, it means ''stuffed.'' (That should give you some idea.) Basically, you take a 10 passenger van, stick a few extra seats in it, jamm it full of people, and then go careening down the road, with no more than a horn and Allah as safety equipment.

To get off, you shout ''enecek var!'' and the driver abruptly brakes and steers to the side of the road, throwing passengers and luggage every which way. In the east, seating is segregrated by gender, which means I have to move a lot: as an unfamiliar, lone male traveler, no one lets me get too close to the ladies. (And what a bummer that is!)

Turkish buses are considerably more comfortable, but they have their downsides, mainly a constant stream of bad television and movies aimed at my eyeballs. A few weeks ago, I watched the Turkish equivanent of the Food Network (Kanal Yemek) for three hours. The trains are best: although they are painfully slow, they're cheap, quiet, and don't dangerously swerve to avoid tractors hauling loads of potatoes as the dolmuşes do.

Anyway, my route. I stayed in Trabzon longer than I had expected--five days--and then started moving again, more or less towards the Georgian border, and beyond it, Armenia. I'll cross the border into Georgia on Sunday, and expect to be in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, on Monday. I'll spend a few days there and then return to Turkey.

I spent last Friday night in Divriği, a tiny town known best for its famous mosque, built by the Seljuks in the 13th century. I visited it right before the afternoon call to prayer, which was almost drowned out by a brass band practicing in the school next door. I thought I would only stop for a few hours to see the mosque and eat a meal, but I got stuck until 3 a.m. Saturday morning, when I caught a train to Erzincan.

I'm glad I stayed. I ate dinner and drank a few beers in a little restaurant off the main square, where I met some curious people. (It's rare to find restaurants in the east that serve alcohol, and whenever I do, I do a little dance and shout hooray! Not really, but that's what I feel like.) As I was paying my bill, a very drunk old man embraced me and kept kissing my forehead. (A sign of respect.)

I eventually escaped his grasp, but as I was headed to the door, three men called me over to apologize for their friend--they explained that he's a great guy, but that when he drinks, he gets kind of crazy. I wanted to say that I know plenty of people like that, but that phrase requires some grammar I don't know in Turkish.

They insisted on buying me another beer, and who ever says no to that? We talked for about an hour, mostly about women. All I could really add was, ''bayan problem var!'' which means, ''women are problems.'' I don't really believe that, but it seemed like the appropriate thing to say. After all, one of these guys had been married three times, and another was trying to get 500 lira ($300) from an ex-girlfriend. Somehow I understood all that.

My time in Trabzon was pleasant. I stayed with Seher, a nice girl from couchsurfing, for three nights. (I spent my first two nights there in an awful hotel--one of the worst I've ever seen.) She introduced me to several friends, and I was really happy to spend time with girls again. Turkish society is heavily segregrated by gender, and after a my time in the masculine tea houses in Sivas and a smoky restaraunt in Divriği, it was really nice to talk with women. (I'll write about gender in Turkey sometime soon.)

So that's that. I can't possibly write about everything, but that's a good thing: I'll have stories no one has heard yet when I get back in December.

Ergenekon, ideology, and power

A large and highly anticipated trial opened in Turkey yesterday--that of 76 Turks, including multiple former military officers, for conspiring to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Turkey. Several have been charged with murder, and others with supporting various terrorist groups. This group is called Ergenekon, taking its name from the mythical Central Asian home of the Turks.

This is big news: I won't try to detail the whole situation (see the NYT for that), instead I'll try to explain how this trial fits into the current struggle to define 21st-century Turkey.

First, a little background. It is widely assumed that Ergenekon has evolved from an American-backed Cold War program known as Operation Gladio. Basically, the U.S. set up right-wing terrorist cells all over Europe that would harrass Soviet troops if they ever occupied NATO countries. Trouble is, these gangs didn't disband themselves at the end of the Cold War: instead, they morphed into violent right-wing gangs with links to organized crime and hate groups. Several European countries, most notably Italy, have fought to root these groups out for over two decades.

The existence of a Gladio-type group has been suspected in Turkey since the late 1970's. These were years of terrible political violence, and on several occasions, a strange thing happened: ballistic analysis would show that leftist fighters had been killed by guns that had also killed rightists. Someone was in the middle, killing people on both sides. Can you say agent provocateur? I mentioned in a previous post that there were elements in Turkey that had much to gain from an unstable, violent Turkey in the 1970's--they probably acted through an early form of Ergenekon to prompt the 1980 coup.

This current chapter of the Ergenekon story began when the Cumhuriyet Daily, a staunchly pro-military, anti-reform paper, was bombed in 2006. The same type and series of grenades that were used in the Cumhuriyet attack were later found in a safe house, later tied to several members of Ergenekon. At this point, one says, ''Huh. Why would a right-wing group bomb a right-wing paper?'' Well, those same right-wingers tried to blame the bombing on the Kurdish terrorists and radical Muslim terrorists.

It also appears that Ergenekon is linked to the murder of multiple pro-reform journalists and the burning of several Kurdish bookshops in the southeast. Finally, Ergenekon is also accused of ties to the PKK and Hizbollah. (Kurdish terrorists and radical Muslim terrorists, respectively. See above and shake your head.)

The idea was simple: unleash a wave of terror and destabilize the government, prompting a coup that would be welcomed by a populace weary of violence. This was not targeted at any single party, but could be ''turned on'' when necessary. It seems that Ergenekon was being ''turned on'' because the AKP, Turkey's ruling party, threated the interests of Ergenekon. (I'll get to that in a minute.)

If these charges are true, it will mean that many of Turkey's recent security problems have been aggravated by a group of men (and a few women) who ''love'' Turkey so much they are willing to destroy it. I think the evidence is pretty clear: this is a shadowy, murderous group with no regard for democracy. They intended to return Turkey to military rule of the harshest sort.

What is particularly unusual about this cases is that several former military officers have been charged. I intend to write about the military's role in society soon, but briefly: officers have always been untouchable. Their immunity is now challenged, and if they are guilty and sent to jail, it will be a giant step toward the equal application of the law in Turkey.

Like I said, this trial is part of a struggle to define 21st-century Turkey. For 85 years, Turkey has adhered (more or less) to the six principles of Kemalism, as laid down by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. (Republicanism, populism, secularism, revolutionism, nationalism, and etatism. Etatism is dead--the other five live on.) This is a deeply ideological state: policies are not assessed by their effectiveness, but by whether they jive with Ataturk's ideas. Ergenekon is the most radical defender of these principles. After all, you don't see ''democracy'' or ''liberty'' on that list.

The AKP, Turkey's ruling party, regularly declares its allegiance to Ataturk's principles, but no one (including me) believes them. (I think they're modernizers; lots of secular Turks think the AKP wants sharia law, which is crazy talk.) This is the least ideological government Turkey has had since 1923, and radical Kemalists are not happy about that. Some fight the AKP in parliament, others try to get it banned by the Constitutional Court, and Ergenekon prepares to destabilize the country and launch a coup.

(I'll write about the bizarre relationship between Kemalists and modernization soon--it's a doozy.)

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Kemalism, but what is crazy is blind allegiance to it. The AKP and its reformist allies are focused on performance, not on the (admirable) principles of a man who died 70 years ago. It is time for Turkey to move past Kemalism, and this Ergenekon case is progress. Democracy (not one of Ataturk's principles!) cannot exist when the threat of a coup looms at every moment, and in Turkey, it does. The Turkish military is independent from the democratic government, and elected officials always have to be careful not to make the generals angry--that's the kind of thing that can prompt a coup, or at least a strongly-worded warning.

This struggle is also about power. Ergenekon represents the interests of an old oligarchy that is challenged by a new one, the AKP. (I won't pretend that the AKP is some ''power to the people'' movement--it's a new business elite pandering to religious people and liberal reformers, but it's a little better than the old parties.) Ergenekon is made up of retired military officers, media personalities, old-guard businessmen, and other elites that feel their influence waning: they have always lived in a Turkey where no one questioned their superiority, their near-divine right to rule.

Now, the AKP threatens the status quo. So these elites--who have no regard for democracy or liberalism, except when it serves them--do whatever is necessary to preserve Turkey's anachronistic power structure, even if that means killing people and ''palling around with terrorists.'' (For real.) They have been caught. I hope these bastards go to jail for a long time.

-----
Soon: my meandering trip through the east.

Windy tracks lead east

15 October: on the train from Amasya to Sivas
The British built Turkey's railroads in the mid 19th century. The lines follow twisty paths through valleys, skirting the mountains--the Ottoman Empire didn't want to spend the money to tunnel through them. This makes for winding, bouncy rides. Trains are a slow and inconvenient way to get around Turkey, but I like them anyway.

I boarded the Samsun-Sivas Yolcu (Local) in Amasya a few hours ago, and I am hungry. I expected a well-stocked lokantı vagon, but to my surprise Yolcu services have no restaurants. I finished half a bar of chocolate I found in my bag two hours ago, and so now I must content myself with my books and the scenery.

This region is a muted place. The colors are simple: blue sky, gray clouds, yellow fields, black rails. Tractors break through with bursts of red, and the occasional train stations are painted an inappropriately-bright orange.

I've spent much of today watching Turkey pass out my window, which is etched, as always, with a crescent and star in the middle. We've squeaked through a series of towns with only a handful of buildings--many too small to warrant even a standard-issue orange concrete tren garı. The towns are little outposts in acres of fields, which earlier--back towards Samsun--were full of people harvesting turnips. The fields I see now, carved out of golden hills, are empty and waiting for winter.

The Yolcu runs twice a day. For many towns, it is the only reliable connection to the rest of the world. The few roads I have seen are not used by cars, but by farmers commuting to their fields via tractor. I sat near one family that got off at one of those tiny towns--they were picked up by a man on his tractor. The little girl (about three) sat on the driver's lap, the mother perched herself in front of the cab, and the father hung off the back.

I am the only foreigner on this train. I might have been the only foreigner in Amasya. While I was waiting for the train, a woman asked me, in German, if I spoke German. ''Alemanca yok.'' (No German.) She was surprised that I replied in Turkish, and asked about my family. I asked where she was going. She asked what I thought of Turkey. The conversation went on like that.

It seems that she wanted to practice her German, because she would speak first in that language, then repeat herself in Turkish. I was happy to have a real conversation and not make a fool of myself. My Turkish ran out just as my train arrived.

I admire (perhaps a little naively) the lives of the people I have seen from the train today. I hate fly-by cultural appreciation, but today I am guilty of just that. What happy people, waving to the train as it chugs by. Such well-built houses, and a beautiful place to live. Of course, I can't see the frigid winters of the hard times low crop prices bring through my window--I just see smiling faces and piles of turnips.

16 October: Sivas
I have whiled away my time in Sivas in one smoky tea house with my new friends. Ours is one of six on the second story of the city's main bazaar, which is built around an old Armenian mansion. (The Armenians, of course, are long gone. I'll get to that in a couple weeks.) Its walls are covered with carpets, slowly turning brown from the smoke, mostly from omnipresent cigarettes but also from nargiles. I have adjusted to the smoke, but not to the absence of women.

These tea houses are not for women. I asked, quite seriously, ''But where are all the girls?'' and the 15 or so young Turks watching a football match laughed. There are few places for men and women to spend time together in eastern Turkey. Sivas is reputed to be one of the more socially conservative places in Turkey, and men and women--even the most modern--do not mix much.

We talk about football, politics, girls--the same things they talk about for hours on end. I was asked endless questions about what I thought of Turkey, my opinion of American politics, what I am doing in Turkey, and finally, and crucially, to name Turkey's three big soccer teams. Easy: Ferenbahçe, Galatasaray, and Beşiktas. (This tea house was full of Beşiktas supporters: red, white, and black bracelets indicate their allegiance.) I guess that was my ticket to acceptance, because as soon as I passed their test, everyone became much friendlier.

We left the tea house around 11 p.m. and were back twelve hours later. In between, I slept on a couch at Hokay's flat and then ate breakfast at his sister's apartment--I get the feeling that this is pretty much how every day passes. I've become part of a group of three friends, all of whom are highly educated yet unemployed. This is common in Turkey, particularly the east. Tea costs about 30 cents a cup, so young men sip tea to pass the time.

The rain and cold weather I expected have arrived. Gray skies will probably be a regular feature of the rest of my trip--the sunny beaches of the Mediterranean feel a long way away. From here, I'll travel to Trabzon, a city on the Black Sea coast, and then make my way through mountain passes and small towns to Georgia and Armenia. My planning ends there--I'll look at my map and read my guide on the bus tomorrow.

P.S. Below you'll find a slideshow of my first few weeks in Turkey, and below that, an entry about how history is used for political purposes here. Çok güzel!

First photos from Turkey

Here is a slideshow of my photos from Turkey so far. I'm not taking enough pictures of people--I'll work on that in the next couple of weeks. If you click on the photo, the slideshow will pause and reveal a caption. Or, click here to see the show full screen. (Link leads to Flickr.)



Thanks to Fabio Cavassini for building the great tool that makes these slideshows so easy.

And here's some good reading for you: The New York Times has an article today about headscarf politics in Turkey. Take a look.

History, nostalgia, and Turkish politics

A few weeks back, I heard something that seemed completely laughable to me. ''Ataturk didn't die of cirrhosis of the liver.'' Well, he did. Every Turkish schoolkid learns this; it's well-established historical fact. It's also one of the few signs of his personal weakness that is accepted here in Turkey.

It was strange to hear a Turk claim otherwise. I couldn't understand why this guy would insist that everyone--Ataturk's contemporaries, historians, the Turkish Ministry of Education--was wrong. But then I realized something. The day before, I had asked this same man if he thought Ataturk made any mistakes, and after thinking for a minute, he said no, he couldn't think of any. So I realized this: if Ataturk died of cirrhosis of the liver, that might mean he was a bit of a drunkard. And that would upset the whole idea of Ataturk the infallible, Ataturk the demigod.

Inconvenient facts are ignored, or often denied outright in Turkey. ''Ataturk died after he was given a faulty injection by his physician, which mimicked the symptoms of cirrhosis of the liver. Enemies of Turkey (both internal and external) have plotted to discredit Ataturk by slandering him as an alcoholic.'' This is completely baseless. There's nothing in the historical record to support any of this. But it hardly matters--those pesky foreign plotters have clearly mucked about in the records. And if I insist that all of this sounds preposterous, I have either been convinced by the plot, or worse, I am actually part if it. (Seriously.) It is like me claiming that Lincoln was actually killed by French businessmen disappointed that the South had been defeated in the Civil War.

I've gotten used to hearing all kinds of outrageous stuff when I talk about history and politics with Turks. At first, I tried to push back and argue on the side of truth--but I've realized that's kind of pointless and potentially dangerous. As a foreigner, my intransigence is tolerated by most, but I hardly want to come home with a broken nose because I've been criticizing sacred cows.

In Turkey, history is interpreted to support both individual and state purposes. People go hunting through records to find facts that support their political beliefs, ignoring those that don't fit into their world view. Of course, governments all around the world do this--we call it victor's history. What makes Turkey somewhat unique is that individuals do the same.

The story I've told about the end of Ataturk's life is a good example of of this. The official story admits that he died of cirrhosis, but makes no mention of the alcoholism that caused this. (I suppose the Ministry of Education just hopes students won't look up ''cirrhosis'' in an encyclopedia to find out what causes it.) No one could criticize Turkish schools for not teaching the truth, but the unsettling conclusion that Ataturk was probably drunk a bit in his later years--when he was making some really important decisions--is left out of the textbooks.

One of the big goals of my trip is to better understand how history impacts understanding of current politics. It's difficult to sum up what I've learned, but I think it's fair to say that much of Turkey's political discourse--particularly that of the right--is driven by a nostalgia for a ''golden age'' that never existed. (I should pause here to give credit to Esra Ozyurek, the author of ''Nostalgia for the Modern'' and ''The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey'' which I read before I arrived here. Her books got me thinking about all this, and influenced my own thinking quite a bit.) Ataturk, of course, was never drunk during that long-lost ''golden age.''

The official history of Turkey says that the country rallied around one man--Mustafa Kemal Ataturk--to defeat Turkey's foreign opponents and start the process of modernizing the country. The years after 1923 are portrayed as difficult, but as a time when the new nation was united and nearly everyone agreed with Ataturk.

This ignores the significant opposition modernizers faced, both from ethnic minorities (particularly the Kurds), the religious establishment, and supporters of the ancien regime. Ataturk and his allies suppressed dissent with brutal tactics--while the oppression never reached the levels seen in other emerging states, it was hardly a period that could be called ''free'' or ''democratic.'' Early Turkey was an authoritarian, modernizing state with little tolerance for dissent.

I've begun to believe that this authoritarian period was necessary to jump start modernization in Turkey. Some of Ataturk's reforms were extremely unpopular but clearly necessary. No democracy could have adopted an entirely different legal system or changed the alphabet as Turkey did--the population simply didn't support such revolutionary change.

However, by portraying this un-democratic period as one of near-universal agreement and national unity (instead of as a necessary but regrettable period), Turkey has created a strange national longing for a time that never existed. Modern Turkey is indisputably more ''European'' than the Turkey of the 1920's and `30's, but many Turks do not see it that way. Yes, they admit, Turkey is physically modern, but Turks were more forward-looking in those early days. I seriously doubt it.

How does this bizarre retelling of history benefit the state? Simple. By convincing Turks that ''we were once all united,'' people begin to think that it can be done again.

Why should Turks be divided today if they were united 80 years ago? Well, they weren't. Modern Turkey's divisions have always existed, but they were suppressed in the past and are ignored today. This nonexistent period of unity makes people ask questions like this: ''Why are the Kurds unhappy today when they too loved Turkey in the early days?'' Well, the Kurds didn't love Turkey even then. But nobody learns that.

The final draft of official history has yet to be written. Just last week, the Ministry of Education announced all mentions of the 1980 military coup would be removed from the grade eight curriculum because ''it present an image contrary to the democratic nature of the Turkish Republic.''

To paraphrase MC Hammer, stop and listen.

Teaching about a military coup might make students think that Turkey's nature has not always been so democratic? Well, duh. The very fact that there was a coup in 1980 (and in 1960 and `71, plus a bunch of other quasi-coups, most recently in 1997), indicates quite clearly that Turkey has not always been so democratic. But the state wishes its citizens to believe otherwise, and so it will be taught.

This is kind of like the U.S. saying that we won't teach about segregation and Jim Crow anymore because we don't want students to think that there were ever racists in our country. It is a sinister attempt to change the past by ignoring it.

But there is hope.Turkey's youth seems less willing to believe the what they're told than past generations. A healthy dose of disbelief would be a good thing for this country.

Çok cay, yemek, ve Türkiye (So much tea, eating, and Turkey)

Groups of old men congregate in markets all over Turkey to play backgammon. I have started to sit down and ask if I can play--it usually takes a little miming and a few words in Turkish to get my point across, but people are always happy to let me play.

That may be because I am not exactly a challenging opponent. I have been playing tavla (Turkish for backgammon) on and off for years, but I've never been very good. In my month here, I've played about two dozen games, and I have yet to win one fair and square. (I beat my friend Meltem last night, but she helped me a lot. The next time we played, she held her tongue and demolished me.) I'm getting better, and I think I'm good enough to beat my friend Isra when I return to Ankara tomorrow.

I am in Bursa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire. This is where Osman had his dream about an empire that would eventually cover all of Anatolia, much of the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, and half of Europe. That empire is long gone, but its architecture remains. I sipped tea and wrote in the garden square of a middle-ages silk market this afternoon, and walked by the oldest mosque built by the Ottomans on my way to this cyber cafe. I have only been here for a few hours, but it feels very different than the unpleasant hustle of Istanbul.

I was in Istanbul until this morning. I went back for a couple reasons: I had an interview with Amnesty International yesterday about human rights in Turkey, and I also needed some more books. Istanbul has a remarkable variety of bookstores, many with good English sections. I just pretended that the prices were written in Mexican pesos, not Turkish Lira--it made it feel less expensive.

To be completely honest, my motivation for returning to Istanbul was not entirely academic. I also managed to procure a press pass to the REM concert here on Saturday night. Needless to say, I was not press--I just rocked out. (Sing-alongs and audience shout-outs are strange when there's a language gap between the audience and the performers. Michael Stripe says, "You all doing good tonight?" The crowd roars. Apparently that's not good enough. "Are you ecstatic tonight?" Confused murmurs. "Good" is in their vocabulary, "ecstatic'' not so much.)

But Istanbul is behind me. So is much of Turkey's Mediterranean coast, a bit of the Agean, and one strange city in central Anatolia. Since I last wrote, I traveled south from Ankara to Antalya, a booming city on the Mediterranean, and then west along the sea through a series of small towns to Fethiye, a pleasant port town with a growing tourism industry. From there, I left the sea and made my way to Eşkisehir, a rather strange city between Istanbul and Ankara. You know the story from there--Eşkisehir to Istanbul, Istanbul to Bursa. I'll tell the story as it unfolded.

Most tourists are drawn to Antalya by two remarkable attractions--a seven-kilometer-long beach just to the west, and Hadrian's gate, which was build in 130 c.e. to commemorate said emperor. I enjoyed both, but if I go back to Antalya, it will be for an unusual store named Owl Books.

Run by a heavyset Turk named Mustafa, Owl Books is a used bookstore devoted to English works. Its hand-built shelves are somewhat organized by author, but the the joy of the place comes from wandering around looking at every book. (There aren't all that many.) I found it on my second afternoon in Antalya, and was greeted with a gruff ''Do you speak French?'' Kind of, I said. Mustafa had encountered an unknown French word in his book, and wanted me to translate it. Luckily, I knew the word so I could help.

I spent hours in that little shop, talking about literature and politics with Mustafa and his friends as they came in. He was curious about my project, and when I finished explaining, he insisted that he would introduce me to a man who was writing a history of modern Turkey, so we set off to a nice pension where I met his friend. It was a fortuitous encounter, as I walked off with advance copies of several chapters of the unpublished book.

After leaving Antalya, I spent one night in the backpacker hangout of Olympos, where I started playing tavla regularly. Olympos is kind of a soulless place. The mystique of the ruins--mostly Greek--have been diminished by the a strip of self-consciously earthy lodges, catering to the unkept dreads and tattered hemp pants crowd. It has become ''far out'' and ''like, really spiritual.'' The cheap beer and nice beach don't hurt either.

Maybe I am being too hard on backpacker culture. After all, I kind of am just that, but maybe a little more curious. However, signs that tout ''Great British Food!'' and ''Your Third Drink Is Free!'' have little to do with Turkish culture. I'm not sure why people would travel halfway around the world for something that can be found just about anywhere.

One day of sun, surf, and (admittedly spectacular) ruins was enough for me, so I moved onto the quiet seaside town of Uçağiz. The tourist season was ending, so I found a nice place to stay for half the going rate. All I really did there was eat fruit, read, and write. I did go on one misguided hike along the sea shore--I missed the trail on the way out of town and ended up scrambling over boulders and pushing my way through prickly plants. I was in full view of a German-flagged sailboat with a deck full of sunbathers. Some of them surely wondered exactly what I was doing. So did I.

That hike was supposed to be 3 kilometers long--a distance I ran in less than 10 minutes once. It took three hours. I found the trail on the way back, and it took 30 minutes.

From there, I went to Fethiye, a nice town with excellent soup. I stayed with Ümit, a great guy who lived in Brooklyn for 15 years. I would have taken him for a New Yorker had we not been in Turkey.

He and I had wildly different ideas about Turkish (and global) politics. I told him I wouldn't write about him, and I don't intend to break that promise, but it was good for me to talk with (and occasionally debate) someone with such a radically different understanding of Turkish society and history. All we could really agree on was that we would be friends.

Ümit showed me much of his city on bicycle. I admire anyone who will pedal daily in this country--drivers are not exactly to those of us who wish to share the road.

I had intended to make my way to Istanbul traveling along the Agean coast, but to be honest, I was quickly tiring of all that sun. (What can I say? I'm an Oregonian.) Via couchsurfing, I had been invited to spend Bayram, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, with a family in Eskişehir. Of course I said yes. So I abandoned the blue sky and warm breeze of the Mediterranean and headed inland to the much colder and grayer center of Anatolia.

Eskişehir is one of the stranger cities I have visited. It is not a common stop for travelers, but it appears that the city's mayor is determined to change that. He has redone all the pedestrian bridges in a cartoony style that would fit in at Disney Land, copied statues from many major European capitals, built an artificial lake to hold a newly-built 17th century frigate, and created an entire park full of plaster animals (and dinosaurs!). I do not think the strategy will attract all that many new visitors, but it certainly makes the mayor popular with little kids.

My focus in Eskişehir was less on the town and more on the wonderful family that hosted me. The Özels welcomed me into their home for four days and shared all of Bayram with me. It was an absolute honor to stay with them. Bayram is kind of like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween all rolled into one. In other words, it is a non-stop exercise in eating, during which one occasionally mentions the holy significance of the end of Ramadan.

At least that's how it was at the Özels'. Friends stopped by occasionally to visit, all dressed up--one of the many Bayram traditions in Turkey (and all through the Muslim world, I think) it to visit old friends. Turks view it as a somewhat burdensome obligation, but I enjoyed it, even though conversation often left me confused. I was content with an introduction and a few questions about what I was doing in Eskişehir. After that I drank tea and ate pastries while everyone else chatted in Turkish.

Food! I often said ''Çok yemek'' during my stay in Eskişehir. The holiday is colloquially known as ''Şeker Bayram,'' or ''Sugar Holiday.'' I sampled countless types of Turkish cuisine, including one strange (but delicious!) sweet pudding with chicken in it. I contributed by making an apple pie on my last night there, which was well-received. They had never seen anything like it.

I stayed with Zeynep (my couchsurfing contact) and her sister for four days in Istanbul after we left Eskişehir. Duygu, Zeynep's sister, is a reporter covering arts and entertainment, so she had a pass to the REM concert. When I mentioned that REM was one of my all-time favorite bands (after being prompted by a song on the radio) she said, ''would you like to go to the concert? I can get you in as a helper.''

And that brings the story of the last three weeks full-circle. Much has happened, and I enjoy every second of it. I am spending tonight in a hotel--this is only the fourth night in 35 that I haven't couchsurfed. If you're not familiar with the program, learn about it! It has made my trip more successful than I expected. I've met real friends in Turkey, and learned more about the country than I ever could have if I had decided to just stay in hotels and hostels. It's a great way to travel.

Until next time--hope all is well wherever you are. As usual, there's an essay about Turkish politics and history below. This one is about the headscarf in Turkey... read it if you like.