Filling up on Turkish Culture

Today was a long day, but it’s going to be a short post. The ICFJ conference is officially over, but there was still one thing to do if people wanted to – a tour of Sabah, one of Istanbul’s largest newspapers. I tend to do whatever is offered to me (and I was hoping they might have a job for a young American who knows no Turkish), so I went.

I can’t say I saw anything incredibly different than any other newsroom I’d been in. There were desks, and computers, and a few offices. The most interesting thing I saw, however was this poster, done by a semi-famous Turkish artist, whose name I didn’t get:

The different squares are meant to signify different segments of the population that are politically active. They are:

1) Turkish nationalists
2) The Kurds
3) The Armenians
4) The Alevi, a religious subgroup
5) The rock ‘n’ rollers
6) The modern women
7) The communists
8) The gays
9) The Orthodox Christians
10) The missionaries (apparently there was a big story where some Christian missionaries were tortured by Islamic fundamentalists in the rural country)
11) The religious women
12) The transsexuals
13) The prostitutes
14) The crazy men (tore off an ear)
15) The unemployed (all in life jackets)
16) The women (I can’t tell if she’s huffing glue or hyperventilating)
17) This one, Frankenstein, is the no-Orhan Pamuk party, criticizing the people who rallied against the Nobel Prize-winning author because he discussed the Armenian genocide
18) The sleepers, i.e. everyone else

It’s not that different than America, is it? Different faces, same problems.

I spent the rest of the day with some lovely ladies from the Religion Newswriters Association, CNN, and the International Center for Journalists. We wandered around, ate street food, and I almost cried, pretending that we were running out of money to help one of them haggle to buy a carpet. I am incredibly good at haggling, and I love it. I can make up stories, look stressed, and spend hours with a seller. The lady I was helping didn’t know what to do with herself, as she couldn’t keep up the facade. But I got her carpet marked down from 1,800 lira to 900 lira in an hour and a half.

I still feel strange about the whole process, though, because it does involve an act. You can never be entirely truthful about what you can afford, because then you’ll pay too much. And, also, they expect you to bargain with them, and appreciate someone who’s good at it. Plus, it’s not like they’re being completely honest with you when they say they’ll go bankrupt if they sell it to you.

Still, I feel bad.

We ended the night watching the whirling dervishes, part of the Mevlevi Sufi order, a highly regarded spiritual group in Turkish history. The Mevlevis, a type of Sufi, gained prominence when they married into the Ottoman royalty in the late 14th century. Their spinning dance, which they are most famous for, is called a “sema,” and represents a mystical journey of man’s spiritual ascent through mind and love to perfection. Turning towards the truth, the follower grows through love, deserts his ego, finds the truth and arrives at the “Perfect.” He then returns from this spiritual journey as a man who has reached maturity and a greater perfection, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation.

Here is a photo: