A shine on the quay at Üsküdar on an absolutely brilliant February afternoon along the Bosphorus
(2005)

"There are no bonds between the government and the people. What we call the people are composed now of women, disabled men and children. For all alike the government is the power which insistently drives them to hunger and death. The administrative machinery is devoid of authority. Public life is in full anarchy. Every new step taken by the government increases the general hatred the people feel for it. All officials accept bribes, and are capable of every sort of corruption and abuse. The machinery of justice has entirely stopped. The police forces do not function. Economic life is breaking down with formidable speed. Neither people nor government employees have any confidence in the future."

So wrote Mustafa Kemal Paşa, the ever-prescient “Father of Turkey,” later to adopt the surname, Atatürk, to Enver Paşa in September 1917. Enver was the architect of the Turkish disaster of World War I, the economic and political effects Turkey yet suffers. Enver was killed in 1922, the same year Mustafa Kemal, at the age of 42 years, became the first president of the Turkish republic. Atatürk remains a national hero of epic stature. His portrait is ubiquitously hung in shops, schools, homes, and government buildings, its offices, ministry chambers, and enormously in Parliament. There, Atatürk’s principles, particularly regarding leadership, courage, integrity, and political intelligence, are pervasively ignored, particularly by the present Islamist government. But lip service is deafening. 

And the disaster that is Turkey continues. 
And so I write today 19 February 2005:
 
Dark the days then, but darker the words.

All of which set me to thinking and further idle wondering about…

When the Constitution was tossed from President to Prime Minister

and summarily heaved back like idle repartee

or sandbox toys

as ever under the stoic gaze of Atatürk--

And the financial markets trembled and the people grew instantly hungrier yet

And the six-year-old boy with the dripping nose

who buffed my shoes on the quay at Üsküdar

who now must shine 40% more shoes

And his even younger sister with the unforgettably lousy hair

who now must sell 40% more of her pathetic packets of tissues

And both combined who now must suffer at least 40% more abuse

from their bosses or fathers (or both)

for not meeting their post-devaluation quotas

And all this to just retain their Constitutional right and privilege

to starve slowly rather than at once--

And the apparently aged shoeshine man with the capitulant eyes

who, on the first day of Kurban Bayram,

begged me in Beşiktaş for ten million Lira

to buy ironic shoes

for his apparently timeless son

--    I mean, how often can I afford to get my shoes shined?--

And the gentlemen in business suits who took to the Ankara streets in protest

only to be tossed and heaved and beaten about by state police

like so many constitutions

And the so-very-important ministers that yet befittingly ride

in their fittingly black Mercedes

their so-very-important briefcases toted

by fittingly extraneous assistants…


Anyway, I wonder…


Who will further abuse the disabled?

The same who,

under the gaze of a never-embarrassed Atatürk,

lead their apparently beloved country?

Or different?

 

James Ryan
Istanbul
19 February 2005