Denmark, Socialism and Public Toilets

Dear Readers,

After a long break, I'm back!

Many bad things happened since my last post. We had a global monster called ISIS, for example. How I missed summers when I could write about figs and Ramadan celebrations... Now its suicide bombs, military coups, corruption scandals, and terrible, I mean, terrible air travel...

I believe scholars of International Relations need extra compensation these days. Perks such as spa packages, alcoholic drinks or mini retreats would really help.

Most of us are depressed and borderline suicidal... Just look at any news site or Twitter, and you'd get all your spirits sucked out of you, as if you've encountered a Death Eater from the Harry Potter books...

In case you were wondering, I'm about to get to the topic of my blog entry: public toilets in Denmark!

So your humble author took a short vacation in Europe this summer.

It all started with collecting mountains of paperwork and a personal visit to the German Consulate in Chicago in April, for a tourist visa. The lady at the consulate was not convinced that my tenure-track job & salary in the US were strong enough credentials to visit her beloved Germany. (Hope my bosses read this before our pay raises.) So I had to have other folks in the group to vouch for me:
1 American and 2 Norwegian citizens. Only after receiving copies of their passports and written testimonies that I am who I am, and really, can afford the trip, I got a precious 14 day Schengen visa.

Fast forward, after a visit to the house where Karl Marx was born (in Trier), we moved up to Denmark.

During the 2016 election cycle in the US, Mr. Bernie Sanders had created a real hype about  the place. The way Sander's had described, Denmark was the golden standard of social democracy, wherein all your social needs were met by a generous state, and everyone was enlightened, affluent and above average...

So we drove from Holland to Denmark. Unlike all the other European countries where you just keep driving on the same highway and voila, you're in Belgium, France, or the Netherlands, the road sign says; in Denmark there was police check point on the highway. They look at every car, and waive you in.

In Denmark, we stopped at the first gas station we saw. Danes stick with their Kroner so you better remember your multiplication table really quick. My son had a hamburger. This precious Danish burger at the gas station cost us about $15. And, they charge extra for catchup... about $1. Yes, we learned the hard way.

We moved on, trying to get to the little "summer town" to meet our friends. In this town, we visited two big grocery stores, and neither had a bathroom for customers. Then, we started driving around, thinking that the haven of Mr. Sanders would surely have public bathrooms scattered around this little tourist town.

After quite a bit of driving, we saw ONE sign. Following the sign carefully, we arrived at the site. I jumped out, hoping to find maybe a fancy Toto (some models as much as $10,000), since we're in one of the most affluent nations on earth..

Alas, the bathroom door wouldn't open. But there was a ton of cryptic writing on the door. I tried couple of times, no, the door wouldn't budge.

Finally, I looked at the writing again. Amongst all the Nordic languages, there was a tiny line in English: To use the toilet, send an SMS to xxx123.

You've got to be kidding!!!

So in the social democratic haven, you need to first have a cell phone, and secondly, a plan that works in Denmark, to have access to a public toilet!

What about old people? My mom cannot send SMS messages... What about young kids? Why would everyone has to have a cell phone? What about the mother who's juggling a toddler, a baby and a stroller?

Say anything about the vicious capitalism in America, but at least the public bathrooms are available and accessible to ALL public, regardless of your cell phone coverage!

Back to Denmark:
So I did not want this horrid toilet experience cloud my judgement. But after a week in this "summer town" in Denmark, and a day in Copenhagen, here is my bottom line:

- the whole country is like an empty Ikea store: good, clean design & furnishings, no soul.
- outside Copenhagen, hardly anyone is on the streets or in their yards
- bicycles rule the roads, they're even used as family vehicles
- even in July, it is impossible to swim! way too cold
- most signs are in Danish & other Scandinavian languages
- life is hard for just English speakers
- mobile coverage is needed to use public bathrooms

In short, before you wholeheartedly endorse an ideology, make sure to see one place it is practiced:
Free trade neo-liberals, check out London and it's exorbitant housing market.
Libertarians, see Idaho.
Feel-the-Bernistas, see Denmark :)

May your airport lines be short, and flights uneventful.

Academic Mommy

Live & Let Live: On lifting the Headscarf Ban at the Parliament

Author at the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Summer 2013

Finally, Turkish legislature corrected a portion of its long overdue dress-code.  As of today (October 31, 2013) women parliamentarians who choose to wear a headscarf can sit on those fancy orange seats.

More than half the women cover their hair in Turkey (approx. 60-65%). Yet, the very institution that is supposedly  representing "the people", would not allow any of these women to hold a seat at the Parliament.

After their pilgrimage to Mecca this year, 4 women MPs decided that they would like to cover their hair from then on. Hence, they came to the Parliament with their new headgear today, and there was no sign of uncivilized protesting or bullying.

There's only a few months left until the elections. We don't know how much of this sudden surge in religiosity is genuine, and how much of it is political calculation. But we do not have a little gadget to measure people's sincerity. Nor should we try to do so. If anything, it might be wise to use this opportunity to lift other ridiculous bans at the Parliament floor, such as No Drinking Water and No Pants for Women (No, I'm not kidding. You cannot sip water even if you're diabetic. Nor can women wear pants and sit on those fancy orange seats. One MP with a prosthetic leg is compelled to wear a skirt, despite expressing her discomfort to display her artificial limb).

There is a great Turkish saying: "zarfa değil, mazrufa bak". It means: don't pay much attention to the envelope, look at the content. It is our way of saying, don't judge a book by its cover. I'm afraid lately all we look at is the envelope/cover....

As a society we need to :

 1) accept people as they are

 2) learn to NOT judge people by their proverbial cover

 3) appreciate each other's differences as legitimate

 4) NOT perceive all forms of difference as a THREAT

5) nor treat differences as frontiers to conquer, suppress and assimilate

6) respect & advocate for the rights of those who're different from us.

7) consider diversity as an asset, rather than liability

We all have to learn to live with each other. Kurds in Turkey have no other place to go. Neither do the religious folks, nor the uber-secularists. Even the non-Muslims, such as the native Armenian, Assyrian, Greek or Jewish communities don't want to leave Turkey, despite all the abuse they have gone through.

Anyone who knows people living in Turkey would know very well that we are one hard-headed people. Mom used to call me "inatçı keçi!"(stubborn goat), when I would resist her and give her the silent treatment.

We cannot bully each other into submission. Those who believe progress means secularism and modernization a la the West will remain that way. No amount of mosque building, media censuring, indoctrination at schools and alcohol ban would change their conviction.

Likewise, those who think salvation is in religion would not change their ways and endorse Westernization, even if the EU takes Turkey in as a member tomorrow.

Kurds and Alevis, on the other hand, have been mistreated so harshly for so long that there is not a single method of abuse or torture that they have not already been subject to. Yet, they're still here, still trying to be part of the game.

For the last decade or so, the Turkish economy remained in the same ranks (17th-18th largest in the world), while other emerging economies showed steady progress (Brazil moved from 11th to 6th). We have a major urban development problem. 2-3 cities in the country are growing into monstrous metropolises, at the expense of all the other cities and towns. They suck up all the resources and human capital, but their sheer size is making them unmanageable and unlivable. This is not a healthy, sustainable trend. People should be able to have the chance for a decent living (i.e. jobs, education, quality living conditions, etc), in the other 70-some cities in Turkey as well.

But we can't even get to talk about these crucial socio-economic problems. We cannot deliberate on practical, policy issues. Because we get bogged down by identity issues. Frankly, we seem to hate each other lately... A very superficial understanding of who you are (islamist if you cover your head, secularist if you drink!!) dominates the discussion. If you're in a different identity camp, we don't even listen to what have to you say.

Each side seems to be waiting for the weakest moment of its opponent to strike a final blow. The happiest moment seems to be when we become one homogenous entity, devoid of color and flavor... But let me reiterate: we're stubborn. No one will give up the essential components of their identity, no one will give in..

Besides, I don't know a single true democracy where citizens are judged and sorted out by their outfits! In fact, in established democracies, this very act would be 'profiling' and a crime, since it is blatant discrimination!

Let us please learn to appreciate each other as who we are.
Let us learn to live together as who we are.
Let us not look at headgear or mustache style, but look at what's inside that head. What kind of ideas and proposals are inside that brain?
Let us learn to argue over rational, measurable projects and proposals, instead of all this emotional, immature personality attacks.
Let's grow up to be rational, reasonable adults.

We cannot all love each other.
But we have to learn to respect each other as who we are.
Time is running out...
Soon, we'll degenerate into a poor, unhappy, dysfunctional society that is constantly at war with each other.

Can We Pray Anywhere We Want?

What prompted this blog?

It’s this column, that complains about the lack of prayer rooms (Mescid) at my Alma Mater, Bosphorus University.

The author is among the new cohort of pious, vocal and dare-I-say liberal women journalists, who came under the spotlight after the headscarf protests in Turkish universities in 2007-8.

Full disclosure: I supported her and the free headscarf movement wholeheartedly at the time. I believe women should not be made to choose between their education and their religious beliefs. It’s ludicrous for the state to micromanage people’s clothing, especially when they’re mature adults!

But this time, I beg to disagree…

South Campus, BU

What’s the issue?

Bosphorus University has multiple campuses: South, North, Hisar, Ucaksavar and Kilyos Campuses. South is the oldest campus, but most departments, classrooms, the library, dorms, university bookstore, etc are up on the North campus. There is a small mosque right at the entrance of the North campus.

Students who observe the 5-times per day prayer rule of Islam, want a designated space in the South campus for this purpose.

The columnist above, who is also an Alumnus of Bosphorus university (Sociology), claims that this is an “ontological right”. Furthermore, she says 10 minutes between classes is not enough time to go up to the mosque on North campus. Therefore, the University has to accommodate this demand, and provide a prayer room at the South Campus.

Now, lets be frank:

The only times the students would need a prayer room during class times would be the noon & afternoon prayers, and possibly the evening (in winter times).

Depending on the time of the year, there are 2 to 5 hour windows for Muslims to complete each of these prayer duties.

Noon & afternoon prayers are not short. They have 4 parts, as opposed to 2 parts in the morning & 3 parts in the evening.

Even if there were a dedicated prayer room in the South, 10 minutes between classes is NOT sufficient time. You’ll need to run over there, walk up or down stairs (always stairs, NO ELEVATORS in South!), wash your hands-face-feet, get yourself back in order, line up, concentrate on the prayer, rush all the verses, salute, dress up & pack, and run over to the next class. Again, numerous stairs obstructing your way… In short, prayer-in-10-mins argument does not pass the reality check.

Aside from the unrealistic nature of a 10-minute prayer break, there is the issue of “ontological” rights to prayer.

I support a wide range of rights and causes, all the way from rights to express your native identity & language, religious duties, to rights of workers to a decent wage and parental rights to provide for their new-born babies without the fear of losing their jobs, to free expression of ideas, students’ right to protest peacefully, sexual rights, handicapped people’s access to services, etc, etc…

However, I would never be able to line up these rights hierarchically and say: “Hey, you know, a mother’s right to paid leave for 12 months is an ‘ontological’ right! I just gave birth to a baby! I need to take care of him/her. It’s about life & death, no? Give me my high order right and back off, you foolish advocates of lower level rights!”

Tell that to the workers and union leaders in Argentina, who were dumped into the Atlantic by the military regime, for fighting for a decent pay and decent living.

Tell that to the activists in gay movements, who are still brutally beaten up by law enforcement and ostracized by their societies in many parts of the world, for trying to live a life that is true to their personality.

Tell that to all the indigenous and minority populations, who have been fighting for decades if not centuries, to be accepted as who they are, with equal rights and dignity.

I don’t understand why people can be so utterly self-righteous, when it comes to religious rights. Why should religion be an ontological right, triumphing over all else? Why should one’s self-identity, motherhood, or demands for a decent wage in exchange for their hard labor would count LESS THAN religious rights?

Lets leave ontology for a minute, and go back to basic empirical facts:

South campus is prime real estate no matter how you look at it. The historic heart of the campus is protected by numerous zoning laws, most famous of being the Law for the Protection of Bosphorus View. Practically, this means the university cannot develop the area it sits on.

Kilyos Campus, BU

There are innumerable competing interests and demands on campus. The English prep school (YADYOK) for instance –that every student has to attend unless s/he passes an extremely hard proficiency exam- has NO SPACE to put classrooms. So it ships all its students across the city to the Kilyos campus, which is essentially a beach town along the Black Sea! These poor kids cannot see the marvelous campus they’re entitled to study for a whole year! All they have in the name of Bosphorus University is a long beach and cold winds from the mad Black Sea beating up their walls. Oh, and lots of humidity and mold…

Second, office space is scarce in South. Multiple faculty members with Ivy League degrees –literally- share tiny offices cramped under sloping roofs lines.

Third, regular capacity cannot meet the demand. Under pressure from Turkey’s Higher Ed. Council (YOK) to increase enrollment, BU is having a hard time to seat and accommodate its ever-growing number of students. Hence, every bit of space, including under the stairs & old closets, are used for something, at times very creatively: toilets under the stairs, copy rooms & coffee rooms inside closets, etc… A dorm room in South Campus is the most precious thing a student can get in his/her entire college life! I had one, shared with 11 (in writing: eleven!) roommates. It was totally worth it, despite the awful metal bunk-beds, non-stop cacophony and insurmountable mess.

1st Girls Dormitory, South Campus, BU

My point: please stop demanding special treatment, and pretending that this is the most compelling case for space on South campus.

BU is the most liberal university in Turkey that not only welcomes students from all walks of life, but also helps them flourish. It is a rare gem, given the suffocating atmosphere in other universities across the country. 

Let us all be reasonable, and NOT beat the tree that bears good fruit.

The freedom loving, controversy-weary Academic Mommy

Deadly Eggs in Your Pockets: News and Noteworthy Events, 3

Sir Willie the Wise, Fall/2011 

Esteemed Readers,

I arrived to my other home, on the west side of the Atlantic, in February. Let me start with the bad news:

* The climate change is upon us! I was stuck at the airport in Ankara for 3 hours, and then in Istanbul for 7, due to excessive snow. Turkey is supposedly the land of sun and fun.  This much snow belongs to Buffalo or Chicago!

* The bright side is: contrary to the last bloody winter, there is almost no snow in Iowa this year. The weather is really nice, which makes me feel all bubbly and perky!… 

But, a quick glance at the Turkish papers on-line lets the grim realities sink:

* Turkey is having yet another round of Constitution Drafting… Yep, it is that time of the year… Yet, there is hardly an atmosphere of deliberation, which would ideally lead to a new social contract, and we can live democratically and happily ever after...

* Instead, there is a subtle atmosphere of bullying and submission. The number of students, academics and journalists behind bars –without any indictment, as of yet- has passed thousands long ago!

* A university student caught with 3 eggs (in writing: THREE EGGS) that he meant to use at a protest is behind bars, waiting for his verdict. The prosecutor demands that he stays behind bars for 11 years! That makes almost 4 years in prison per egg! Hence, my cautionary title: When in Turkey, beware of walking with eggs in your pockets!

* Another group of students who threw eggs at the leading members of the Constitutional Committee (from both the government and opposition parties) are also arrested. If the prosecutor gets his way, they'll be behind bars for 48 years! (in writing: FOURTY-EIGHT YEARS)

*Meanwhile, police officers that shoot and kill students/activists cannot even be brought in front of justice…

* Even if Turkish Courts were to consider broken eggs as infringement of the life of unborn chicken fetuses, I still think this is a highly disproportionate and unfair punishment. 20-some year old kids die, the killers walk free…. Eggs broken, 48 years behind bars!

* If the Prime Minister thinks your speech has offended him, he sues you. The courts generously grant you at least one-year in prison, if they feel charitable that day…. Plus, you pay financial compensation to I-Don't-Accept-Anything-But-Yes Minister…

    We need many things in Turkey. But above all, a decent system of justice…

    Wishing you all conscientious judges and prosecutors,

    The permanent opposition, Academic Mommy

PS: and what’s with the photo, you may ask. 

There is a Turkish expression; the finger that’s cut by the sword of justice wouldn’t hurt. Above is my son’s sword of justice. At 6 years old, he displays a much more sophisticated sense of fairness, than the judges involved in the above mentioned cases.

The “Ping-pong Theory” of Democratic (Un)Consolidation

The time I’ve spent as a student and scholar of democratization is more than a decade now. Part of my effort was to see whether the Latin American experiences on the long and arduous path to democratization could be relevant for Turkey or the Mid East.

Looking at the transformation of civil-military relations in Latin America, I was taken aback by how the civilian regimes that took over handled this delicate matter. Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) was achieved in most of these countries. Militaries retreated back to their professional boundaries, and political space was left to the civilians. In Chile, Argentina and Peru, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions were established in order to uncover the heinous crimes committed under military rules. The days of impunity were over. Institutions to ensure the transparency and accountability of the military were set in place.

However, the civilian governments also granted comprehensive amnesties to the perpetrators. It was this part that I had harder time to comprehend…

In most cases, leftist governments gained electoral victory after the military regimes ran out of steam. They were treated brutally during the authoritarian era. Thanks to the unfettered support from the US during the Cold War, military regimes of Latin America unleashed vicious campaigns over these ‘commies’.

General Pinochet of Chile was notorious with his Caravans of Death. These were military helicopters that airlifted leftist dissidents and conveniently dropped them off over the Pacific Ocean. The last three Presidents of Brazil (Dilma, Lula and Cardoso) all experienced either jail time and torture, or exile during the military rule in Brazil. The Dirty War of Argentina left over 10,000 desaparecidos.* The Argentine military caused yet another tragedy by handing over the orphaned children of the disappeared to the military families.

Despite all the torture, summary executions, displaced/disappeared individuals and forced adoptions, the civilian leaders of Latin America allowed a graceful exit for the ex-military autocrats. More importantly, they uncovered the past military crimes and brought closure to the families of the victims.

Today, I realize that this was neither a sign of weakness, nor pity. It was a superior understanding of rule of law that carefully avoided regressing into a vendetta.

Seeking revenge, making your opponents pay back, are unsurprisingly human feelings. Yet, in polarized societies that seek democratic healing, an eye-for-an-eye attitude could hardly be the harbinger of lasting peace.

-Dude, why R U showing your ID to the bomb?
+ Dunno, what should I do instead?

These are my thoughts, as I see the last Joint Chiefs of Staff in Turkey go behind bars. For some, this settles the score for the jailing of Prime Minister Erdogan. Yet, settling scores could hardly be the best path to democratic consolidation. It would’ve been more constructive, had we seen genuine signs of transparency on the side of military, which had incidentally bombed 35 civilians by accident past week!

As much as I would like to see the normalization of civil-military relations in Turkey, I doubt placing more than half the acting or retired top brass behind bars on dubious legal grounds is the way to go. Instead of resolving the military issue, this approach simultaneously leads to two important problems:

It fuels the social polarization by making the weaker party (the secularists and pro-military sectors in the Turkish case) hold onto its grudge, and sharpen its weapons, until it gets its turn. Hence the ping-pong match of settling scores and undermining democracy…

Secondly, it undermines the sense of justice in the general society. If government can bend the judiciary branch at will, how can you expect the public to uphold the rule of law and respect it as impartial?...

Democratic consolidation cannot be achieved, if anyone with the biggest stick starts to corner its opponents into submission. Yes, those who committed crimes should be punished. But this should not come at the expense of rule of law. Nor should it amount to a vendetta.

Wishing you all sound legal systems in the New Year,

The Academic Mommy in a Quandary…

* A friend from Argentina kindly asked me to amend the number of desaparecidos. Upon close monitoring from the Human Rights NGOs, the official figures amounted to more than 30,000.

News and Noteworthy Events Part 1, From Oslo

Esteemed Readers,

I thought, the most important piece of news I would get from Oslo in this super hot July of 2011, would be that a very good friend of mine –more like a half-brother- had a baby girl. They named her Gina. 10 fingers, 10 toes and bright red hair like mommy… The parents were enjoying the generous benefits granted by the welfare regime of social democratic Norway. All is good…

Alas, the usual calm and peace of this Nordic heaven was recently shattered by the senseless acts of a lunatic psychopath. It is impossible to feel anything other than grave sadness for this catastrophic event.

Norway is an open, liberal society that truly embraces a social democratic way of living. This is why the government buildings, including the office of the Prime Minister, are easily accessible to the public. This is why civil society organizations, including political parties, try to cultivate a culture of tolerance and empathy at a young age through summer camps. This social democratic vision is also extended to Norway’s asylum policy. After rigorous screening, Norway would extend a hand to those who were born in less fortunate parts of the world.

It seemed to me that the lunatic murderer who created havoc in this serene country was critical of the essence of Norwegian political culture. He wanted a closed, xenophobic, mono-cultural fortress.

Let me be very blunt here.

Please look at this picture:

Ugly, isn’t it…

I thought so too…

Well, that’s the result of inbreeding. The Habsburg dynasty of Europe degenerated and eventually collapsed, thanks to its unyielding tradition of seeking spouses of royal blood, even if they happen to be first cousins…

Traditions, religions, languages and cultures have never been completely isolated from each other. Contacts and mutual interaction always enrich both sides. “Viability of the hybrid” thesis is not confined to Mendel’s cross-pollinated peas.

Let us eat, pray and work hard so that our children won’t grow up into a xenophobic world, where nations are penned up behind exclusionary, mono-cultural fortresses.


The heterogeneity loving Academic Mommy.

The Arab World’s Awakening to a Democratic Spring: Is This the Fourth Wave?

The chain reaction of social upheavals that started in Tunisia and swept across the Arab World caught even the “Arabists” by surprise. Despite all the attention to the Middle East, particularly after the 9/11, I doubt many experts could claim credit for having predicted these incredible events.

Of course, I am excusing the conspiracy minded chowderheads. Completely detached from the double burdens of fact and rationality, they instantly connected these historic developments to the Wikileaks and to the ubiquitous US scheme to “shape the Greater Middle East”.

I love their ex-post-facto reasoning! Up to the day before these demonstrations, they would have no clue that something was brewing in Mid East. But now that the gene is out, they unabashedly churn the wheels of conspiracy and link it all to Wikileaks, Iraq, Afghanistan, US, Israel and of course, to Zionism… If you are one of those people, please stop reading my blog right here.

These developments in the Arab world humbled me in certain ways. Here are a few of my presumptions that were challenged and some shattered by the recent events:

1. Nothing progressive ever happens in the Middle East!

Having read about the iron grip of authoritarian regimes in the region for so long, the ever-expanding techniques of a Mukhabarat state that spies on its own people and systematically bullies them into submission, the seemingly endless money supply from oil, gas and foreign aid (Egypt is the second largest recipient of US aid, after Israel) in the hands of those abusive governments gave me plenty of reasons that the Middle East really did not have much fertile soil for popular democratic movements. The state was just too powerful and merciless, cutting any opposition movement at the bud. In fact, for my dissertation on democratic progress in Turkey, this was a major reason why I turned to Latin America when looking for a comparable case alongside Turkey. You needed a Pollyanna attitude to look for democratic progress in the Middle East in the last decades…

Today, as a social scientist, I am delighted to see that I was wrong! It is wonderful to see that these societies could generate progressive changes endogenously, just like Southern Europe in the late 1970s, Eastern Europe in late 1980s and Latin America in the 1990s.

The chain reactions of democratic transitions from the 1970s on were famously referred as the Third Wave, by the dark lord of political science, Sam Huntington. I wonder if the Fourth Wave is unfolding right in front of our eyes, engulfing a region once considered frozen in time under tyrannies.

2. Arabs would always find a reason to be divided!

For me, this was not an Orientalist prejudice against the Arab world. Rather it was an acquired pessimism, after reading the history of the region. In most cases, even though their territorial boundaries were artificially imposed by the European colonial powers, these divisions and further ethno-sectarian divisions inside the national borders have managed to splinter the Arab world into endless little cliques. The odds against regional solidarity and collective action seemed incredibly high.

Again, I am delighted to be proven wrong! The flames rising from the body of a desperate young college graduate in Tunisia resonated so strongly in Egypt, Libya and even in the rich Gulf monarchies.

This made me believe that there is such a thing as Arab reality and Arab solidarity. Despite all the divisions and bickering in the region, the fact that socio-political transformations can travel across the state borders like wild fire, only illustrates the deep connections within these societies. Whether it is having Arabic as a shared language, and historical, socio-economic, cultural bonds in the region, or the Facebook/Tweeter and the Al Jazeera effect, there is something that is holding these people together.

I am hoping and praying that this solidarity is going to pave the way to a more free, egalitarian and democratic Mid East.

3. Turkey is different from the Arab countries.

This is probably the most controversial of my three presumptions about the Middle East, and I am afraid, in light of these recent events, I might retain this for a while. Again, this has nothing to do with the patronizing, Orientalist attitude that perceives Turkey somehow “above” the Arab countries. Unfortunately, this is the predominant attitude in Turkey. Even the neo-Ottomanist AKP circles pretend as if they were the "wiser elders" of their "confused" Arab brethren.

However, I find the Euro-American attitudes equally condescending, when they lump together so many different countries from West Africa, throughout the Mid East and Eurasia and all the way to Indonesia as The Muslim World!. Not to scandalize some of you, but Turkey shares greater similarities with Orthodox Greece and Armenia than with Muslim Senegal or Indonesia.

Let’s give a micro example to explain my perception of differences between Turkey and the rest of the Arab world: By looking at popular culture.

The elegant lady in the picture above this entry is a legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, known as Ummu Gulsum in Turkey. In the 1960s and 1970s, the music scene in Turkey was influenced by the Arabic and particularly Egyptian tunes, and a hybrid style called Arabesque became popular. Yet, it was shunned by the mainstream cultural circles, and excluded from the state TV and radio networks. Arabesque was associated with lower classes, recent immigrants, etc who apparently had “bad taste”.

I’m afraid I was not much exposed to this genre either, until I was in college. As a student of one of the most highbrow universities in the country (Bogazici), listening to Arabesque was considered uncouth. But there were ways around it. Alcohol, for example! I was amazed how many of my friends let their guards down and enjoyed the lovely tunes of the Arabesque violins after a couple of drinks. Yet, the society was always lurking behind. One time, a friend of a friend who had a small yacht pulled out of the marina in Istanbul far enough, so that we could play Arabesque and enjoy ourselves without any social stigma…

Today, the New York Times published an Op-Ed, as a tribute to the uprisings in the Mid East and to Umm Kulthum. Watching the video with teary eyes, I couldn’t help but wonder at the contrast between the “lowbrow” image of Arabesque in Turkey, and the graceful Umm Kulthum, her bow-tie wearing orchestra and the audience in black-tie attire at the concert hall.

Click here if you'd like to enjoy the wonderful Voice of Egypt without guilt..:)

In solidarity with the progressive forces in the Mid East,

Academic Mommy