Hello again dear family and friends,

I trust that you all are well.

I seem to be in a letter-writing mood these days. (This too will pass.) If I wait till the weekend, I'll have too much stored up. A few more observations and reflections for now:

Going downtown

Coming home at about 10 o'clock the other night, I witnessed an altercation with the police on Istiklal Caddesi (a major walking street in this part of town; this was toward the end of the street that gets less traffic): Two men were arguing pretty hard about something. It was the kind of thing that usually leads to blows pretty quickly in the US, but they just continued to yell at each other and grab each other by the lapels and push and pull each other down the street. After a few minutes they'd migrated, intentionally or unintentionally, to a point right across the street from a police kiosk. The cop went over and tried to calm them and separate them.

Soon a police car pulled up with about four more cops inside. (These are little Saturn-type cars.) They too tried to calm the men and pull them apart. No guns were ever pulled, and no nightsticks, but after a half minute or so of trying to separate the men and their friends, the cops did use pepper spray or mace on about three of them. One of the cops used it pretty heavily, and the man he was struggling with seemed to lose consciousness. The cop also kicked at him or shoved him with the bottom of his foot 2 or 3 times. (Maybe that was when he got knocked out; I couldn't tell.)

I couldn't quite see who was who among the original quarrelers, but one of the men in the group started yelling a lot at the cops, apparently about the condition of the man who'd gone unconscious. The yelling man dragged the unconscious guy away from the cops. The yelling man's son (maybe 12 years old) was with him. Soon the cop who'd used the spray so heavily was yelling at the man. Within a couple of minutes, handcuffs were pulled out. At this point the son became very distraught, calling "Baba! Baba!" (Father, or Dad) and losing control, crying and kicking. He seemed inconsolable. What happens when the cops take you "downtown" I don't know, but from the kid's reaction, the reputation must be pretty bad.

The cop in the car was making some kind of directive on his loudspeaker, surely telling us all to move along, but there were some 40 or 50 of us standing around watching from a safe distance. We all just backed up a few steps. Eventually the cops put the father and son in the car and drove away. I never saw the unconscious man get up, but he wasn't there when they left and they hadn't put him in the car as far as I could tell.

It was a compelling but sad situation to watch, especially when the boy became so upset, but I was struck by how the whole situation seemed pretty controlled - compared to what you'd expect to erupt from such a volatile situation in the States. I don't know what the gun control laws are here, but I've seen a whole lot of shops selling handguns, and the signs seem to say for 25 lira (which would be under $20--for comparison, you can get leather shoes for less than half of that). Still, the only weapon pulled in the whole thing was the cops' pepper spray. No punches were even thrown, though that one cop did kick or shove the man with his foot. It all kind of unfolded in slow motion, almost like a rehearsal for a stage fight. Odd.

Or maybe we're the odd ones. I really don't know. Especially not knowing what happens here after somebody gets arrested, I just don't know enough to judge. But surely there's a lot more threat and violence in every such situation in the US from the time such an argument breaks out until the time the arrested is hauled away.

Orientalism, and a complexity of world views

In the days after Ramazan I saw more people out walking here than ever before, especially in Eminönü, which is one place where the ferry lines, bus lines, and the light-rail all discharge and pick up passengers. Public transit was free during the 3-day Bayram holiday (called Eid al-Fitr in many countries). It was like being in a river of people, flowing shoulder to shoulder through wide plazas. Ahead of me, a couple of teenage girls were giggling over one of them having put her gum on top of her mother's headscarf. The poor mom was oblivious as she moved forward with the crowd.

I've seen lots of things here that have made me think that there's not much difference between people here and at home - the adolescent mischief, the mix of the secular and the devout. But a lot is also different. It's hard to categorize. One thing I've seen mentioned more than once is the concept of Orientalism. As I understand it, Orientalism is kind of a romantically exotic and often condescending view of Turks (and Arabs and others) held in the West in which non-Westerners are defined as different simply because they aren't Western. Many stereotypes we have about Middle Eastern people and their traditions (the fez, the harem, the savagery of the Ottoman empire, to name some of the most simplistic) are by this argument more Western inventions than they are accurate depictions. That's not to say that there are no differences, just that we need to be more careful in the assumptions we make.

Walking by a bookstore the other day I saw a big poster saying "Islam Denounces Terrorism" with an extended quotation from a book by that title by someone named Harun Yahya. The quote pointed to Qur'anic teachings that if you kill one person it's as if you had murdered the whole world and if you save one person, it's as if you've saved the whole world (which is also a Jewish teaching). But Western ideas of conservative and progressive aren't easily transplantable here. Other books in the window by the same author were Signs of the Last Day, The Evolution Deceit, The Disasters of Darwinism (from the jacket, it apparently refers at least in part to social Darwinism (basically, the survival of the most advantaged people) and racism), and The Holocaust Violence. While that last one apparently does not deny that the Holocaust happened, the cover does carry the question "What was the secret agreement between Nazism and radical Zionism?" I'm guessing this is an extrapolation from the argument that Israel owes its existence to European feelings of guilt.

I read an interesting article online the other day from the International Herald Tribune (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/22/news/pew2.php). It's from last June and shows results of a poll of Muslims and non-Muslims in several countries. A few examples:

You say Berber, and I say Barber

Barbers have been beckoning to me when I walk by their shops. I must have been looking pretty shaggy. There's a berber around the corner from my apartment (berber equals barber, surely it has something to do with the Berber tribes, though I don't know what for sure). His sign promises "a real Turkish experrience" to English speakers. Another sign promises something in German, perhaps with corresponding idiosyncrasies in spelling. So today I went in.

I don't go to barbers much back home (Robin cuts my hair), but from the moment he lit his cigarette lighter to burn off some of the hair in front of my ear, this was a different kind of haircut. Why he did that I have no idea. (Turns out he speaks less English than I do Turkish.) He only did it to one side. Perhaps to test my hair in some way? Or my nerve?

He started with my ear hair and nose hair - no comments, please - and then progressed to my mustache, chin, and head. It takes some trust to bend your neck to a man with a sharp razor in his hand, especially when you and he can't communicate very easily. Actually he was very clear, firmly pushing my head wherever he wanted it, using an economy of hand signals to indicate when he wanted me to put on my glasses or take them off. At least twice he rubbed a lemony cologne into my hair, once with great vigor and deep digging of the ends of his fingers. He also washed my hair - face-down in the sink - and towel rubbed it, again as if he were more intent on polishing my scalp than drying my hair.

The man is very good. And all for only 10 lira (less than $7). I'll go back.

There seems to be quite an emphasis on good grooming among men here, especially the hair, and the use of cologne. Not necessarily an emphasis on daily showers or baths, though. Maybe that's why freshening up with cologne is so common. And then there's the shoes. Men must get their shoes shined a lot. And a woman from Vermont I met says she thinks Muslim women have a shoe fetish. "My fellow teachers [in Syria] all have a different pair of shoes for each day of the week," she said, (I assured her that my daughter does too). "I only have three." It occurred to me that that could just be the Vermont part of her, but it is true that even the Muslim women who cover up completely seem to be wearing very nice shoes.

Shoeshine con, part 2

Speaking of shoes, last night as I was declining a shoeshine from one man, another stepped out onto the sidewalk and started walking in front of me. Within a few seconds his brush fell from his case and clattered on the sidewalk. I resisted the reflex to pick it up and give it back to him, just kept on walking behind him. In about 30 yards, he turned off into an alcove, put his stuff down and without checking to see if he had everything, calmly retraced his steps to retrieve his brush.

I feel vindicated.

Be well,