Turkey in Europe

[imomus]

'I don't know why I think this,' wrote my brother in an e mail the other day, 'but I have the impression that you are about to leave Berlin. Is that true?'

It's true that I get restless after two years in a city, and I moved to Berlin in March 2003, so the 'two year itch' is due any month now. And it's true that, since coming back from my summer in Japan I haven't really embraced Berlin with much fervour. But I'm not sick of Berlin by any means. I like the city a lot -- the politics, the culture, the air quality, the low prices, the international young people and the local old people, the seriousness, even the deadness of the place.

Well, the deadness maybe a bit less. There is a fusty grandeur, a monumental splendour about the Karl-Marx-Allee, the socialist boulevard on which I live. It has fountains, Soviet-style architecture, a certain otherworldliness which comes from its origins as a propaganda showpiece for the virtues of communist egalitarian prosperity in the 1950s. But mostly, these days, it's just six lanes of traffic. Under the admittedly glorious avenue of chestnut trees, a rather sedate and chintzy sort of life goes on. Elderly East Germans potter through tacky shops in incongruously palatial spaces. The local food shops are mostly run by North Vietnamese, as is the street market that migrates daily between the Kino Cosmos and another spot closer to the Kino International and sells frilly underwear, cheap clothes, watches, meat and cheese.



I'm not leaving Berlin, but I'm on the verge of moving to Kreuzberg. Whenever I go to Kreuzberg, as I did yesterday to shop in my favourite Turkish supermarket, Tek-Mer, I feel a big sense of relief. This is what a city should be! Instead of cars and monumental boulevards, there are narrow 19th century streets milling with people. Instead of shops which shut early there are shops which stay open late. Instead of old people, there are young people. Instead of beauty salons and Mexican restaurants, there are some of the most radical bookshops and art galleries anywhere (NGBK is currently showing an exhibition of art which breaks the law, Legal / Illegal). Instead of clubs and alcohol there are hammams and tea. Instead of Germans, there are Turks.



I love the Turks. I love their food: olive oil, flat aromatic bread, proper chick peas (not the soft German rubbish you can only get in soup), big tubs of plain yoghurt, big cans of garlicky olives, feta cheese, dried figs, tea and rice. I don't much care for the colours and shapes of the packages in German supermarkets, but I love the colours and shapes and smells in Turkish markets, especially the twice-weekly at Maybach-Ufer by the canal. White Europe hasn't had this kind of density, this kind of vitality since the Middle Ages, since Breughel.

I don't care for the western pop music piped into German supermarkets, but the Turkish pop music in Tek-Mer is a delight to listen to. Two songs on my forthcoming album are in Arabic scales, and it's for pretty much the same reason that two years in New York's Chinatown left me with a taste for Cantonese Opera rather than The Strokes. The faces and clothes of people I see in the Turkish quarter are much more appealing to me, aesthetically, than faces and clothes of Germans in a district like Mitte, no matter how trendy, affluent and creative the Germans may be. For much the same reasons I left London, after ten years there, with a Bangladeshi bride, not an English one. The real vitality in London, the really sympathetic people, were out in the ethnic suburbs, in places like Ilford and Woodford, where the Asians were. A European city without at least one immigrant quarter is a dying city, a sad place of senescent blandness, deadening safety, cautious affluence.

I'm moving to Kreuzberg at the earliest opportunity. I also support the idea of Turkey joining the European Union and I hope that when the decision on Turkey's membership is made on December 17th it's a yes vote and a green light. For Europe's sake as much as Turkey's.

Comments

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

I wonder what sort of opinions float around Berlin on the possible future entry of Turkey into the European Union?

My knowledge of Turkey is out of date: I travelled there in the late 80's. That trip was the first time I became conscious of the paradoxes of globalization. Only a small percentage of the people I met were eager for the country to westernize (outside of Istanbul). I suppose this has changed, or there would be little discussion of Turkey's entry into the EU. One overwhelming remaining impression I have from the countryside was that the women seemed to be doing alot of hard physical labour (like threshing grain with sticks) while men sat in cafes playing a board game that looked like backgammon.

I enjoyed the tea culture, Turkish breakfasts, and Oriental exoticism. Carpet touts were the main annoyance. It seemed like all roads in Turkey led to a carpet shop, though it still puzzles me that a ragged backpacker barely out of his teens could seem like a potential customer.

[xyzedd.livejournal.com]

Sparkligbeatnik, you could be describing the Turkey of The Towers of Trebizond. That game is called "tric-trac" and it seems that the men spend all their time playing it in cafes while the women stagger by under the weight of their loads. Perhaps things have improved since your visit. I'm sure my Turkish friends would love to dispute this!