My Turkish Bath

When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, they inherited many of the city's Roman customs. One was the public bath. When indoor plumbing was unavailable, people bathed very little--sometimes only once a year, other times for special events. The Romans turned bathing into a social occasion when men would meet and socialize, loiter, and gossip about the city's affairs. When their territories were conquered in the East, the public bath was preserved and enriched with elements from the culture of the new imperial overlords, leading to syncretic and distinctive forms that persist to this day. I therefore had to experience a Turkish bath because I wanted a sense of how the Romans bathed and how the conquering Turks added their own practices to the custom. It was a journey into the era when private showers and bathtubs did not exist, as well as a taste of a local custom that has persisted for thousands of years and that is basically foreign to anybody born and raised in North America (and most parts of Europe for that matter).

That is not me in the picture. But that closely approximates my own experience of a Turkish bath

I had two options: go to the touristic public baths and pay a hefty price, or go to the one in the Fatih neighborhood, the Islamic/conservative part of town where prices for everything--including baths--are cheaper and where there are few, if any, tourists. I opted for the latter option, not only because of the huge difference in price (40 Turkish lira rather than 120 that one pays in the tourist area), but also because it would be much more adventurous and perhaps authentic.

When I entered the place, the first thing I noticed was that none of the staff spoke a word of English. They could only express the numbers that referred to the prices of the services--20 lira for the bath only, and 40 lira for a bath and a massage. I opted for the latter. Despite the language barrier, I could communicate with the staff using hand gestures and other non-verbal signs. First I was led me into a small private change room and instructed to completely undress and cover myself with a towel, to leave my belongings there, to lock the door, and take the key with me (all of this was expressed with non-verbal communication and clearly understood). The staff member then led me into the bathing and steam room, which is an area that is completely marble--the floors, the walls, the sinks, everything except the ceiling, which seemed to be built of another kind of stone with patterned holes that allowed the steam to exit the room. The first thing I noticed was that there were about 10-12 local Turks bathing and talking, and I thought: why are these men paying to bathe here when presumably they have indoor plumbing? Maybe they were there because of the social aspect of bathing, or maybe they lacked hot water at home, or maybe--although very unlikely--some of them lived in homes that still lacked private showers and bathrooms. In any event, I had no idea what to do, and so I just made friendly eye contact and copied the others, who were sitting down--some completely naked, others partly covered in towels--beside steaming and marble sinks with hot water and plastic bowls; they would  fill the bowls with water and pour it all over themselves, lather their bodies with soap, and then rinse with the same hot water.

I did this for about ten minutes and then wondered when, and how, and by whom, I would get a massage. I was then approached by a fat, hairy, and middle-aged man who said something to me in Turkish that I did not understand. I said "massage"? And he nodded to express yes. He sat me down beside the sink, and proceeded to pour hot steaming water all over me. Then he put on a glove-like device and rubbed me all over with it (except the private parts), including my scalp. I later learned that this was meant to remove dead skin cells. He then took me to the middle of the room, where there was an elevated area where one could sit or lie down. He instructed me with his hands to lie on my back, and then he covered me with with soap and proceeded to give me a massage that was very rough and intense. Apart from his somewhat smelly armpits and the pain from his intense prodding, rubbing, and pocking of my thighs and upper body, it was an interesting experience. He then did a few things that anyone who has visited a chiropractor is familiar with: crossing your arms and twisting your torso while giving a hard pushes that cause snapping noises in your spine. At one point I heard a snapping noise in the right-side of my rib-cage, and since then I have had a slight pain in that area, making me wonder whether he broke a rib.  Whenever he would press too hard, I would grunt and groan and make eye-contact with him, presumably with an expression on my face that showed some discomfort; he stared and smiled at me with silent amusement, knowing that I was a foreigner who had never experienced a Turkish bath.

After the soap-filled and rough massage over my entire body (except my private parts), I was instructed to rinse myself off (again, only with hand gestures but perfectly understandable) and subsequently led into the private room where I initially undressed. Here I was covered with towels by the staff who continued massaging my back and scalp. After that, I stayed there until I was completely dry, and then exited the room. When I approached the cashier to pay, there appeared the middle-aged hairy fat man who gave me the massage 15 minutes prior, motioning with his hands that he wanted a tip. I gave him one of five lira, even though I suspected that he might have cracked my rib.

After the Turkish bath I went to have a delicious chicken dona (or "shawarma"; the food here--as in all Mediterranean countries--is delightful), and then walked all the way to the Chora, a Bynzantine Church with amazingly preserved mosaics and frescoes. I also walked along the Theodosius wall, which protected the city for 1 thousand years until the Ottomans, with canon and superior numbers, managed to destroy parts of it, allowing them to conquer Constantinople in 1453, destroy the last vestiges of the Roman Empire, impose their own Sharia system of governance, and change the course of history. Observing that part of the wall, and reflecting on the epochal and momentous events that transpired there was awe-inspiring. I have read about that event many times, but being at the actual place allowed the imagination to run wild. I could almost hear the yelling, the pounding of the canons that destroyed the wall, and see the corpses that littered the battlefield. I could almost sense the humiliation of the Romans at losing their historic capital and the triumph of the Ottomans at taking it. It would be roughly equivalent to a Chinese army conquering Washington D.C., destroying the American constitutional and political order, subjugating the inhabitants of the US, taking its territorial possessions and wealth, and imposing a new world order based on the Chinese system of governance. Wow is an understatement.

 Today--the day after--I feel the after-effects of the Turkish bath: minor and totally tolerable aches around my upper shoulder and the rib area where I suspect I may have a cracked rib. I also feel aches in my legs, but this is mostly because yesterday I walked for over 10 hours, although I think the rough treatment of my legs during the massage has something to do with it.

A Day With My Kurdish and Turkish Friends

The weather in Istanbul today was cold and rainy. I had planned to spend the day walking many miles to see an ancient Church with well-preserved frescoes, the wall built by the emperor Theodosius, and to experience a Turkish bath. But when I walked outside to go and get breakfast, the cold rain changed my mind, and I decided to instead stay in the hostel to get work done (mostly marking papers). Around mid-day, the owner of the hostel asked me whether I would like to accompany his son and his son's friend to a town a few hundred kilometers away. He had to go there to pick up some documents from the local university. I immediately decided to go because I saw it as an opportunity to spend the day with locals who I could query--about their lives, and their views on Turkish politics. I also thought it would be nice to get out of Istanbul for the day.

My new friends in Turkey. I am in the middle.

The trip was worth it. The locals who I was with spoke passable English. They are close friends who went to school together, and one is an ethnic Kurd, the other an ethnic Turk. Whenever the Western media speaks about the Kurds and Turks together, it is usually about the problems that the Turkish government has in its attempts to accommodate the wish of the Kurdish minority for more autonomy. It was therefore delightful to see these two young men interact as genuine friends and nothing more; their separate ethnicities did not seem to matter at all. They were very friendly and affectionate towards me and perhaps a bit intrigued about my genuine interest in their lives and beliefs. I asked them questions about their experiences as youngsters in Turkey, their religious views and political beliefs, and their life goals. This conversation took place during a two hour car ride to our destination, and on the way I noticed several things worth mentioning. The first is the sheer size of Istanbul; it took us almost three quarters of an hour to finally reach the city limit and get on the freeway that took us to the next town. Signs of Istanbul's breakneck growth and huge population are everywhere. There are cranes dotting the panorama which attest to the hundreds of new high rises being built, and this is on top of the sprawling and high density already-inhabited buildings and houses that mark the huge landscape. The darker side of this growth was evident as well: when driving on an elevated part of the road one could see clouds of smog below covering entire neighborhoods. I also saw truck drivers relieving themselves on the side of the road--twice. One defecated, and the other urinated, and they seemed pretty nonchalant about it, suggesting that it is considered normal. I am not surprised, since the traffic in Istanbul is so bad that it is easy to imagine a situation whereby nature calls and, because cars are crawling forward very slowly, one cannot wait to reach a toilet and hence must pull over and do their business.

We arrived at our destination and parked the car in a lot where cars seemed to be parked wherever it was convenient or where they could find space; it was not the kind of orderly parking someone from North American is accustomed to. When entering the university, the first thing I noticed was that there are pictures of Mustafa Kemal (or Attaturk, meaning "Father of the Turks") everywhere--in all the hallways, in all the offices, even in the eating area. It really gives the impression that Kemal and his successors built a cult of personality that even the current Islamist government would have a hard time extirpating. One of the questions I have asked people here in Turkey is what they think of Kemal, and the range of responses are interesting. My Kurdish friend told me that he does not like Kemal because he killed a lot of Kurds, while my Turkish friend said that he really liked him. The other day I had dinner with a professor of American origin, and his response was the most interesting. He told me that the omnipresent images of Mustafa Kemal are, to him, a comfortable reminder that Turkey is still a secular republic and that the legacy of Kemalism is one of the only constraints that prevents the current Islamist government from bringing Turkey towards an Iranian-style theocracy. He also said that the current government is slowly dismantling the Kemalist institutions that helped to preserve Turkey's secular political order, such as the army, which last year was purged of secularists and replaced with cronies of Erdogan who are sympathetic to his Islamist agenda. The most intriguing thing he told me was that if he starts to see the omnipresent images of Mustafa Kemal being removed, it would be a sign that the days of the secular republic are numbered and, at that point, he would have to leave the country.

As we were leaving the university, we said our goodbyes to some of the staff with a distinctive Turkish salutation that expresses affection in a very Mediterranean fashion. It is similar to the Italian way of greeting or saying bye: kissing twice on the cheeks while holding the others' hand and placing the other hand on the others' shoulder or upper arm. The Turkish version also has contact with the hands, but rather than kissing on the cheek, there is a contact of the temple area of each others' heads, just above and to the side of eyebrow. I did it for the first time, and it was a bit awkward because I was wearing my glasses, and the salutation ended up misaligning my glasses, forcing me to re-adjust them, but this was a minor issue. I rather appreciated experiencing this distinctive cultural practice which is not that different from the one I am used to using especially with other Italians.

The conversation with my Turkish friends went in many directions, and they mostly expressed the things that youth everywhere are concerned with: jobs, love, and security. They seemed to be cautiously optimistic about the future. One just graduated and was starting a new job, and soon to be married. The other just finished his first degree and plans on pursuing a doctorate in economics. They told me that they oppose Turkey's entrance into the EU. To my question of why, they responded that Europe is a mess and that they do not want Turkey to be liable for the problems of the weaker members. Ten or fifteen years ago, they said, it might have been a good idea for Turkey to join, but not now. I could not help but be amused at this response, because it was remarkably similar to the responses I received from some British euroskeptics who I interviewed for my PhD thesis two and a half years ago, who told me that most Britons want to leave the EU because "they could see what a fucking mess it is".

I just arrived back in the hostel, and soon I will be having dinner with an academic who teaches in the US and who happens to be in Istanbul for similar reasons as me. Tomorrow I will go and do the things that I had planned on doing today: seeing the ancient frescoes, the Theodosius wall, and getting a Turkish bath.

Turkey's Torn Soul

The much-maligned and sometimes misunderstood former Harvard professor Samuel Huntington proposed a thesis on the Clash of Civilizations which asserted that the post-Cold War world would be defined by conflict rooted in culture. Different cultural units, or civilizations, were defined by their religious traditions: Islamic, Western Christian, Eastern Christian, Confucian, Buddhist, and others were the main civilizations which would replace ideologies and the nation-state as the foci of political competition, struggle and domination.  He also proposed a category that did not neatly fit into his framework: "torn countries", that is, those states that are internally divided at the level of culture and hence had to make a choice on which side of the global struggle they would join. Torn countries included Mexico, Russia, and the country that will be the subject of this blog post: Turkey.

I arrived in Turkey last week, and since then I have walked around extensively, silently making observations about the people I talk to and the places I see. On this basis, I can confirm that Huntington was on to something when he called Turkey a torn county, because signs of a divided soul are easy to see. The first is the territorial division of Istanbul: the Western part of the city is in continental Europe, while the Eastern part is in Asia, and these sections of the city are divided by the Bosphorus waterway. Within both the Western and Eastern parts there are geographical divisions that coincide with different cultural expressions: Islam and the West. The hostel I am staying at is in the "European" part, both geographically and culturally. It is in a neighborhood characterized with features that are present in pretty much any modern Western city: Churches that reflect its Christian heritage, and the elements that reflect the secularism that most Christian societies have become: bars where people openly drink large amounts of alcohol, advertisements with scantily clad and food deprived models, couples--both gay and straight--openly displaying affection for each other, women seductively flaunting their features, some with style, others crassly.

The Islamic/conservative part of the city, the Fatih neighborhood, is about a 25 minute walk from where I am, and walking there gave me the sense of being in another civilization.The first thing I noticed was that there were fewer tourists, although I am not sure why, since there is a lot to see. There are also fewer European-looking people, more Arabs, more women with full length veils and face coverings, more men with beards and the traditional cap and Abayas rather than trousers. The stores in the European part usually have the names and prices of goods in English as well as Turkish. In Fatih the main language other than Turkish was Arabic. I did not see any bars or people openly drinking, although I am sure that alcohol is available. There are also more mosques. One of the more interesting experiences of being here is hearing the call to prayer, when the Muezzin reminds worshipers through loudspeakers from the Minarets that it is time to worship Allah. Although these can be heard across the city, even in the European part, in Fatih one hears a cacophony as many Muezzin from many Mosques simultaneously recite the call. The call to prayer there is louder but also more melodic and rhythmic, penetrating windows and walls so all can hear. Most people in public places ignore it, but for somebody hearing it for the first time it can have quite the effect, giving one a sense that here, religion continues to play a significant role in the public sphere. It creates the impression that Islamic belief suffuses even the minutiae of daily life; this strongly contrasts with the West, where in all but a few places explicit expressions of religion have been relegated to the margins of society.

The Hagia Sophia embodies Turkey's torn soul as it represents the clash between Christianity, Islam, and secularism. This Church was founded by Constantine the Great in the fourth century and remained the largest place of worship in Christendom for over a thousand years. Then it was taken by Muslims in the famous battle of Constantinople, who proceeded to turn the Churches, including the Hagia Sophia, into Mosques. It was from Istanbul that the Ottomans governed their huge and diverse empire, and their luxurious palace--the splendour of which rivals the palaces in Europe--is situated right next to the Hagia Sofia. One can picture the Sultan and other dignitaries praying in that Church-turned-Mosque as a symbol of their domination over former Christian lands. After the rise of Mustafa Kemal in the early 20th century, Turkey became a secular republic and, consistent with his contempt of all religion, Kemal turned the Hagia Sophia into a Museum. Today, it bears all the fingerprints of this tortured history. With the exception of the minarets, the external structure displays the typical form of a Byzantine Church. Inside, the main floor has been altered to suit the sensibilities of the Ottoman conquerors: depictions of prophets, angels, or any human form, whether pictorial or otherwise, have been expunged and replaced with large signs that dominate the main hall and with Arabic inscriptions that say "There is no god but Allah" and with the names of first Caliphs. On the second floor, there are the remains of the Christian frescoes that depict Christ and Mary, although these were, to my knowledge, only uncovered by restorations that took place in the 20th century. Now that the Hagia Sophia is a museum, it is no longer a symbol of imperial power--Christian or Muslim. It reflects to some extent the secularism that Kemal embodied: open to all regardless of creed and to be viewed and enjoyed as art from the temporal world, not as holy or transcendent. Out of the three worldviews that the history of the Hagia Sophia represents--Eastern Christianity, Islam, and secularism--it is the last two that currently represent the struggle for Turkey's soul at both the political and cultural levels.

The current government in Turkey clearly represents the Islamic side of this divide. Led by President Erdogan, the leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (the Economist uses the curious term "mildly Islamist" to describe the party), the government receives much of its support from the poor, religious, and conservative folks who crowd some parts of Istanbul and the hinterland. Many, perhaps most, vote for economic reasons--after all, under Erdogan Turkey has enjoyed very fast rates of growth. But others vote for religious reasons, which is odd when one considers that it is illegal under Turkey's secular constitution for political parties to openly call for a return to the Sharia law that provided the ethical and legal code for the Ottoman empire before it was disbanded by Mustafa Kemal. Many of the secularists I spoke to in Istanbul fear that Erdogan is bringing Turkey into an Islamic direction, and they cited many examples that justify their concern: Turkey's support for Islamist political movements across the Middle East, especially during the Arab Spring, controversial comments from the Minister of religious affairs which suggested turning the Hagia Sophia into a Mosque again, the introduction of mandatory religious instruction in schools, the attempt to make adultery illegal, high taxes and other punitive measures that make alcohol unavailable except in tourist areas, and retrograde comments on the status of women (Erdogan recently said that men and women are not equal).

At the cultural level the divide is equally pronounced. As mentioned above, the life and atmosphere of religious parts of the city seem to be worlds apart from those in the secular part. There is also often barely disguised contempt between the two sides. I have heard that one expression that secularists use when referring to women who wear the full face covering is "cockroaches". Many religious folks, on the other hand, view the lifestyles of secular Turks as morally degrading and corrupt. Of course, this polarization does not tell the entire story. There is a veritable kaleidoscope of orientations here, with various shades of belief and unbelief fluidly intermixing within families and friends. One common sight is groups of young female friends walking around taking selfies and enjoying each others' company, with one or two wearing the traditional Islamic garb while the others dress in typical European style. This cultural schizophrenia certainly exists at the individual level as well. One gets the sense that many of the people here expressing Islamic belief, either in dress or speech, engage in pre-marital sex and drink alcohol when their parents aren't looking, both of which are prohibited in Islam. In this, they are not that different from some of the late-modern Ottomans who were infamous for professing piety while engaging in all the sultry pleasures that their positions of power gave them access to.

Turkey's divided soul has important implications for one of the most important political questions facing the country: whether it should join the European Union. It is my opinion that Turkey will never join for the simple reason that Europe's great powers, France and Germany, do not want it to. Turkey's huge population and growing economy mean that, were it to join the EU, the influence of France and Germany would be greatly reduced (this is one of the cynical reasons for which Italy and the UK support Turkey's accession). But apart from these political realities, it is worth reflecting on whether Turkey belongs in Europe. Many of my secular friends here certainly think so, and in fact they support Turkey's attempt to become a member of the EU precisely because they believe (or, more accurately, hope) that Europe will bring their country closer to its civilization. What is more, as mentioned above, some parts of Turkey are unmistakably European, and there is also the fact that this was the centre of the Eastern Roman Empire for over 1000 years. This suggests that Turkey has the cultural and historical requisites for EU membership. 

However, officials in Paris and Berlin cannot but notice that Erdogan is pushing Turkey into a more Islamic direction. This trend certainly militates against Turkey's potential EU membership. Whether Erdogan will succeed in fully Islamicizing Turkey is open to doubt, however. If a major economic slump reduced his popularity, and the secular opposition were to unify, the political winds might change and the Islamists would be thrown out of office, which would halt or reverse many of Erdogan's policies. When or if that happens, Turkey might see a trend towards secularism and away from Islam, but the country would still have a torn soul, as Huntington accurately observed. Maybe this is not a bad thing, and perhaps it was meant to be this way; after all, the country has been and is the cultural and geographic cross road between Europe, Asia, Africa, and the far east, and even now the population is composed of a bewildering array of different sects and ethnicities that set their roots here at one time or another in the 9000 years that this land has been inhabited. Having a torn soul, in addition, in individuals as in countries, provides the diversity and creativity that makes life colourful and interesting even if it is chaotic and unstable. Besides, would Turkey be as interesting as it now is if it was more culturally homogeneous? I strongly doubt it.