These are the threads the class of ’05 followed through the fabric of Turkey during an intense week of seminars, historic and archeological tours, interviews with newsmakers, and cultural and religious immersion from the Eurasian border of Istanbul to the capital city of Ankara. Along the way, the Fellows also were treated to a memorable scrub in the ancient Cemberlitas Turkish Bath, and meals in some of the finest restaurants in Istanbul. Many fell in love with Sumac juice, lamb-stuffed pumpkin, and a sweet dessert called Tayuk Gogsu, introduced by Romans and made, mysteriously, out of chicken breast.

The trip was funded and organized by CNN Türk, a six-year-old, 24-hour news channel growing along with Turkey’s democracy. Editor-in-chief Ferhat Boratav, a big-hearted intellectual with vast patience for questions informed and otherwise, was the perfect host. More than one Fellow wished aloud for an editor just like him.

On the day of the demonstration, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Frank Lockwood asked Boratav: “Why would a country so proud of its recent free-speech reforms go so overboard to crack down on speech?” During the next six days, hundreds more questions would follow: How could a place known for religious tolerance ban women from wearing headscarves? Why work so hard to join a European Union that is cool to your entry?

Over the week, the answers would be revealed in an itinerary that unfolded like a symphony—building in complexity each day toward a finale that brought all the strains together. Conductor Boratav somehow delegated duties as head of a large news organization to remain with the group for several hours each day.

For an introduction to Istanbul, one of Turkey’s best-known travel writers led Fellows through the city’s bumpy brick streets on a tour of architectural and historical treasures. Along the way, he wove stories of this capital to three empires—Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman—and its rich religious history. Inside the towering dome of Haghia Sophia, dedicated by Emperor Justinian in AD 537, glittering mosaics of Christ harkened a city that was a centerpiece to Christianity. Outside, four striking minarets, added a thousand years later, pierced a skyline that today is decidedly Muslim.

From a lecture on political Islam to a ceremonial evening of worship, music and dancing with the Muslim minority Alevis, the Fellows explored the many meanings of Islam in Turkey. Almost all Turks are Muslim. But in the spirit of the modern Republic’s founding by Mustafa Kemal in 1923, many are also vehemently secular. The Fellows spent an afternoon learning about Kemal on a trip to his huge, hilltop mausoleum in Ankara. Today, followers of the man who famously banned the fez fear that legalizing headscarves would be a sign of “creeping Islamism.”

Kemal is known as Atatürk, or “Father of Turks.” His countenance is everywhere: On the brand-new currency; looming over the Istanbul Stock Exchange and in the office of each government official the Fellows visited; even on cheesy key chains and T-shirts in tourist shops.

Fellows compared this cult of personality to that of the Perons in Argentina. The similarities between the two countries didn’t stop there. Both, for instance, endured devastating economic crises at the turn of the 21st century. Both were safe havens for Jews escaping the horror of Europe during World War II.

That history, along with Istanbul’s grand synagogues and churches, from Greek Orthodox to Armenian, stood in contrast to reports of intolerance the Fellows had read before the trip. Likewise absent was the rampant anti-Americanism about which they’d been warned. The Wall Street Journal had just run a column about “anti-American madness” in Turkey, calling the country “The Sick Man of Europe—Again,” a derogatory epithet attributed to Tsar Nicholas I with regard to the Ottoman Empire in mid-19th century.

In a session on Turkey in the global context, Yalim Eralp, a former Turkish ambassador, traced the column to U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, with whom the Journal’s writer had been traveling. Eralp’s assessment was seconded by Turkey-based reporters at the KWF-sponsored foreign correspondents’ dinner at a trendy restaurant overlooking the Bosphorous, a river that separates the urban soul of European Istanbul from a country mostly in Asia. It was one of several revelations about America that took 5,000 miles’ remove to see: how Pentagon officials could conjure anti-Americanism in an effort to shape public opinion.

Interviews with high-ranking government officials in Ankara and lectures by the nation’s top scholars at Istanbul’s universities and libraries painted a much more nuanced picture. To be sure, relations between Turkey and the United States remained strained over the war in Iraq.  That was quite clear in a session with the General Staff of the Turkish Army, the first granted in the current administration. The session was off the record, but it is permissible to say that there is considerable concern that U.S. policy in Iraq might bring a theocracy to power there.

That is of special importance to a fiercely secular army that remains one of Turkey’s most powerful and trusted institutions. And that, we learned, carries major strategic importance. Turkey’s are the largest armed forces in Europe and the second-largest in NATO. The Chief  of the General Staff took obvious pride in the military’s tradition of keeping Turkey out of the hands of political Islamists and helping to steer the state toward democracy.

Across Ankara at the European Union Delegation headquarters, EU Ambassador Hansjörg Kretschmar had a more cautious view, expressed under the same off-record rules for specific comment. While the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had exerted greater control over the military since assuming power in fall 2002, EU officials clearly thought the generals still carried more clout than customary in EU member countries.

While Turkey-EU stories in the international press centered on major AKP reforms leading toward accession—abolishment of the death penalty, for example—Fellows learned about the thousands of “small” issues crucial to everyday Turks. The EU accession rules for Turkey—150,000 pages worth at last count—cover everything from which crops farmers can grow to the number of seats acceptable on the country’s popular minibuses.  The process will stretch another decade and require sacrifice, we learned, from literally everyone in Turkey.

Why bother? The issues Fellows heard about all week—Turkey’s West-leaning ways, its importance as the energy corridor to Europe, its expanding buyer’s market—all were relevant, to be sure. But more than anything, the somewhat reluctant engagement came down to what the top people call “the neighborhood.” It is not an easy place to live. Bordering Iraq, Syria and Iran to the south, Turkey is geographically vulnerable to any conflict in the Middle East. Europe, meanwhile, sees that embracing a Muslim country would help soften hard lines between the Arab and Western worlds.

Meetings with representatives of minority Kurdish and Armenian communities and human rights and women’s organizations confirmed that whether or not Turkey ends up in the EU, the courtship has been positive. All were heartened by the pace of change in civil, penal and labor codes. AKP reforms include a new “zero-tolerance” policy against torture; beefed up child-labor protections; the lifting of long-standing restrictions on Kurdish cultural identity; and equal rights for women.

Still, new press freedoms had not kept the government from hauling journalists to court. And as the Fellows learned that first weekend, “disproportionate force against demonstrators,” to quote EU’s latest report on Turkey, was still common.

On the last day of the trip, at a posh uptown lunch spot with a 360-degree, rooftop view of Istanbul, shanties were visible alongside western hotel chains; older women in headscarves walked the sidewalks with young women in miniskirts. Hirant Dink, the publisher of an Armenian newspaper who will soon be on trial for criticizing the Turkish government, was nonetheless proud of how far the country had come. “Forgive me but you cannot drop democracy through bombs in Iraq,” he said. “You can only do it through living. And this is what we are doing in Turkey.”

Over a midnight champagne toast just hours before the Fellows’ plane was to leave Istanbul, CNN’s Boratav apologized for the arduous schedule they’d endured. He may not have realized that several Fellows had heaped even more “living” into the week—sometimes on their study topics, sometimes not. Some woke before dawn to attend morning prayers at nearby mosques. Others stayed up all night to hang out with hip-hoppers, clubbers and other elements of Turkey’s large, exuberant youth culture.

Some extended the trip to learn more. Bill Duryea of the St. Petersburg Times headed to southeastern Turkey, where he met with displaced Kurdish villagers, “struggling with the brutal legacy of 15 years of guerilla war and all hoping to survive until the economy improves when Turkey joins the EU in 10 years—if it joins.”

Duryea, who’d spent his Fellowship studying democracy and political Islamism, said that whether the two are compatible remains to be seen. “But when I was in Turkey,” he said, “I knew I was in the right place asking the right questions.”

— Cynthia Barnett ’05 is a reporter for Florida Trend Magazine.

SPRING 2005 MAIN PAGE