The Conspiracy Theory Pt.1

Drama is interesting, underdog stories are exciting, and both are staples of the Turkish imagination. But combine the two into a tenuous conspiracy pitting an evil authority against an innocent population and you’ll win over Turkish minds.

For those who have never heard of John F. Kennedy or the Jews, conspiracy theories argue that evil clandestine networks manipulate the lives of everyday people, and it is only the theorist who can uncover them, or at least rant angrily about them on the internet.

So secretive are these networks and so intricate their plots, one cannot actually prove they don’t exist; and Turks just can’t resist the certainty of being right with the inability to be proven wrong.

Seeking ulterior motives behind minor details is a pastime in the mid-east; the region was once run by the Byzantine Empire, a word that has become synonymous with elaborate scheming and intrigue.

While Turks enjoy some of the world’s more popular conspiracy theories, like Freemasons or how America controls everything, there are quite a few evil networks indigenous to Turkey.

In this installment, let us introduce some of the most popular religious conspiracies:

• Sabbataists: Sabbatai Zevi amassed many followers as the Jewish Messiah in the 17th century Ottoman Empire until he converted to Islam under the Sultan’s ‘produce a miracle, die, or accept Islam’ policy towards prophets. Some contend his followers didn’t really convert but instead continued their lifestyles underground. Now these “ex-Jews” control everything in Turkey and yet we still keep disappointing our mothers.
• Missionaries: “Covering Turkey like a spider’s web,” Christian missionaries trick and bribe Muslims to take over (link Turkish) Anatolia for Christendom, most likely because Christians are running out of space in their own countries what with all the Muslim immigration.
• Fettulahists: Turkish Muslim leader Fettullah Gülen runs a vast international network of followers who have infiltrated every institution in Turkey. These followers are all sleeper agents waiting to topple the secular republic and establish Islamic rule the second Fettullah issues the order, probably from an island shaped like a skull. His occasional sermon preaching “you must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers…” doesn’t calm suspicions, especially since he delivers them while laughing diabolically and stroking a cat.

With so many secret plots to destroy Turkey, our only option is to call James Bond, if only the British weren’t trying to secretly take over Turkey as well.

The Double Think

Turks have developed many skills to get through day-to-day life: from dodging cars to swerving to avoid pedestrians, none have been as useful as doublethink, a phrase coined by George Orwell in the novel 1984:

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

Doublethink is the preferred means of ensuring you win every argument; while it is easy to learn, it is very difficult to master. Below is a guide to what is and what isn’t doublethink:

• You are the leader of a country that has denied allegations of genocide for decades. You have personally presided over the country’s dismissal of Canadian, French and American charges of genocide.

Then you hear of a Chinese crackdown on a minority that shares common ancestry with your citizens.

Regularthink: Avoid bringing up the complicated relationship between a state and its minorities, but cater to both Chinese economic interests and domestic nationalism by purchasing Moo Shu pork and smashing it with a locally-made hammer.

Doublethink: Declare the affair tantamount to “genocide;” a phrase that has ironically become as common a political pander in your country as sex is in the West (see right).

• You have campaigned for greater international involvement in ending the conflict in Gaza, a cause you feel so passionately about you have accused the Israeli president of “knowing how to kill well.”

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant over genocide for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Regularthink: Avoid putting your recent investments in Sudan at risk by denying you have ever heard of the country and if anyone brings it up, change the topic to how well the Israeli president kills.

Doublethink: Disregard international consensus and invite Bashir, giving him the red carpet treatment.

• Inter-ethnic violence in Cyprus resulted in your country invading in 1974 to assist Cypriots of your own ethnicity in establishing their own state on the grounds all people have a right to govern themselves to escape oppression.

Meanwhile, your country has engaged in armed conflict for the past thirty years with Kurdish separatists demanding their own state.

Regularthink: It pretty much “sucks to be Kurdish.”

Doublethink: Disregard Kurdish concerns on the grounds that sovereign nations cannot be broken up and divided.

Turkish foreign policy might seem opportunistic to those who think, but it sure makes sense to those of us who are able to think double.

The Gay Right

Turkish machismo has been well-documented from Pope-shootings to football stabbings, dangerous seductions and even internet memes; masculinity is one of the defining characteristics of Turkey, a little behind camels but before Camel cigarettes (though neither are Turkish).

Here, ‘manliness’ is next to ‘godliness’ (more so than cleanliness) and renouncing masculinity is a shameful act dared only by the lowest rungs of the social ladder: women, your rival football team’s fans, and homosexuals.

The gay community* has it particularly rough, with 76 percent public disapproval, homosexuals discouraged from working in fields outside of fashion or entertainment, gay rights groups threatened, and the easiest way out of compulsory military service being a boyfriend.

The best efforts of the gay community (including annual awards [link Turkish] given to the most homophobic people, institutions, television programs and Popes) have not been enough to shift Turkish sympathies, eliciting much criticism from the West.

But Turkey is not as gay-intolerant as many outside observers claim, and can actually be a very inadvertently gay-friendly destination:

• Turkey boasts a long tradition of ambiguously gay pop-singers, disastrously-aged divas and even famous transsexuals who get into public spats with the army.
• Speaking of music, most modern Turkish pop consists of the same repetitive electronic dance music popular in gay clubs and Europe.
• Most Turkish men prefer socializing with men over women; they spend all day sitting in smoky all-male cafes, drink raki with large groups of men, walk down the street arm-in-arm with their buddies, beat up anyone who questions their masculinity with other men, etc.
• 
  Turkey has lots and lots of ancient Greek ruins; everyone knows what went on in them back in the day.
• As a peninsula Turkey has many beaches, some of which still tolerate Speedos.
• It’s not really gay if you are on top, and definitely not if you didn’t know she had a penis.
• This has been our national sport for nearly seven centuries:

This past weekend was the 648^th annual Kırkpınar oil wrestling finals. Men cover themselves in olive oil, push and reach in each others’ pants to subdue their opponent. For some reason, only foreigners seem to notice the homo-eroticism.

Really, Turks have no problem how “gay” the culture is, just as long as nobody calls it “gay.”

* “Gay community” here refers to homosexual males; lesbians don’t count as they are shamed enough being born women.

The Politically Incorrect

Turkey is the land where political correctness comes to die; where stereotypes roam the streets committing stereotypical acts that make non-stereotypes blush.

Bear in mind, political incorrectness is different than hate speech: instead of inciting violence against a particular group, it serves to remind everyone why that group can’t seem to do anything right.

For a population whose desire to be accepted by Europe is hindered by Europeans’ own prejudices, Turkish insensitivity might seem ironic. It is not that Turkish insensitivity is universal: a pop star was once taken to court for popping a balloon bearing a Turkish flag by an overly concerned citizen (link Turkish).

But the tolerance and respect afforded balloons is often lost on many non-Turks, at least according to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance’s Third Report on Turkey:

“...intolerant remarks are sometimes made in public, including by political leaders and prominent public figures. The targets of these remarks vary according to the circumstances but recently, Armenians, Jews, Greeks and Kurds have attracted intolerant comments…”

Jewish cowardice, Christian horniness, Kurdish backwardness or Arabic stupidity come up often in day-to-day phrases, but one doesn't create international controversy by limiting oneself to making just your own minorities feel uncomfortable.

No, Turkey has had to branch out, from films about Chinese investors who stir up small towns to black footballers (or people of African decent in general) who supposedly practice cannibalism, or even this video of an announcer taking the Turkish phrase “isteyenin bir yüzü, vermeyenin iki yüzü kara” (Asking darkens ones face once, not giving darkens it twice) a bit too far:

The reporter here is calling for mutual respect from Obama. In his defense, Turkey never had the complicated white-black relations of the West, so blackface is not seen as offensive; at least until the second video where he eats fried chicken and watermelon.

Of course, political correctness is often criticized in the West for hindering free speech, and if anything, Turks prove daily they are the freest speakers of all.

The Domestic Abuse

In honor of Turkey becoming the first country ever to receive a slap-on-the-wrist over domestic abuse by the European Court of Human Rights, below are rules on how to handle yourself if you find you are in a fistfight with a woman:

• There are many reasons to get in a fistfight with a woman, even though Hollywood only gives us two: “if she’s a superhero” or “if she’s an enemy spy.” If you cannot prove she is either, local authorities also accept “for honor” or “she didn’t love me.”
• Considering there is a forty percent domestic abuse rate, if you aren’t dishing it out, you are probably taking it; it’s best to go preemptive on this one.
• Most police will consider abuse “an affair to be resolved within the family” rather than “assault” if you are legally married; avoid pesky paperwork by popping the question first.
• We have a saying, “Kol kırılır, yen içinde kalır” (The arm breaks, it stays within the sleeve); domestic abuse is one of those public taboos like kinky sex or being fat that are only shameful if it leaves the house. Avoid friends and neighbors and you’ll go through life a “decent” human being.
• Also avoid the media: every day there are several stories condemning violence against women. Just today there was one on a woman beaten to death by two men trying to convince her to marry one of them, a woman who was strangled to death for divorcing her husband and an officer who killed his ex-wife and her lawyer over custody (links in Turkish). Save yourself embarrassment by holding your abuse for when Obama delivers a speech or the World Cup finals to avoid becoming a headline.
• No firearms! Firearms are what make the difference between an asshole and a psychopath.
• Don’t forget your taunts! Most of the world doesn’t consider it abuse, plus spouses with low self-esteem rarely go to the media or to court.
• A good death threat has, at the bare minimum, a subject, a predicate and at least 3 exclamation points:

Wrong: Die?

Right: I will run you and your mother over with a car if you leave me!!!!!

• Brush your teeth and bathe regularly! One judge in Ankara penalized an abusive husband not just with the standard restraining orders and psychiatric treatment, but also ordered the unhygienic man to routinely groom himself (link Turkish) if he wished to avoid jail.
• Beg her not to go to the European Court of Human Rights.

Remember, nothing proves manliness like a good fistfight with a lady, no matter what the UN says.

The Upper Lip

Yesterday Alaska hosted the 2009 World Moustache and Beard Championships. These days the moustache is an ironic joke in the West, but it wasn’t that long ago many soldiers, philosophers and evil railroad barons sported them. Never really disappearing from Western lips, its prominence (or lack thereof) coincided with the sleaziness of the decade.

Yet the moustache is a very prominent part of the Turkish stereotype, and rightfully so; for a long time it was revered both as a symbol of virility and as the preferred means of getting bits of food stuck to your upper lip.

To understand the importance of the moustache, one need only hear the tale of İstanbul Mayor Ömer Faiz Efendi on a trip to Britain in 1867. The mayor was asked by a lady why Turkish men kept facial hair to which he boomed, “So that our words are obeyed.”

Some Turks eventually began associating presence not with facial hair but with the content of one’s character, and after World War I (and the consequent secular Republic) began shaving as a sign of modernity, progressiveness and decency.

But this was only some of the men, and many throughout Anatolia still clung to their lip hair. There was even a study covered heavily in the 1985 press showing 67 percent of men over fifteen wore moustaches and that 60 percent of the women preferred it. In 1997, a scandal erupted when a statue of a historic efe in Aydın was erected sans moustache and subsequently had to be replaced with a more respectful one. Even as recently as 2000, a mayor threatened his citizens with a shave if they were caught with prostitutes.

And the moustache is more than just an accessory: back in the 60s and 70s (and to a lesser extent, today), a man’s political allegiance was expressed on his upper lip. Below are examples of left-wing, right-wing nationalist, and religious conservative moustaches respectively:

The leftist moustache resembled the one worn by Stalin, the nationalist’s Fu Manchu combined with the eyebrows to recreate a “triple crescent” (their symbol) and the religious just kept it trimmed right beneath the nostrils, because nothing says “devout Muslim” like the flaring nostril-hair look.

But the moustache has been under attack for several decades. As a new generation of Turks begin closely following global trends, the moustache is becoming an outdated symbol of an awkward backwardness. To still sport one suggests a lack of hipness usually reserved for statues, conservatives (like our leaders to the left), ironic hipsters and angry women (who donned them in protest of under-representation a couple years ago).

The Cover Up

Women’s liberation is a matter of pride in Turkey. Not only was polygamy outlawed and Sharia law abolished in the early days of the republic, but by 1934 Turkish men had granted women full suffrage back when many Western nations (not to point fingers, but some of which rhymed with “rance” and “elgium”) were busy experimenting if women-friendly ballots should have kittens or puppies in the margins.

Regrettably, we had been told that giving women the right to vote would resolve all gender issues and society could move on. Yet more than seventy years later, many women still refuse liberation and cover up in un-emancipated defiance of both the Turkish state and the fashion editors at Vogue.

This was not much of a problem back when the religious were too poor to leave the house, but somewhere they acquired money and entered politics, and now for the first time both the President and Prime Minister’s wives sport headscarves.

That is the Prime Minister’s wife to the right, the only covered woman in the middle of Arabic first ladies; societies the West considers as treating their women a little better than a three-legged ox but worse than a refrigerator.

And the white Turks are pissed, particularly the female ones, at having the world judge Turkish women by such dated threads. If the uncovered woman is a symbol of secularism and modernity, covering up must be a renouncement of such values. A woman’s appearance has become a major source of contention between the elected conservative government and the secular establishment, with the country see-sawing between permitting and re-banning the headscarf.

Some could argue women’s issues extend beyond appearance, especially since the second greatest leap in women’s rights began in 2001, almost all of which was undertaken by the conservative government. The legal framework was revised granting women greater equality and deeming their sexuality an individual right rather than pertaining to family honor. Critics might contend it was vocal women’s organizations and EU pressure that brought about these changes, but it doesn’t speak highly of prior secular administrations that spent their eight decades in power “just about to get around to the women thing.”

As for how Turkish women are appearing in the eyes of the world, the woman to the left was selected by a conservatively-appointed public television board to represent Turkey at last Saturday’s Eurovision song contest. That is her performing in a governmentally-approved outfit.

So the only principle that all Turks can agree upon, whether they are on the path of secularism or the path of God, is the same the rest of the world agrees on: “sex sells.”

The White Turk

Also known as the secularist, the white Turks are not “white” because of the color of their skin (which usually falls somewhere between pink and bronze) but because of an adherence to a Western lifestyle; particularly the aspects of the West condemned by as many major religions as possible.

The more the lifestyle annoys conservatives, the better. Utter an Islamic phrase while raising a toast, renounce Allah to get that infidel in bed, order the halal bacon. Think of it as a never-ending celebration of the separation of church and state.

These white Turks are clearly visible in the “Turkey welcomes you” touristic spots, the ones assuring foreigners they won’t have to pack burqas or camel feed for a visit. Instead they should expect trendily stubbled men, women with their shiny, uncovered hair flirting with strangers and, if the ads are any indication, chiseled couples committing public displays of affection. So free from the opium of religion, the white Turks’ mosque attendance mostly occurs after a pub crawl when they really need to use the public toilets (usually at the divinely ordained one lira charge).

Yet many Europeans seem unable to spot the white Turk, even though they reside in most of the bars, clubs and nicer restaurants listed in the international guidebooks. Instead, the visitors seem to focus on those non-white Turks too uncivilized and religious to appreciate all the modern freedoms that were granted them, much to the chagrin of the white Turks.

All peoples have some unique product they are very proud of, whether it be a particular type of cheese or an F-16 Fighting Falcon. The white Turks pride themselves on the creation of a modern-looking, secular-acting state, and in return all they require is some recognition, a little respect and for pretty much everyone else to agree with, and one day, live like them.

Yet this apparent confidence masks a deep uncertainty amongst white Turks; fear for the future, fear that they might be rendered a minority in their own country and that those that reject all the progressive freedoms rewarded them might take them all away. The family above might look harmless sitting by the dock on the strait, but not only have they visibly shunned the white Turk lifestyle, given the chance, they are definitely uncivilized enough to force their lifestyle on everyone else.