World Peace Day on Sept 1

On Sunday September 1st Istanbul will celebrate World Peace Day with a demonstration throughout the different neighbourhoods of Istanbul. The rally, which is named ‘From Gezi to Lice’, will involve people meeting to form human chains from Üsküdar to Kartal on the Anatolian side and from Sariyer to Bakirköy on the European side of Istanbul.

Come join us down by the water and support a noble cause.

‘Peace at home, peace in the world’ – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

More details can be found here.

EDIT: Bridget Lawrence added this to help with finding the event:

“It’s in Turkish but here’s a map with the different spots for hand holding: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=142154569327384&set=a.140197786189729.1073741830.137434833132691&type=1&theater The Facebook group is called 1 Eylül’de Barış İçin El Ele if that link doesn’t open.”

Break’s Over

Hello,

In recent weeks we have been very quiet here at the Bulletin. This has been for a few different reasons.

The political situation in Turkey had got to the point that posting articles about tea, beer tasting and which Sultan was the maddest seemed flippant and posting articles decrying the government felt like playing into the hands of people who wanted to see inflammatory comments aimed at the ruling party written by foreigners who could be blamed for inciting unrest.

On the brighter side another reason for our quiet was that two members of the Istanbulletin got married (not Sean and Tim as much as Tim wants that) so there was a lot of work being done to arrange a wedding between an Englishman and an Australian woman in Turkey. Look for future articles about hiring a boat, buying a wedding dress and the best places to get wedding flowers (spoilers: florists).

Now that we have all returned from our summer holidays we feel it is time to get back into the blog and continue celebrating this beautiful city.

Sean has set himself the mission of finding the best coffee in Istanbul while Fiona wants to find the best cocktail. Tim will continue documenting the history of Turkey as best he can and the elusive search for the perfect restaurant continues.

Its good to be back.

LEARN: Turkish Etiquette

My sister once told me that the biggest, most heinous breach of etiquette was to point out others’ breaches of etiquette. I suppose that is in public, because how else would we learn, if it weren’t for an angry nana pulling us aside after dinner to tell us that tablecloths are not to be used as serviettes?

Etiquette is one of those things that is totally redundant and constructed, but because we assign it importance, it becomes important. Yet another way we can pretend we have control over a chaotic world, and a great way to exclude people or to diminish them.

These tips on Turkish etiquette are just things I have seen and this might not be based on longitudinal study. Correct me if I am wrong.

Refusing Food I: when you don’t want any more food, you say “thank you”, rather than a more specific “no, thank you”.

Refusing Food II: when you are eating with a Turkish family and a grandparent is involved, not eating 30% more than you capacity is poor form. You will not disgrace yourself, but bear in mind that this matriarch’s one mission is to feed everyone until their eyes bleed.

Starting Food: it is not considered impolite to start eating before everyone else has sat down and started. I am pretty sure there is no concept of “saying grace”

Body Language: It is more acceptable here to use body language sans words to answer a question than it is in Australia. The classic eye roll that means “there is none” has been known to infuriate foreigners, but here it is ok. The “one minute”, signal, with a raised index finger, is another known to annoy foreigners but is accepted here.

Offering something: many Turkish people will not accept something you offer, like the last piece of chocolate cake, unless you offer it no less than three times.

Salutations: saying something after something happens is very important in all cultures, and it is no different here. There is a social expectation that is cast iron and every event has a single set phrase associated with it: starting a meal, ending a meal, cooking a meal, sneezing, dying, getting sick, your football team losing. If you fail to show up without the right stock phrase prepare yourself for disappointment.

Meeting the parents: this is not a hard and fast rule, but I get a feeling that as soon as you meet a girlfriend’s parents some invisible clock starts to tick down to buying rings and booking venues. So beware casual breakfast invitations.

Paying the bill: generosity is key here. It goes around and comes around. Turkish people tend not to split the bill. Just make sure you go out with the same people all the time so as to not miss out.

There must be more…reply if you can think of one.

LEARN: Ibrahim the Mad

People you should know: Ibrahim the Mad (1616-1648)

The Istanbulletin would like to celebrate some of the people that used to tread these streets. Just like any old city that was the heart of an empire or two, Constantinople has seen its share of heroes and villains, thieves, seers, love torn princesses and batshit crazy despots. Let’s start with one of them. Welcome to the bizarre world of Sultan Ibrahim.

Unlike the short-lived dynasties of Byzantium, the fact that there still are Ottomans eating baguettes in France is due to the harem factor. The primary wives were made because they gave the sultan a son. No marrying some import and hoping for the best. Sultans pumped out sons like a butcher does sausages.

This leaves us with the obvious problem of succession, which the Ottomans got around fairly swiftly. When the sultan died, his most obvious successor would have his brothers killed, or at least locked up.

Ibrahim was no different. Already marked out as a bit strange, he avoided the bow-string garrote when brothers Osman II and Murad IV ascended to the throne. Instead, they locked him in “The Cage”, a pretty basic cell in the palace. When they died, the empire was left with one choice: to sluice down and enthrone Ibrahim.

And so began a reign that reminds one of the idiotic periods defined by Roman emperors Nero or Elagabalus. Still to this day, some people call the Red Mullet the Sultan Ibrahim, because he used to feed this species of fish with coins rather than food. To say he was unfit to rule is like saying that a Scottish terrier is unfit to saddle and ride.

This suited his mother, Sultan Köşem, who was basically handed the keys to the kingdom. While she drove, Ibrahim sat in the back seat and got up to sticky mischief. He was a DIRTY boy.

Ibrahim dedicated most of his time to doing what most of us would do if we had a harem: getting laid. But, being crazy, just doin’ it with over 250 women was not enough for him. In one account, he would line his concubines up and have them strip naked. Then, in an attempt to be seductive, he would make farmyard noises and gallop between them. Once his blood was up, he would do the deed.

His tastes for domesticated animals did not stop there. Once, passing by a cow, stopped in his tracks at seeing its hind-quarters and ass. Now, maybe you are thinking, “Come on, Ibrahim. Beastiality? Really?” But, no. Weirder. He had a golden cast made of the cow’s ass and sent it around the empire with the instructions to find a woman whose rear matched it. Even weirder was that they actually found a woman who eventually became his favourite concubine. Her name was Sugar Cube.

She became so powerful that she escaped his most epically crazy decision, which was to have all 280 concubines tied in sacks and drowned in the Bosphorus. This was his barking mad response to a rumour that one of the concubines had been “compromised”.

Taken from Hark, a Vagrant by Kate Beaton

Eventually, the chaos that was going on between Ibrahim’s ears came to be reflected in the empire. Public servants went unpaid and things came to a head after Ibrahim raped the daughter of the chief mufti. One rebellion later, Ibrahim was back in his cage, one of his sons installed in his place.

There was never a second sultan called Ibrahim. Because this one was a jerk.

LEARN: The National Anthem

Working in a school in Turkey means that I know the national anthem pretty well. First thing Monday morning and last thing Friday afternoon the students stand in their classrooms facing the four frames above the blackboard and sing the İstiklal Marşı (Independence March).

The four frames above the board contain the lyrics to the anthem (composed by Mehmet Ersoy), a picture of Atatürk, a picture of the Turkish flag and Atatürk’s famous speech to the youth of Turkey.

The anthem is also sung in schools and around Turkey during special days like Republic Day and Children’s Day.

My home country’s national anthem, God Save the Queen, which I love dearly, sounds too much like it was designed to be sung off-key by drunks. If you don’t believe me go to a pub to watch an England game and be amazed at how good (Okay not “good” but it will seem like it’s being sung the way it was ıntended) the song sounds when you’re full of ale, wearing an England shirt and singing it at the top of your voice.

The Independence March is a dramatic, pompy anthem. The title (and the fact the anthem is dedicated to the army), and could put one in mind of one of those dirge-y Eastern European anthems that accompany movie scenes where former Soviet Union baddies stand around in Army uniforms making plans against America while staring at unearthed atom bombs. Instead I always find it quite uplifting. It should be noted though that I am always hearing it sung by children and most of the time I hear it just before I go home on a Friday or during a government mandated half school day so it has a bit of a Pavlov’s dog affect on me.

 

DO: Mehmed, My Hawk by Yasar Kemal

Some novels have such a sense of place that it rewards to reader to actually see the place being described. Mehmed, My Hawk, is such a book. If you plan to risk the threats of violence and oppression in the south-east for a week or two, you should consider taking this classic novel along for the trip. It will provide a cultural underscore to all the wonderful panoramas you will see.

Set in the south-east in the 1930s, it presents a hard, hard world. Mehmed, an 11-year-old boy, protects his widowed mother from the local warlord through his strength of character and grit. Every day the boy is sent out to clear the endless tracks of thistles which grow around the village.  He labours all day in all weathers, and he grows into an incredibly tough yet dignified man. He finds love, but cannot act on it because of the social mores of the time. Eventually he is pushed into brigandage and goes on a desperate journey to simply pursue his right to build a life.

The language of the original is spare and hard like the land and the life being described. It brings to mind For Whom the Bell Tolls, with its relentless sense of foreboding, sweetened by the love story at the center of the story.

It is not hard to read the novel as an allegory. Turkey was a nascent entity when this novel came out, where memories of the local pashas were yet to fade. These men were not uniformly despotic, but such were the conditions in the late Ottoman era that it was quite possible for them to treat their peasants as slaves.  The workers of the Anatolian steppe were often victims for medieval justice, and Kemal makes his disdain for this abuse obvious. His title character is not just an archetype; he is an aspiration. Despite, or rather as a result of, all his misfortunes, he becomes a man of silent strength and determination.

This is essential reading if you want to understand how the Turkish Republic dragged itself away from the feudalism of the Ottoman era. It also gives you insight into the intellectual world of the mid-twentieth century, a crucial stage for the ideology of nationalism, where the early promise of statehood was burdened with the weight of the past. Mehmed, My Hawk, like the title character, endures.

DO: Portrait of a Turkish Family by Irgan Orga

As we all know Turkey has a rich and colourful history. Sometimes it is hard to know where exactly to start. Following the narrative of Irgan Orga was definitely a successful way to dive head first into this heady subject for me.

The novel is set during an interesting period of change in Turkey. It provides an autobiographical account of the life of Irfan Orga as we follow his family’s highs and lows.

The story starts in the Ottoman times and his family is a well-off aristocratic family. Life is good. However as WWI descends over Europe and the Middle East things start to change.

We follow his family’s fall from grace and the rise of Ataturk’s Republic Turkish Republic.

Reading Orga’s descriptions of Istanbul is a highlight of the novel as he explains the places that we all know and love today in a way we can not imagine. Names and places in the city are the same and some of the buildings he talks about still stand today. This connection with the past  will give your next trip up the Bosphorus a whole new meaning.

One thing that resonates throughout the book and still stands today is the pride and love Istanbullites have for their city. Especially for the Bosphorus, which is almost like a character in this book, much like it is in Istanbul today.

Along the journey we meet the many strong women in his life, forced to take up the roles of the men who left to fight in the war. I have read and heard many stories on this topic from a western point of view, and it was fascinating to see it from another perspective. It was such a restrictive time, especially for the elite women of Istanbul, and  all of a sudden they were forced out onto the streets to barter and shop for food, and live alone in houses with no maids or cooks, something unheard of beforehand. The transformation and independence that was thrust onto the women and the way different characters cope with the situation make for great reading.

The story hits on many themes such as mental health, women’s rights, family obligations, conscription and poverty.

It is a story we can all relate to but told from a completely new perspective

This is an insightful look into the history and culture of Istanbul and the Turkish family unit.

You can read a sample online from http://www.travelbooks.co.uk/book_detail.asp?id=26

The book can be purchased online or from the lovely Galeri Kayseri Bookstore in Sultanahmet who put the book back into circulation. More on that in a later post.