Earlier this month, I took advantage of my generously granted holiday in celebration of the Muslim festival of Eid, and travelled to a city I had long desired to visit: Istanbul. I was not disappointed, for Istanbul titillates. And it is curious how it does this.
People have rightly said it before: it’s a blend of old and new, and a
refreshing mix of East and West. But what’s more: it moves, it is bustling, and
regardless from which direction you come, I doubt it can disappoint. It’s an
ancient city, with buildings and Mosques hundreds, some of them thousands, of
years old. There are many different architectural influences – some European,
some Islamic, some idiosyncratically Ottoman, lots of well-appointed museums,
and so many old things that, much like in Athens and in Rome, priceless
treasures in the form of ancient columns or carved stones just lie unobserved
on the edges of streets. The result is not quite one of Parisian elegance, but
one of delightfully juxtaposed, stimulating, Turkish flux.
Together with my three wonderful travel companions, I took a boat trip along the mighty Bosphorous river and into the evening sunset. The shores were lined with grand streets, generous avenues, and more trees than I had seen for almost half a year. The further the boat rattled along, the more grand the houses became, until eventually enormous luxurious mansions sprawling onto the banks unloaded their secrets to the floating viewers. An Arab family that I observed sat next to us on the boat. The mother wore a hijab, was very silent, and sat next to two beautiful twin daughters in their mid twenties, neither of them with their hair covered. What must have been her son, also in his early twenties, also sat with the family, sometimes leaving in search of tea and biscuits with which he would periodically return. It was only as we were about to alight the boat at the end of our ride that we started chatting to these, it turned out, very warm and friendly people. We found out that the family was from Syria, and after a few 'oohs' and 'aahs' about Syria's tragic current political situation, we were told that the daughters both lived in Dubai with their husbands. We warmly parted ways, and I wished we could have spent more time with these people.
Istanbul makes Turkey feel liberal for an Islamic country.
It’s a megalopolis at the centre of many trade routes, a hubbub of religious
persuasions and nationalities, and an ancient hub of business and culture that
transcends boundaries. Walking through its streets, one is reminded of the
piety applied to the practise of Islam by the number of women that arm
themselves to the teeth in non-revealing clothing. Yet, the Turkish ladies in
Istanbul that elect this form of dress tend to do so extremely fashionably.
They do not fear wearing colour, make-up, or looking strangers in the eye when
they need to. There are buskers in the streets, especially in the rather
hipster chic neighbourhood of Beyoğlu, and here, things seem even more liberal.
Nowhere in Istanbul was it an issue to sit down in a café and to openly drink
a glass of wine, no matter how close this might have been to a Mosque. People
are outright relaxed about the topic of alcohol, as well as about many others,
which is a breath of fresh air when comparing Turkey to many other predominantly
Muslim societies.
In a country where proponents of the conservative Muslim
persuasion and those of the staunchly secular have been quite at loggerheads
for the past 100 years – this having resulted in recurring, often extremely
violent clashes between them – Istanbul concurrently and quite interestingly reminds,
and makes one forget about the degree to which both the secularly and
conservatively religious are part and parcel of Turkey. Walking the streets, both the openly very religious, as well as the openly quite secular walk side by side. What is striking is the semblance of harmony existing between them. Yet beneath this appearance, there lie deep crevices of separation. Only in 2013 did Turkey's President Erdogan order thousands of students, demonstrating against certain urban development plans of Istanbul's prominent Taksim Square, to be beaten up by state police forces. Several people were killed during this protest. This event caused a storm of social unrest and outrage about a plethora of public issues. Turkey has long struggled in uniting disparaing forces of democracy and conservative rule, often resorting to staunch authoritarian leadership tactics.
Istanbul Modern is one
outlet for this tug of war between these opposing forces. It showcases modern
art works from the past century. The most striking aspect of this museum is the
fact that so much of its art is deeply social, and highly current in nature.
Works on controversial and delicate themes such as sexual emancipation,
religion, and the qualms of modernity are very accessibly curated. Taner
Ceylan’s “1553”, painted just two years ago in 2012, is a terrifying
composition of a veiled man splashed in blood. In addition to brute violence,
it evokes the silence of the sexually repressed, in this case male, but I
think also female, gay, straight, or of whatever persuasion, and the composure
these people maintain in the face of it all. Nezaket Ekici filmed herself in 2002 in
“Emotion in Motion”, where she uses her mouth as a paintbrush to put lipstick
kisses all over the walls and furniture of a bleak white room. For a country
where there was such brute violent repression by Erdogan’s government in the
past year or so, the quality and exposition of such sensational artwork it
highly encouraging.
Istanbul is a developing city. There is a tremendous amount
of recent construction, and people are hard at work building fortunes, rising
through the middle classes, or, and this applies to most: simply to eking out
an existence in a city where rents have skyrocketed, things are rapidly changing, and life is tough. In no
city of this calibre have I seen this much poverty. This is evident in the
dilapidation of many of Istanbul’s houses, in the appearance of many of its
inhabitants, and in widespread child labour. Crime in Istanbul is also supposed
to have risen drastically in the recent past, which is only an indication of
the economic desperation faced by many people.
Although I was not in Istanbul long enough to really speak to many
locals – I wish I could have spoken to more of them – it is quite evident that along
with fast development and the immense fortunes for some, plenty of others have been left behind.
What does the future hold for Istanbul, I wonder? One thing
is clear: its potential is thrilling, and its suitability as a place of mediation
in the East-West dialogue, and a “meeting place” for both, has never been more
obvious to me. I am hard-pressed to remember a place where headscarf-covered sightseeing
Muslim women walk into a Christian Church as nonchalantly as they do in the
Sant Antonio di Padova Church in Istanbul, and this is a good thing. It is only
in the spaces where people feel alright to look into the places of worship of
other religions that peace and cooperation can be maintained. Turkey is a country of thinkers, full of feeling, and full of good ideas about creating the present as well as improving the future. I only hope more people visit its biggest city, Istanbul, and see for themselves what a pulsating epicentre of thought and creation this place is. The much-chewed
debate of Turkish membership in the European Union could be healthily
continued, I think, if there were more cultural exchanges between Turkey and,
say for instance, Germany. I hope that German and Turkish education ministries
negotiate school exchanges for their children, so that avenues for future
cooperation and dialogue are created.
Whatever happens, political, social, cultural, Istanbul will remain on
my list for top 10 places to return to.
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