Contrasts of Istanbul
Just came back from a supershort trip of Istanbul, the cradle of Ottoman empire and some would say civilization more generally. Even more than Morocco or these other 'third world' places, Turkey is a place of bizzaire contrasts. I am sure the biggest is the the jutaxtaposition of the urban and the rural, but unfortunately I cannot attest to it since I parachuted into Istanbul on Sunday and left only 2 days later. Other contrasts stand out:the contrast of Turkey which is applying to the EU with the Turkey that throws its possibly most famous and only Nobel winning writer Orphan Palmuk in prison. The contrast between Turkey which is secular yet where the sound of muaddin's call for prayer prierces the air at the designated hours of the day, no different than it does in Cairo or in Rabat. The contrast of Turkey that is modern and educated with the population which does not generally speak foreign languages, except of the people in the services industry, which - on the contrary - seem to be able to bargain and sell in every language under the sun. The contrast of Turkey which embraces Muslim and Christians, and yet where the churches converted to mosques clearly show the direction of the current government and the fruitlessness of any papal visits. And finally, the contrast that summarizes everything about Turkey into one picture - the donkey cart with peasants amidst a sea of cars I saw in the next lane on the highway leading to the Kamal Attaturk airport. It is this agrarian image of Turkey's peasants, wrapped in layers of unrecognizable clothing and covered in a veil resembling more those famous red Russian scarves that does not seem reconcilable with its modern, fast, and seemingly developed centers like Ankara and Istanbul.