Wednesday, June 29, 2011

yesterday

Hello everyone!  I wrote this entry yesterday, so it no longer applies.  But I thought I'd post it, so here you are:


Hey folks!  As I’ve said, I feel a bit odd about this whole blogging thing, but I am going to try to do it of my own accord rather than only when my teachers tell me to.  So here goes.

We got into Istanbul last night around midnight.  This was after roughly 20 hours of traveling – 14 of them spent flying.  (I must say, British Airways gave the best dinner and a movie plus breakfast the next morning flying experience I’ve ever had.  Not only was I served alcohol, but it was free!  And don’t worry, I just had a tiny little bottle of red wine.  Luckily I am not a wine snob, so I could not tell if it was very bad or not.  However, I watched HP 7 and I can assure you of my competency in judging it to be very good.)  I wish I had packed lighter – that is what I get for waiting until the day I left.  I did reasonably well, but my computer is absurdly heavy – I would have done better to rent one from the Honors Department.  My back and shoulders ache from lugging around just my carry-on, which contained my laptop.  Oh well.  I live and I learn.

So even though I went to bed almost immediately after we checked in to our hostel, I probably did not sleep until closer to 2 or 3.  This is because our room’s windows open to a happenin’ side street, and there was stuff happenin’ all night.  The most happenin’ thing that happened, though, was the morning call to prayer, which occurred at 5 am.  I only groggily remember it as being beautiful and as lasting for quite some time.  If I hadn’t processed before then that I was in another country, the call to prayer certainly helped me fully realize the strangeness.  Also, daylight showed me the unique architecture and “feel” of Istanbul – we spent today on a wonderfully-guided tour of the area we’re staying in.

There are a surprising number of churches and synagogues in this area alone, though they represent the religious minorities of the region.  We were told that much of the recent embrace and preservation of synagogues is “towing the government line” of tolerance.  Our guide, Jen, gave us an insightful and very brief history and context of Istanbul, from the rise and fall of the Ottoman empire to the present day. 

There seems to be a rising popular nostalgia for long-ago times of coexistence between people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds – a nostalgia which sometimes contradicts certain historic forced relocations of groups of people, such as with the Armenians and the Greek  Orthodox.  Currently, the party in power is both culturally and religiously Muslim, and bringing great controversy to the nature of the long-ago secularized Turkish state.  (Jen clarified that here, secularization means enforced government supervision and control of religion, rather than the “separation of Church and State” with which we are so familiar in the USA.)  Despite the apparently conservative outcome of the recent election, however, Jen assures us that there are vibrant emerging youth movements, with youth becoming increasingly more politicized than the generation before them.  Cool, I guess.

I am honestly still a bit confused about differentiating between secular culture, Muslim culture, Muslim religion and religious minorities, and the power dynamics they carry.  Hopefully I will come to understand this a bit better over the next few days.

I am greatly looking forward to learning more tomorrow about an organization for migrant communities.  This will be extremely relevant to my proposed research project.  

1 comment:

  1. katy - i'm so excited to read about your adventures! and can't wait to see pictures! i've never been to istanbul but it's on my list.... miss you lots and hope you're having the best time ever!

    caitlin

    ReplyDelete