Thursday, December 07, 2006
Mea Culpa
I'm sorry I've been neglecting the blog recently, so here's a round up of events since Efes:
The Pope: I know a lot of you were curious about how I fared in my attempt to "see" the Pope last Tuesday, so here is how it went. I planned on catching him near Anıt Kabır (Ataturk's Mausoleum) as he was supposed to give the obligatory wreath laying ceremony there immediatley after arriving in Ankara. Me and about fifteen other students went. We were denied access to the monument, which was expected, so we decided to wait along the motorcade route, just to see what would happen. What followed was actually quite unexpected and somewhat odd. The motorcade route, as expected, was heavily gaurded by almost a thousand police officers with various types of weapons, ranging from the automatic to blunt force variety. We saw a group of at least four snipers on top of a building that had a good line of sight with the parade route, surely the Turkish government was anticipating some kind of riot. Paradoxically my group of fifteen or so students was far and away the largest civilian assembly of any kind along the route. There were several stragglers who were out walking their dog or eating at a local döner stand, but certainly noone who posed any sort of threat. As time went on, three more busloads of police in riot gear unloaded right in front of us. We were also subsequently interviewed by a few of the local TV stations that were there, presumably those without the high media credentials to get inside the monument. We were asked pretty general questions through translation about why we were here or if we thought the Pope coming was a good idea, all pretty innocuous. Then the security started to tense up a bit and a few cars come down the road, followed by the Vatican motorcade at about 30-40 mph. The Pope was in the third car back, something resembling a Lincoln Towncar, and quite visible, which is odd because one would think a motorcade for a head of state would have tinted windows. In all, I got a glimpse of the Pope and witnessed the rediculousness of the media firestorm that preluded the event in the Western media. In all the biggest protest of the day no doubt came from working mothers in the city who were stuck in long traffic gridlock caused by the Pope's motorcade (my own bus home was stopped dead for 30 minutes).
I've made two trips the last two weekends, one to the north central river town of Amasya and a return to Istanbul this past weekend. The Amasya trip was interesting because this is a town that every civilization to ever rule in Anatolia from the Hittites to the Ottomans has held. The town is smushed in between two rock faces which are dotted with giant rock tombs which date from the Pontic era. There are a few Selcuk era mosques there that are of note, particularly the Gök Medrese-Camii complex which has an interesting conflation of Anatolia-Syrian and Iranian structures. Istanbul was a lot of fun, I went back to Topkapı Sarayı and got to see the Harem, or the living quarters of the Sultan and his wives. It was fascinating to see these rooms in relatively good condition even though the elements pose a big threat to this unheated, uninsulated group of rooms. This was followed by another trek in the Kapalı Carşı (Covered Bazaar) where I finished up my Christmas shopping.
Most of my time the past few weeks has been spent researching for my paper. I've been looking into education reform in the reign of Abdulhamid II in the late 19th and early 29th centuries. One thing I've noticed as I examine how this Sultan tried to save a dying Empire, I've noticed subsequently how Imperial Britain and the modern "post-imperialist" United States have all run into similar problems, particularly Iraq. So far my assessment notices a common thread, all these governments tried to stuf ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag. This is pertinent because of the newly released Iraq Study Group report (for the love of God, don't waste your money on Amazon, download it for free at www.usip.org). I've only gotten a cursory look at the report, but there are a few issues that need to be raised. While the commission was certainly high profile (aside from Lee Hamilton and James Baker, it features Ed Meese the Attny General under Reagan and Sandra Day O'Connor), but throughout the process of interviews (of which there were at least 50) only one university professor and one Turk were consulted. By and large this was compiled by think-tank types who have spent little time studying the history of the region, its language or engaged thoroughly in its religious conflict. That said, you all would be well informed to read it because it does provide a lot of basic information about the situation there that most Americans don't know or comprehend. So read it, but don't stop there, pick up Stanford Shaw's The Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Vol. II, or Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong?, or if you're short on time, just watch Lawrence of Arabia! America needs to wise up to Islam and Middle Eastern history or else we're in for a long, dark, bruising experience with no end in sight.
The Pope: I know a lot of you were curious about how I fared in my attempt to "see" the Pope last Tuesday, so here is how it went. I planned on catching him near Anıt Kabır (Ataturk's Mausoleum) as he was supposed to give the obligatory wreath laying ceremony there immediatley after arriving in Ankara. Me and about fifteen other students went. We were denied access to the monument, which was expected, so we decided to wait along the motorcade route, just to see what would happen. What followed was actually quite unexpected and somewhat odd. The motorcade route, as expected, was heavily gaurded by almost a thousand police officers with various types of weapons, ranging from the automatic to blunt force variety. We saw a group of at least four snipers on top of a building that had a good line of sight with the parade route, surely the Turkish government was anticipating some kind of riot. Paradoxically my group of fifteen or so students was far and away the largest civilian assembly of any kind along the route. There were several stragglers who were out walking their dog or eating at a local döner stand, but certainly noone who posed any sort of threat. As time went on, three more busloads of police in riot gear unloaded right in front of us. We were also subsequently interviewed by a few of the local TV stations that were there, presumably those without the high media credentials to get inside the monument. We were asked pretty general questions through translation about why we were here or if we thought the Pope coming was a good idea, all pretty innocuous. Then the security started to tense up a bit and a few cars come down the road, followed by the Vatican motorcade at about 30-40 mph. The Pope was in the third car back, something resembling a Lincoln Towncar, and quite visible, which is odd because one would think a motorcade for a head of state would have tinted windows. In all, I got a glimpse of the Pope and witnessed the rediculousness of the media firestorm that preluded the event in the Western media. In all the biggest protest of the day no doubt came from working mothers in the city who were stuck in long traffic gridlock caused by the Pope's motorcade (my own bus home was stopped dead for 30 minutes).
I've made two trips the last two weekends, one to the north central river town of Amasya and a return to Istanbul this past weekend. The Amasya trip was interesting because this is a town that every civilization to ever rule in Anatolia from the Hittites to the Ottomans has held. The town is smushed in between two rock faces which are dotted with giant rock tombs which date from the Pontic era. There are a few Selcuk era mosques there that are of note, particularly the Gök Medrese-Camii complex which has an interesting conflation of Anatolia-Syrian and Iranian structures. Istanbul was a lot of fun, I went back to Topkapı Sarayı and got to see the Harem, or the living quarters of the Sultan and his wives. It was fascinating to see these rooms in relatively good condition even though the elements pose a big threat to this unheated, uninsulated group of rooms. This was followed by another trek in the Kapalı Carşı (Covered Bazaar) where I finished up my Christmas shopping.
Most of my time the past few weeks has been spent researching for my paper. I've been looking into education reform in the reign of Abdulhamid II in the late 19th and early 29th centuries. One thing I've noticed as I examine how this Sultan tried to save a dying Empire, I've noticed subsequently how Imperial Britain and the modern "post-imperialist" United States have all run into similar problems, particularly Iraq. So far my assessment notices a common thread, all these governments tried to stuf ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag. This is pertinent because of the newly released Iraq Study Group report (for the love of God, don't waste your money on Amazon, download it for free at www.usip.org). I've only gotten a cursory look at the report, but there are a few issues that need to be raised. While the commission was certainly high profile (aside from Lee Hamilton and James Baker, it features Ed Meese the Attny General under Reagan and Sandra Day O'Connor), but throughout the process of interviews (of which there were at least 50) only one university professor and one Turk were consulted. By and large this was compiled by think-tank types who have spent little time studying the history of the region, its language or engaged thoroughly in its religious conflict. That said, you all would be well informed to read it because it does provide a lot of basic information about the situation there that most Americans don't know or comprehend. So read it, but don't stop there, pick up Stanford Shaw's The Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Vol. II, or Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong?, or if you're short on time, just watch Lawrence of Arabia! America needs to wise up to Islam and Middle Eastern history or else we're in for a long, dark, bruising experience with no end in sight.
