ISTANBUL LETTER:Resignations from the committee running the year's cultural events have rocked the capital's artistic community, writes PETROC TRELAWNY
BEHIND THE cluttered desk in Faruk Pekin’s office, a large picture window offers a spectacular view over the Bosphorus Bridge.
Its deck seems to float over the water; its soaring pillars, lit at night in a rainbow of colours, carry the weight of the near 200,000 cars and trucks that cross each day, making the journey between Europe and Asia.
In the late 1960s Pekin was one of the leaders of a revolutionary student movement that fought against the bridge's construction. Their manifesto declared that it would increase the problems caused by internal migration, force up petrol consumption and lead to the destruction of the last of Istanbul's few surviving wooden yalis, the old mansions dating from Ottoman times. Central to their argument was the belief that the bridge favoured rich Istanbul, rather than underdeveloped Anatolia. The students even took up tools themselves, building a miniature replica of the bridge linking the two banks of the Zap river at a poor village in rural southeastern Turkey.
The battle was lost; two bridges now span the Bosphorus, with two more planned. Pollution has become a major problem in the city, and inward migration from Anatolia has forced the Istanbul population up to about 12 million.
Forty years on, Pekin is now a highly respected writer on Turkish culture and a successful businessman, running a major travel agency. He looks comfortable and prosperous, but he has lost none of his radical zeal.
His sudden resignation from the committee running Istanbul’s year as European Capital of Culture 2010 caused shock waves throughout the city’s artistic community.
It was four years ago that the team from Istanbul went to Brussels to present their bid to become Capital of Culture.
They promised a new kind of cultural extravaganza. It would be run by the people; community groups and voluntary organisations would put on events; politicians were not be allowed to dominate.
The dream soon soured. In a vitriolic resignation letter, Pekin condemned the move away from early promises of “transparency, openness and honesty”.
The management agency is now, he says, “in a catastrophic state”, open to charges of embezzlement, and has planned few events of any lasting cultural significance.
Pekin is not a lone voice. The day before he quit, at the end of last year, Halim Bulutoðlu, a member of the Historical Foundation of Turkey, also resigned, accusing the agency of having become “bulky and functionless”.
The calendar for the Capital of Culture year looks pretty impressive.
A major exhibition will explore how Assyrian culture inspired artists in Europe; there are two new museums; classical concerts will take place in palaces, mosques and churches normally closed to the public; a Balkan music festival is to explore the common traditions of the countries that border Turkey; an international ballet competition will draw companies from across Europe; a new craft map is to highlight the work of the 500 artisans still working in Istanbul.
But will there be any lasting legacy from the city’s year in the international spotlight ?
For some, the actual events are less important than the overall message. Ahead of a concert of music by Rodrigo and Carlos Chavez, Tufan Türenc, a senior editor on the major Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet, told me that what was most important was the opportunity to prove Turkey's credentials for membership of the European Union.
“It’s a chance for us to show the world that we may be Muslims, but we are a western country, not a Middle Eastern nation. We may worship in a different faith,” he argued, “but we are really just the same as Britain, Germany or France.”
Back in his office, Pekin gets his laptop out to show me a photograph taken on the day Istanbul was announced as one of the 2010 capitals of culture, along with Pécs in Hungary and Essen in Germany.
Artists, community activists and politicians are all pictured together, two rows of smiling faces.
Pekin shakes his head. “All that hope and ambition, thrown away. We lost a genuine chance to make something truly unique. This opportunity has gone now.”