There are no beggars in Istanbul. Or, alternatively, I found none during my visit. “They turn into thieves much quicker” was the response from a group of locals; I enquired in earnest.
No one goes looking for beggars when visiting a city. To the carefree tourist it is an eyesore. It becomes worse if one is on a mission to create hashtags for their glam snaps. I’m curious because it tells a lot about a nation’s social policies, i.e., how robust is the welfare state. If I had to write a postcard from Istanbul, I’d say the following: historic place, astonishing monuments, very safe, clean streets, dangerous driving, amazing food, tough bazaars and zero beggars. I’d also mention the youth, their blurring line of patriotism with nationalism but then the postcard may never leave the country. Censorship rules.
Of course, I could Instagram instead of writing a card. These days a post on Instagram is equivalent to a postcard. Or rather, it’s an e-card that you share with your followers. Sounds naff to me, but then I’m stickler for 20th century etiquettes, such as friends sending handwritten letters and cards from near and far. It is a treat to be on the receiving end of this generous gesture. The surprise element makes it sweeter—especially if you’re in Bangladesh, it takes a miracle for a postcard to not lose its way en route. Once reached, like a hatchling defying all odds to make it to the ocean, it can outlive you. You don’t throw away your postcards—aside from the sentimentality, it practically takes no space. It can, as it did for me, create an interest in philately, in graphology, in quality of photography and paper—all things unusual in the age of social media.
During the pre-Internet era, a story made rounds in Dhaka about a wily postman who had dozens of postcards stuck on his bedroom wall. Not a single one was meant for him. It didn’t matter. He wanted pictures of the wider world, not only as a means of escape but to also woo women. Who wouldn’t want to see the Big Ben glued next to the Pyramid and just underneath the Maldivian atolls, for example? How romantic, I thought, and a killjoy, too. Receiving a postcard remains one of the underrated joys of life—think of the pain your sender had to endure: being organized enough to have your address to hand before the trip is a task in itself, followed by finding a less tacky postcard in one of those touristy shops, where headache and neck pain are par for the course. Having bought the card, the next challenge is to find a quiet moment to sit and write— your awry handwriting in perpetual deterioration mode—and then crossing the final hurdle of locating a post office only to be greeted by a queue of pensioners. Folks, I’m told it’s all too much work, too archaic and fogey way of doing things; Instagram is the way forward.
Anyway, back to beggars’ banquet. And apparently a lot of begging is pegged at a “higher” level in Turkey. You beg for your life because you joined a protest rally against the establishment; you beg for mercy for having written something the serious folks didn’t like; or, you beg for a contract, which could be your multimillion dollar talisman, to build a skyscraper or a highway for the government, who’ll of course keep a large portion of the kebab. Who’s begging for press freedom and freedom of expression though? Not only the intellectual class, every Turk knows the answer to my question. Their overall despair and deep-rooted pessimism won’t make the start of your year any better.
The irony lies elsewhere and everywhere. There is wide support for Erdogan and especially among the youth; it’s an anti-West sentiment that the premier has managed to cultivate with his rhetoric and propaganda—it’s also scarily divisive, his non-secular politics. Ataturk must be rolling in his grave. Erdogan is following the zeitgeist to sacrifice democracy for development; sing that old swan song of big roads and big dreams but whatever you say, it sells. As Mr Bozat, my young taxi driver said, “Look, no beggars—Erdogan forever,” gleefully punching his fist in the air.
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Some go looking for bookshops and museums when visiting a city. I always do. It fills me with joy to find physical spaces dedicated to books when the market forces point to things that yield proper moolah. I found several bookshops on Istiklal Street, right at the heart of town, and leading all the way up to Taksim Square. They hardly had any books in English but their selection of translated works is wide ranging and mighty impressive. And the local writers are huge—no, not so much Elif Shafak, who is all over Nilkhet these days. Orhan Pamuk. Yes, of course. But I’m also talking Oguz Atay, Yasar Kemal, Sabahattin Ali, whose book Madonna in Fur Coat has dominated Turkish lists, outselling Pamuk in recent times. Nazim Hikmet remains a popular choice for poetry, as does Orhan Veli who along with Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet revolutionized Turkish poetry with the famous Garip movement. There are so many wonderful writers that it’d a be crime to focus on the few that got picked up in the West. Those lucky few with their native informants’ stamp.
Like bookshops, museums are great defiant flags flying in the face of funding crisis and other 21st century dilemmas—the revenues often fail to make business sense. But what if you combine a museum and bookshop, and give it a twist? It’s still not a business savvy proposition, but it’s a unique creation. Pamuk did exactly that with Masumiyet Müzesi or The Museum of Innocence. It takes serious chops to write a book of critical acclaim and it takes more than obsession to create a museum dedicated to the memory of the two fictional characters of the book: Kemal and Fusun. Or Kemal’s childhood and his passion for Fusun, who’d be his lifelong love. Standing in the middle of Beyoglu, which Mr Bozat called a “harami area, full of harami people and things”, it fits right in with the beautiful cobbled streets, and its neighbors being all kinds of art, artisan and antique shops.The Museum of Innocence doesn’t get listed high on any traveller’s list, unless you are a book nerd, but you don’t need to be a reader to appreciate the beauties of innocence, wonder and love.
Pamuk had his fair share of trouble with the Turkish nationalists—one even going as far as filing a court case against him. He is protected, of course, he is after all a Nobel laureate. When he was put on trial, everyone from Garcia Marquez to Vargas Llosa wrote in his support. I know patriotic Bangladeshis are quick to point out how Pamuk considers Kazi Nazrul Islam as one of his inspirations—thanks to Nazrul’s Kamal Pasha, which was his introduction to our national poet, and is widely read in Turkey. But instead of self-glory at the start of a new year, let’s take a moment to remember the writers who remain unprotected, both at home and abroad, and who face persecution by the powers that be. Perhaps write a postcard in their support? https://pen-international.org/news/egypt-health-concern-for-imprisoned-writer
Ahsan Akbar is Director of Dhaka Lit Fest. [email protected]
