At my age, my far-sight­ed­ness has long cor­rect­ed my myopia. But, on learn­ing what a Euro­pean Con­sul said about Turkey and Instan­bul, I sud­den­ly real­ize the extent to which my glass­es must be fool­ing me. Because France whose influ­ence still shines all the way to Istan­bul is always right, isn’t it?

Here are the words spo­ken by the French Con­sul in Istan­bul. Excerpts :

The Turks haven’t changed. Their gen­eros­i­ty is always on dis­play just as are their hos­pi­tal­i­ty and their affec­tion toward chil­dren. The Turks are still as proud of their coun­try and of their his­to­ry, and they are right to be so. Turkey hasn’t changed but it has evolved and has con­sid­er­ably mod­ern­ized itself.

All one needs is to see how incred­i­bly Istan­bul has grown in every sense of the word. It has become a tru­ly world-class city that attracts every tal­ent, every ener­gy. Istan­bul is filled with ener­gy, be it in the realm of cre­ativ­i­ty, of art or of entre­pre­neur­ship as demon­strat­ed by the country’s eco­nom­ic expansion.

Turkey remains faith­ful to itself but con­tin­ues to renew itself. It is a coun­try that looks ahead. This can be explained, notably, by the faith the Turks have in a bet­ter future. That is the great strength of this coun­try and of its population.

The Turks haven’t changed

I con­firm this… Their nation­al­ism goes through parox­ysms, true, and in this the school sys­tem has done its job well. For gen­er­a­tions, it has formed flag bear­ers pleased and proud of being Turks since ear­li­est child­hood. And Erdoğan knows how to remind them of this per­ma­nent­ly. In terms of gen­eros­i­ty and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, the arm­chairs at the Palace are wel­com­ing, vis­i­bly, and con­sular rear ends must feel com­fort­able there. I sup­pose he isn’t refer­ring to the lit­tle peo­ple whom he does not meet much although he sees them fil­ing through his con­sulate, days on end, seek­ing visas that are refused. France is much less wel­com­ing and hos­pitable. One point for Turkey !

Turkey has evolved and modernized itself

True, it has pro­gressed recent­ly in its affec­tion for chil­dren. It no longer kills chil­dren oth­er than Kur­dish or Syr­i­an. For oth­ers, it low­ers the age of their sex­u­al matu­ri­ty and gives them work in clan­des­tine work­shops. This is a progress for every­one, espe­cial­ly for exploiters… All right, I know, I kvetch all the time.

We have a sub­way, bridges, a tun­nel, super­mar­kets that open, close and re-open else­where. Build­ings and tow­ers that grow like mush­rooms, roads and high­way exchanges lead­ing to air­ports that replace forests, we also have pow­er outages…
Moder­ni­ty is here, and well estab­lished. On the bus, tur­banned chick­ies read the Coran on their I‑Phone and talk loud­ly while stay­ing seat­ed as old folks like me look else­where. The flags aren’t made of cot­ton any­more but of syn­thet­ic mate­ri­als and take on incred­i­ble dimen­sions… All this, I can see very well. Turkey is becom­ing Euro­peanized now that the Sul­tan is tak­ing care of it.

And the tal­ents, the ener­gies… All those « igno­rant and obscure » uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sors sud­den­ly attract­ed by the murk­i­ness of jail cells, with the help of the oh-so ener­getic hand of police­men. He’s right again there, the Con­sul is. Why leave their pass­port to those who, fired with­out indem­ni­ties and with no right to their pen­sion, might find their tal­ents attract­ed else­where and might hop off to Europe ? Yes, those tal­ents, how Turkey knows how best to keep them in the shade, where they can’t get damaged…

And entre­pre­neu­ship, aaah­hh, entre­pre­neur­ship, inch’allah, how it lays out the con­crete, how free and entre­pre­neur­ial it is, how well it belongs in the family…How it fills up the shoe­box­es, the entre­pre­neu­ship ! And how the Bilal knew how to pass them on to Italy in the old days. Now, with moder­ni­ty, it’s French banks, a way of remain­ing faith­ful to one’s self and renew­ing the accounts.

The Sul­tan looks ahead to 2023, cen­te­nial of the « nation­al rev­o­lu­tion ». He envi­sions it lib­er­al, Ottoman in its man­ner of dom­i­nat­ing the world, big­ot­ed and tru­ly nation­al­is­tic, his Turkey. We could draw him in pro­file, with a cres­cent behind him, look­ing toward Mec­ca via Swiss banks…with the fig­ure of a « moth­er » at his side. Oh no, not one of those search­ing for her lost son or daugh­ter, but one who promis­es to make chil­dren, as befits her « function ».

I don’t know on what occa­sion this with­old­er of French visas pro­nounced his ode to mod­ern Turkey, but I have the feel­ing he would have been bet­ter advised to shut up rather than to present his wish­es. I sense I’ll look at the Con­sulate with anoth­er eye when I walk past it. I know some who will present their thanks by deposit­ing por­traits of Erdoğan there.

But, come to think of it, per­haps he fig­ured that by say­ing all those nice things, he’d avoid the bul­lets of a grumpy police­man.

If you want to know more about it, and most of all, in order to read this, « But this attempt­ed putsch also demon­strat­ed the demo­c­ra­t­ic matu­ri­ty of the Turk­ish peo­ple as well as the strength of its insti­tu­tions, » still out of the Consul’s mouth, have a look over here and you’ll see we can say that he’s « remained French1».

Brief note from Kedistan : we can easily understand the anger since this was not part of a conventional « diplomatic » declaration in an official meeting, but part of an interview given to a local rag aimed at French-speakers in Turkey, where nothing forced him to lay on the praise and where he could have been satisfied with talking about his life.

Trans­la­tion by Renée Lucie Bourges
iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com
In French : Turquie • Quand le Con­sul de France cire les pompes

Rédaction par Kedistan. Vous pouvez utiliser, partager les articles et les traductions de Kedistan en précisant la source et en ajoutant un lien afin de respecter le travail des auteur(e)s et traductrices/teurs. Merci.
Kedistan’ın tüm yayınlarını, yazar ve çevirmenlerin emeğine saygı göstererek, kaynak ve link vererek paylaşabilirisiniz. Teşekkürler.
Kerema xwe dema hun nivîsên Kedistanê parve dikin, ji bo rêzgirtina maf û keda nivîskar û wergêr, lînk û navê malperê wek çavkanî diyar bikin. Spas.
You may use and share Kedistan’s articles and translations, specifying the source and adding a link in order to respect the writer(s) and translator(s) work. Thank you.
Mamie Eyan on FacebookMamie Eyan on Twitter
Mamie Eyan
Chroniqueuse
Ten­dress­es, coups de gueule et révolte ! Bil­lets d’humeur…