|
Letter from Turkey
If a tree fell in the woods, would Bush hear it?
Sebastian Blanco
George W. Bush should
visit Turkey. Imagine him, if you can, touring the ancient Roman port
city of Ephesus, past the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders
of the Ancient World. Ephesus was the second-largest city of the Roman
Empire; it inspired Paul to write his Letter to the Ephesians, now in
Bush’s beloved New Testament. The ruins of Ephesus today inspire
busloads of tourists to take photos.
There’s no power left in Ephesus but the past:
The Temple of Artemis has been reduced to a single column holding up a
stork’s nest. If the president was curious and had the chance to visit
there, the truth that empires collapse might strike him, and he might
decide to get along with the world instead of bully it.
There is more to learn in Turkey, of course —
how to haggle in the bazaar near Istanbul’s Galata Bridge and how to
step boldly in front of cars as you cross a busy street. But no matter
where our hypothetical Bush might go, it would be plain to him that
most of Turkey isn’t too keen on how his war on terror is playing out.
I’m at the end of 10 days in Asia Minor. (My
brother married a Turkish woman, and the wedding reception was a few
days ago.) The cliché about how East meets West here is apt.
With Turkey’s central (and unsettled) role in
the U.S. invasion of neighboring Iraq — and its proximity to Syria and
Iran— I knew people I met would probably have something to say about
the world’s current political madhouse. So, while diving off boats into
picturesque Aegean bays and dancing to Latin music in Istanbul, I
listened for public opinion about the United States of America.
By my estimation, everyone in Turkey remains
opposed to what Bush did in Iraq. A student in Istanbul told me, “Well,
first, I think President Bush is a really big terrorist.” A pension
owner near Ephesus joked about how bad it would be for business to
change the name of his hostel to The George Bush Hotel, even for a day.
My new sister-in-law’s sister, after learning slang from my youngest
brother, said the war “sucks.” A man who moves between Silicon Valley
and Istanbul called it “the damn war,” but then called the French
crazy. He was referring to a transit strike that delayed his visit to
his sick mother by a day — and not the nation’s stance vis-à-vis
Iraq.
On their return trip, my parents had a
scheduled layover in D.C., and asked the new in-laws if they had a
message for Bush. “Stop this war,” they said.
When asked, three British tourists on the boat
with us could only think of one good thing about the Iraq war: cheap
airfare to Turkey.
There was plenty of visual evidence that
people in Turkey were against the war. Teenagers walked around with
peace signs on their shirts. A magazine kiosk was decorated with six
giant posters of a naked model wearing a gas mask above the words “No
War.” A sticker clung to concrete on an apartment building: “With your
soldier, your troops and your hamburger, get out. YANKEE GO HOME.”
Still, as many observers have pointed out,
Turkey’s resurgent anti-Americanism doesn’t translate to the personal.
Not once did anyone equate a dislike for American policy with a dislike
for me or any individual American, as far as I could tell. Compare this
to the reactions of U.S. friends when I told them about my trip.
Inundated by Fox, CNN and Gannett, they invariably asked if I was
afraid about venturing to the Middle East.
American news media thrive on hype and alarm,
but reality is much more prosaic, much less flashy; and the vignette
that revealed to me how the people of Turkey are affected and really
feel, day to day, about Bush’s world war on terrorism was not dramatic
enough for TV.
I was boarding the overnight bus from Istanbul
to Izmir. Hundreds gathered by the bus stop to send off a few young men
who were to begin their 18-month compulsory military service. The crowd
was singing and dancing, hugging, crying, laughing and drumming. They
chanted individual encouragement: “The best soldier is our soldier! Our
soldiers are the best!”
Mustachioed old men, mothers, sisters,
brothers and lots of male friends stood in front of the bus and sang
the Turkish national anthem as the driver tried to pull away. One
mother reached up to hand her son a cigarette through the bus window.
The crowd blocked the narrow streets near Taksim Square. Another mother
and daughter held each other and cried as the bus finally began to
move. Well-wishers draped a few cars with Turkish flags and followed us
across the Bosphorus almost to the next stop, where more new soldiers
boarded, and the bittersweet scene, smaller, repeated itself.
What did all this emotion and revelry mean? To
give up your son to military service is to turn him over to unknown
danger. Yes, Turkey resisted the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but who knows
what future wars circumstances will conjure. A few minutes’ celebration
is the last certain thing before a year-and-a-half of not knowing. In
normal, peaceful times, the young men might be serving simple duty, out
of harm’s way, but not now.
What’s next is the big question. For the
people by the bus stop, for the new soldiers — indeed, for a huge part
of the world’s population — the answer to this question is out of their
control. They hate what’s going on but don’t know how to stop it.
Whether in Istanbul or in Honolulu, the
decisions of governments and militaries affect ordinary people in ways
President Bush will perhaps never understand. Had he been there on that
bus with me, we could have talked about it. But he wasn’t. And so
families continue to say goodbye to loved ones, at bus stops and in
graveyards, while he sits oblivious at home.
|
