You know you’re planning something illicit when you hesitate to tell people about it. I mentioned our trip to only a few friends, and said nothing to others, even when they asked.

We had cancelled it twice.  First in March, when our daughter, Angela, asked us to babysit our toddler grandson, Mattias, during his day care’s spring break. And again, in early May. Finally, as Minnesota announced store openings, and with Angela and Joe needing help as they packed to move from their apartment, we decided to drive to Denver.

Like many others, we’ve been bored and irritable at home. We’ve also spent time thinking of the Common Good and how to be responsible citizens. It’s hard to defend a road trip in the middle of a pandemic. To that, I plead grandparent insanity.

Our plans included a large dose of worry. Would it be possible to socially distance while stopping for gas and bathroom breaks? Was it safe to stay in hotels? And Angela and Joe lived in a tenth floor apartment; how would we avoid being jammed into a crowded elevator? Finally, what if we got into a car accident somewhere along the way? It would be impossible to socially distance if we needed emergency help–although at that point, Covid-19 would probably be a lesser concern.

I managed to plan my way out of most concerns. We’d wear masks at rest stops. We’d ask for first floor rooms at hotels. And we discovered we could simply pick up breakfast items in hotel lobbies and eat them in our rooms.

Setting Off

We left on Thursday, May 14. Our first stop was at a Kwik Trip an hour and a half south of Minneapolis, and I pulled on my cloth mask before entering. I usually try to buy something in exchange for using the restroom, but I noticed that none of the other people inside—at a glance, they appeared to be all males—were wearing masks. Perhaps I’m over-aware of mask politics, but I felt a distinctly negative vibe, like I was holding a “Hillary for President” sign. I hurried out.

I understand that some folks don’t want to appear vulnerable. And pressure from certain leaders and media outlets makes them ornery. Wearing a mask feels like submitting to government rules they consider arbitrary.

Unexpected Hospitality

We continued on to Ames, Iowa, where on last year’s Denver trip, we ate sandwiches in our car outside a coffee shop, and then purchased lattes. That shop, in Ames’ “historic downtown,” was closed, but Google informed us we could get a cup of joe at a chocolate shop on the same block.

What a find!  Chocolaterie Stam is a Victorian fantasy offering a delicious array of filled chocolates and nutty barks. The shop is just 25 years old, but the Stam family has been making chocolate for over hundred years, starting in the Netherlands. We were thrilled to purchase a box of their candy, several pieces featuring the Iowa State University logo. And the young clerk kindly allowed us to eat our bag lunches inside the shop, at one of two widely-spaced tables. We did so gingerly; although healthy, we’d been holed up for so long, we felt we were contaminated.

Spring colors along the way were lovely. Both Iowa and Nebraska were adorned in lacy lime green, and eastern Colorado as well.

Not Boring Anymore

Normally mundane aspects of our trip now seemed interesting. At the Fairfield Inn in Kearney, Nebraska (the town is a popular stopping-off place), we had to phone the front desk from outside double doors and answer questions about our temperatures and quarantine status in order to be admitted to the lobby. Inside, we stood behind a tape line and talked to a masked clerk through a plexiglass shield.

We had asked for a first-floor room and, from the noise in our corridor it seemed everyone else had, too. Thankfully, we only passed one man in the corridor.

Breakfast, the staff had assured us, would be provided, so we didn’t pack cereal and milk in our cooler. It turned out to be a mealy apple, a granola bar, and a stale pastry loaded with frosting.

Mile-High City

In Glendale, Denver, the Residence Inn lobby procedures were about the same as pre-pandemic, with the exception of a masked clerk. He gave us a third-floor room, which raised our eyebrows, but it was a quiet floor, and we were usually the only ones waiting for the elevator. The few times we weren’t, one or the other party kindly agreed to wait for another car. Nobody cleaned our apartment-like room during our five-night stay, but we could exchange towels at the front desk. For breakfast, the hotel offered little boxes of cereal, packaged pastries, and coffee. The best part was the price, down from $190 just months ago, to $110.

We formed a kind of Covid unit with Angela, Joe, and Mattias, who had seen very few people in the last two and a half months. Angela and Joe have been working at home, and Mattias has been with only one other child, whose parents do not leave their house, and a nanny who is single and lives alone.

My biggest concern, elevators in Angela’s building, didn’t turn out to be a problem. We were required to wear masks throughout the building, and nine out of ten times were alone in the elevator. Again, when others were present, they or we, politely offered to wait for the next car.

The overall patience and courtesy we encountered reminded me of the weeks after 9/11, when we all treated each other tenderly.

Mattias is an exuberant 20-month-old, whose language skills are exploding, and who loves trucks and buses. Their apartment looks down on the top of a parking ramp, which, from seven stories up, is like watching an animated movie. Paradise for a vehicle-oriented child!

When Mattias is out and about, he scouts the horizon for unusual vehicles and doesn’t hesitate to point them out. BUS!  DOZER!  BEEP! (pick-up truck)  GA-GUCK! (dump truck). After a few days, I also found myself pointing excitedly–even when Mattias wasn’t with us.

Mattias also loves animals, in particular “raffes” (giraffes), “wow-els” (owls), and walruses (he can actually say this word). He is building a collection of stuffed creatures.

Walks and More Walks

I emailed a friend that, in Denver, we “did no socializing, no restaurants, and no shopping except groceries.” At Safeway, I watched an unmasked guy ahead of me groan as he was turned away.

For entertainment, we walked. A few blocks from their apartment is a park with a rugby field. It is apparently one of the best in the country, and groups of men regularly practice on its artificial turf, using the odd, oblong rugby ball. Mattias went after a ball one afternoon and we laughingly picked it up and threw it back to a player, who introduced himself as from Fiji. He told us he played for an Argentinian group that practices there.

Just after that, a pretty six-year-old girl started skipping alongside Mattias. She told us her name was Tomra, and that she was from Macedonia. The next day at the same park, Mattias spent time chasing another toddler who was there with her father, both from Zacatecas, Mexico. It was one of Mattias’ last days in that neighborhood, and I felt wistful that their new community, more upscale, would likely have fewer immigrants.

Across the street from their new house (they picked up the keys before we arrived) is a park with playground equipment, but the slides and swing sets were wrapped in yellow crime-tape in fear of lingering virus particles. That wasn’t a problem for Mattias, who didn’t quite realize what he was missing. He instead enjoyed walking to a nearby field with huge climbing rocks, scanning grassy areas for butterflies, and picking up interesting stones.

The new house has a family room big enough to accommodate the large Fisher-Price toys–a food truck, a castle, a farm–he has accumulated, and he will have his own bedroom. Oddly, on the windowsill of the landing up to second floor was a tiny metal device that I recognized as a Turkish spice grinder. I’m not sure why it was left behind, but it was the perfect welcome for our Turkey-loving family.

Unexpected Tears

On a trip, one’s regular routine disrupted, allowing new thoughts. I realized that so far, this entire year has been one of unexpected change. In mid-January, my 91-year-old mother had a stroke, which precipitated moving out of her apartment of twenty years and into a nursing home. This wasn’t completely unexpected, but it did come suddenly, drawing us into a flurry of emotion-laden activity that didn’t settle down until mid-March, just in time for shelter-in-place. And how could I have predicted that the country would be convulsed with protests before May ended? The upshot for me is a renewed awareness that anything can happen at any time, and a reluctance to believe that any plans I make are completely firm.

Talking with Angela on our last day, I started to choke up because Mattias is changing fast, and I didn’t know when I’d see him again. Driving to Denver isn’t an easy task, and I don’t know how comfortable I’m going to be with flying. She feels the same way. So unlike last year, when I saw him every two or three months, I don’t know how much older he’ll be when we come face-to-face again.

The Drive Home

It was time for the final part of our Covid road trip. We left Denver early on May 20th, anticipating long and uneventful hours between Denver and Omaha. We planned to eat lunch at Subway, either in Ogallala or North Platte. That chain is fortunate to have an optimal pandemic model: food both easy to take out and easy to eat in a car. We chose North Platte, and found its Subway franchise inside a huge Walmart, where about half the shoppers were wearing masks.

As we waited for our sandwiches, we noticed a sizable eating area in which alternate tables were taped off. Only one couple was seated and Sankar said, “Why don’t we sit down?” It sounded like a good idea and so there it was, our long-anticipated First Post-Covid Restaurant Meal, at a Subway in a Nebraska Walmart.

The Unlikeliest Indian Restaurant

On our drive to Denver, just a half hour out of Kearney, Nebraska, we saw a sign on the north side of the road that read, “Taste of India.” It was 8:30 in the morning and we weren’t up for curries or samosas, but we noted the town, Overton. Now, on our way back, we were considering a cup of coffee when we realized Overton was just ahead. We pulled off and found, a few blocks from Route 80, an establishment called The Jay Brothers, “J” undoubtedly standing for some multi-syllabic Indian last name. It was a modest gas station, convenience store, and Indian cafe. Propped up next to the cash register was a hardcover book about Nebraska opened to a page spread about the Jay Brothers themselves who, the article stated, had arrived from India in the 1990s to take over their father’s gas station. The article lauded this very particular American dream.

We ordered masal chai, hot, milky tea containing ginger and cardamom, and walked out with two delicious drinks, shaking our heads in wonder at the range of the Indian diaspora.

In Omaha we stayed near Old Town in an elegant federal building converted to a Residence Inn. Restaurants there had opened, and the receptionist gave us a list of choices, so we decided against take-out. We chose a southwestern grill called Stokes, and made reservations, although we wouldn’t need them. There were only three other parties in the place, well spread out.

Our waiter was dressed in black, including a mask, and was helpful and prompt, although he didn’t stand six feet away, rather two or three. The food was fine, and the experience felt like a thrilling novelty, but also like something we didn’t need to do again for awhile.

Striped Hills

Conventional wisdom has it that Iowa is flat, but I can tell you that isn’t quite true. Heading east into Iowa from Nebraska, we saw what is surely a spring phenomenon: striped hills. These occur when fallow, brown fields are separated by ridges that have greened up. Kind of like mountain terracing, although more modest. These seemed to be a thing only in western Iowa, and they were lovely.

Long hours in the car again gave me a chance to reflect. Although I’ve felt whiplashed by recent events, Mattias’ life is truly a blur of change. His daycare situation collapsed in March due to the pandemic, taking him away from most of his little friends, and it will likely change again in August. He is moving to a new house, and will soon forget that magical parking ramp vista. It’s anyone’s guess what vehicles or animals will steal his heart next — who would have predicted ga-gucks and wow-els? Yet he marches on each day, encountering nearly everything with delight (we’re all entitled to a tantrum now and then!) Maybe I, too, can start to better appreciate newness.

Another few hundred miles, two more Subway sandwiches in Clear Lake, Iowa, and we were arriving home. Our Covid road trip had ended. Purple and white tulips were in bloom, a flyer attached to our front door promoted a nearby two-for-one pizza special, and the grass needed its first mowing. It felt great to be back.

The post Minneapolis to Denver and Back: How to Take a Covid Road Trip appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

From the beginning of our stay, in 2010, the people we knew spoke against Prime Minister Erdoğan. They said he was trying to turn Turkey into Iran. I wasn’t convinced. Turkey didn’t look at all like what I thought Iran looked like. Turkey was exuberant, with bars and liquor stores and girls and women dressing anyway they wanted. There was no hint of religious repression, the police presence simply a carryover from the Republic’s decades of military rule.

I realized that Erdoğan’s supporters were drawn mainly from the pious folks that Kemal Atatürk had not favored. And their support was fierce. I wondered if the so-called White Turks—the more secular citizens—could have gone easier on the pious folks, perhaps bending the rule that women wearing headscarves not enter government buildings, even schools.

Denying anyone schooling seemed harsh.

I knew my view of the situation was simplistic, lacking details, nuances, cultural factors. But I wondered: if the headscarf women and their families had been validated, maybe they wouldn’t now have such a strong attachment to Erdoğan.

As we’ve seen, Turkey has become alarmingly authoritarian under an increasingly powerful Erdoğan, who has been in power for thirteen years.

Now we in America have elected an authoritarian leader. How did this happen? Well, there are many reasons, but a big one involves the same kind of thing: not paying attention to the needs of all constituents. The people in power over the years have not validated, have not done enough for less-educated, white males. This group, often referred to as rednecks, enthusiastically supports Mr. Trump. (Strange, isn’t it, the use of colors as labels in political discourse?)

Parallels, folks. As usual, I’d love to know your thoughts.

The post The Same Old Story appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming memoir . . .

Our upcoming relocation was no longer breaking news. The machinery of the move had started up, the most visible effect our now-empty living room. We had packed and sent personal effects, including a sofa and three upholstered chairs to Turkey. They would be at sea for about three months, arriving in Istanbul in June, 2010.

My focus had narrowed. Business-like, I dug into the many tasks at hand—putting together an air shipment, changing mailing and billing addresses, renewing my passport, and starting to learn some Turkish words. For the time being, I ceased contemplating how Turkish life might agree with me.

Three times each week after breakfast, I put on padded headphones with an attached microphone, and sat down at my computer. After logging in, I heard the pleasant voice of Fatma, my new Turkish teacher. “Iyi gunler, Susan. Nasilsiniz?” Good day, Susan. How are you?

Fatma, a resident of North Carolina, was brought to me in real time by Berlitz. I could not only hear her via the headphones, but I could also see the movement of her cursor on my screen. After greeting me, Fatma asked me to greet her. Then she brought up a set of pictures on my monitor and pointed at them, asking me for their names in Turkish.

When I got an answer correct, Fatma would exclaim, harika (HAAA ree kah), excellent. I loved that word, and worked hard so that I could hear it again and again from her. It had been easy to learn the word, harika. But unfortunately, less emotionally-saturated vocabulary resisted settling into my mind. Turkish words seemed to hit my middle-aged cranium and bounce right back off, only to gear up for another assault the next time I had a lesson.

Fatma spent over a week pointing at numbers from one to ten and saying, Bu iki? (Is this two?) Bu beş? (Is this five?) Bu sekiz? (Is this eight?) It was only after dozens of repetitions that I could remember these basic numbers, and altı, six, would remain a problem.

One day I decided to use all the Turkish words I had learned thus far—both from Fatma and from my visit to Istanbul—to write a poem. Word choice was easy with such a limited number to choose from. My attempt, heavy on foods and numbers, was fun to read aloud:

–Bir, iki, ooch
(One, two, three)
–Orhan Pamuk
(Turkish Nobel Laureate)

–SaBANji, KAHvey, doeNAIR
(university name, coffee, grilled lamb dish)
–JaDAYsee, lowKOOM, isKANder
(boulevard, Turkish delight, lamb dish)

–Kebab, AYran, dunYAHsuh
(kebab, salty yogurt drink, world)
–Simit, chai, chorBAsuh
(sesame ring, tea, soup)

–BILgee, dort, guNIGHdun
(information, four, good morning)
–Lost final sezon
(seen on billboards all over Istanbul in January, 2010)

Despite mastery of these words, I was having difficulty adding to my vocabulary. Why? Was I simply too distracted by moving details? Was it that the meanings were, unlike Spanish, seldom easy to guess? I was beginning to realize that my Spanish skills, a long-standing source of pride, were due in great part to the large number of Spanish-English cognates.

Or was it my age, the decreasing plasticity of my brain? I hadn’t sat down to study a new language since I was 24 years old. That was in 1979.

I was also having trouble retaining Turkish history. I had now read several accounts of Byzantine and Ottoman times, but the information hadn’t coalesced into any kind of clear, mental narrative. When people asked me about Turkish history, all I could do was proclaim my recent discovery: that the country used to be Christian, but now was Muslim.

Founding Father

If I couldn’t yet comprehend Turkey’s ancient past, maybe I could get a handle on its most recent century. On a list of recommended reading in the back of my guidebook, I discovered a book called Crescent and Star: Turkey at the Crossroads by Steven Kinzer. Kinzer had recently served as New York Times Istanbul bureau chief. Also listed was a memoir called Turkish Reflections, by Mary Lee Settle. Settle was the first woman to win an American Book Award. I ordered both books from Amazon.

Success! Kinzer’s writing on Turkey’s twentieth century drew me right in. In fact, I found myself reading lengthy, detailed chapters in one sitting. The new information involved topics like World War I and European colonial designs on the Middle East, which were already familiar to me. It went down—or, I should say, went in—easily.

I learned that I was headed for a Muslim republic whose founding father had declared, “I have no religion and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea.” That would be Mustafa Kemal, the man known as Atatürk.

I learned that it is impossible to overstate Atatürk’s importance to modern Turkey.

At the start of World War I, concerned about British and French domination of the Middle East, Turkey threw its support behind Germany. This miscalculation hastened the Ottoman Empire’s demise. As the Great War ended, representatives of Sultan Mehmet VI signed a treaty with Great Britain, France, and Italy, allowing Turkey to be carved into British, French, Italian, and Greek spheres of influence.

British warships entered the Bosphorus, putting Istanbul under international control. France took over land near its new Syrian colony, and Italy moved across Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Greece, promised Turkey’s western provinces by the British, seized Thrace and the Aegean coastline.

Mustafa Kemal, a blonde, blue-eyed army commander from Salonika in Ottoman Greece, disagreed. Esteemed for successfully defending Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula, Kemal defied the ruling sultans, dashing around the country by horse and train, rousing an impoverished, defeated population.

People defending their own soil can accomplish what seems impossible. In 1922, the Turkish army led by Kemal managed to drive Greek forces down from the central Anatolian plateau, where they had overreached, back to Turkey’s westernmost city of Smyrna (known today as Izmir). Kemal’s forces then set fire to the city, literally pushing the Greeks into the sea. It was a horrific massacre, with hundreds of people drowning or burning to death. And it caused the Allies to relinquish their claim on Turkish territory.

Turkey had successfully resisted dismemberment. In 1923, with a mandate from an adoring nation, Mustafa Kemal became the Turkish Republic’s first president. He renamed himself Kemal Atatürk, the latter meaning “father of all Turks.”

With bad memories of punitive teachers at his Islamic primary school, and revulsion over the subservience of Turkey’s sultan to Western powers, Atatürk abolished the centuries-old Islamic caliphate. He elevated the Turkish military and moved the country’s capital from Istanbul, a city reminiscent of the debauched sultans, to Ankara, in the Anatolian heartland. Long an admirer of French modernity and advancement, he changed the Turkish alphabet from the Arabic to the Latin script, replying to his mostly illiterate constituents, “You will learn it in two weeks.”

The Hagia Sofia, formerly the largest church in Christendom, had served as a mosque since the Muslim conquest of 1453. In 1935, Atatürk proclaimed it a site of world heritage, and turned it into a museum.

Church and State

One might think that the Atatürk era, relatively free of religious strictures, was tolerant and liberal. But, perhaps because of the existential threat the country had just faced down, it was characterized by an emphasis on Turkish identity. Ethnic Greeks born in Turkey were sent back to Greece in a population exchange. The teaching of indigenous languages such as Kurdish, and the granting of non-Turkish names to babies was forbidden. A Kurdish independence movement was quashed. Minorities such as Alevis and the few Armenians that remained after their mass extermination a decade earlier under the Ottomans, were marginalized. No longer a multi-ethnic empire, Turkey became a nation of a single homogenous identity.

Atatürk replaced the Islamic calendar with the European one, and proclaimed Sunday the weekly holiday. Rather than pulling church and state apart, he turned them on their head, putting religious affairs under state control. He banned the fez, leading to protests in which 200 men died, and the headscarf, long part of Turkish peasant dress. He forbade people wearing these from entering government buildings, including public schools.

I would soon witness the extent to which Turks revered Atatürk. Kinzer describes today’s Turkey as remarkable, a place where it is perfectly acceptable to be non-religious, to never darken the door of a mosque or learn how to pray. Turks commonly drink rakı (an unsweetened, anise-flavored alcoholic drink), dance with members of the opposite sex and dress as those in the West. Kinzer feels it is one of the marvels of Turkey that the country is officially 98% Muslim, yet offers its people such a range of lifestyle choices.

Most of this can be traced back to Atatürk, and most of it is positive. But to Atatürk, the proper Turk was one in whose life religion plays little or no role. He considered believers superstitious people who held their country back. This Kinzer believes, marginalized over half the Turkish population. Kinzer feels that government actions such as writing sermons for imams, and excluding women who wear headscarves from high schools and universities violated freedoms of speech and privacy:

“In every culture that has existed over the entire course of human history, people have sought answers to the great mysteries of existence. Invariably they turn to religion. . . Wise leaders, even the most atheistic among them, know they must balance the sacred and secular impulses in their societies. Those who governed the Turkish Republic for the first eighty years of its existence were unable or unwilling to strike that balance. This led many Muslims to conclude that they had to choose between their religious faith and allegiance to the state. No state has ever prevailed in such a confrontation.” page 59-60

Hmm. “No state has ever prevailed.” Ominous words! Kinzer’s ideas complemented my understanding of human nature. It seemed to me that treating religious people unfairly—anywhere in the world—was asking for trouble. Was I heading to a country where a kind of vengeful payback was about to occur? I would read other books about modern Turkish history, but Kinzer’s was the only one that viewed its religious politics from a purely human perspective. As for Turkish Reflections, Mary Lee Settle simply stated that, “Atatürk went too far with religion.”

I had several family members who disdained the U.S. government. I couldn’t help asking one, “How would you feel if the American government decided to write the sermons you hear in church?” I received a look of incredulous disbelief.

The Western press called Turkey’s current leader “mildly Islamic.” I already knew that not all Turks liked him. During our look-see visit we had asked our driver, Aras, about the man, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Aras had first glanced around the restaurant we were lunching in. Then, lowering his head and speaking softly, he had confided that, “Erdoğan is trying to turn Turkey into Iran.”

What to make of this, sitting in my Minnesota living room? It seemed odd that a Muslim country would restrict the religious rights of Muslims. I had thought that in Muslim countries, Islam affected nearly every aspect of life. Now I realized that, at least in the case of Turkey, I was wrong.

The new information was intriguing, a refreshing change from my country’s wrangling over health care reform. It put American problems into perspective: another country was perhaps more divided than mine! And the fact that my mind was finally allowing something in was exhilarating. I guess for me, Turkey’s recent history was as emotionally charged as the word, harika.

Sankar left for Istanbul at the beginning of March, eager to begin work. It amused me that he was moving so enthusiastically to a Muslim country. Raised Hindu, he had witnessed sporadic Hindu-Muslim strife in India, often quite serious. He had in the past described Muslims as inflexible, combative.

“I can’t believe you’re happy moving to a place that’s 98 percent Muslim.” I commented as I helped him fold clothes into his suitcase.

“Oh it’s no problem,” Sankar replied. “Turks are ‘Muslim Lite.’”

We laughed. I guessed I had Atatürk to thank for that.

The post Studying Turkish appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

The other night, however, Sankar and I were privileged to have dinner with one of the smartest, most perceptive Turks we know. I will call him Omar. Omar has spent years both in the U.S. and in Turkey, and views the polarized situation there (strict Kemalist secularists versus those who are more religious) from the almost completely unoccupied middle ground.

Omar is not religious but remarkably, he has good words for the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He believes Mr. Erdoğan has done a superb job with the Turkish economy and is close to finalizing an agreement with Turkey’s Kurds that will greatly ease the country’s fear of terrorism.  Omar does want Mr. Erdoğan to tone down his dictatorial tendencies (tendencies many Turkish leaders display) and for that reason, he thinks the demonstrations are healthy for the country. He even took his 7-year-old daughter to one of the protests.

It was a fair-like atmosphere, he told us. People selling food, mingling, a lot of good will. Not at all dangerous (although there was violence early on, and the situation hasn’t yet concluded).

I asked Omar if the two sides in Turkey, perhaps inspired by recent events, would ever find common ground. No, he replied. Never. He did say that the planned shopping mall in Gezi Park is now a non-starter. But he believes Erdoğan will prevail until the end of his term – because Turkey’s strong economy is ultimately of most importance to its citizens.

As far as conservative laws Mr. Erdoğan has passed, Omar says that the new alcohol rules in Turkey, which prohibit retail sales between 10pm and 6am, ban alcohol advertising and promotion, and prevent liquor stores and bars from opening within 100 meters of schools and mosques, are similar to laws in the U.S. The secularists worry that small changes will eventually lead to outright prohibition.

The New York Times reported last Friday that Erdoğan has a tendency to rule emotionally, and that he likes to micromanage, getting involved in decisions as small as bridge lighting (!) and seeing fit to advise Turkish families on how many children to have.

My ex-expatriate’s take on these events? In recent days Mr. Erdoğan has blamed the foreign press for presenting false images of Turkey. I find that not only offensive, but immature. It is time for Turks to stop believing that other countries are conspiring against them. I’d also like to see more understanding between Turkey’s secular and religious citizens.

Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s Nobel laureate, laments in his memoir, Istanbul, the “spiritual void” that he believes characterizes Istanbul’s secularist, westernized families. He writes that the Turkish Republic’s founding father, Kemal Ataturk, stripped religion of its power for many Turks, leading them to believe that being pious would drag their country down, making prosperity and modernity harder to achieve. He writes that the country’s secularists confront “the most basic questions of existence—love, compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred—in trembling confusion.” That is the real pity.

The post Turkish Protests 2013 appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.