From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
Claire Berlinski ·
Jul 24, 2010 at 4:03am
Here's a little preview of the footage we shot the other day in Istanbul, with more to come soon. Before I add my commentary, I'm curious to know what strikes you first and whether it's the same thing that we noticed.
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Jun '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
Head scarves.
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
Wow, that's interesting ... my eye is so used to those that they didn't even strike me at all. Interesting.
Jun '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
I'm beginning to think that Her Majesty is a sorceress in addition to everything else. She has psionic control over my cat, you see, who insists I get up as soon as she hits post. I'm usually here at her command within two to five minutes.
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
Oh, it's not me -- it's my cats. They're communicating through the morphogenetic field, you see.
May '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
@ about 1:24 in the first clip I noticed a very pretty lady without a headscarf dash behind the gentleman who was speaking.
Clair is tearing her hair out now that those of us out in teeming-millions-land aren't quite noticing what she thought we would notice.
Getting serious I noticed the older people answered the question, and talked to the camera operator. And seemed to have views they'd spent some time thinking through (vs. just slogans). The younger guy lectured the older guys to get with the party line, and seemed pretty intimidating in the process.
May '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
The vehemence of the man in the second interview concerning "the Jews" and their control of "75%" of the money in America. Since they control so much they don't listen. Also, the man who so strongly felt that if the superpowers told them to stop they would stop. Huh?
Also, the man in in the first interview who said Hamas kills its own people. What an interesting sentiment to fond on the street in (I assume) Istanbul.
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
It's not a trick question, by the way -- you're noticing exactly what we noticed. There's more to come (and more interesting stuff to come), but what always strikes me here is that you just never know what's going to come out of people's mouths when you ask them these kinds of questions. "What you'd expect" rarely happens. The variety of opinions is very wide, and people aren't afraid to express them, nor to criticize the government, generally. But you're right, Final Solution guy did change the tone of that encounter, quickly radicalizing the others. We thought that was interesting.
Above all, what we noticed was that people were poorly-informed. They just didn't know the facts of what had happened. And as you'll see in footage to come, they were curious when I told them, for example, that the Israelis had offered to let the ship disembark at Ashdod. That information changed things for them.
The other thing you're right to notice is how willing people are to believe in conspiracy theories. This is the central pathology of Turkish political thought, and it colors every aspect of life here.
Jun '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
Claire, I wonder what your Turkish friends would think of the clip "Humanitarian Crisis at the Gaza Mall" currently posted at NRO? The contrast between brightly polished steel and glass and the uniform gray of the Istanbul market could not be more striking.
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
We actually asked them that. Or at least, I asked whether they thought the humanitarian crisis was worse in Gaza or in Turkey. Stay tuned, we'll get that footage up soon.
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
One thing, though -- an Istanbul market, gray? I think perhaps our footage is misleading if that's the way it looks, one thing you can say for sure about an Istanbul market is that it's colorful. It may have just been the light, which was awful that day.
Jun '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
Perspective depends on the viewer. I'm not looking at the things in the market. I tend to look first at infrastructure. All Mediterranean markets in my experience are the uniform gray of unfinished concrete. In fact, it's a common characteristic of most third world markets. The only modification being cities with an arid climate where the uniform color is sand.
Jul '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
"...disproportionate power.." No s@#$. It's called superior firepower, or culture. Don't f with Us and you won't die. Simple.
Jul '10
Re: From the Orient Express: What do the Turkish People Think?
I noticed old men who seemed reasonable and a young hot-head. I think that dynamic is hardly unique to Turkey. Still... with the demographic decline of the Kemalists and the ascendance of the (perhaps not Islamist) socio-political Muslims, I'm disconcerted. I expect a near future in which the influence of the latter is amplified.