Journey to Istanbul

“Is Turkey a part of Europe or the Middle East?” I asked my fellow passengers as we waited for the plane to Istanbul. Two of them, Turks who graduated from Germany with degrees in Engineering, suggested that Turkey is a part of the West because Turkey needs her wealthy European neighbors for economic exports. They seemed to share the same view of Chris Pattern, then the European Union Commissioner for External Relations, who advocated that Turkey can solve the population problems in Western Europe through mass immigration.

Our flight got new passengers after the stopover in Bangkok. Sitting next to me were two ladies wearing black hijab. One of them told me that she lived in Trabzon, a major city on Black Sea Coast. She was going to return home after finishing her studies as an exchange student in Malaysia. She expressed her disagreement over the proposal for Turkey to join European Union. She said, “ The West and Turkey have different civilizations. Most of our lands are in Asia. But the most important thing is that they are Christians, we are Muslims. There is no way for us to integrate.”

After thirteen hours of journey, the flight finally arrived at Ataturk International Airport, named after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first President of the Turkish Republic after the first World War. The new terminal of the airport was gorgeous.

I booked a seat in a new inner-city coach, and, while waiting for its arrival, I raised these questions to myself:

“What kind of people I would meet?”

“What type of dress do most women wear?”

“Will the involvement of Ankara in Brussels be a sensitive topic for religious people? Is it possible to talk about the separation of mosque and state? Finally, will I be accused of insulting Turkishness if I talk about the Armenian massacre?”

On the road to the city center, I smelled dusty air as lots of old buildings in Baroque style were being torn down and replaced by new skyscrapers. In a city envisioning to be a global financial center, the skyscrapers are meant to attract foreign corporations to set up offices, even their Central Asia headquarters. If Istanbul was characteristically reflecting the development of the whole Turkey, it would be right to claim that the country was intending to open to the world through shifting to financial industry, recruiting talents from the West and encouraging its Diaspora to make investments in its motherland.

Yet, with a large population still living in countryside, will it become “the Turkish Shanghai” – where the rich and the expatriates from Western Europe create lively social lives and are willing to pay 100 U.S. dollars for tickets of violinist Itzhak Perlman while workers from Southern and Eastern Part of the country get low-paid jobs and are unable to meet ends meet? Time will tell.

The coach driver dropped me off in the district of Sultanahmet. It was a hub for backpackers, a home to twenty-four hour cafes and a close location to visit Blue Mosques, the Great Bazaar and Topkapi Palace. All of which were heritages from the Ottoman Empire to the young republic founded in 1923. Tourism is a prospering industry. Outside the ticket office of the palace, one could find visitors holding Lonely Planet guides in languages from Hebrew to Spanish. Unemployed youths from Samsun, a city on the coast of Black Sea, blocked the tourists from entering the Palace – they spoke French and German, trying to earn money by working as tour guides. While most men found the youths annoying, it was particularly true for female tourists.

Turkish criminals have acquired particularly bad reputations in the world. In the countryside, some commit honor killings against their wives and sisters. In Istanbul, human traffickers transport girls from Russia, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine to force them to be prostitutes. In pubs, they invite fellow drinkers to come to their places, but then bring them to brothels in Aksaray or Laleli, the infamous red light districts in the city.

I became a victim on the first day of my visit. I met a stranger in a pub in Taksim. Despite the warning from my inner voice, I followed him. Having walked for 15 minutes, we entered a pub. Only then did I know that it was a brothel. He called two Russian girls and ordered four cups of beers. He also urged me to have sex. He was angry as I was insisting on leaving. I was shocked at seeing my bill. The drinks and the girls cost me 5000 New Turkish Liras (4500 US dollars). He then called the boss of the brothel. They demanded that I go HSBC Bank to obtain money from the ATM. I escaped after dropping a one-hundred US dollar note on the floor. I ran.

The next day was Sunday. Streets were crowded with shoppers. Seats were fully occupied in Starbucks, McDonald’s, Burger Kings and other such places. Outside the ferry pier of the European side of Bosphorus, local people and backpackers enjoyed roasted fish with lemon. In Beyoglu, the Greenwich village of the city, people were lined up outside ATM machines for money. In a well-known bookstore, stocked with the latest English and French books, people spent hours reading. Aging folks bargained with owners of carpet stores for the latest carpets from Persia. The city looked like it left the bombings by Islamic fundamentalists that killed 26 locals and tore down the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues far behind.

Differences between religious and secular women only appeared in front of my eyes when I sat down in a stylish coffee shop popular among young professionals. The coffee shop provided me a great opportunity to watch people walking on the street. Opposite to me were groups of beautiful women wearing sun-glasses, shirts and vests. I guessed that they should be around mid-twenties. On street, I saw lots of Muslim women in the same age. They fully covered their bodies as they were holding two, even three little children, waiting for their husbands to come back after getting money from the ATM. Some Muslim women were walking a few steps behind their spouses.

I chatted with girls. Three of them moved to my table. Hana got her master degree in telecommunication from Iowa State University; another girl, Martan obtained her degree in political sciences from London School of Economics and Political Science, and the last girl, Karmilia, came back from Sciences Po in Paris after two years there. They were classmates at high school.

They asked me about changes in China and Hong Kong. I asked them about university education and the engagement of the European Union and women. They all agreed that business, engineering, and economics were first-choices among parents and students. Hana noted that “Humanities and Social Sciences are politically and religiously influenced. Often, there are no free debates on issues such as Armenian massacre, since professors would be dismissed. Religious people also issue complaints and threats to liberal professors who resist increasing religious power in the country and speak out against oppression of women.”

Martan favored the implementation of English as the teaching language, which was first introduced in private universities, then to prominent public universitites. They all expressed concerns over the lack of quality in Eastern and Southern universities. Karmilia was especially worried about universities run by Islamic associations since, to her, these universities did not educate, but indoctrinate students. I turned to Hana. She nodded her head, suggesting that she noticed a similar trend in America.

She said, “I was shocked to discover that religious people could be quite dogmatic in the United States. They took their children back from public schools or sent them to “Christian Madrasahs”. These children had never been challenged about what they believe. They then studied at ideologically-biased universities such as Patrick Henry College and Oral Roberts University. I can’t stop noticing the similarities with the Islamic right in my country. These puritans are trying to take over my country and impose their agenda on everyone. They want to every woman to be like many women in countryside, who have to stay at home and have no means to get away from abusive husbands!” She became emotional.

I suddenly understood that fundamentalism was not limited to Islam. Christianity could also be rigid. Both perceived secular humanism, feminism and evolution to be common enemies.

Most Muslim women who were dressed in traditional clothes, Karmilia told me, came from villages in rural area under arranged marriages. She lamented the frequency of honor killings and the lack of protection for children and women. “For most village women, marriages are like gambling. The marriages are arranged. If the husband is nice, that’s fine. If not, the woman lives as if she were a prisoner. I am blessed that my parents are secular. They allow me to do anything I like, of course they give suggestions. Women of less education and less economic means are not treated like human beings. They are objects which are controlled by men. I can’t understand why family honor is above a basic human life.”

They all believed that they would benefit from the Turkish involvement in Europe, but were worried about the effectiveness of new laws and regulations adopted for joining the European Union. They were mostly concerned about the welfare of women who might not get physical and financial support and child custody from leaving their husbands. Hana mentioned the fact that less than half of Turkish women have received basic education, and this would make hard for them to realize their rights and to know where they could seek support. Martan added that “If Turkish men dare to hit their wives in Germany, they would do the same in Istanbul.”

Will women get higher status under the EU? Will honor killings be totally eliminated? Will abusive men change their views on women? To me, at least for now, many Turkish women still have a long way to go. Two challenges are waiting ahead of them: overcoming illiteracy and the threat from Islamic ultra-conservatives who may try to roll back women’s rights as the Christian Right in the United States has tried to do since 1980s.

I was drinking a cup of strong Turkish coffee when seating on the seashore to see ships going back and forth the European and Asian sides of Bosphorus before leaving for Greece. The sun was dipping.

Turkey is a booming country. It has a strategic location between Central Asia and Balkan islands. Istanbul is a city aspiring to be New York, London or Paris. Professionals, academics and cultural elites of the city have long looked forward to tremendous opportunities through the EU membership. Yet, only the educated class apparently have the dream.

For citizens of another Turkey, the coming of EU represents the widening income gap between villages and urban cities. It also means the up-side-down of their social lives and values. Finally, for the European Union, Turkey, with its 70 million population, provides a large market for European goods.

Yet, the differences in religion and politics will, I think, create tensions between these neighbors and traders.