Revenge of the Fez

On this day, 89 years ago, a surging Turkish army and mobs of Turkish citizens drove out the occupying Greek nation from Izmir. "The day we taught the Greeks to swim" I've heard uttered jokingly, referring to the way they were, allegedly, pushed into the gloomy waters of Izmir Bay.

Reports say that during the initial invasion by the Greek military, "the [Turkish locals] are forced to tear the fezes from their heads and trample them underfoot". In return, during the war of independence, anyone wearing a hat other than a fez was forced to go for a swim.

All rather confused considering the Fez apparently originates from the Greek islands of the Aegean. Even Ataturk himself referred to it as "the head-covering of Greeks" before outlawing it.

Anyway, tonight there will be fireworks along Kordon (the bar-lined promenade central to Izmir's social scene). A boat with the words "Happy 9th September" will crawl up and down the bay. It's also the time of the great Izmir Fair (think The Ideal Home Exhibition but with more gypos and mosquitoes).

In other news, I moved job, moved house, went on 4 holidays, grew 2 moustaches, 1 massive beard, attended 1 funeral, 0 weddings and haven't written anything on this blog for close to 3 months. For that, I apologise. Thank you to Burak for the kind email that gave me a kick up the arse needed to write something.

Also, a massive thank you to Danny for the iPhone which should help me to take snapshots and post them directly whenever and wherever. Thank you for Peter for jumping on Danny and asking him to give me the iPhone. Thank you to O2 for unlocking it for a mere £15 (gypo cunts).

Thank you to Turkish Telecom, in advance, for shutting my iPhone down in a few weeks until I can have it registered on my passport, which I can't do until the visas come through, which I can't do until the Ministry of Education decides I'm still OK to teach English. Thank you to Turkcell for stealing two of my lunch breaks while I waited to speak to some miserable moron who had no fucking clue about the necessary procedure for registering a foreign mobile yet spoke with unwavering authority.

Until next time...

Songs About Turkey #5

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda - Eric Bogle

I first heard this performed by The Pogues at the end of another manic album. A spectacular song written by Eric Bogle. It tells the story of an Australian soldier being shipped off to Gallipoli.

I wont go into the detail of the war; that deserves a much longer post. All I will say is that it's not something we learnt much about at school in the UK. We were told it was the greatest retreat in British military history and that was about all.

It is, however, a subject Turks like to remind me about and tell me their version of events. I think both sides agree that it was one of the biggest fuck-ups in British Military history. A war filled with bad luck, communication, timing, strategy, reasoning and execution.

I watched a documentary in Turkish with my cousin and uncle. Not understanding the commentary, I looked to my cousin to pause and translate from time-to-time. He often paused just to laugh at the comedic incompetence of the allied strategy.

One story I remember vividly... Anzac troops take two weeks to finally clear and mount a strategic point on a hill at the cost of hundreds of lives. Finally reaching the top, allied ships see them, think they're Turks and bomb them. It's something from the pen of Mel Brooks.

Anyway, here is the song sung by Mr.Bogle himself. Take a moment to think of the thousands who lost their lives and remember the quote of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk:

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives.
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.
You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now living in our bosom and are in peace.
Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well"

10th November 1938

Today is an eerie day. Something happens every year on the 10th November at exactly 9:05am. Something that makes my skin tingle.

At this time, on this date in 1938, Ataturk died in Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul. In remembrance of this sad moment for the nation, Turkey stands still. And I mean, completely still.

After a moment of silence, everything and anything that has a siren or a horn begins to sound. Cars, ships, schools, police cars, ambulances, all give an eerie drone.

After all these years, the passing of Ataturk is respected by the entire nation. It's quite an emotional moment, even for an outsider.

Here follows a short video of the funeral procession back in 1938.

His body was taken from Istanbul to Ankara, where he was laid to rest in the magnificent Anitkabir mausoleum.

If you would like to know more about Ataturk, I have another post here.

It's all Greek to me #1 - The Alphabet

One of the greatest things about the Turkish language (despite being able to insult a person's entire heritage in only a few syllables), is the fact it's completely phonetic. So, once you've learned the separate sounds of the alphabet, (theoretically) you can read and write without any problem (though you may not know what you're reading or writing).

To get you started, here's the Turkish alphabet in full:



So once you've learned that, you can begin to funk it up a little:



You'll notice some of the letters are missing from the English alphabet. But don't worry, Turks make up for them with clever combinations of other letters. For example, why have an 'x' when you can put 'ks' together. So 'taxi' becomes 'taksi'. Makes sense no?

And vice versa, they simplify some of our 'clever' combinations and create a whole new letter. So 'sh' becomes 'ş' and 'ch' becomes 'ç'. Brilliant.

The Turkish alphabet also loses some of the Anglo-Alphabet stupidity. The 'ph' absurdity is, quite rightly, simplified to an 'f' - so 'photograph' becomes the far more sensible 'fotoğraf' (though they daft it up again by using the soft 'g').

This carefully crafted alphabet is still very young. The 29 Latin characters replaced the old Ottoman script on 1 November 1928. In one day, Ataturk implemented his reform on the language of a nation. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. Change is never easy. Ever seen the confused, desperate look on peoples' faces when they move the eggs to a different aisle in the supermarket? Now imagine trying to get the nation write Chinese.

Like the French, The Turks have a government body dedicated to protecting the language. Though not quite as fiercely as the French, who do love to change incoming words to make them their own (do you know the French word for 'walky-talky'? It's 'talky-walky'. Genius).

So what happens to a fast food chain like Wimpy when it comes to Turkey?



You see there are some sounds that the Turks just can't pronounce.

'Th' for example, is hardened to a 'd' or 't'.

'V' and 'w's are, pretty much, exchanged.

So you get something like "I tink dis vedder is lowely".

Conversely, there are many Turkish sounds that Westerners can't handle. Basically any of their letters with two dots or a hat is going to cause us trouble. 'ö' and 'ü' are bad news. The 'ğ' is also going to need practice. This is the soft or 'yumuşak g' that the guys in the second song got so excited about. Basically, it's job is to lengthen the vowel before it.

Anyway, why am I harping on about all this when I still can't speak the lingo myself? Well it started when I was out driving the other day and I saw a sign. As I said before, Turkish is phonetic. It is also very new and has borrowed armfuls of vocabulary from other languages. This combination allows for some moments of genius that, to be honest, tickle me.

OK, time for a little quiz. I'm going to give you some Turkish words and you have to guess the English:



Yes, it's a, phonetically perfect, Music-hall.



Of course, it's the canteen.



Come on, the clue's in the picture. It's a ferry boat.



Did you know there was a Turkish Wikipedia?

And there you have it, the Turkish ABC. Not as bonkers as the Welsh:

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

You have no idea just how carefully I'm going to have to tread in this post. The Turks love of this man is absolute and one false move here could land me water hotter than Hell's Hamam.

It's been proved too. YouTube is still banned here. Why? Because someone in Greece posted a video allegedly disrespecting Ataturk. A comment made in public could have you beaten more severely than a ginger step-child. In fact, it's against the law to say anything negative about him but the chances are you'd not survive long enough to see the inside of a courtroom.

So why do the Turks hold this man in such high regard? Why did Mustafa Kemal receive the name Ataturk (meaning 'father of the Turks')? I'm not going to recite his biography; I'll leave that to those more knowledgeable than myself. I will only explain what I see and hear day to day.

Time Magazine ran a poll to find the top 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. Eventually, they had to put a hold on the internet casting because of the flood of votes for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. My question is why, if by their own admission it was a landslide, did he come second?



This man is adored. Every shop, every school, every public building has a picture or a bust. Even homes have a picture as though he were family member. Ask any Turk and they can tell you the date and time of his birth, his death and the names of his family members. Here's a test for you. Forget the time or date, what year was Churchill born? What year was the queen born? no, me neither.





When I first arrived in Turkey, I found this devotion a little strange. But then, coming from England, who do I have in my cultural heritage who made the impact of Ataturk? Who single-handedly freed the nation of a multitude of occupiers (including England, France, Italy, Russia and Greece) even though his army was outnumbered at least 4 to 1? Who threw out the Ottoman Empire and formed an entire republic moving the capital from Istanbul to Ankara (yes people, Ankara is the capital of Turkey)? Who changed a language and alphabet in a single day? Who gave women the vote before anyone else in Europe? Who brought about secularism? Who brought about democracy? I know what your thinking. But Ken Livingstone's public transport reforms just don't compare.

David Lloyd George (who was fighting against him by the way) called him "the genius of our century - centuries rarely produce a genius. Look at this bad luck of ours, that great genius of our era was granted to the Turkish nation".

Even Churchill, who received the biggest shoeing of his life at the boot of Ataturk in Gallipoli said about his death:

"Ataturk's death is not only a loss for the country, but for Europe is the greatest loss, he who saved Turkey in the war and who revived a new the Turkish nation after the war. The sincere tears shed after him by all classes of people is nothing other than an appropriate manifestation to this great hero and modern Turkey's Ata."

Currently, the ruling party here is being prosecuted. Some of their policies are deemed anti-republic (therefore anti-Ataturk). Turkey has safe guards in place to make sure that Ataturk's word is followed to the letter. The army is one. Before politics, they follow Mustafa Kemal. This is also the reason Turkey has seen so many military coups in the past century. Democracy, it seems, is something that takes time to learn.

But if you're in power here and you do something that goes against the public's understanding of Ataturk's vision. This happens:





Even I was there...



These protests happened all over the country. The nation hit the streets with Turkish flags and pictures of Ataturk to make a clear statement that democracy and secularism is something they will protect with relentless determination. And so they should. The stories handed down from father to son about what Ataturk achieved are stories of victory despite impossible odds. These are the stories that drive people onto the streets to make sure Turkey will never step back into an Islamic ideology.

I don't think I'll ever be able to fully appreciate the sincere love and gratitude the Turkish nation has for this man. I can just watch from the sidelines and listen to the legends told over glasses of tea. OK, so I have to take the flack for being British occasionally and sit quietly while they point fingers and laugh at me when the subject of Canakkale arises. The only time I've had more abuse was meeting a couple of Aussies on the beach who'd just returned from a pilgrimage to Gallipoli. Being the child of both nations, I was reminded that the Brits sent the Aussies in and the Turks finished them off. We didn't chat for long.

Well, I hope I haven't offended anyone. I've tried to steer clear of the fact that Ataturk abolished the fez (it's just too painful for me). If there are no more updates to this blog, you'll know something was misconstrued. Wish me luck as I press the button marked 'publish post'.