Archived entries for Turkey
Turkish for Barbecue
Neukölln’s public spaces are full of bilingual signage. This one says several things, including “Grilling is forbidden,” in both Turkish and German. A common sight during the summer, Turkish families can frequently be found grilling meats in Berlin’s municipal parks.
This sign, posted in a small park two blocks from our home, has been high on my to-do list to photograph the past year. Every time I’ve tried to take a picture, however, the light has been awful. Not yesterday. Out early with the dogs, I finally found the right lighting conditions.
Surely, such translations should not be a big deal. In San Francisco, for example, I grew quite accustomed to seeing mixed Mandarin-English signs in my former neighborhood, the inner Richmond. I’m not sure how many remain. I moved to the Mission District in April 2004.
Nonetheless, I always get some kind of vicarious satisfaction out of seeing signs in Turkish, in Germany. Even in Stuttgart, where it’s not uncommon to see graffiti expressing support for leftwing parties, in Turkey. It all might as well be in Hebrew. That’s the significance, I think.
Several weeks ago, a German friend who started a wildly successful guerrilla media company, by accident, asked me for advice on what to say on a television news program he’d been asked to join, as a member of a panel discussing the state of the German news media.
“What would you recommend we discuss?” I recall him asking, looking for a few agenda items to help get himself prepared. “Germany needs a multilingual press,” I remember writing to him. “There need to be more than just English versions of German papers.”
Clearly, if cities like Berlin need bilingual signs like this, one might consider diversifying the language of national news publishing, as well.
Ataturk is Everywhere
For a moment I thought I was in Istanbul. Karl Marx Strasse, Berlin, October.
Flyer for a lecture about the late Turkish leader. West Stuttgart, November.
Where’s My Mercedes?
If Germany has a city of equal significance to Detroit, it’s Stuttgart. The birthplace of the country’s auto industry, it also hosts one of Germany’s biggest migrant communities, with one estimate rising as high as 39 percent of the overall population. The local Turkish community is particularly visible.
Also home to Jennifer’s firm, we’ve set up shop in a tiny studio apartment near her office until our new place is finished being refurbished. In the western part of Stuttgart, we’ve been surprised by incredible Sri Lankan and southern European food, as it surpasses most of what we’ve eaten in Berlin.
One Track Minds
Growing up in Istanbul, her sister would lock her in a closet, where, I was told, she was forced to memorize Das Kapital. So the lousy rumor went, as though it were a way of explaining both her trauma, and her brilliance. For the brief time we were involved, I never asked her about it.
The Bosnian war was in full swing. She had strong opinions about US plans for the region. They fascinated me, as they paralleled the beginnings of the American-sponsored Mideast peace process. I can’t recall us ever discussing, in any similar depth, the Kurdish situation.
Kurdistan Workers Party poster, Boxhagenerplatz. Friday, 16/7.
Talking Turkey
Compare the messaging. The first image, on the left, is a campaign flyer for Italy’s anti-immigrant Lega Nord party, photographed in March, outside our apartment in Milan. Notice the Turkish national flag depicted subsuming the northern Italian province of Lombardy.
The image on the right is a government-commissioned poster offering support to Turkish immigrants, displayed at a train station in Berlin. Given how accustomed we’d become to seeing Lega posters the past year, the German advert’s vibe took us totally by surprise.
Turkish Christmas
In the US, Jews are known to go out for Chinese food on Christmas day. In Milan, I’m not so sure. The only Jews we know are Israelis, who are more likely to go out for Italian food, irrespective of the actual occasion. This evening we decided to get doner kebab piadinas, with several pieces of baklava, and a free side of fries thrown in for good measure.
Rock the Space Bar
The Elders of Zion have been quiet for the last three years. I’ve been the culprit, as I’ve had to focus on writing Israel vs. Utopia. With the exception of Basra Memorial Orchestra, our contribution to the fourth edition of Fifteen Sounds of the War on the Poor (2009), we haven’t issued anything new since our Twilight War EP in December 2006.
On Friday, however, the Elders published their first DJ mix in Zeek. Longtime fans of Turkish psychedelia, we pieced together a forty minute jam, featuring our favorite tracks by artists such as Erkin Koray, Mogollar, and 3 Hürel. The audio is hosted by Soundcloud. You can listen to the mix on this page, or download an MP3 directly.
Mystery Meats
Throughout Europe, kebabs are taking a fierce beating. Following the prohibition of new ethnic eateries opening in Lucca, a move that Italian leftists decried as culinary ethnic cleansing, a UK government survey disclosed some nasty facts about the British dietary staple.
Aside from being decidedly unhealthy, a considerable number of the kebabs sampled were found to contain trace elements of pork. I haven’t read what London’s Turkish community newspaper had to say about it. However, on Friday, it was clearly headline news.