Turkey: Cultural

Not the best pictures, it was dark.  It's a bar!

Obviously, in any society, there is a range of cultural forms that together comprise what might be called a country's culture, or cultural heritage. I am reminded of a French joke I once heard about America: “You know why they have yogurt in America, don't you?” “No, why?” “Without yogurt, there would be no culture!”

Okay, so we are not big on opera. But still, we do have culture. Rap music is a cultural form, and it is ours. The point is that not all culture is high culture and that low culture is also an important form of expression. A long justification of my choice for Turkey. We thought about the ‘Whirling Dervishes’ as  representative of Turkish culture, but as impressive as they are, they are like the Amish in America. They exist, they are interesting, but they are not America. The Dervish are not Turkey.

The beer street

What is? I was impressed by what I experienced one evening as we went looking for a beer. Now you know Turkey is a Muslim culture and you probably think you know that Muslims don't drink. So finding a beer might be a challenge, right? Wrong. Turks do not observe what might be described as a more fundamentalist restriction on alcohol. It seems they never have. Turkey is a Muslim country with a national drink – Raki - and a country that makes some pretty good beers. Finding one was not a problem. In fact, in Ankara there was a whole street with nothing but bars. We had our pick and we picked the student bar.


Inside, the place was jammed with students, men and women, drinking and smoking (despite a nominal prohibition – it seems the rule is just don't get caught) and listening to a folksinger performing on stage. It was a scene that could have been found in any student hangout in Berlin or Berkeley. What struck me the most was the equality of men and women. Not everywhere in Turkey did I feel that men and women were equals and their roles could easily be reversed. But here among the educated younger generation that seemed to be the case. The conversations, the interactions, the behaviors did not seem to be gender influenced. The place was very modern.  To me it was a very encouraging sign, if you prefer a Turkey that is secular and democratic.