Contrasts and Divisions — A City in Transformation
I arrived to the Istanbul neighborhood of Tophane on foot, two years ago, dragging my heavy suitcase on the cobbled snakelike streets that frequent the heart of Turkey’s financial and cultural center.
Outside of my new home, a tall wooden building engraved with numbers in the Arabic script — a remnant of Ottoman times and the city’s rich history — myriads of handmade baskets were descending to meet the barefoot children of the district. Their mothers, all wrapped in beautiful headscarves, were looking at me suspiciously from their windows. After five tiring flights of stairs I found myself in the attic, a lovely and modern flat with wide windows and the breathtaking view that one dreams to find in Istanbul.
The owners of the flat, a young couple starting their career in academia, greeted me with a warm smile, a cup of Turkish coffee and a plethora of stories and suggestions for life in the City. “In the old times this street was called Gavur Sokak, street of the Infidels, because it was full of Greeks” said Can; a comment on the complicated historical feud between Greeks and Turks.
Detecting the sarcasm in his smile I answered facetiously: “As you can see we’re here to take it back”. “Please do” said his wife Cagla, this time no hint of sarcasm or smile in her face. “We lost this street to Erdogan’s supporters”. We don’t feel like we belong here anymore”.
Contrasts are an integral part of Istanbul, but they are nowhere as chaotic as in its historical center, in neighborhoods like Tophane. Nested between Istanbul’s magnificent hills, the neighborhood was home to a population as diverse as Turkey itself, from devout Muslims and Erdogan loyalists to the liberal artists and journalists of the Istanbul bourgeois.
On the one side of the road, I would get lost for hours in a maze of mosques, traditional smoke shops and gecekondu — colorful slums built overnight from cans and cardboards. On the other side the street would curve upwards, brimming with galleries, cosmopolitan rooftop bars overlooking the Bosphorus and stylish antique shops all the way till the Galata Tower. A mosaic of stark differences, at first sight incredibly charming. Soon, I realized that underneath it lied a society deeply divided.
In the mornings, I drunk my coffee overhearing the locals complaining about the young “drunkards” who disrupt the morals of the neighborhood; at night, I would sip cocktails in the company of young students, listening to stories about how the elders of Tophane handed them over to the riot police during the Taksim protests of 2013. Over and over again, during my time in Istanbul, I came to feel that regardless of background or ideology, most Turks belonged to some “us” that was vehemently opposed to a certain “them”, with no vision of reconciliation, compromise or coexistence.
Divisions were bubbling all throughout the city, yet they would disappear rather abruptly at Bogazici, the Bosphorus University, where I did my research in the afternoons. On a lush, towering hill — located at “the apple of the eye of the Bosphorus” as old Istanbullus used to say with pride — students from every corner and socioeconomic status of Turkey, Kemalists or deeply religious, lived harmoniously in a liberal campus that fed off of their differences.
During my first week there, I received an email from the university administration condemning any form of hate speech due to religious, political or ideological differences. The Muslim Student Association would organize regular events with the LGBT kulübü; at sunset time the university cafes would host sophisticated conversations on European cinema or feminism in Islam. So open-minded was the student community that one afternoon, at a forest in the university’s South campus under the commanding shadow of the castle of Rumeli Hisar, a friend from university likened Bogazici to an academic fortress.
Even the most robust fortresses have to be surrounded by a wall; likewise Bogazici was walled and distanced from Turkish reality. In my neighborhood they spoke of it with hostility, with suspicion and stories of covert foreign interests and hidden agendas. I came to understand that these words were not hatred, but rather paranoia, a reaction of a generation of poor, devout Muslims repressed by the Kemalist identity and the corruption of the cosmopolitan Turkish elite. Repression leads to vulnerable instincts and conspiracy theories, and Bogazici, as the academic elite, belonged to the “them” and not the “us”.
One year, and one attempted coup later, beyond the 290 deaths, 1400 injuries and 35000 detainments, it seems that every trace of a contrast has vanished from the city of contrasts. Erdogan’s purge has moved way beyond military officials, to outspoken journalists, activists and even high-school teachers. Can and Cagla were called back from an academic conference in Germany in order to testify. The Deans of Bogazici were all forced to resign, one after the other. The students from every corner and socioeconomic status of Turkey are frantically looking for a way to emigrate. Others delete their Tweets in fear of being called to testify as coup supporters — a good friend is currently facing charges because a meme she reposted was deemed insulting to the President.
In the neighborhood of Tophane, after the coup developments, the gallery next to my old house was forced to close it doors, and I recently heard that in its place authorities are building a new mosque.