Week 3 In Berlin

In the third iteration of our weekly vlogs, I would like to take you through our least structured week yet!

Our week pretty much went like this.  We had a lecture and the rest of the day was free to roam and wander throughout the city and find what hidden wonders it had in store for us.  As you can see, Berlin is full of surprises, from the most pristine marble buildings to abandoned and run down houses.

--to be continued

Assignment 1 Istanbul Photos

The sun sets in Istanbul

An oasis in the middle of Istanbul

A sight only viewable with technology

Why are these spots lit?

Candy is still candy halfway around the world

Turkish Republic

Gentrification of communities in Istanbul

 During my time in Istanbul, I was able to experience many different customs not available to us in the states.  The buildings and the people were remarkable different and it was unique experience seeing a population as homogeneous as in Istanbul.   In the image you can see that Istanbul does in fact look like a homogenous city evident by the matching red roofs throughout the city.  Homogeny is very important in turkey; they aim to have one type of citizen, a “westernized Turk”.  The new republic established in 1922 wanted its citizens to sever ties to the ottoman past, including islam, and adopt a westernized culture.  This was based on the founding principles of the Turkish republic.  (Ozyurek 3,118) What exactly is a turk? What is so important about being a turk? These are questions that are hard to address.  Migration has diluted the Turkish citizen in a sense.  Now many groups of people call themselves turks, those who are born in Turkey and those who are descendants of Turkish or ottoman descent.  In Istanbul especially, this point is especially muddled.  Istanbul is commonly mistaken as being a bridge between the east and the west, a point connecting the orient and Europe. However, Istanbul can be more accurately described as a path between Europe and Asia and not a bridge.  Through lectures about the history of civilizations in the area and Turkish migration, we learned that the city is not a bridge between east and west but a bridge between the north and south, connecting the Mediterranean and Black seas.  As different empires passed through claiming Istanbul (an important strategic trade check point) different people settled in Istanbul and further complicated the meaning of a turk.  Another interesting point was brought up about migration when we heard a talk from Didem.  We learned that Istanbul could be thought of as a holding area or a transfer point from east to west.  I propose that this may also contribute to the muddled turk definition.  As more migrants move in and bring their own culture, they must assimilate to the Turkish culture or face the same scrutiny the kurds currently face in Turkey.  If these groups do assimilate, we have a even more diluted pool of turks.

The second picture I picked was a photo depicting former urban housing of poor residents.  The government cleverly thought of a way to evict the poorer residents to give way to middle class residents.  These houses would be torn down and a replica would be built in its place and the previously occupying family had to pay a fee they couldn’t afford in order to stay.  I saw this as a representation of gentrification.  However, what I saw was a superficial change rather than a change in public memory.  Like what Orhan mentioned about frequent fires in the area that destroys entire residential and business areas.  Since this happens so often, it is part of the memory rather than forgotten in amnesia.  Similar to the attempt at westernization by the republic, people actually remember the past because the present reminds them of the past.  The physical removal of these buildings does not induce forgetting as evidenced by the remembering of the past by the citizens of Turkey.   Therefore a compromise between forgetting and remembrance is needed for public memory to exist.