 |
| That's Istanbul |
Turkey features a lot these days in the international news media, for
reasons good and bad. For better or worse, Istanbul is once again taking its
place as a world city and a hot tourist destination. Two recent mega movies
locate at least some of their action in this 'city
of the world's desire.' The 50th anniversary offering from the Ian Fleming
franchise ‘Skyfall’ has
motorcycle-mounted Bond James Bond/Daniel Craig pursuing his foe over the
rooftops of the five hundred year-old Grand Bazaar. ‘Taken 2’, an action pic involving ex-CIA man Liam Neeson saving
his family from a gang of evil Albanians (they get a bad press too, don't they!), spends more time in the city, but
tends to focus, naturally enough, on the more oriental atmospheric parts of
town.
While celebrity wisdom holds that any publicity is good publicity, there
has been some criticism locally that the films pander to Western stereotypes of
a culturally backward nation remarkable for little but its historical
quaintness. The producers make no apology. Their purpose was not to advertise
Turkey as a tourist destination, they said - and true enough. If you want to
impart your own spin it'll cost you. Free publicity comes with another price.
So I was heartened to see a report in our local newspaper quoting
Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism on the subject. The films may not
have shown the whole Turkey, but what they did show is indisputably there. A
democratic country doesn't control what visitors see. If we don't want visitors
to see the decay and the backwardness, the solution, said Mr Günay, is in our
own hands. Good for you, I thought. It seems to me also that the Minister's
government is prepared to put its money where its mouth is. Witness its work on
restoring historical sites, developing public transport infrastructure and
pushing ahead with urban renewal.
Undoubtedly much remains to be done, and clearly the Minister is as
aware of that as I am. Residents of Western European cities often have a
stereotypical picture of Turks based on the ones they see around them -
down-trodden women and bearded men isolating themselves in cultural enclaves,
stubbornly adhering to their own language and traditions. Europeanised Turks in
their own cities sometimes have a similar view, resentful of the flood of
immigrants from the small towns and villages of Anatolia who have altered the
cultural landscape of Istanbul and other coastal cities in the last forty
years.
Well, we have had a feast of republican fervour in recent weeks, as
Turks, quite rightly, celebrated the foundation of their secular democratic
state, and commemorated the passing of its founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This
Saturday, schools around the country will pay tribute to the work of their
educators, for whom the great man set aside that date, 24 November, as
Teachers' Day. In every public square and building in every corner of Turkey,
you will see statues, busts, paintings and photographs of the nation's first
president. Yet he himself was adamant that to remember his physical appearance
was not enough[1]. Building a
great country required an understanding of his philosophy - and foremost in
this was his assertion that the future of the republic lay in education[2].
The new generations that would follow in his footsteps would be moulded by the
nation's teachers - hence Teachers' Day.
Unfortunately, it is easier to pay homage to portraits and statues than
to find money for schools and hospitals, teachers and doctors and nurses. It is
easier to criticise and belittle the backward and uneducated than to take
responsibility for educating them and raising their living standards. The
dominant contemporary economic wisdom insists that the market is the best
organizer; and private enterprise the best provider. It doesn't require a
Harvard MBA, however, to understand that bottom-line accounting will inevitably
focus on short-term profits at the expense of less tangible long-term goals -
the very antithesis of what is required in the education and health sectors.
Sadly, vested business interests pull influential strings. 'Tax cuts for the wealthy' is another
axiom of free market proponents - but until every individual or corporate
entity in the country bears an equal burden of taxation, Atatürk's dream of
raising the entire nation to a state of modernity will remain just a dream.
'Our new nation has no place for rigid social classes,' he said. 'The high
class individual is the one who serves his or her nation.'[3]
What follows from that is the understanding that merit, measured by service to
the nation, will be rewarded. From my observation of private enterprise at work
in the field of education, that is rarely the case. I am hopeful that
lip-service to the memory of Atatürk is gradually being replaced by a genuine
desire to work towards realizing his dream of greater equality for all in a
civilized modern democratic republic, and I applaud the Minister of Culture and Tourism for
his timely reminder.
No comments:
Post a Comment