The Istanbulian: Understanding Turkey a Little Better

Everyone, I have just discovered an invaluable news source about Turkey. This link is to a blog called The Istanbulian, written by Emre Kızılkaya, an editor of a big-time Turkish newspaper. It's all in English, most likely geared to foreign audiences looking for a better understanding of Turkey's political workings. It's entirely Kızılkaya's editorial perspective, which is apparent after the first few sentences, but it's still a great window into the political issues facing Turkey right now. Please take a look at what he has to say. It's also a good idea to watch the video he posted breaking down in 2 minutes and 43 seconds the basics of September 12th's huge constitutional amendment.

A big reason for me to come to Istanbul was how ignorant I felt about it. I knew I was in love with the country, the people, and the culture, but I didn't and still don't know anything about it. Hopefully by living here I can grow to understand it better. I want to come back to America with a knowledge of Turkey and help some of the people in my country have a more accurate conception of the country than most Americans' lack of interest. The thing is, we rarely think of Turkey. We know so little and care so little about this country that it's frightening. It's almost never in the news. (I remember a stat from my college research saying that Turkey gets under 3 per cent of all world news articles and TV segments, with Iraq getting over 37 per cent. Or something like that. I have the tendency to make numbers up, but I remember the research being startling. And seriously, you newspaper reading/news-watching people out there: are those numbers really so hard to believe?) The incident with Israel got Turkey into the news briefly, and I feel the exposure helped to generate within America a more accurate understanding of Turkey, but it was minor at best. Istanbul, despite being one of the most important cities in human history, is barely regarded as a tourist destination - I remember after telling many a friend that I was going to teach in Istanbul, their face would set into a serious expression and they'd say, "Is that safe?"

Right now, I want you to think of all the things you know about Turkey. Go on. It probably won't take more than a couple of minutes.

I've been surprised that my Turkish friends don't seem to care that Americans know so little. Some of them take offense, but it's the minority. Most people say that the countries are so far apart, of course they don't know much about each other. Some of my friends will say that they know very little about America, but it's not really comparable. There's the common misconception that Obama's a Muslim (that's not so rare in America, either, folks), but most Americans think that Erdoğan's a secularist, so we're about even there. And because of the massive American entertainment market, Turks know way more about basic American things, like geography, than we know about Turkish things.

As you can see, it's hard to talk about what's unknown. The problem is that there's so much that's unknown. Wanting to learn those things is part of what brought me here today.