Karin Pinter, Writer

With all your tiresome commutes from district to district, your grand bazaars with truly multi-lingual shop owners trying to convince visitors that their Turkish Delight is better than their neighbour’s, and who call out to foreign women with ‘angel eyes’ in the hopes that their charm will sway those women to see them again…

Poetry abounds in your over-populated streets, where there are more mosques than I have ever seen churches in the whole of my life in Spain.

Farewell hazy sunset over the Bosphorus River, lined by riverside clubs and cafés, homes remnant from Ottoman times, and hilltops conquered by Turkish flags that serve as passionate reminders of your sensitive nation troubled by a longing to ride the progressive wave with freedom of choice, whilst retaining your religious heritage in moderation and weed out problematic insurgencies.

Farewell Ankara…
Thank you for the inspiration and the Rak?, the political discussions and the börek, the long bus rides through foggy mountain roads along rugged snow-covered terrain and the hospitality of your friends and family. Thank you for embracing me as your ‘cousin’!

A place like this, raw with emotion, the honesty and simplicity of life not fully tainted by commercialism, even though the big brands from Europe and the US have planted their seeds. Rebellious, young, like teenagers finding their way through the intensifying changes that life offers us all.

For some, a guiltless lack of language skills besides Turkish reminds us that not everybody wishes to be a part of this globalisational permeation of the world. A realisation that we visit other countries not just for their landscape or their customs, but to be challenged by a language we do not understand and thus be reminded of our vulnerabilities, for being far removed from one’s comfort zone and dependent on somebody else to speak for you is very humbling.

But, whilst you speak in words that I am far from understanding today, at the core your language is one of hope and dreams. Hearts that beat to the rhythm of eager anticipation to be a player in the European team, proud of your origins yet anxious to embrace new challenges with intelligent debate.

Be strong, have faith in yourselves, and you will succeed.

Selected quotes from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.