In an article published on November 18^th, 2019 by The Brookings Institution, Ömer Taşpınar reported on the recent trip that President Erdogan took to the United States to have a conversation with President Trump and several Republican senators. As an important pretext before beginning to analyze the article, it is necessary to give a brief introduction to the author, whose opinions on the matter may impact the objectivity of the article. Ömer Taşpınar is a “nonresident senior fellow in the Center on 21st Century Security and Intelligence and an expert on Turkey, the European Union, Muslims in Europe, political Islam, the Middle East, and Kurdish nationalism. He is a professor at the National War College and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.” He has done extensive research on Turkey and surrounding countries, and his credibility has been vetted by organizations such as NBC, CNBC, CBS, and CNN. As such, there should not be too great of a concern that the information provided in the article is significantly altered or presented in a way that would mislead the audience.

The article, titled “Turkey’s Erdoğan scores a pyrrhic victory in Washington” (pyrrhic means that the victory came at a great cost), addresses the recent meeting that President Erdogan had with President Trump, which primarily revolved around the recent Turkish acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. As a NATO ally, the purchase of such a defense system from Russia, who is a definitive adversary of the United States, increased tensions between the two countries that have persisted since the Armenian Genocide Resolution and the recent fighting with the Syrian Kurds. Unfortunately for Turkey, it seems that they are stuck in a dangerous middle ground between the United States and Russia, where Russia has military might in the northern region of Syria, which would destabilize Turkish forces and land holdings. On the other hand, the United States has entered several pieces of legislation into the process of being accepted that would place economic sanctions on Turkey, starving them out in a time when unemployment is high, inflation is high, and the currency is relatively weak. Furthermore, the ease with which Turkey can assimilate to United States’ wishes is not easy in any way, since the country of Turkey has a long-lasting feud with the Kurdish people who have tried to claim land that they believe is rightfully theirs for years. This puts the United States in a difficult position because the Kurdish forces were instrumental in fighting back against ISIS through most of the 2010s.

The specific topic of the Kurdish people came up during the meeting as well, where an article titled “Erdogan shows anti-Kurdish video to senators at White House” on BBC News addressed a different aspect of the conversation between President Erdogan and President Trump (who had Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and several other Senators). As articulated in the article, President Erdogan attempted to show an anti-Kurdish video to the room, which was filled with the very Senators that were actually outspoken against President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from the Northern Syrian region, and who supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. It was these very forces that were instrumental in the fight against ISIS, which was a drawn-out battle campaign that severely injured/killed approximately 10,000 Kurdish troops. There were heated debates between the senators and President Erdogan of the status of the Syrian Kurds, and the conversation depicted the deep divide that still exists between Turkey and the United States, even though we are allies. This relationship was expertly depicted through images in both articles, which had seemingly constructive and hospitable conversations between both parties. However, the images did not tell the full story of the disagreements in countless military, social, and economical policies that separate Turkey and America from seeing completely eye to eye. Furthermore, the articles seemed to have a slightly anti-Turkish mentality, not necessarily denouncing their actions, but suggesting ways that they should be acting, instead of running their current course of policy and goals. To conclude, it is encouraging that Turkey and American are attempting to communicate in the face of cooperation with adversaries, looming sanctions, and human rights issues in the foreground, but it is evident that there must be a continued effort by both countries to compromise and work together for the people that live in both nations.

I have several questions, feel free to answer as many as you want, for my peers in Turkey. First, what has the news coverage been like about President Erdogan’s trip to America, and what the takeaways were from the trip? Also, on some of the issues from the meetings, like sanctions, deals with Russia, and fighting with Syrian Kurdish troops in Northern Syria, what is the general opinion of the public on some of these problems? Finally, have students, such as yourselves, done any research on the state of the economy of Turkey, as it seems that sanctions are being proposed to target some weakness in Turkey’s current economy?

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/11/18/turkeys-erdogan-scores-a-pyrrhic-victory-in-washington/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50424362

Today, there are many countries following the lead of those at the forefront of technological and societal modernity, including Turkey, a country that has had a rapid cultural and societal shift towards modernizing their relatively new nation to match the benchmark set by countries such as the United States. In an effort to meet the demands of a global market, Turkey has spared no expenses to increase the inter-connectivity of their country to best facilitate trade, tourism, and business. However, this focus on the material side of life has left an impoverished minority population in Turkey to fend for themselves, and that is the people that live in shanty towns (gecekondu) and fight everyday to work jobs at the lowest rates to live in their makeshift homes. In her book, Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills, Latife Tekin essentially put a specific genre into the mainstream literature market in Turkey, placing the shanty town in the driver’s seat. After reading the book and absorbing the unique attributes and style of magical realism that accentuated the lives of those in the shanty towns, I will detail my opinions and insights about the book that I read.

To begin, I would like to preface that I had relatively high standards for the book before reading a single word, as I have had a significant encounter with a book centered around the stylistic intrigues of magical realism. Specifically, my interaction with the genre occurred in high school, where I was assigned to read One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Nobel Prize winning novel detailing a fictional rural town in South America. Having cemented itself as one of my favorite books of all time, I was coming into Tekin’s take on the genre with high hopes, both for a strong tribute to the potential of magical realism, as well as the information that it can uncover if it took full advantage of the breadth of creative liberty that the writing style allowed the author. For the most part, I enjoyed Tekin’s dive into creating her own subsection of the genre, specifically pertaining to shanty towns in Turkey, which inherently had a political undertone due to its presentation (no matter how true) of the authorities that controlled the ability of the people that had been forgotten by Turkey’s industrialization to live their lives. There were many interesting characters, such as Gullu Baba, Mother Kibriye, Garbage Grocer (later Garbage Chief), Liver Man, Fidan, and many other whimsical personalities. The story took the approach of delving into the lives of quite a few characters, to portray the entire dynamic of people living on the garbage hills (literally) where the shanty towns were set up. This was done instead of the alternative, which would have been to follow the story of one person or family throughout their journey on Flower Hill, later Foundation Hill. I appreciated the contribution every character made to the development of the overall identity of Flower Hill, where, for example, the transition from the early days to the end of the book could be seen in the impact of certain people over the town. One such case was that of Gullu Baba, whose otherworldly predictions of the future, as well as the curing of people with mystical treatments, swayed the early settlers to rely on his judgement heavily in many matters of the town. However, as the town continued to develop, through the help of those such as Mr. Isaac and Garbage Grocer who sought to employ the townspeople in factories (Mr. Isaac) and better equip the town with electricity and water (Garbage Grocer), the opinions of the earlier settlers began to fade. Furthermore, I applaud Tekin for not taking an approach where the entire group of people living on Flower Hill found themselves a part of a cohesive unit against the tyranny of the enemies that are exploiting revolutionary business practices at their cost. Instead, there were many conflicts within the town, such as the case of revolt against Garbage Grocer (temporary at least) after it was found out that he agreed to do side-dealings with Kurd Cemal. Additionally, Tekin stayed true to the cruel treatment of women in families that lived in rural areas, where the beating of wives is not always the easiest to reprimand and enforce justice upon.

However, despite my amusement of the stories of all of the different characters, I do have criticisms of some of the things I came across during the reading. For instance, having established that I came into the reading with high expectations, I was not fully satisfied with the extent to which the story played off the more magical elements, such as the wind having a role rumor spreading and fear inciting. To me, elements such as the wind, howling of the factories, blue water (which seemed to obviously be chemically treated water as the town was near a chemical factory), and others, seemed to be excuses (in some cases) to forego additional explanation and leave the reader with a mystical replacement instead. Also, there were many characters who, after being introduced, were never resolved in any meaningful manner. An example of this would be Sirma, who, after having a defining role in giving a name and face to the grief felt by the early settlers towards the frustrating tenacity of the Garbage Owner constantly demolishing their makeshift homes, simply disappeared from the book. Not only characters such as this were forgotten in a dissatisfying manner, but the plot near the end of the book also took a very simplistic and “time to wrap it up” route.

To conclude, I would briefly like to summarize some insights I have gained about life on the periphery, where the government and businesses only seems to care when the potential for monetary gain arises on the land you have lived on for years. There was a consistent commentary on the impact of industrialization, especially with hastily built and employed factories along roads of commerce. Throughout the book, there were several strikes by the workers of the linen, chemical, refrigerator, and other factories, that had the severe realization almost every time that they had very little say on their conditions and pay. Furthermore, the diversity of people that usually frequented the garbage hills was typically minority populations, in addition to those that were outright too poor to live in villages and apartments. With the national emphasis of the bridges in Turkey that have accelerated globalization of business and economy, the people in shanty towns have existed as the resource of the country to fulfill the jobs that people don’t want, at wages people are usually unwilling to work at under normal conditions. This has created a significant divide between the rich class of Turkish businessmen, who are disillusioned with the idea that they are being charitable to those that would not acquire jobs anywhere outside of their factories and low paying commercial jobs, and the poor, who live day-to-day on a lifestyle of survival, instead of enjoying life’s bounties. While I have not lived in conditions anywhere near that described in the book, my visits to my grandparents, who live in a somewhat rural village in Turkey, has allowed me to realize some of the interpersonal dynamics and group culture that exists in small pockets of the country.