Friday, October 30, 2015

Ostracism alla turca?



        This Sunday, November 1st, two days hence, Turkey will hold general elections for the Parliament (the Meclis).  Citizens will be given a long sheet of paper, with the names and logos of political parties arranged side by side, horizontally, and a self-inking rubber stamp that says “Evet” (“Yes”). You go into a curtained booth and stamp your “Evet” in a circular space below the name and symbol of your preferred party, put the ballot into an envelope, and drop the envelope into a clear plastic box.  

        This past week I was teaching Classical Greece in my course, History of Civilization, and we came to ostracism, the odd, disturbing practice in Athens during the 5th century BC of holding a special vote to send someone into exile for ten years.  The purpose seems to have been to weed out sympathizers with the enemy: the Persians who had recently invaded the Greek peninsula. Despite Greek victory, it wasn’t at all clear whether or not the Persians would return and try for conquest once again.  But other political motives, and even non-political personal motives, not always of the noblest sort, seem to have taken over. 
 Ancient Athenian "ostraka"
(the ballots: potsherds, with names scratched on them)

        It occurred to me, should the results of Sunday’s elections lead to a continuation of the 5-month-long political stalemate, why not hold a new election – but this time, giving us a rubber stamp that says “Hayır” (“No”), for us to vote for the party we want removed from the Parliament.  The party’s seats could be redistributed, the party itself banned, at least for a while (ten years is an excessively long time).  What do you think?  Who knows, perhaps it might help clear the air!

Thursday, July 23, 2015

All in a life: holiday, murder, dislocation, death, and commemoration



        

        

          Last weekend, Friday through Sunday, we enjoyed the Ramazan Bayramı, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan (Ramazan, in Turkish).  Although I am not Muslim, I happily greet Muslim holidays in the spirit they are celebrated, with joy, peace, and renewed solidarity with friends and family, and rejoicing in the divine. Friday our university campus was totally quiet, not a soul in sight. Midday I went out for an hour’s walk, from the main campus beyond the Music Faculty to the east campus and back.  I delighted in the trees, bushes, and flowers, flourishing thanks to an exceptionally rainy June; the clear view on this sunny day toward the heart of Ankara and the mountains beyond; and the wonderful silence.



 Mmmm -- Ramazan bread (pide) -- but now we'll have to wait til next year

        Friday our university campus was totally quiet, not a soul in sight. Midday I went out for an hour’s walk, from the main campus beyond the Music Faculty to the east campus and back.  I delighted in the trees, bushes, and flowers, flourishing thanks to an exceptionally rainy June; the clear view on this sunny day toward the heart of Ankara and the mountains beyond; and the wonderful silence

         The calm was shattered Monday, July 20, with an explosion in Suruç, a town near the Syrian border, in which over 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured.  The dead included Turkish university students heading across the border to help reconstruction efforts in Kobane, a Kurdish-held Syrian town severely damaged in an attack from ISIL.  The perpetrator has been identified as a suicide bomber, a young Turkish man, perhaps a recruit from ISIL.  This tragic event has shocked the country, and perturbed the political discourse at a time when the AK Party, the largest in Parliament, is seeking to form a coalition government.  How could this happen?  Security lapses?  Who is responsible?  Have the government’s policies toward Syria and toward the Kurds been as wise, far-sighted, and effective as the government has been telling us?  Is the country being adequately protected?  What next??  Accusations are flying back and forth, and the public is concerned. 


 Westward Ho!  
View from the ancient city of Assos (Turkey) toward the island of 
Lesbos / Mytilini (Greece)
 
         At the same time, hundreds, thousands of Syrian, Afghani, and other refugees are crossing Turkey aiming for Europe.  Greece is the first destination, for the islands offshore from the Anatolian coast are so close.  Friends with a summer house near Behramkale, ancient Assos, recount how every day men, women, and children set off in rubber boats from their nearby beach to cross to Lesbos (Mytilini), the large Greek island only 5.5 km distant. Turkish, Greek, and German boats watch but don’t intervene.  People smugglers are making lots of money. 

Link to a short video from the New York Times: 
http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000003757489/migrants-overwhelm-island-of-lesbos.html 


Roman aqueduct on Lesbos
 
Once on Lesbos, the ordeal only continues.  Locals resent their presence.  The refugees must make their way (even on foot) to the island’s main city, be registered, then take a ship for Athens for the next step in their journey.   



 Tranquil harbor, Lesbos (north shore)

Most wish to end up in Germany, thinking the economy will absorb them.  Why don’t they try to make a go of it in Turkey, where the culture is similar, the religion the same?  Germany and France are not large melting pots like the US; in these countries, outsiders have trouble integrating.  The more newcomers that arrive, the greater the tensions. Peace in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa would be an answer, but who has solutions for that?  It’s a cruel, sad dilemma.
 
         
          Another death came earlier, but this was not a surprise. Süleyman Demirel (above) passed away on  June 17th, age 90, and was laid to rest after a state funeral.  Six times prime minister of Turkey, then president (1993-2000), Demirel was a dominant politician from the mid-1960s on.  For all that, I can’t say his legacy was extraordinary.  He was trained as a hydraulic engineer, and it is in dams and other big public construction projects that he made his mark.  For larger political concerns, such as human rights, international relations, Turkey in the European Union, he was more reactive than proactive.  His great strength, as far as I can tell, was his ability to relate to people.  His nickname was “Baba” (“father”) and he made a virtue of his small-town origins near Isparta.  He made people feel comfortable, whether addressing crowds (waving his trademark fedora hat) or in one-on-one meetings.  I met him only once, at a reception at the Çankaya Palace, during his term as president, at which İhsan Doğramacı, the founder of Bilkent University, was presented with a medal.  I went through the receiving line; as we shook hands, Demirel gave me a piercing look.  With total concentration on me as an individual, he was surely asking himself, “Who is this man?  Should I know him?”  Others would have perfunctorily greeted me, but I now understand this focused interest in everyone, absolutely everyone, was his great talent.  Whether it led to great things for the country, that’s another matter.  



Guests gather in the Lydian garden (Sardis)

The same week, Marie-Henriette and I went to Sardis for a commemoration of the late excavation director, Crawford H. Greenewalt, Jr.  Some 30 members of Greenie’s family and numerous archaeologist friends came for the unveiling of a monument in his honor, a small stele in the ancient Athenian manner, in the informal “Lydian garden” adjacent to the excavation house.   


The next day, excursions.  Family and friends climbed the acropolis, a sharp, eroded peak that dominates the hilly landscape. 


Although I had visited Sardis several times, I had never had the opportunity to do this, so up I, too, climbed.  The top is occupied by a ruined fortress of early Byzantine times. Much spolia was used in the construction, pieces from earlier Roman buildings that were recycled here. The effort to carry up the blocks and other materials and to construct the fort in this dizzying setting must have been considerable. 


Nicholas Cahill, the current Sardis excavations director, told me that this fort has never been fully studied. What a great research project this would be!  But you would need solid thighs for the lengthy walk up and down each day, not to mention nerves of steel and complete immunity from acrophobia in order to record the precariously positioned walls. 
 Temple of Artemis with platform set up for the musicians 

         That evening family, archaeologists, and the public at large were treated to a concert at the edge of the ruined Temple of Artemis. The featured works were the “Sardis Symphony” and arias from an opera, “The Judgment of Midas,” both composed by Kamran İnce, a Turkish-American based in the US.  The Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, from my university, performed, with Kamran İnce himself as conductor.   


 Musicians wait before the concert

The setting was magical, with the temple’s two standing columns and the acropolis as the backdrop. 


 The audience, too, waits for the concert

In the balmy evening air, as sunlight gradually gave way to night, listening to Handel and Bach (arranged by Respighi) in addition to İnce’s pieces, the audience was transported. Afterward, as I walked back to the excavation house together with two of the musicians, one said to me, “I have seen the great temple at Didyma, but this place is truly enchanting (“büyülücü).”  I wholeheartedly agreed.
        

Monday, May 4, 2015

Bursa: green and growing




Haram!  Namaz!”  [“Forbidden!  Prayers!”] With these words a middle-aged woman shooed me out of a side room at the Green Mosque (Yeşil Cami), one of the famous historic mosques of early Ottoman Bursa.  Women had taken it over; tourists – especially non-Turkish, non-Muslim males – were not welcome.
 Inside the Mosque of Murat II
 
Bursa has swelled, with a population now well over 2 million.  Traditionally it's called "Yeşil Bursa" ("Green Bursa"), for its trees, shrubs, flowers, but today, however flourishing its parks, it’s an industrial center featuring car manufacturing and food processing (jams, juices, dairy) and no doubt much more, thanks to its location close to the Sea of Marmara and not too far from Istanbul. 


 Fortunately, the historic kernel remains pretty much as I remembered it: an east-west road on the lower slopes of an impressive mountain, Uludağ (Olympos in antiquity, one of several of that name), with Turkey’s premier ski resort on top.  Along that road one visits the Muradiye complex – the mosque of Murat II and imperial tombs – at one end, the Green Mosque and Tomb (of Mehmet I Çelebi) at the other end, with the tombs of Osman and Orhan, the first two Ottoman sultans, and the Ulucami (the Grand Mosque) in the center, all of the 14th-early 15th centuries.  One can even stroll on a street named for Halil İnalcık, the renowned historian of the Ottoman Empire (and professor at Bilkent University).


On the Saturday afternoon when we visited, part of a tour group from Ankara, all these monuments were being enthusiastically visited – by Turks, not foreigners.  A large group of head-covered (= pious) women swept in to venerate the tombs of Osman and Orhan.   


Hands came out, palms up, as prayers were offered, as one does at burial sites.  Curiously, the cenotaphs of Osman and Orhan were flanked by a flag of the Turkish Republic (star and crescent on a red background), as well as a green flag (Islamic/Ottoman, I imagine).   
The cenotaph of Orhan, on the site of a Byzantine monastery (whose opus sectile pavement is still in place); the tomb was restored in the later 19th century, after the devastating earthquake of 1855.

I say curiously, because for one, I didn’t remember these flags from previous visits, and secondly, the Republic had brought the Ottoman Empire to an end.  Do you think Osman and Orhan would appreciate being saluted by the destroyers of their family line?  

But the AK Party, now in power, has made restoring connection with the Ottoman Empire a point of prestige.  Five roads leading into Ankara are now marked by Ottoman-style arched gates.  Each set is slightly different from the others.  Each is extravagantly lit at night (unlikely to have happened even at the end of the empire in the early 20th century).

Ankara has also recently been graced by a series of clock sculptures, designed to recall the clock towers erected during the reign of Abdul Hamid II (late 19th-early 20th centuries).  The new clock monuments are not as majestic as their ancestors.  Many look like wrist watches, and not of the distinction of a Rolex.  Some are not even telling time correctly (the result of power outages, perhaps?).  Since no one depends on them to tell time because we all have wrist watches or iPhones, this isn’t a grave shortcoming.  
 
Our mayor, Melih Gökçek, in power since 1994, well before the AK Party began, has given us lots of underpasses (a truly Piranesian network), waterfalls, and fake fortresses, in addition to the Ottomanesque entry gates and clock/wrist watch monuments. Coming soon is a huge amusement park, on low-lying ground below the hilltop where President Erdoğan’s vast 1000+ room palace is located.  For students of urban planning, these developments must be highly perplexing – nothing to do with the sociological or economic problems presented in the textbooks.


The tulips in Bursa were gorgeous, in large beds of yellow and red, in parks by the historic mosques and in the Culture Park, a large early Republican foundation in which the Archaeological Museum is located.  The museum was having electricity problems. The lights were out in the main room, where the Classical sculpture is on display, so we did our best with the natural light coming through windows.  Other rooms were fine, though, including a room of pre-Classical finds and, elsewhere, a startling reconstruction of a Phrygian wheeled cart, based on finds from a tumulus burial.  

Bursa is famous for İskender kebap, finely shaved slices of lamb laid on flat  bread, with a tomato sauce and (if wished) melted butter, with a dollop of yogurt on the side.  The name has nothing to do with Alexander the Great (“İskender” in Turkish), but was the name of the restaurant owner in later 19th century Bursa who popularized this dish.  As you can imagine, iskender kebap was lunch for us that Saturday afternoon (apart from the one vegetarian among us), and a heavy one at that, washed down (if wished) by şıra, a traditional grape juice drink, very slightly fermented. 
 How about a snack? 
 
Bursa is also famous for silk and for thermal baths.  Late afternoon, after the main monuments had been visited, was given over to a tour of the Koza Han, a traditional building for the silk business, now occupied almost exclusively by shops selling silk. 


 Interior courtyard, the Koza Han, on a Saturday afternoon

Featured were scarves, in much demand these days by women who cover their heads (of course, a scarf can also be wrapped around the neck).  Men’s ties, which I kept my eye out for, were few and very, very drab (nothing to do with the colorful patterns for women’s scarves).  

Bursa has hot springs, so each traditional bath, or hamam, has a hot pool, a  very nice feature.  I was already tired, having just returned from a transatlantic trip two days before, and the relaxation from the hot pool, the scrub, and the message nearly sent me into a Rip van Winkle-like sleep.  But I had to appear for dinner, and for the tour to İznik the next day. 

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Insults, free speech, and Florence



How are we to distinguish criticism from insult from making fun of someone?  An eternal question.  In Turkey, the issue is deeply connected with paternalistic, patriarchal tradition: you don’t criticize your superiors (= your father), at least not in public.  Insulting Atatürk, the founding father of the Republic, has always been a crime, but these days, not everyone might be shocked if you tried it.  Insulting the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is another matter altogether.  In recent months we have been watching person after person arrested, including teenagers, a former Miss Turkey, an “eccentric singer” (Atilla Taş) who declared on March 6, "It is an honor to be detained for my opinions, not for stealing or for corruption," and, this past week, two cartoonists whose cover of the Turkish satirical magazine “Penguen” insinuated (or so it was alleged) that Erdoğan is gay. 
You might think anyone who seeks public office should be prepared for criticism.  A thick skin is surely a must.  How does this square with the traditional Turkish view that the person at the top deserves unqualified respect?  Not easily.  But Erdoğan, who rarely restrains himself when commenting on his opponents, not only may have a thin skin, but also (one suspects) must enjoy the combat.
Free speech is a concept viewed with suspicion.  Although Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu marched in Paris on January 11, with Hollande, Merkel, and others (including Netanyahu) in support of free speech, or at least against violent opposition to free speech, early this month the Turkish government blocked the internet site of “Charlie Hebdo,” among many other sites. Blasphemy was the justification.  The action brought “Charlie Hebdo” to our attention once again. 
                                                Near San Marco Square, Florence

One of the ironies of the murder of “Charlie Hebdo” cartoonists and staff on January 7 has been the huge publicity generated for this magazine. In the past, during trips to Paris, I had noted “Charlie Hebdo” at the newsstands, but I never bought a copy. Although it was well-known, its sales were low. Thanks to the attack, sales have soared. I myself promptly bought a book of cartoons by Cabu, one of the cartoonists killed. I had never heard of him, but now he is a household name.   


Peut-on encore rire de tout? [“Can we still laugh about everything?”] was published in 2012; the answer, seen in the cover cartoon, is a vehement “Non” [“No”] – sadly.  The cartoons satirize prominent people and institutions and notable happenings in France during the previous two years. Most targets are French political figures – such as Sarkozy, Hollande, Strauss-Kahn, Le Pen (father and daughter) – but indeed religious authorities and fanatics are caricatured, too: Christians and Jews as well as Muslims. For anyone familiar with the recent French political and social scene, the cartoons are hilarious.
 “Je suis Charlie” was in evidence in Florence, where I went for a short trip in mid-January. 


 Regional council chamber, in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi

But “Charlie Hebdo” came up only briefly.   I was accompanying Marie-Henriette to a conference on Anatolian and Syrian ceramics of the Late Bronze Age, organized by the University of Florence.  The conference coincided with a major men’s fashion fair, “Pitti Uomo” – but my path crossed fashion only once.
               Fashion shoot, at the main door of Santa Maria Novella
 
Our previous visit was in 1979, when we spent a memorable week with a college classmate, a specialist in Italian Renaissance literature.  I knew little about the city, only the basics. This time, I came armed with knowledge from nearly 25 years of teaching Florentine art and architecture in a first-year undergraduate survey of art and architectural history.  I had a mental check list of things I wanted to see.  Buildings – because they are three-dimensional, their space is hard to comprehend from photographs – and frescoes in their architectural settings were the priorities.  I saw a lot.  Because tourists were relatively few, I could linger in front of masterpieces as long as I wanted.

Of the many wonderful things I saw here are five:
(1) A small chapel in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi with frescoes painted by Benozzo Gozzoli. I felt I was standing inside an exquisitely decorated box.  
                                          John VIII Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor,
                                     in Gozzoli's frescoes, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi

(2) Brunelleschi’s dome for the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo).  I climbed the 463 steps to the top, an aerobic adventure, to emerge onto a narrow ledge around the base of the lantern.  I was surely the oldest person up there.  The view was thrilling, but because it was a bit rainy, I wasn’t tempted to stay long. 
 View from the top of the dome.  To the left: the Campanile
 
PS, since insult is the theme of the day: I’m reading Ross King, Brunelleschi’s Dome. How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture (2000), and have learned that insults and counter-insults flew fast and furious in 15th century Florence. After the failure of Brunelleschi’s amphibious vehicle, “Il Badalone,” designed to carry huge loads of Carrara marble at a cheap price, Giovanni da Prato, a bitter rival, wrote a sonnet in which he called Brunelleschi “a pit of ignorance” and a “miserable beast and imbecile.” Brunelleschi responded in kind, labelling Giovanni a “ridiculous-looking beast.”  Criticisms, insults, and mockery became so vicious that the Florentine authorities made Brunelleschi and other citizens swear an oath to “forgive injuries, lay down all hatred, entirely free themselves of any faction and bias, and to attend only to the good and the honor and the greatness of the Republic, forgetting all offences received to this day through passions of party or faction or for any other reason.” (Ross 2000: 114-116).   
(3) The former convent of San Marco, now a museum, with frescoes notably by Fra Angelico.   


 Mary, as depicted by Fra Angelico

Upstairs, one sees the cells of the monks, each one decorated with a fresco of religious theme.  In the corridor at the top of the stairs is his “Annunciation,” justly famous.
 
"Annunciation" on the left

(4) Pontormo’s “Deposition from the Cross,” a glorious Mannerist painting, in the small Capponi Chapel in the church of Santa Felicità.  You had to put in a one-euro coin to get three minutes of light. On the adjacent wall is his “Annunciation,” which I didn’t know at all: a revelation.
                           Mary, in Pontormo's "Annunciation"
 
(5) The Pazzi Chapel, designed by Brunelleschi, attached to the large church of Santa Croce. I knew this from photographs, but I couldn’t understand its interest. Inside, the space, 3-armed and domed, swells and rises with amazing power.
                     My photos of the Pazzi Chapel didn't do it justice, so I offer instead 
                     this view of the nave of San Lorenzo, another Brunelleschi design.

As an archaeologist, I must add a sixth: (6) in the Archaeological Museum, the François Vase, a spectacular (and larger than expected) Attic black-figure vase made ca. 570 BC, the Chimera of Arezzo (an Etruscan bronze statue, ca. 400 BC), and the Egyptian collection, about which I knew nothing, room after room of a wonderful range of objects still in an old-fashioned display.  
 The François Vase
 
* A food highlight: a lunch with tagliere (lit. “cutting board”), a round wooden platter loaded with antipasti (= meze, appetizers) of a distinctly Florentine sort (crostini with artichoke, liver, and other patés; cold cuts; and cheese), arranged with artistic flair.
                                                             A Florentine market

** And the Arno River at sunset ...