Istanbul, at last.

There’s something hauntingly familiar about this city. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading about it for quite sometime now, but the broad avenues of the old city, the impressively decrepit walls, and the al fresco dining remind me of Paris and Rome. But then the headscarves, the incomprehensible language and the minarets create a capture me in a whirling vortex whispering that this is not my city. And it isn’t. At least, not yet.

I spent those endless hours on the planes and in layovers in Washington D.C. and Zurich to learn as much as I can about this place that feels so foreign and familiar at the same time. Long ago, when I studied as an undergrad, I learned about Ataturk and his grand revolutionary schemes in the 20’s and 30’s that jerked this country from the sleepy Ottoman regime to radically Western ways. Women were given the vote here before French women could cast their ballots. The chaos that his shift from Arabic script to a Latin alphabet must have caused quite literally boggles the mind. As my host Omer was explaining, the change caused a complete overhaul in the academy: learned professors were rendered illiterate overnight and replaced by fresh new politically minded youth. It’s a powerful lesson to remain intellectually nimble, ready for whatever change some nutty legislator might throw at us. The way that Ataturk is revered here, however, is nothing less than imperial cult: politics are inseparable from religion, even when the politician swears off his country’s overwhelming religious preference for Islam.

Still, this land defies all that I have learned about politics, religion and power. It makes sense that the sweeping reforms that the country experienced under Ataturk could only happen in such a short time under a dictator. What is so surprising, however, is that the reforms seem not to have been immediately reversed the moment he died in 1938. The Turks seem to have wanted these changes. And yet, his ban on headscarves and the fez for men is still problematic. The Prime Minister Erdogan came to power first by spouting what sounded like Panislamic ideals but after a spate in prison ended up promoting democracy, closer ties with the European Union, civil rights for minorities and most surprisingly in the mix, promoting traditional Muslim values. An odd mixture, indeed. My idea of this place was that a only few women, some here and there, would wear headscarves: they’d been banned in the 20’s after all, but eight out of ten women I see are wearing them. There are Armani billboards advertising a woman with a headscarf: it’s a fashion, yes, but there’s more to it. It’s a statement, I’m sure. Only a few years ago a group of college students admitted to the University of Istanbul to study medicine were escorted off campus because they showed up wearing headscarves and refused to remove them. They’d rather wear the headscarf than fulfill their dreams of becoming doctors. They could have this ambition because of the radical, sweeping social legislation of Ataturk. Those women are making a statement, all right. I’m just not sure what they’re saying. Maybe I should have learned the language before I’d arrived….