Berkley Center

Growing up in Cambridge, England, my mother thought it was important to teach me Pashto so that I would be able to travel back to her homeland, Swat, Pakistan, without difficulty. I only heard the language spoken by my parents and on short visits to Swat where the locals are proud of their traditions, tribal customs, and clad in shalwar kamis, the modest Pakistani dress. As a child, I looked upon these people with reverie, and the language that I shared with them was my only connection to their mystical lifestyles.

As a student of Kings College School in Cambridge I was required to take French lessons, the once royal language of Great Britain. Traveling to Paris in high school and then university, I fell in love with the city. I admired the Parisian lifestyle centered on family and food, I loved their fashion-forward vogue, and I understood their fierce passion for their locally produced wine and cheese. For the French, their beautiful language represents their rich culture; and as a student of both, I was happy the locals always saw me as more than just a tourist.

I never knew that these life experiences would coincide, but then again, I never knew that I would be studying abroad in Istanbul, Turkey. At the local university here, I was apprehensive about taking the compulsory Turkish class, since I had heard its structure was completely different from that of the Romance languages. I never knew that my background in French and Pashto would help me. Two months into the course and able to carry a very basic conversation, I have noticed that Turkish has many words in common with both Pashto and French. This blend of very different language groups is representative of Turkish society.

In the intricate milieu that is this epic city, I have encountered two poles in matters of religion, fashion, political alignment, and socioeconomic status. In attempting to describe these two extremes, I can only make caricatures of these otherwise complex societal groups.

My university is dominated by one extreme. My peers are the secular, Westernized, middle-to-upper class, wildly patriotic Turks. They drink Rakı (Turkish brandy) every weekend, carry huge Louis Vuitton bags, and would protest the present religious regime, were they not politically apathetic. Their lifestyles can be, to a degree, represented by the French imports of the now Turkish words laik (secular) and feminizm (feminism).

On the other end of the spectrum are the Turks who live in the campus town but could never afford to attend the university. Sarıyer is a village within Istanbul removed from the urban lifestyle, so it is not uncommon to see a herd of sheep graze by as I look out my dorm room window. The locals of Sarıyer are incredibly friendly, even though their English is broken at best. They are religious, the women are mostly in hijab, and they support President Erdoğan. Their dress, beliefs, and habits are more representative of what I would expect a person using Turkish words shared with Pashto to be.

While language is merely one example from a personal perspective, any facet of Turkish society can be studied and the polarity and intricacies of the topic will be bountiful. Istanbul itself holds perplexing mixes such as the Hagia Sofia, a Roman remnant, opposite the beautiful Ottoman-built Blue Mosque. It holds Sufi mystique calligraphy stores on the same street as the most lavish nightclubs. Just as it is bizarre to hear girls in mini skirts speaking a language so similar to my sacred Pashto, so is it bizarre to hear women in "harem pants" use words also spoken by the secular, wine-drinking French. To that effect, I have seen women in hijabs smoking cigarettes; and vice versa: a friend of mine, who would vehemently oppose the hijabed girl, once told me that she was a better Muslim than President Erdoğan as she stumbled in the room drunk off of a little too much Rakı. Depending on your perspective we can analyze a coinciding or clashing of identities in Istanbul. In my eyes, the city represents both a blend and a rupture between East and West, Islam and secularism, and modernity and tradition.