TURKEY:Istanbul invites comparison with other cities, writes Lara Marloweas she sums up her impressions of Turkey and its future possibilities after a month-long visit
The central district of Beyoglu, with its steep inclines and street cars, is reminiscent of San Francisco; the clogged motorways and skyscrapers downtown more like Los Angeles. Chestnut vendors on Istiklal Street remind me of Paris. Much of the architecture could be in Belgrade, not surprising considering the Ottomans' long stay in the Balkans.
In the side streets, headscarfed women, mosques and small grocery shops resemble the Sunni Muslim quarters of Beirut.
Cihangir, the neighbourhood where I rented an apartment, is like Montmartre or Greenwich Village; its artists and writers sit in cafes talking and smoking, as intellectuals do the world over.
It took the ship horns on the Bosphorus, and the cry of seagulls, to remind me where I was.
The centre of the universe is everywhere, the French philosopher Pascal wrote. But in Istanbul it is particularly difficult to get one's bearings. I couldn't find a BBC frequency on my shortwave radio, so I searched the European, Balkan, Asian and Middle East lists on the internet, but I never found Istanbul.
Foreign ministries have the same dilemma; some place Turkey in their Near East or Asian departments; others classify it with Europe.
Turks are prone to similar, more metaphorical uncertainty. When the neo-Islamist (another debatable term) Justice and Development (AK) Party came to power five years ago, a public debate raged over whether Ataturk's secular republic was going to become Iran.
This autumn, the debate is about whether it will become Malaysia, and Turkish commentators disagree whether Malaysia is a vibrant Muslim democracy or a joyless place where women are forced to wear headscarves. "Why Iran? Why Malaysia?" asks the renowned sociologist Nilufer Gole. "Why not Spain? Why not Holland?"
More than anything else, Turks hate being mistaken for the Arabs they ruled for centuries, and whom they still regard as inferiors. I heard Turks compare themselves to Jacobin French secularists, and to Israel, which, like Turkey, can't seem to get along with its neighbours.
Turkey is a land of paradoxes, a country of immense energy, entrepreneurial spirit and social mobility under the shadow of past military coups and injustice to Armenians and Kurds.
Turks are notoriously hospitable, but I made friends I could not introduce to each other, because they would violently disagree on politics, secularism and Islam.
Turkey is a place where the best is possible, but also the worst, where extremists emerge from a law-abiding populace to assassinate those perceived as traitors to Islam or the nation.
"Nothing is black and white," a Turkish colleague warned when I arrived. "There are so many shades of grey that you go beserk."
Secular intellectuals who support the AK party say it has left its Islamist origins behind and is the rightful heir to the centre-right parties that often governed Turkey. Yet no matter how many times officials declare total separation between their private beliefs as Muslims and the secularism they profess in politics, the fear that they have a "hidden agenda" to Islamicise the country lingers.
This fear is fuelled by the Islamic headscarves their wives wear, and the government's move to allow women to cover their heads in universities. When bus passengers recently asked a driver to stop at prayer time, it provoked a media debate on whether practising Muslims infringe on other people's rights.
The nature of the Fethullah Gulen movement, and its influence over the ruling AK party, is central to the "hidden agenda" question. Gulen, an imam who built up a following in Turkey in the 1970s and 80s, moved to the US after the military's "soft coup" in 1997.
He has since been acquitted of urging followers to "work patiently to take control of the state". Gulen has established a worldwide network of Turkish Muslim high schools, and purchased newspapers and television stations in Turkey.
If he ever returns, secular Turks predict he'll be greeted by millions in rapture, as Ayatollah Khomeini was in Iran. But Gulen preaches tolerance, openness and obedience to the state, and his followers compare him to the US evangelist Billy Graham.
Nationalism poses a greater threat to Turkey than Islam, say AK party supporters. Twin crises over a US Congressional resolution that would have recognised the first World War slaughter of Armenians as genocide, and attacks by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that killed 40 Turks in one month, have inflamed nationalism that is never far beneath the surface.
In recent weeks, flag-makers have doubled production to meet demand. On October 23rd, a retired schoolteacher named Abdurrahman Develioglu stopped traffic with a double-barrelled shotgun on the motorway in the Mediterranean province of Osmaniye. While his wife stood by waving a Turkish flag, Develioglu demanded that motorists curse the PKK.
When police finally led them away, bystanders applauded Develioglu.
Every day, Turkish schoolchildren recite the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: "I am Turkish. I am honest. I work hard . . . May my life be a gift for Turkey. Happy is the man who can say he's a Turk." When the generals threatened to prevent president Abdullah Gul's election last April, they concluded that anyone who does not say he is "happy to be a Turk" is a traitor.
The AK party would like to soften Turkish nationalism, but knows it risks being accused of treason. "The Koran says there is only one nation; the nation of humankind," says an adviser to prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "Nationalism is a sin."
Yet Erdogan dithers on promises to repeal article 301, which criminalises "insults against Turkishness". Nationalism is also fanned by the premonition that Turkey will never be accepted into Europe's "Christians Only" club. The profusion of red and white flags has coincided with vocal opposition from within the EU since negotiations on Turkish accession started in 2005.
"Our education system teaches us we have enemies everywhere, that we fought all the western powers in the war of independence," says Fehmi Koru, a well-known commentator.
He quotes the Turkish national anthem: "The lands of the West may be armoured with walls of steel . . . how can this fiery faith ever be killed/by that battered, single-fanged monster you call 'civilisation'?"
"The unstated, underlying premise of the EU debate is that Turkey is a different civilisation," says Nilufer Gole, the sociologist. She regrets that Europe has abandoned its ambitious project to fall back on its more narrowly defined identity. "I think it's over," Gole says. "The EU has already refused Turkey to my mind. Our application was a test of European universalism, and they failed the test."
Turks say the EU accession process helps them strive to meet the Copenhagen criteria for democratisation and human rights. At the same time, there is resentment that countries with so many faults cast the first stones. A Turkish graduate of the University of Southern California upbraided me for writing about police brutality in Turkey, claiming the LAPD is just as brutal. An official brushed off criticism of Turkey's failure to implement the legal reforms it passes in parliament, saying: "It took a century after the war of secession for the US to grant equal rights to blacks."
Many Turks argue that Ireland's prohibition of abortion is a violation of women's rights. And though the low employment rate of Turkish women (28 per cent) is less than half the EU average, it's worth remembering that married Irish women were banned from working in the public service until 1973, while Spanish women could not work, buy property or travel long distances without their husband's permission until 1975.
So is Turkey European? To me, it feels every bit as European as several of the new member states. The best answer I found was that of Ali Ihsan Yalcin, the owner of an English school in Anatolia. "We are a bridge between Europe and the East," he said. "You cannot say that a bridge belongs to either shore."
Editorial comment: page 15