Culture, anyone?

What do you think of when you think of Turkey, my friends? Perhaps you think of faded aged, rugs, kebabs, the sweet licorice-like scent of nargile smoke, the sharp minarets of mosques abruptly interrupting the skyline and their azans tiredly punctuating daily life. Perhaps you think of the paradox of bearded, turbaned men and headscarved women contrasted by the seductive oriental fables of sultans' gluttony and harem fantasies. Perhaps, like myself before I came here, you don't really know what to think about Turkey at all, on second thought.

It's one of the most profound, and deeply irritating, questions of the postmodern era, namely because no one can come to an agreement on it: what is culture, and what is identity? Thousands have passed their lives buggered by the question, and once you think you've got it, someone comes along and says, ''No, no! Wrong! It's more like.....'' It is further complicated by the multiplicity of cultures in the modern world and, even further by subcultures and identities......my what a mess liberal thought has made of soceities. The silliest thing about it all is that people actually have time to concern themselves with matters such as these. Imagine if people put the same amount of time and thought into things such as ''How can we get water to that village over there?'' or ''Well, how can we get those swindlers on Wall Street to stop buggering up everyone's lives?'' But now I'm rambling, excuse me.

Regardless, it is natural for a product of the Western education system to ponder matters such as these, no matter how ultimately unimportant they may be. Of course,as an American doint a stint in İstanbul, I have of course been asking the culture question - of Turks and myself:

What is Turkish culture? What is culture?

Good question, and naturally everyone has something to say about it. I try to be as open minded as I can, especially when I travel. Not an easy task, but I think I can score some points for trying. When I came here, I honestly admit I didn't know that much about Turkey. It's easy enough to imagine American culture - gunslinging cowboys, Coke, Hollywood and such - but what about Turkey? Well, I know they are muslim there. They eat a lot of grilled meat, and I hear they like to drink tea. It's probably hot, a lot of sun. And I'm pretty damn sure they don't speak Arabic there. So when I got here, I was pleasantly surprised by many things - the people are friendly, and the food is good. Everyone is clean, not too conservatively religious, and the language is pretty simple. Anti-American sentiment isn't too strong, and surprisingly, a lot of the time I feel like I'm living in the middle of Europe, sans stuffiness of course. But wait a second - isn't this a muslim country? Indeed it is, and the paradoxes are quotidian; stare at the big-breasted sunglasses advertisement while waiting for the ancient bus and hear the azan drill your eardrums out. Watch the headscarved girls wearing Converse high tops and Gucci bags walk by.
Arabesque music from one car blasting by, Rhianna from the next. So which is it, you ask yourself, what's the culture here?

I'm sure I'm not the first idiot to ask that question, and I sure as hell won't be the last. To be honest, I really don't think I'm in any kind of position to make an educated guess about it seeing as how I have only been here for a few months, anyway. So I ask my freinds and students: does Turkey have its own culture?

Surprisingly, most of them say no, no it doesn't. Why not? Well, think about the history here chummy: first, there were the shamanistic Turkic tribes. The the Greeks came with their polytheism, followed not too long after by the Romans. Soon they evolved into the Christian Byzantines, who were ousted by the Ottoman Turks, the warriors of Islam. They had a good run at it, but eventually even they were done away with by Atatürk, who founded the modern Turkish republic based on the western model because of a personal distaste for all things Ottoman - the old Arabic abjad was replaced by the Latin alphabet, suits replaced traditional garb, and in general everything European was forced into fashion. So you see, how can we have our own culture since the cultures of others have been battling for supremacy here for the past 2500 years? A valid point indeed, especially when you think about it; can't the images of dim brass lanterns and carpets and harems be traced back to the near east, and those of flashy sneakers and cell phones be traced to the West? The sole unique thing about it just may be the language - it's completely unrelated to any European or Semitic language which surrounds it (despite having acquired a great deal of loan words from Arabic). Perhaps it is not so much that they don't have their own culture as they haven't had the chance to create one.

Well, be that as it may, most Turkish people are proud of their culture and identity, and they should be. Even if it is a product of historical mish-mash, it is rich and colorful. Recently, I had a discussion about this with a more advanced student. Turkey may not have its own culture, but it has strong traditions, and isn't that a good part of culture? American culture is weak in comparison, he claimed. I certainly begged to differ on that point, but regardless in the end, I was left pondering: which is worse? To have a weak culture, or to have yours borrowed from another?

I'm sorry. I suppose by now I could have gotten water to that lone village.