Middle East

Kayseri mourns a fallen son

Over the last week, there has been a lot of news about the Israel blockade and storming of an international aid flotilla. 16 of the passengers were killed in the incident, nine of which were Turks. Since then, demonstrators have been out in force. The Turkish government condemned the raid and has demanded not only an apology from Israel, but also an independent investigation over the incident. Turkey has been the longest Muslim ally to Israel, and the incident has added more tension to an already strained relationship.

Interestingly enough, the situation developed last Friday to where Kayseri was the center of focus. Furkan Dogan, a 19 year-old high school student, was flown in to be buried. Dogan was not only the youngest passenger to be killed, but he was also an American citizen (as well as Turkish). Below is a video clip I took from the funeral day as well as my commentary published today on NPR’s Here and Now. A more detailed report with interviews is also coming soon.

Kayseri is a fairly quiet, middle-sized city in Turkey. Last Friday however, the place where I’ve served as a Fulbright teaching fellow was turned upside down when the body of Furkan Dogan, a 19 year-old high school student, was buried after being reportedly shot multiple times at close range during the Flotilla raid last Monday. Dogan was also an American citizen, who moved back to Turkey when he was 2 after being born in Troy, N.Y.

A sea of hands carried the casket out of Dogan’s apartment building at 11 a.m., while mourners chanted prayers and looked on in shock. After a short procession to the city’s main mosque in the center square, the casket was prayed over for another two hours during the weekly Friday services. Furkan’s father, Ahmet Dogan, stayed very quiet as he stood by his son’s casket and made his way through the grim process of burying his youngest son.

After the Imam concluded the prayers, the crowd of more than 2,000 people became enlivened. The casket was again carried by hand out into Kayseri’s main street, as the flood of residents followed chanting slogans from, “God is Great,” to “Israel: Terrorist.” In the march to the cemetery, the anger and grief over the loss of an honor student who had plans to attend medical school in the fall was aimed straight at the actions of the Israeli government.

At the end of the march, city buses waited to take anyone who wished up to the burial site on the top of one of the mountains overlooking the city. At the burial, family members including Ahmet Dogan picked up a shovel to bury their fallen son while the rest crowded together in the dusty cemetery and prayed.

The news of Dogan’s death last week rocked the city of Kayseri where I live. Although Kayseri is a city known to have a religiously conservative bent, I would hesitate to say it is a hub for any sort of extremism or fundamentalism. Many women not only abstain from veiling themselves, but also wear stylish, designer threads. The students I teach are hungry to learn and find a successful career in Turkey as engineers, doctors, or in business. For most residents, the situation is far from desperate. Many have large families whose members live close together, sometimes even in the same apartment buildings, while taking jobs at local factories, hospitals, or schools.

Ahmet Dogan and his family were just one of those families. He is an associate professor in Erciyes University’s economics department, where I also teach English. Although I don’t know him personally, he seemed to me like any faculty at my university, someone working hard in their career in order to provide a better education for their children.

Middle East

Is this Turkey or Greenwich Village?

(This article was first published on October 12, 2009 for the Study Abroad section at Global Post.  View the original article here.)

At 11 p.m. Saturday night, the bar is full of 20-somethings drinking, talking, flirting. One young couple steals a kiss at their table of 20 while an Amy Winehouse song booms through the air. Bartenders rush to keep up with the crowded house, sliding glasses topped with foam to their takers.

The decor is posh. From the stylish designer threads of the patrons to the sleek LCD TVs broadcasting videos of Aerosmith and Madonna, we could be in Greenwich Village. But this is Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.

When I told friends and family I would Study Abroad in Turkey, I heard the words “too dangerous” and was warned of Al Qaeda. I was often asked about running water or Internet access. Very few understood Turkey’s rank among the 20 largest economies in the world.

Turkey is a complex country — one that can’t be boxed into any particular image.

In downtown Ankara, women and men dress in tight-fitting Polo and Lacoste shirts, or trendy button-downs with their curve-hugging jeans, as they pass Levis, Starbucks or chic hair styling salons.

Mammoth malls are filled with American and European brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Nine West and Sephora. In Ankara, a dry and mountainous city devoid of much natural beauty, these malls are major recreation centers. Some offer movie theaters, bowling, arcades and outdoor amusement parks. One mall offers ice-skating in the winter.

“People like to hang out in these malls, even though they may never buy anything,” said Ankara resident Caglar Yurtseven, watching dozens of Turks relax in big leather arm chairs at the mall.

Many of these behemoth shopping centers, spurred by major economic growth and the rise of a new Turkish middle class, rose up over the past 10 years since the completion of Ankara’s first Mall in 1999. Since then, 16 other malls have risen, turning city outskirts into prime real estate where projects as tall as 20 stories have been built or are under construction.

The city doesn’t slow down at night. On weekends, bars and cafes spill out on the sidewalk. Walking down the trendy Tunali Caddesi, or Tunali Avenue, Turks and foreign visitors relax in late night cafes and pastry shops, sports bars, disco bars, oldies bars and dance clubs for the young and old. The city has one gay bar, too, near Tunali.

You can’t stereotype Turkey as an Islamic country akin to neighbors Syria, Iraq or Iran. But it’s not identical to its European counterparts, either. As many cosmopolitan residents there are, others adopt a more traditional and religious approach. In Ankara, one-third of women wear hijab, or headscarves. Sometimes it’s religious, sometimes political, often traditional, and sometimes a little of all. Many Westerners don’t know that wearing a headscarf is banned by Turkish law in Turkish universities. Some Turkish women come to the United States to study in the freedom of wearing their headscarf to class.

Many Turks say they fear the growing presence of religion will undermine secular Turkey, while others describe it as a benign migration of a new middle class into the cities from more conservative villages.

Back in the bar appropriately named Random, Turkey’s political and cultural conflicts seem worlds away amid the laughter of the diverse students drinking together. Here, Turkey’s youth relish the cool breeze gently blowing through the beer garden covered in green ivy. In a country where the average age is 25, the youngest in Europe, Turkey seems poised for more growth.