Here’s the response by Turkey’s biggest beer brand, Efes Pilsen, which took out this ad that doesn’t show its logo or brand name:

“Even if we don’t see it, we know. We’ve been together 44 years at the same table, with the same friendly chat and the same feelings. Even if we don’t see each other, we recognize each other;  even if we don’t see, we know.”

In the Turkish parliament yesterday, I had a conversation with an MP from Hatay, the province on the Syrian border that is hosting many refugees in camps and in local communities and where on May 11 a car bomb killed 51 people. The US media tends to paint the Syrian conflict as a sectarian one between Sunnis and Alawites, but the MP insisted that there is no such split. That there are plenty of Sunnis (as well as other groups like Christians) supporting Assad and that the recent large influx of well-armed radical non-Syrian jihadis financed by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and, he argued, supported by Turkey, has further driven moderate and secular Sunnis into the Assad camp, or simply into a limbo of fear, not necessarily into the non-jihadi opposition. He believes that if Assad had fallen early on, Syria might not have separated into warring sectarian camps, but elections could have been held. The influx of jihadis, like an invasive virus that is taking over the DNA of the country, makes the prospect of elections seem increasingly impossible. Yet the alternative to retaining a post-Assad government is a chaos of competing armed groups.

The uprising was originally begun by secular liberals who demonstrated for more rights, but these people have long since been decimated by the Assad regime. The resulting violence meant people of all kinds fled for their lives and, in their search for safety and stability, want a stable, non-Assad government, but not a life under the unstable and increasingly radical (“heart-eating”) militias that are fighting Assad.

He and other MPs (including some in the AKP) are very disturbed by Turkish government (and military police) support for these jihadi militias, allowing them into Turkey to cross the border into Syria at will, and, they suspect, allowing them free rein to be predators, especially in Turkish Alevi communities. They point to a recent Red Hack release of  Gendarmerie Intelligence documents, the authenticity of which the government has not denied, that were prepared after the Reyhanli bombing and appear to show that the police knew in advance that an operation was being planned against Turkey by anti-government groups in Syria with links to Al-Qaeda. The Turkish government has maintained that the Reyhanli bombings were not related to this and were carried out by individuals linked to the Mukhabarat, the Syrian intelligence agency. An investigation is underway into possible negligence for not preventing the attack.

The take-away is that Syria’s war did not have to be a sectarian war, and that western visions of a new post-Assad government under the leadership of the gangs of  ’secular’ and ‘jihadi’ militants, assuming they could tell them apart at this point, is not a formula that would be accepted by Syrians who see themselves as “caught between two devils”. Bringing down the regime (rather than the narrower goal of replacing Assad) is more likely to lead to a failed Syrian state run by jihadist mobs somewhat in the mould of Somalia, rather than a stable, liberal, rebel-led government. It didn’t work in Iraq or Libya, why would we expect it to work in Syria?

But the recent vast increase in Al-Nusra and other franchise jihadi groups (and their support by regional countries working in their own interests, not Syria’s) have undermined any good choices. The most important way to make an awful situation slightly less awful — that is, increase stability and and improve Syrians’ choices — would be to inoculate Syria against the jihadi virus by cutting off their funding, but regrettably outside interests aren’t concerned with the terrified civilians of Syria (much as the Palestinians have been used for decades as a political tool by a variety of countries and organizations who care little for actually resolving their plight).

Meanwhile, Turks on the border are frightened. An MP told me that in a Turkish border town the mayor told the MP that there were foreign Al Nusra jihadis living there and that they were involved in “dark affairs” like making bombs in basements. In the same town,  conservative Turkish women dressed in charshaf said they were worried because the jihadis had apparently received a directive to shave their beards, so Turks could no longer easily identify them. In other towns, Turkish Alevis and Christians are moving away, fearing reprisals. They are worried about their extended families in Syria and what might happen if one side or the other “wins”. The Al Qaeda virus is infecting Turkey’s border towns. If it wasn’t a sectarian conflict before, it will be one soon.

But the square is still as alive as ever, full of cafes and strolling couples and old people and kids, men hawking trinkets and grandmothers selling cheap bracelets  – all kinds of people. A young girl strolling with her boyfriend wore a cool black hoodie as a headscarf. There was a gaggle of dressed-up matrons who I think were going to an event at the synagogue. By the waterfront, a guy was pushing a glassed-in cart of popcorn that he shoveled into little paper bags for customers. Behind him rowboats bobbed in the water and a ferry nosed up to the pier. Two young men perched near the water played beautiful haunting oriental guitar music. It was dark. Someone squatted on a blanket selling little figurines lit up from within like colored jewels. The woman next to him sold hand-made cloth PSY dolls. (The Korean pop star had played Istanbul recently.) Some young women went into a huddle and sent off a “Wish lamp” — a miniature hot-air balloon made of yellow cloth about three feet high with a burner attached to the mouth. The flames roared into the balloon and they let it go. It lifted off into the sky and went higher and higher until it was just a speck of fire in the night. Behind the girls, the Bosphorus Bridge blazed in its mantle of purple stars.

For Turkey to manage this process by itself, for there to be no yielding to internal factions who oppose a democratic peaceful resolution, international powers also have a part to play in terms of duties and responsibilities, especially the United States and the European Union. It would be a contribution to the process of peaceful resolution in Turkey if the United States and members of the European Union were to review their “terrorist organizations” list and remove from it the PKK, which has taken strategic steps to transition from armed struggle to democratic struggle in response to the call by the Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan.

Although the total funds pledged by donor countries are impressive, few countries have fulfilled their promises, making it difficult for UNHCR and other organizations to provide basic essential services.

The Institute for Iraqi Studies at Boston University has just published an up-to-date, fact-filled report on the condition and fate of Syrian refugees, country by country, with sections written by scholars and activists who have visited the camps. (The full report can be found here.) The report also usefully looks at the Iraqi refugee situation for insight into the trajectory of the Syrian crisis. Years after the precipitating event, some 1.5 million Iraqis remain displaced.

The report also makes recommendations based on the specific problems in camps in different countries.  In some of the camps, for instance, especially in Jordan, sexual predation has become so common that the most requested medications are for birth control.  The requesters are women and girls fearing rape. Fifty-one percent of Syrian refugees are children under age 18. The Jordanian camps are overcrowded, leading to protests and internal tensions. Also, the Jordanian border is closed to Palestinians seeking to flee Syria.

Although there are 455,665 Syrians displaced in Lebanon (the Lebanese government estimates over 1 million), they are not given refugee status and instead are referred to as “displaced Syrians.” There are no refugee camps for Syrians, so they are living amongst the populace, often hosted by individual families, which makes their identification and assistance more difficult. They  are not allowed to construct shelter, including tents.

Iraq has about 142,395 Syrian refugees in Iraq. This is in addition to nearly one million Iraqis still officially displaced as a result of the ongoing civil war, or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). There are three refugee camps for Syrians, which are not accessible for the Iraqi IDPs. Cross-border attacks launched both by Iraqis and by Syrians destabilize the camps.

The report contains a description of conditions in the Atmeh refugee camp on the Syrian side of the Turkish border, controlled by the Free Syrian Army. The camp originally held 17,000 people, but hundreds arrive every day, mostly women and children, many displaced multiple times within Syria. 18 percent are under age four. There are 40 operational toilets and three schools (one an Islamic school) for 8500 children. Some of the schools are made of cement blocks or tents without flooring.

The refugees all receive a basic breakfast from the Turkish government, and then a late afternoon lunch, which is prepared by three volunteers in one kitchen, which is supposed to supply all the refugees with meals while lacking a floor (it is a mud floor), and consisting of walls that are cement with large gaps. The roof is tin. The three volunteers begin cooking at 5:30 am to serve more than 17,000 people…

[T]he most requested medications were for birth control. The prevention of unwanted pregnancies is a top priority; at least 60 women had been raped and are now carrying children conceived by the rape. Another pressing health issue is the proliferation of diseases caused by contaminated water, limited hygienic facilities and malnutrition including cholera, scabies, and leishmaniasis…

Photo by Jenny White

Peonies 
by Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open–
pools of lace,
white and pink–

…

One of the interesting tidbits that have been piling up beside my computer:

In early April, the Turkish Republic Health Ministry decided to drop the ‘Turkish Republic’ part of its name that usually appears as “TC” in front of  the names of ministries and their related institutions. Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu explained that adding TC was unnecessary. He noted that if you have a sign that says “Istanbul Umraniye Official Health Hospital”, it makes no sense to add “Turkish Republic” as well.

Having just been in Washington DC, I was imagining “US” on signs all over town: “US Department of State” instead of just “Department of State” as it is now. Or US Environmental Protection Agency, US Congress. Where ELSE would a Washington agency be but in the US. It made me wonder why Turkey has all those “TC’s” on their ministries. In Turkey, TC refers not to the national name, but to the state. TC tells the citizen where the authority lies. Enter here and you will be subject to the authority (and guidance and care) of the state. Removing “TC” makes sense as part of the process of reuniting the state with the nation and citizen that has been ongoing in Turkey over the past two decades.

MPs from MHP and CHP immediately requested an inquiry in parliament. MHP Aydin representative Ali Uzunirmak asked whether this was the beginning of a slippery road that would lead to accusations of racism if a company used the word “Turk” in its name. What was equally interesting was the reaction on social media. According to the Turkish press and eye witness of some of my students, people on a number of social media sites, including Facebook, have changed their image to “TC”. TC came up as the leading name of Turkey’s 9 million social media users.

This is an example of clicktivism, a term I only recently learned (again from my students). Clicktivism means feeling that you are politically active by forwarding something on Facebook or following a social media trend to express support or disapproval (like changing your picture to TC in Turkey– or as in the US recently when 2.7 million people changed their image to a red = to voice support for same sex marriage in a case being heard before the [U.S.!] Supreme Court). There is a debate about whether clicktivism is effective in initiating change, whether its symbolic force has an impact, or whether it’s a lazy way for people to feel they are politically active even though they’re not. Well, the TC social media campaign in Turkey seems to have worked and TC is back on the Health Ministry’s door.

And predictably, in the comments section of one of the Turkish news articles about the elimination of TC, someone vehemently argued that this was a CIA plot. That’s the U.S. CIA.

Main gate of the old Ottoman Archive, 11 March 2013. Photo by Michael Christopher Low. From jadaliyya.com.

Three graduate students in Ottoman history have written an impassioned review of the new Ottoman archive that has just opened its doors in Istanbul’s Kağıthane neighborhood on April 22. The old archive was housed in a romantic and easily accessible, but crowded, historic building in Sultan Ahmet behind the storied gate of Bab-ı Ali. The new site is modern and not unpleasant, although far from the hands-on visual and sensual experience of the empire that the old archive afforded generations of researchers. The new archive has many advantages — space, lighting, apparently climate-controlled rooms for document storage. But the authors, as some of the first researchers to find their way to the new site, give some important warnings. The most important is that the documents have not made their way to the new building and the staff is unsure of when they will arrive.

The reading room is open for digital document services, providing access to a fraction of the total documents available. However, we were told that the paper documents themselves had not even begun to be moved from the old depot… As we dug deeper for the staff’s predictions for the resumption of normal service, we were met with extremely pessimistic prognoses. Two months was the most optimistic estimate, but this was offered with a shake of the head and a warning to brace for a wait of as long as six months before normal services were restored. Thus, it is probable that research plans for spring or early summer are essentially ruined. This will likely leave most of the archive’s collection inaccessible perhaps even into the fall, leaving doctoral students and professors scrambling to adjust their research plans and renegotiate fellowships and grants.

If you or an Ottomanist colleague were planning to do research in Istanbul this year, this is crucial information.

The site also is almost inaccessible by public transport. Catching a bus involves “a harrowing scramble across four lanes of high-speed traffic”. And other than a cafeteria on site, there are no restaurants or cafes near the building. The outlook is bleak indeed for those studying Ottoman history, at least in the short term. The article by Patrick Adamiak, Jeffery Dyer, and Michael Christopher Low is on Jadaliyya. Forward it to your colleagues.

Image from Bulent

There’s a new face around town, an e-journal that aims to fill the sweet spot of desire for fresh, cutting-edge, edgy and real reportage about Turkey. The first issue has hit the e-stands. Get it here.

Here’s what the editors have to say about the journal:

BÜLENT is a quarterly online journal which aims to encourage new ways of thinking about contemporary Turkey.

BÜLENT takes its title from a common Turkish boy’s name. It is the name of Bülent Ecevit, former Prime Minister, poet and translator, and Bülent Ersoy, a much loved transexual singer.

As two of the most iconic Bülents, Ersoy - whose public gender transition coincided with the repressive 1980 military coup  - and Ecevit – who stood at the inception of the Turkish financial crisis when a book was thrown at him across parliament – both present figures which cut across contemporary Turkey’s most interesting tensions. Not least the unpredictable shapes of identity politics, and the brute power of the written word. These two lives offer a basic departure for the journal, which aims, not so much to ‘unveil’ Turkey, as to engage with existing critical debates.

We publish articles, essays, interviews, translations, photos and multimedia works. We are looking for all kinds of collaborators. Please get in touch with us at info@bulentjournal.com

Issue Zero: April 2013

Editors: Isobel Finkel & Thomas Roueché

Local movies took 47% of market share last year, despite only 70 local movies produced. (Fetih 1453 — see my review here — made $31 million.) Average movie ticket price is five bucks. But movie attendance is low (0.6 visits per person per year; 2.7 in the UK).

Imax has two theaters in Turkey and plans to open three more. This is particularly galling, given the razing of classic movie theaters like the Emek Cinema that date to the beginning of Turkey’s own movie industry, now sacrificed to the relentless construction of malls — into which Imax would fit perfectly, if completely without character. The entire country at present has 2000 screens. I find it hard to imagine, despite Imax’s optimism, that the present government would like more opportunities for promiscuous mingling of the sexes in the dark.

With 18 million TV homes, Turkey is one of Europe’s major markets. Half of the viewers use satellite TV or cable. More than 3 million subscribe to pay-TV. There are two dozen private national and hundreds of regional and local channels. “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and “Pop Idol” are big, but the most popular show is Star channel’s historical soap, “Magnificent Century” (Muhteşem Yüzyıl), to which I have admitted being addicted.

42.5% of the population [of 80 million, 70% living in cities] is aged 25-54; 26.2% are under 14. There are lots of cool, stylish kids with the latest smartphones. The country has among the world’s highest social media use through mobile Internet. An estimated 30 million Turks use Facebook. Turkey ranks eighth among nations in terms of Twitter penetration. Some 71% of Turkish Internet users go online every day for entertainment purposes. According to the BKM (Interbank Card Center) data, the Turkish e-commerce market reached a whopping $25 billion in 2012.

Given that most people didn’t have home telephones in the 1980s, this is a remarkable transformation. I still remember the first phone booths in Ankara appearing in the mid-1970s; their cords were immediately cut by vandals. Anyway, who could you call?

I’ve always believed that the introduction of the cellphone at the end of the 1980s and its immediate spread was a major factor in Islamist political organizing, making it possible to set up phone trees and mobilize large numbers of people through their personal networks. I remember the frustration of trying to do research in Istanbul in the 1980s by making appointments from a phone booth, the long lines, men swinging their worry beads at the glass if you were taking too long, and the frustration of finding no one home of the few people who even had telephones that one could call. The unwritten phone booth etiquette rule was that you could dial one call (even if no one answered) and then you went to the back of the line again. Imagine doing business or political organizing like that.

Istanbul is so big that sometimes I’d spend hours to travel to visit someone (not having been able to tell them I was coming) only to find them not at home. No wonder people took to cell phones like a third ear. The Turkish custom of hosting a visitor at your door, regardless of how inconvenient, is likely related to this inability to plan ahead. Now people don’t have to visit (and getting through traffic is even worse), so why not tweet and twitter instead, like birds comfortably perched on a power line high above the gridlocked city.