At the crossroads of Asia and Europe, this progressive Muslim nationstrives to carve out a major role in a diverse region beset by post-ColdWar turmoil, Page 2
COVER: Whirling toward a mystical union with the divine, dervishes inIstanbul add their 13th-century traditions to the spiritual and secularmix that is modern Turkey. Photograph by Reza.
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THOMAS B. ALLEN has written numerous articles for the GEOGRAPHIC aswell as nine books; this is his third article published this year in themagazine. Arduous assignments appeal to Paris-based freelance photographerRIZA. His most recent story for the magazine was on Cairo (April 1993).
Along the coastal highway Turkey's Black Sea towns are awakening toa sunny fall day. The roadside blurs by: mustachioed men and kerchiefedwomen, car wrecks and donkeys, chickens and cows, mosques and concretemixers, laundry drying on a line, tobacco drying on a fence, bus sheltersfull of kids going to school and adults going to work. Then the trafficknots up, and we sit in the fumes and honkings of ears, trucks, minivans,tractors, buses, and motorcycles. Now Umit Niron, my interpreter of Turkishwords and sights and smells, can turn his eyes from the road and tell mewhat I see.
The schoolkids wear uniforms, blue smocks for the little girls and boys;shirts and ties, blue blazers, and slacks for the older boys. Most of theolder girls wear white blouses and plaid skirts. Others are buttoned intolong, dark blue coats, and they hide their brows under pale blue kerehieþs."Religious school," Umit says. "That is what the girls must wear."
Stuck in the traXfie with us is a grimy, battered bus, its windows smearedwith yellow paint. The Turkish buses I have seen all sparkled, inside andout. This one, Umit explains, is not Turkish. It is a Russian bus, therolling home of traders from former Soviet republics.
Men and women are climbing into tractorhauled wagons. They are harvesters,heading to the mountains for tea, to the orchards for hazelnuts, to thefields for corn and sugar beets.
"We must go to a wedding," Umit says. "The end of harvest is the timefor weddings."
JOURNEYING THROUGH the rich weave of history and geography that is Turkey,I did go to weddings, and to mosques, and to Russian bazaars. In villages,cities, and factories and on farms and waterfronts, I found a nation onthe move, led by Tansu (;flier, the first woman to become prime ministerof this Muslim nation. She intends to build on the economic boom of theeighties, and, looking toward the future, she promises her people: "Wewill not walk, we will run."
As ever, Turkey is a bridge between Europe and Asia, between West andEast (map, page 13). Today the bridge strains against waves of change.Jobless vfllagers pour into cities already packed with people and problems.New nations emerge where the mighty Soviet Union once loomed. MilitantMuslims, within and beyond Turkey's borders, challenge Turkey's long-helddetermination to be a secular nation. And in the bloodstained southeastcorner of the country the government hopes to win a guerrilla war againstKurdish separatists, using the energy and opportunities created by hydroelectricdams and irrigation canals. Here the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party hasbeen fighting since 1984 to form a Kurdish state.
"When I meet someone, I wonder in the back of my mind, is he a Kurd?"a government official in Ankara told me. "This is a sad byproduct of thestruggle."
Another is criticism of Turkey's human rights record in the southeast.A 1993 U.S. congressional report accused Turkey of acting under a "broadand ambiguous definition of terrorism" that authorized torture, permitted"use of excessive force against noncombatants," and restricted "freedomof expression and association."
Officials try to play down the troubles, preferring to talk about Turkey'srole in the post-Cold War world. Home of ancient Greeks and Romans, heartof the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, Turkey is claiming the right to leada new economic domain stretching into Central Asia.
Out of that region came the nomads who settled in Turkey in the 11 thcentury, establishing an Islamic realm in Christian Anatolia. Today's Turksspeak a language akin to those spoken by people in five former Soviet republics--Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. BlackSea Turks can usually manage to understand people from a sixth, Georgia.
"The politicians call all those people 'our brothers,'" a Turkish journalistsaid as we talked in an Istanbul caf~. "Turkey wants to be a regional power,and I quote, 'from the Adriatic to the China Wall.'" That was a phrasespoken by President Turgut Ozal, who died in April 1993, just after completinga triumphant tour of Central Asia.
Turkey is promoting itself to these republics as the model of a modern,democratic nation. The president of Kyrgyzstan has said that Tu rkey is"the morning star that shows the Turkic republics the way." And in Tajikistan,where the langu age is Persian, one Muslim leader has urged his followersto emulate Turkey, not Persian-speaking Iran.
The brotherhood campaign is paying off. Turkey has formed an allianceon economic and environmental projects that joins together the six nationsbordering the Black Sea, plus Moldova, Azerbaijan, Albania and two oldenemies, Greece and Armenia. Another Turkey-fostered economic bloc bringstogether Central Asian nations, along with Iran and Pakistan. Turkey isalso working on a scheme for a 663-mile pipeline that would carry oil fromBaku in Azerbaij an to Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Oil-rich Kazakhstanwould hook on later. While Turkey declares solidarity with the Muslimsof Central Asia, it simultaneously seeks full membership in the EuropeanUnion, formerly the European Community. Turkey joined the West during theKorean War as a United Nations ally and in 1952 became a member of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Turkey and its powerful armywere welcomed as a buffer against the Soviet Union on NATO's far easternflank. But, with the end of the Cold War, neither NATO membership nor alliancewith the West in the Gulf War has earned Turkey complete acceptance inthe European Union. "Europeans," a Western diplomat in Ankara told me,"do not see Turks as Europeans ."
WHAT IS A TURK TODAY? The question went around the table of an outdoorrestaurant in Ankara where Umit and I were having lunch with several ofhis friends. "I don't believe anybody is Turkish, whatever that means,"he said. Then, swinging his arms to take in the lunch crowd, he exclaimed,"Look at us! A mix of Turks, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Iranians, Armenians,Kurds."
This is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, which lasted more than sixcenturies. Umit's grandfather lived in what became Lebanon; when the empirecollapsed after World War I, some of the family moved to Turkey, some stayedbehind. "I have relatives I cannot talk with," he said. "My mother is Turkish,but her mother was from RomaRig." Another man broke in: "My mother is fromGreece, but she speaks Turkish. My father was born in Georgia .... "
MAPS
TURKEY
AREA: 300,948 Sq mi. POPULATION: 60 million.
CAPITAL: Ankara, pop. 2.5 million.
RELIGION: Islam (99.9 percent).
LANGUAGES: Turkish (official), Kurdish,
Arabic, pci: $2,620.
EXPORTS: Textiles, metals, electrical equipment, fruits, nuts, cereals,and tobacco. Thundering out of Central Asia in the 11th century, Turksbattled the Byzantines across what is now Turkey. Under the Ottoman Empirethey took Constantinople in 1453 and reached west almost to Vienna at theheight Of their European expansion (above). World War l put an end to theempire, clearing the way for Ataturk's republic.
Modern Turkey is the creation of Mustafa Kemal, or Ataturk, "fatherof the Turks." He led a war of independence against occupying powers afterWorld War I. Creating a republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in1923, he tried to shape a Western country from this amalgam of cultures.He curbed the civil power of Islam, insisted that Turkish be written withthe Latin alphabet, and guaranteed rights for women. Even today, 56 yearsafter his death, the image of his stern, ascetic face is everywhere inTurkey. His bust looks down in parks and plazas. Paintings, photographs,and tapestries of Ataturk hang on the wails of offices and homes.
Many Turks I talked with believe that the nation's veneration of Ataturkhelps defend Turkey against Islamic fundamentalism. So does prosperity."if you have a litfie money, you live better," a magazine editor remarkedto me. "It's true for a family--money helps keep it together--and for acountry. It's difficult for fundamentalists to get anywhere because ofthe economic revolution."
For the past five years that revolution has produced the highest economicgrowth rate of any major European nation. It also triggered a 60 to 70percent inflation rate. Despite their drastically devaiued currency, mostTurks I met are optimistic about the future.
When I tried to cash a traveler's check at a branch bank in a smallcity, I was ushered into the manager's office. He served me coffee anda chocolate candy, then sprinkled lemon cologne on my hands. He proudlytold me this was the first traveler's check ever cashed in his bank. Thebank was founded in 1863.
WE HEADED for a wedding in Findikli, on the eastern Black Sea coast,in the heart of the country an ancient people, the Laz. Umit slipped acassette into the car's tape deck. Pounding drums and male voices burstfrom the speakers. Paced by the drum and backed by the wail of bagpipes,men tramped through a dance. The tempo increased. We heard background shoutsand rifle fire and envisioned the Laz men's dance. "We may see that danceat the wedding," Umit said. "But there will be no guns tonight becausethis wedding is in a town ."
One of the wedding guests, a local businessman, led us to an outdoorpavilion on the edge of town. Under strings of lights young men and womendanced to the rhythm of Turkish pop, an East-West music scramble. EIderssat at tables or occasionally tried a few turns around the dance floor.Women in kerchiefs refrained from dancing. The drink of the night was fruitjuice, though at a couple of tables I did see Scotch being discreetly poured.
The kerchiefs and the fruit juice suggested Islamic practices to me,and I asked Umit if there had also been marriage rites in the mosque. Heseemed puzzled by the question but relayed it to one of the guests, whoanswered: The bride and groom were, of course, married at the municipaloffices in a civil ceremony. The businessman vehemently added, "In Findikliyou will notice that the voice of the muezzin is not loud."
Here, as in several other towns I visited, people measured the influenceof Islamic fundamentalists by the decibel level of the man giving the fivedaily calls to prayer over the mosque's loudspeakers. I realized that inFindikliI had barely heard him.
Islam, the religion of nearly 100 percent of the population, gives Turkstheir identity, though this is not the Islam of many other Muslim states.Again and again I heard the slogan "Turkey will never be Iran!" Secularismin Turkey is complicated. The government's department of religious affairs,for example, helps arrange trips to Mecca and pays the salaries of religiousleaders. The ministry of education controls religious schools.
Enrollment in those schools has been increasing in recent years. TheWelfare Party, which backs Islamic fundamentalism, has 40 seats in parliamentand is reaching out to countryfolk who migrate to Istanbul and Ankara.The fundamentalists appeal to conservative Turks who decry what they callmoral decay. Their targets include Penlhouse and Playboy, both publishedin Turkish editions.
Around us, a dozen or so men began stomping, shouting, and singing theLaz song that I had heard on the tape. They threaded through the crowdand, arms grasping one another's shoulders, circled the dance floor. Inthe darkness beyond, someone fired a gun several times. Omit smiled, asdid several other men around me. Blanks, I thought. Then I saw the shreddedleaves fluttering down.
The bride, Tesrife Ufak, broke into the circle of men, along with severalother women, young and old. After a few whirls Tesrife decided she hadhad enough. She stepped out, waited for her new husband, Ildeniz Ufak,and when he did not join her, tugged him away. Times have changed for thedance of the Laz men.
Tesrife and Ildeniz are settling about miles from Findikli, in a citynear Izmir where Ildeniz has a job as an accountant. Tesrife hopes shewill find work in the same firm.
Job migration is common even in the bustthng Black Sea region, the sourceof nearly all of Turkey's tea and 70 percent of the world's hazelnuts.Mountains rise close to the sea. Hazelnut groves march along narrow fiatlandsand veer up the slopes. Rivers course through valleys crosshatched withstands of pine and gleaming green patches of tea. Each long, one-road valleyis a world of its own, its timbered houses perched high and scattered farapart. Tea harvesters work fields so steep they sometimes sling tetheredropes around their waists to keep from slipping.
In a co-op factory at Giresun, west of Findikli, machines hulled andpacked hazelnuts grown by 221,000 co-op partners who own orchards alongthe Black Sea coast. People say the hazelnut is the source of life aroundGiresun, but a teacher I met there said, "Our young men are workers withoutwork. They work only three months--harvesting from morning to night. Sothey go to Istanbul and find work, or they go to Germany or France. Butwhen a man wants to marry, he returns with money."
Near Rize, truckloads of tea tumbled into a plant for crushing, drying,sorting, and shipping. "In ten days we will be finished here, and the workerswill go away until May," the plant manager told me. And what will the workersdo then? "Sit in the coffeehouses and play cards," he replied. Some ofthe idled workers were landowners, who had earned enough money to whileaway the next six or so months. Others were not so lucky; they played cardsand lived frugally because they had given up looking for jobs.
I went to several smoky coffeehouses (misnamed, since hardly anyoneever drinks coffee), watched the swiftly dealt card games, and over countlesslittle tulip-shaped glasses of strong tea heard the men talk and talk andtalk. About what bees make the best honey. About going to or coming fromjobs in distant places. About politics (an intricate subject in the landthat gave English the word "byzantine"). And about the Russian traders.
THE TITLE Of a popular song -- "Natasha" --echoes the common name forone type of "trader." The song tells the tale of a Turkish man who losthis family to the wiles of a Russian Natasha, only to have her take allhis money and coldly leave him. This has happened so often in real lifethat in some places Turkish women are working to throw the Natashas outof town.
"The Natashas I see are young, usually divorced, and need money fortheir children," a hotel owner in a Black Sea town told me. "They staya few days and go back with some cash." He introduced me to Lily, who enteredthe hotel lobby looking at her watch. She said she was supporting a 12-year-old daughter in Georgia. Lily spends a month in Turkey as a tourist, thengoes back to Georgia for 15 days and gets another tourist visa. She hopedsoon to be able to stay in Turkey longer because, she said, "My boyfriendis getting me a special visa for trade ." She looked at her watch againand, pale and shaky, hurried into the night. Like many Natashas, she hada steady client, a man who arranged for her to stay at the hotel untilhe summoned her.
Turks usually refer to Natashas and other border crossers as "Russians"whether they come from Georgia, Azerbaijan, or the Russian Federation.These traders along the Black Sea coast are the vanguard of new economicpartners. Turkey already is shifting trade away from Arab nations and lookingeast.
Most Russian traders begin their journey at what had been a Cold Warfrontier, the Turkish-Soviet border at the Black Sea. Turkey once confrontedthe Soviets at a checkpoint in the village of Sarp with a massive rollinggate. Now the gate, rusty and off its track, marks the porous border betweenTurkey and the Republic of Georgia.
Several long trucks, including two that once belonged to the Red Army,are piled high with logs destined for Turkey. Heading back to Georgia isa low-riding yellow car. A ropeddown stack of packages totters on its roof.Boxes stick out where the windshield used to be. The driver peers arounddozens of loaves of bread. Behind him in the maelstrom is a rattling carstuffed with cartons of chewing gum and chocolate bars. These use the individualentrepreneurs, who drive alone because they are foolhardy or have paidoff the predators on Georgia's roads.
Most of the "suitcase traders," as the Turks call them, pool their expenses-- including protection money--and travel in tired old buses that carrytheir passengers and cargo to bazaars in every port along the Turkish coast.The men and women usually live on the buses while they spend a few daysselling. They stand in covered stalls, offering a bewildering assortmentof merchandise--from used doorknobs and Taiwan-made toys to Red Army generatorsand uniforms. They usually speak little Turkish, getting by with nods,frowns, and hand signals.
Reflecting their nation's brotherhood policy, Turkish shopkeepers toleratethe traders and make money from them. "They usually buy a lot of food totake home, especially pasta and margarine," a Turk told me in Trabzon,site of a bazaar half a mile long. Across from the stalls another Turkhad set up a travel agency for traders who did not want to ride a traders'bus. "The Russians don't like the Georgians," he said. "They feel saferon a Turkish bus ."
Trabzon, a Black Sea port for at least 24 centuries, is a good exampleof the East-West bridge in action. At a dock there the bow of a Turk-ownedship gaped open to accommodate Russian buses. Driven onto the ship at theRussian port of Sochi, they had fanned out from Trabzon to ports as faraway as Istanbul. A few days later the buses returned, presumably withricher passengers. By taking a round-trip sea route to Turkey, the Russianbuses avoided "the bandits in Georgia," a ship's officer explained. Andthe ship holds far more cargo than a bus does. Stacked around the dockwere unmarked crates and hundreds of Turkish carpets covered with plastic.Abdullah Malas, a Lebanese trader, was also using Trabzon as a bridge andsafe harbor. "I prefer dealing in Turkey," "It's dangerous across the border"hetold me over tea. He was awaiting a ship from Sochi carrying Russianiron, aluminum, water pipe, and electric cable. After Malas certified thecargo, the ship would sail on to Lebanon to pick up sugar, lemons, aspirin,patentmedicines, and baking mix for the return voyage to Sochi. The bartertransaction was only the beginning. "1 am hoping for a deal on oil," hesaid.
S OUTH Of the Black Sea coast, in the stone and solitude of Anatolia,is an older, poorer, and visibly Islamic Turkey. In villages and in largecities like Erzurum and Erzincan the voice of the muezzin is very loud.Raki, an anise-flavored alcoholic drink, rarely flows in public. Many womenwear the hooded, full-length carsaf. An ancient stillness fills even thesky; for days at a time I never heard an airplane.
This is what urban Turks call the countryside, the Turkey that was.When Atatiirk rounded the nation, about 80 percent of the people made aliving working the land. In the 1970s and '80s, as the population rapidlyswelled, more and more Turks headed for the cities and for foreign landsin search of jobs. Today cities and towns shelter 60 percent of the country'spopulation, and two million Turks live in Germany alone. Turks who stilltoil on their land look like people of the past, families woven into abeautiful old tapestry.
Late one afternoon we drove out of Erzincan and soon entered a high-walledvalley dotted with olive trees. Layered rock gave way to scree and thento crags that loomed like fortresses. We came upon a mosque and a clusterof houses that seemed to grow from the earth. We slowed down, and a boysuddenly appeared at the side of the road, holding. out a basket of bittersweetcherries. When Umit haggled over the price, the boy, Mustafa Altmsoy, said,"I'm a student. Don't cut my money." After a little more haggling, Omitalso bought the basket.
Toward the end of another day we were on a stony road that climbed adarkening mountain near the Black Sea coast. Somewhere in the mountainswas Tulay Ann, the kind of teacher who gets kids like Mustafa ready forTurkey's future. I had last seen her at the main bus station in Ankara,waving to friends as she set off for her first job. We finally found Suleymaniye,the village she had gone to. It was not on my map.
We could see the silhouette of a small mosque clinging to a ridge. Nearbywas the inevitable coffeehouse and the only phone in the village. Umitasked a man for directions to Tulay's house. The talking stopped. Men eyedhim suspiciously. He assured them he was a family friend, proving thisby describing her father and his occupation. He then explained why I wasthere. After a discussion a village leader led us by flashlight down amuddy lane to the school supervisor. He pondered our request awhile, thentook us farther down the lane to a substantial mud-brick house: There Tulayand another young teacher, Zehra Asan, were living with a family.