'Backwards Day' in Istanbul: a news junkie's paradise

I have a Kurdish friend, now of European citizenship, who says, "when I lived in Germany, I tried to be interested in everything happening there but it was all so boring. It just wasn't engaging." Having lived in Istanbul for a couple years now, I completely understand.

The Levantine area is a news junkie paradise. There is more absolutely fascinating news happening in any one week here, than in a year somewhere else. This last week had to be THE MOST fascinating week since I first came here in 2010.

Indeed, it felt like an event teenagers often create called "Backwards Day." The teens do everything backwards for one day from wearing their clothes backward to saying the opposite of what they usually do. The news that happened last week was so unexpected and so "backwards" of what one normally hears and it all happened in the same week!

An Israeli apology

The Mavi Marmara

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the Mavi Marmara incident. As an American citizen, I frequently feel that if a US citizen ever has an opinion that is contrary to the Israeli point-of-view and they publically express that view, they will be bullied into silence. The American media never has an honest dialogue about Israel and it rarely explains to Americans that Israelis are settling on land that belongs to someone else in violation of international law.

So when Israeli military forces boarded the Mavi Marmara and shot Americans and Turks at close range, killing nine of them, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan demanded an apology.

An apology never seemed like an unreasonable request. Erdoğan's been demanding an apology for three years. He sought justice for the Americans and Turks killed much more vocally than my own government did.

This week, Erdoğan got that apology when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him up and expressed regret. Apologies are so powerful! It was like hearing Netanyahu and his nation say "we accept responsibility for this. We were wrong." It was the exact opposite of what a bully would do.

Backwards Day.

The PKK declares a cease-fire

The PKK, declared a terrorist group by both the Turkish and American governments, declared a cease-fire with the Turkish State. This opinion piece from Friday, March 23rd,  "Hurriety Daily News" explains just how different this is than the normal course of events in Turkey.

Backwards Day.

The Patriarch of the Orthodox Church attends the Ordination of the New Pope

When something happens for the first time in 959 years, that's amazing. Such was the excitement with the Istanbul-based Patriarch of the Orthodox Church was welcomed so warmly by the new Pope Francis when Barthalomew went to the ordination. Just even the idea being expressed that various strands of the Christian Church could be reunited is fascinating. Also worthy of note, Turkish newspapers expressed not one iota of anxiety over this. In America, if there was specualtions about Sunnis and Shia reuniting in some future generation, it would send Islamaphobia anxiety into overdrive.

Backwards Day.

Cyprus Decides to Give Bank Depositors a Hair Cut

The Flag of Cyprus

Holy Cow, what a fascinating story. It was incredible to watch it unfold and of course, it's still unfolding. If you need any proof that one should never trust a government that says "your deposits are insured" this is the story. The depositors in Cyprus banks, who had thought their deposits were insured up to 100,000 Euros, were told instead that there would be a tax on all deposits held in Cypriot banks because of all the bad loans these banks made to Greece. The depositors didn't make those choices, the bank's owners did!

As Planet Money put it, "it is like your car insurance company, like Allstate, running up to your Suburu, smashing the window, and stealing your stereo."

The odd place this put this Cypriots with their money is beautifully summarized here.

The EU was supposed to make the Cypriots feel safer.

Backwards Day.

Does this mean I want drama in my own domestic news? It does not.

I agree with Rolling Stone Magazine writer Matt Taibbi (who is so eloquent on all things financial-crisis related) who wrote this about the American budget sequestration:  "The whole situation reminds one of a family so dysfunctional that its members can't communicate except through desperate acts."

 I want my domestic news to be boring. That means there are adults in the room, taking care of business, and the citizens can spend their time creating, discovering, and solving problems in a way that moves the economy forward and not worrying about stuff like whether or not their money is safe in a bank.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, those Germans with their boring news, are kicking everyone's butt economically.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

What do you call that green tree in your living room?

The other day one of my American friends back home was grousing about a politician calling Christmas trees "holiday trees." There is a segment of the American public who believes there is a "war on Christmas" and that the news media and corporations are trying to secularize everything and eliminate the joy of saying things to each other like "Merry Christmas."

 

I pointed out that the politician was trying to be as inclusive as possible by calling it a holiday tree. American Jewish people have been known to enjoy a "Hannukkah Bush" in their home, for example.

 

During my first Christmas in Turkey I was surprised to learn that "Christmas trees" are everywhere in Istanbul, along with pointsettias, and Santa Claus. My Turkish friends told me they had seen "Christmas trees" in American movies and found the practice so much fun, they've adopted it as their own. Why not? After all, we Americans adopted it from the Germans.

 

Turkish folks put up their tree for the New Year's holiday and celebrate what they call "Christmas." But of course, since there not actually celebrating Christmas (the birth of Christ) because they're Muslim, Christians in Istanbul are forever pointing out to their friends that "what you have there in your home is not a Christmas tree, it's a New Year's Tree." Do you see why the politician just punted and called it a "holiday tree?" Less arguing, more fun. Rather than being secular, my friend's political representative was just making sure all of the Abrahamic religions were included.

Christmas Eve in Istanbul, Turkey

Singing "Silent Night"

a candlelight Christmas Eve Tradition

all around the world

There were also beautiful soprano and alto solos

and a jazzy saxaphone

Last night I went to the candlelight services of Union Church in Istanbul. It's the oldest Protestant congregation in the city and has been meeting in the cozy Dutch chapel attached to the Dutch consulate on Istiklal Caddessi since 1857. There are as many as 20 nationalities there on any given Sunday: Americans, Brits, South Africans, Netherlanders, Madagascarans, Kenyans, Nigerians, Congolese, Germans, Russians, Slovaks, Moldovans, Australians, just to name a few countries that achieve critical mass in the congregation.

This was an English-language service, although there are also services in Chinese, Turkish and English bilingual services, and another service for the East African community.

Tourists come from all over the world and find weekly services there via the Internet or via the little sign out on Istiklal Caddesi inviting people to English-language church. One week I enjoyed meeting Coptic Christians from Egypt and the next week it was the director of the Fallingwater architectural site in Pennsylvania. It's so interesting to see the variety of people who seek out the church while in Istanbul.

I remember the first Christmas Eve service I celebrated here. The mayor of the Beyoglu neighborhood where the church is located sent plants to all of the churches. I was stunned by how much that signal of acceptance meant to me in a 99% Muslim culture. It made me realize how much just a smile and acknowledgement of someone's right to exist can make to someone who is completely different than me and outnumbered culturally. It is a really, really healthy experience to feel what it feels like to be a minority. 

A particular local gem of candlelight services last night was "The Lord's Prayer" sung in Turkish with Turkish music and rythms. I found it incredibly haunting and powerful. We also sang favorite English-language hymns that would be recognized around the world.

Merry Christmas to all.
Peace and good will to all human kind and our planet.

You may enjoy these other posts from expat Christmases past:

A Neighborhood Christmas

Finding a Church Home in Prague: St. Clement's Church

Come Join Us for Coffee

Photos courtesy of Pastor Benjamin van Rensburg of Union Church of Istanbul

Topkapi Palace , Part Two: Harem Culture Shock

Entering the Harem

from the Courtyard of the Black Eunuchs

Visiting the Harem portion of Topkapi Palace was so darn interesting that when I finished I could have gone round again and seen it all and listened to the descriptions all over again. Why? Because visiting the Harem is unlike anything I've experienced. I had as many questions when I left the Harem as when I started. 

Keep dreaming, lady.

There's no way you're getting out of this place.

I realized later that one reason I was so intensely interested in the Harem, is the the women enslaved there were like me. When I visit a slavery exhibit in the United States, I have empathy for the slaves, but I don't identify with the slaves because they were people of color. I'm not a person of color so I see the exhibit knowing I could never have been in that position. Here, in the Harem, the slaves were white Christian women (Islam forbids the enslavement of Muslim women). They were people just like me! I'm soooo not okay with that. Here's to a future where no one of any sort is enslaved.

One of the female slaves, Roxelana, a Ukrainian Slav, grew up to marry a Sultan. She was the only concubine in hundred of years of Ottoman history who did.  The Sultan nicknamed her "Laughing Roxalena" and at her gravesight there is a sign saying something to the effect, "do not judge Roxalena by today's standards. When she lived, becoming the chief concubine to a Sultan was the most a woman could make of her life." Well I don't judge her, but I have to judge the period. White people in my country were wrong to enslave black Africans and Ottoman culture was wrong to enslave white Christian women too. Turkish people have their own reasons for judging Roxalena (which is a whole other story).

The initial entry into the Harem.

The tile is so achingly beautiful

it literally took my breath away.

Unlike most slave quarters, the physical space for the Sultan's harem was very beautiful. I am head-over-heels in love with Turkish Iznik tiles and the tile work throughout the Harem was exquisite.  So these may be some of the best-looking slave quarters built. Like all apologists for slavery, I read or heard somewhere in this exploration, "these women were probably better off than if they had just lived their normal lives wherever they were born." I don't believe it. It's still slavery, however gilded.

This ceramic tile is famous all over the world.

Turkish Iznik tiles were manufactured

at the height of the Ottoman Empire.

The audioguide explained there was a strict female heirarchy with the Harem with the Sultan's mother described not only as the most powerful lady over all of the others - it sounded like she had quite a bit of power over the Sultan as well.  Well gosh, no wonder the Empire declined! Imagine your mother-in-law having a say in running lands from Lebanon to Libya - and she didn't get out of the house much or was was even all that educated.

 I tried to think of any female heirarchies that occur naturally, and I couldn't think of any. Can you think of one? Female heirarchy seems unnatural to me.

The pebbled path was for the Sultan's horse

so he wouldn't trip as the Sultan

made his way from his Quarters

through the Harem to the outside world.

The path led to the Black Eunuch's courtyard.

The door to the Black Eunuch's dormitory.

If you don't know what an eunuch is,

you'll have to look it up in the dictionary.

Yes, they really existed. That wasn't an urban legend.

Gorgeous detailing

 over the door to the dormitory.

It's magnificent, isn't it?

Here a younger eunuch

is instructed by the Chief Eunuch,

who apparently yielded enormous power.

Topkapi Palace barely grazes the Eunuch's story.

Both their dormitory and their mosque are off-limits

to visitors.

I find their story as fascinating as the harem slaves

and wish Topkapi had shared more about the entire

Palace community, especially the Eunuchs.

I mean, it's not everyday one learn about eunuchs.

Which path should the Sultan take into the Harem?

The Eunuchs were posted around the clock

in this small antechamber

to protect the Harem women.

They used these two facing mirrors

to see down the various passageways

so they were forewarned if someone was coming.

Looking back on the Black Eunuch's courtyard.

Isn't that portico so classic and contemplative?

The path leads to the Sultan's horse mount

outside his own chambers.

This is called the Passageway of the Concubines.

Just like a solitary confinement prison, the prisoners

were not allowed interaction with the guards.

The eunuchs would leave the food for the ladies

on the counters on the left wall and then leave.

This is the Courtyard of the Concubines.

If a women bore the Sultan a son, she hit the big time

and could get a window with a view...onto this courtyard.

Imagining their plight...

what do all prisoners do, but look to the sky.

The harem has many parts that are off-limits to guests. The private quarters of the Valdin Sultan (the Sultan's mother), the Harem hammam, the Eunuch dormitory and mosque, plus the concubine's dormitories. At any one time, the Sultan had 300 concubines.  Only one of the Harem's six levels is shown to the public. Why do they charge extra to see this portion of the palace? It lessens the number of visitors. But then, maybe that's the idea.

The young women who were sold into the Harem were often sold by their parents for cash or grain. What's your opinion? Do you think they were better off as gilded Ottoman slaves?

You might enjoy my first post on Topkapi Palace:

Topkapi Palace, Part One: Would This Environment Keep You Conquering?



Touring the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas

A typical Ozark road sign

We took a scenic route

It wouldn't do to fly back to America without spending more time with my girls than just graduation weekend. I picked their brains about what we could do that was in the area because who knew when we would be back in the center of America again.

Should we go to St. Louis and see the Arch? One of them had already done it. Go to Hannibal, Missouri and celebrate Mark Twain? My girls failed to see how that would be interesting (obviously, they need to read more Twain as he's hilariously funny). Drive the river road along the Mississippi? Go see the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Salina, Kansas?

The gorgeous Ozark Mountains

on the way to Little Rock, Arkansas.

They reminded me of the Lubéron in Provence.

All they need is their own Cézanne to paint them.

Of course, then the real estate prices would quintuple.

We settled on driving down to Little Rock, Arkansas to see the Willliam Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library. All three of us love American presidential libraries because they are so evocative of the times and teach us so much about the American political experience.

Small town riverside dinner view

in Allison, Arkansas

When I first visited my youngest daughter at Mizzou her freshman year, I couchsurfed with a fun couple in Columbia, Walt and Mary. I joked then that I would be back in four years when my child graduated. I was!

Mammoth Spring

See how the water springs up out of nowhere?

My girls and I took the route Walt recommended down to Arkansas because he had suggested such outstanding local history sites during my last visit.

One of the highlights on the trip down was stopping just across the Arkansas border to see Mammoth Spring State Park with a beautiful natural spring. My girls had both loved their geology courses in college and so it was fun for them to see the water come pouring out of the ground there.

The beautiful Arkansas river trail

perfect for runners and walkers.

Eventually it will be 17 miles long.

Isn't it beautiful?

Blessed to share

American democratic heritage with my girls -

like my Mom and Dad did with me

The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library -
First Federal building certified by the
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) program

The next day we woke up bright and early to devote the day to the museum and library. I remember when the museum was first built, critics derided it for having the appearance of a 'double wide' mobile home. I snickered when I saw pictures of it on TV because it did sort of look like one.

Having been to it in person now, I consider that a cheap shot. President Clinton wanted the old historic railroad bridge, built in the 19th century, to represent the bridge to the 20th century. His library and museum, right next to it, represented his administration of America as a bridge to the 21st century. The metaphor works. Listening to him explain it on the audioguide, I was grateful for politicians who think in 100-year cycles rather than to the next quarter or election. Where can we find more of those?

There's that 100-year cycle again.

Diagonally across from the museum

is this magnificent old railroad station

where the University of Arkansas

Clinton School of Public Service

is housed.

Let's all say this gorgeous phrase together

from the building:

"The Choctaw Route."

Even more gorgeous,

the name of the passenger train

that did this route was:

"The Choctaw Rocket."

A glorious view of the Railroad Bridge

from "42,"

the elegant cafe in the library.

A pretend shiny dime to whomever can guess

why the cafe is named '42!'

Clinton's stump speech

What's not to like?

I was Bob Dole's Story County, Iowa campaign co-chair in one of his presidential campaigns. I admired Dole's wartime service to his country, his moderate Main Street Republican views, and his biting sense of humor. It was fun to host Elizabeth Dole for a coffee at my mother's home. That was when I was still a Republican.

Even though Gov. Bill Clinton beat Senator Dole in the presidential campaign, Bob Dole was later asked to give the Inaugural Lecture at the University of Arkansas Bill Clinton School of Public Service. I love that about American politics. I admire the stature of Bill Clinton inviting him to do so, and the equal virtue of Bob Dole accepting. As citizens, we should demand our politicians not polarize us and find the common ground.

It's easy to understand why librarians

would support Clinton.

He is a famous practitoner

of recreational reading

(reading for the fun of it).

The library showcased the books that influenced him.

One of them was "Creating a Nation of Readers."

A nation of readers can continually renew themselves.

I came around a corner

 and had my breath taken away

by this fine assemblage

of young American talent.

How can we not have hope for the future, America?

Their teacher told me they were the

"The Gentleman's Club,"

2nd and 3rd grade

from Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Norman Rockwell, did I

"do good" with this picture?

Look at those faces!

Two future leaders

thoughtfully take in

a reproduction of the Cabinet Meeting Room.

The pace of change can seem so slow in America that I forget how much things can change in one generation. Examples from the library include: it was during the Clinton Administration that gay people were first eligible for security clearances. The introduction and benediction to Clinton's inauguration seemed so overtly Christian. America would be much more inclusive now. There were photos from the Little Rock school desegregation episode that said, "race mixing is communism." Laughable. Everything seems to get labeled communism or socialism these days. This is a long tradition of over-the-top political rhetoric.

Three stellar staff members at the museum.

The lady on the right told me

that she was halfway through a PhD

but never graduated from high school

because she was a member of the senior class

of Central High School that lost their senior year

when the Governor chose to shut the high school down

rather than integrate.

 2,914 other seniors lost their senior year as well.

Zany gifts to the Presidential family

 are always a popular exhibit at these libraries.

Hillary Clinton and Socks...as a bench!

One of the things you could look up

 was the Presidential Daily Schedule

and see what the President did on any given day.

I looked up the days surrounding Vaclav Havel's State Visit.

The menu for the Czech Republic State Dinner

with President Vaclav Havel

The best description of this whole event is in

Hillary Clinton's book, "Entertaining at the White House."

While Presidents have to consider things on a level beyond the personal, one thing the Museum brings home is how the personal stories of those from foreign countries inform the President about their nations.

I know President Clinton knew far more culturally about the Czech Republic than necessary (given the 10 million population) simply because of his friendship with Vaclav Havel. Havel had taken President Clinton to the Reduta and even to Czech novelist Bohumil Rabal's favorite pub "The Golden Tiger." The pub keeps Clinton and Havel's picture on the wall.

Nelson Mandela gave the Clintons a personal tour of his prison cell at Robbins Island and described to them what it had been like there. Do Presidents still have the time to invest in that level of personal narrative in understanding a country? I hope so. The Robbins Island visit is detailed in the museum.

One thing I felt the Library and Museum couldn't do justice to was President Clinton's biggest success. His fiscal discipline resulted in the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history. That discipline unleashed a period of enormous creativity in American business. How do you exhibit fiscal restraint in a museum? Maybe the best exhibits of the output created during this time of fiscal restraint are out in the Computer History Museum in California!

President Clinton wanted his library

to echo the bones of

Trinity Library in Dublin.

My one disappointment with the library was the temporary exhibition space was devoted to promoting a corporation instead of hosting an exhibit that would teach us as citizens more about politics. I appreciate that the majority of the population loves sports, but what do the St. Louis Cardinals have to do with a presidential library? It seemed wierd that there were season ticket promotions as a sidebar to the Cardinals exhibit. Respectfully, our experience could have been that much richer with a political exhibit.

You might also like:

An Evening of Jazz at the Reduta

Entering the Land of Lincoln

What Inspires Stories?

The Springfield Race Riots of 1908

Sites outside my blog:

C-Span's coverage of Clinton's Presidential Library

William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library websitehttp://www.clintonlibrary.gov/

The Ottoman Empire from the other side as told in "The Bridge on the Drina"

About five years ago, a friend whose book taste I completely respected told me about this book.  He was so enthusiastic I knew someday I would read it, even though I had never heard of the author, never heard of the book, and knew nothing about Bosnia.

 Who could have suspected that I would eventually be living in Istanbul someday, be familiar with Ottoman history up close, and have walked a historic Mimar Sinan stone bridge with my very own feet. Not me.

What a book! What an author! And what a translator! This book is a haunting wonderful memoir exquisitely rendered in time and place. A young Christian boy is taken to the Ottoman capital to serve the Ottoman Empire. He converts. Eventually, he rises to a position of advisor to the Sultan.  The Balkan native decides to use his position to build a stone bridge designed by the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan to commemorate the land he came from and to glorify God. The book "The Bridge on the Drina" is a fictionalized history of all that happened on that bridge over 400 years of village life.

We often assign metaphysical powers to grand urban assets like the Eiffel Tower, but this book made the reader cherish a rural stone bridge as a precious jewel that made life grander and more meaningful for all the villagers who come in contact with it.  Could a man-made creation serve a nobler purpose?

Ivo Andrić is almost like a Balkan "Mark Twain" so great were his powers of observation about human nature, sometimes wryly so.  You can not read this book without feeling he has an enormous love for humanity because he can describe people at their worst, their weakest, and best with such compassion and grace, it's impossible not to love his writing for that fact alone. I found myself writing down sentences within the book just to savor their genius later.

After I finished the book, I looked the author up on Wikipedia and I realized I had no idea while reading the book what faith he was because he wrote about the Christian and Muslim villagers with such insight you could almost think he had both faiths in his family. Ah, such is the Balkans.

Lastly, his patriotism moves me. Ivo Andrić gave all of his Nobel prize money to improve libraries throughout his homeland.  He had an ability to make the whole world care about his little corner and love it as he did. I want to read everything else he has written.

What book has made you see an area of the world for "the first time?"

You might also like: 

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

In Prague, You Can Enjoy Reading at the Cafe Europa

Who Was Atatürk?

Share the Best Of Czech Culture

I Served The Kind of England

The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia