Beliefs

The morning view from my balcony:

I'd forgotten what incredibly prolific political demonstrators Istanbulites are. In the space of a few hours on İstiklal Caddesi yesterday I saw three marches. The first consisted of a few dozen very enthusiastic high school-aged kids chanting something I couldn't make out carrying an Atatürk banner to commemorate his May 19th birthday, a.k.a. "Youth and Sports Day."

The second and by far the largest was a protest against Russia's bid to hold the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. People held signs listing the url nosochi2014.com and calling for the Russian and Ottoman archives to be opened for research into the killing and expulsion of Circassians after the Russians conquered the northwest part of the Caucasus in the late 19th century.

The whole Armenian genocide debate makes this all the more interesting. The Circassian Genocide movement is a Turkish counter-accusation of genocide against Muslims in the region, clearly (which isn't to say it's wrong, but I'm annoyed with this business of throwing around retrospective accusations of genocide at others while shrugging off one's own history; e.g. when Congress debates officially recognizing an Armenian genocide but not a Native American genocide), but I wondered if some also joined the march as a defensive measure because they also were active on Armenian issues or contemporary human rights in Turkey and this showed they were being even-handed and decrying genocides that the government was happy to see them decry, too, rather than just being anti-Turkish. I didn't ask.

The third was a protest against military operations in the Kurdish-populated southeast, with a lot of signs about brotherhood and peace. "DON'T GO INTO THE MILITARY, DON'T SPREAD SIBLING BLOOD," read the big banner in front. Maybe a dozen counter-protests, all young men, trailed them, occasionally chanting "Ne mutlu Türküm diyene," ("Happy is he who calls himself a Turk," as inscribed on all public school buildings) to which the protesters would chant in reply "Happy is he who calls himself human." There's no gender in Turkish pronouns so really it should be one and oneself.)

It turns out my roommate is quite the conspiracy theorist. After telling me all about Illuminati and Jews controlling the work (that Hitler was a crypto-Jew and started World War II so that Israel would be created was maybe the greatest challenge to reason) Hakan told me that he expected billions of people would die soon,  because there simply aren't enough resources to go around and because women are increasingly taking over. Twice as many women as men now graduate from college, and just look at the top management of Hürriyet newspaper: all women. Women are quietly taking over everything as had Illuminati and Jews and they're all the more dangerous because women have motherly instincts that lead they to protect their young at all costs, and thus they are far more ruthless than men. That's a new one.

I found out later, in an unexpected rush of emotion on his part, that he used to be a big deal commercial director but his girlfriend of three years (some naked pics of whom I was shown yesterday) ruined his life and is suing him and now he's on Xanax and living in this dump (it's not a dump) with no maid service. He switched over briefly to English: "A voman is like a hurricane: vhen she comes she is vet and vild but vhen she goes..." he gesticulated madly, "...destruction?" I offered.
As I write this at 7am he's asleep on the couch with the TV still on.