Thoughts, reflections, and observations on the end of one semester, the beginning of another, and a move across a continent:
I have just completed a journey across Europe from the McGhee Center in Alanya, Turkey to the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG). That's two time zones, an entire continent, and more miles than I can count. In so doing, I've exchanged my Mediterranean view for one of the Atlantic, sandy beaches for rocky cliffsides, minarets for steeples, and five calls to prayer each and every day for going to church on Sunday when I feel like it.
Despite all the apparent differences, life is still a lot more similar than I expected it to be. The scenery creates natural beauty from the same basic ingredients: ocean/sea, the shore, ships moored in marinas, and local flora. The political and social situations in Ireland and Turkey have many echoes of one another. Both have issues of national integrity (Turkey's Kurdish southeast vs. the six counties of Northern Ireland); both have long and complex relationships with their respective majority religions (Sunni Islam vs. Catholic Christianity); and both have their issues with Europe (Turkey's half-century quest for EU membership vs. Ireland's ignominious economic situation that, along with Portugal, Greece, and Spain, threatens the integrity of the monetary union).
Three weeks' travel across Europe at Christmastime, particularly in an unseasonable snowstorm, was absolutely magical. I visited Istanbul, Vienna, Prague, Brussels, Antwerp, Gent, Bruges, Cologne, Dublin, Cork, Blarney, and finally Galway in that time. Family friends in Antwerp hosted me for Christmas, and I rang in the New Year in my new home with a pint of Guinness in Dublin's Temple Bar district.
I've been a lot of places and seen a lot of stuff between Damascus and Galway, but Belgium takes the cake so far for best society, best-preserved Gothic/Dutch Renaissance ambiance, and best quality and selection of food and drink. The people couldn't be friendlier, most speak better English (and Flemish and French) than I do, and the fusion of Dutch and French cuisine plus Trappist beer is hard to beat.
The experience of meeting up with large groups of newly arrived Americans here in Galway can only be described as surreal. There are a few full-year American students here at NUIG, but of the people I know, I am the only one to have both been abroad without interruption since August and to have arrived in Galway from the east instead of the west. After not meeting any more Americans outside of our program than I could count on one hand for four-plus months, suddenly being surrounded not only by lots of Americans but by people who have just been in the United States has created actual intercultural experiences. Apparently, I have completely missed the evolution of "jeggings" in America and had to have that concept explained; my friends also got a good laugh out of watching me stop dead in my tracks at the sight of Kellogg's cereals in the food store when we all went shopping for the first time. After a five month hiatus, turning the corner and being confronted with Tony the Tiger, the Cornflakes rooster, and Snap, Crackle & Pop was so unexpected I laughed out loud.
With a broad sample size in mind, I think I can say with some confidence that neither the Turks nor the Irish are really "European" in the modern sense. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad Ireland is in the European Union and I think Turkey should be as well, but after seeing Italy, Belgium, and Germany in particular (and I have not even been to France yet), it seems pretty clear to me that the Turks and the Irish are not just geographically on the edges of Europe, but there are real cultural differences between them and central/western continental Europeans as well. Both countries are clearly the working-class neighborhoods of Europe, and indeed both have long been exporters of labor to the continent. The modes of dress are also more similar between Turkey and Ireland than between either and the mainland, with the jeans not as tight, the shoes not as pointy, and the general style of clothing tending more towards the workaday than the latest Milan runway items.
One of the major points of study at the McGhee Center was whether or not we thought the European Union should let Turkey in. Turkey was among the earlier prospective members (its application has been open since 1959), yet it is continually rebuffed. It is something of a truism to accuse Europe of being a white, Christian club that will of course not find room for a Muslim country; having now traveled through the European Union after all that time in Turkey, I would love to see Turkey become a member of the union and let the wild rumpus of cultural diffusion start. I think both sides could profit immensely from increased integration with the other, as the Turks could do great things for Europe economically and the Europeans could contribute a lot to Turkish culture and society. The gesture itself of welcoming Turkey into the European Union would also go a long way in dispelling accusations of the European Union as an inwardly-focused, civilly xenophobic Greater France. Turkey could get the Europeans off their too-high horse, and Europe could help show Turkey the way to better democratic and religio-social norms. Sadly, the window may be closing on both sides as the Europeans continue to embrace former Soviet satellites with far worse socioeconomic-democratic issues than Turkey, and the Turks increasingly want to just move on without the European Union, already.
If I had to bet on the long-term vibrancy of one, I'd pick Turkey. It is a much more "happening" place, and it has the feel of a young racehorse chomping at the bit. Europe is more the retired stallion happy to be put out to pasture. Europe might be eminently civilized, but it doesn't have the same feeling of youthful energy and transformation that Turkey does. It must be said that Turkey is dogged by the twin specters of non-democratic government and religious fundamentalism; if either of these ever-present undercurrents triumphs, Turkey is lost. Ironically, I think that relaxing its rigid secularism laws might be the best thing Turkey could do right now to disarm the fundamentalists, by decoupling the ability of citizens to freely express their identity as Muslims from the legitimacy of the government. Strict secularism might have been important in the beginning to allow the Turkish state to differentiate itself both from its Ottoman past and its Islamist neighbors; ninety years later, it is time for Turkey to cultivate and embrace respect for and respectful freedom of expression. Thanks in large part to secularism and Westernization, Turkey does not have the hopelessly dead-end feel of neighboring Syria, a society that is clearly spinning its wheels. That said, the government must realize that, nearly a century after the nation was proclaimed by Atatürk, allowing the headscarf back into public life is unlikely to put the country into a hard right turn towards the reactionary Islamism of the Middle East.
