New Year in Istanbul

Hello again! It has been a whirlwind of a month so far, but I am on a long layover in Changi Airport and figured that I would start blogging again. 

Ever since law school started in fall of 2021 and we were picking our "co-op rotations," I knew that I wanted to spend my final semester, spring 2024, on co-op . This meant that I would be working full time, rather than being in classes. I chose this rotation because I wanted to go home to the Philippines and spend four months living with my grandma while ostensibly interning somewhere. After years simmering in my mind, my final semester has finally begun! Even though I haven't started working yet, I have already been quite busy. Here is a recap of our first few days of January, which we spent in a country that was new for both James and me.

On December 31st, James and I boarded a red-eye flight from Chicago to Istanbul. At some point in the air, we celebrated the turn of the year; we were disappointed the pilot made no mention of it. We thus spent the first few days of 2024 in Istanbul. What a magnificent city it was! 

Istanbul reminded us of Valparaiso, another one of our favorite cities, thanks to its hills and views of the water. We loved how international Istanbul was, and as tourists we didn't feel like we stood out uncomfortably at all. While there, we booked a photo shoot with a local photographer as a way of getting wonderful photos of us and also having a guide show us around. 

Other highlights of our long layover in Istanbul were exploring our neighborhood at day and night and stopping by the grand bazaar. We were overwhelmed by the maze of shops but didn't want to leave without getting one thing, and we ended up getting a mosaic table lamp. 

One of the city's beloved cats–this one was hanging out in front of an antiques store.

Since James and I are both fans of ferries and public transportation, we spent some time getting to know Istanbul's extensive metro, commuter rail, and light rail system. We also made it a goal to take the ferry between Europe and Asia so we could explore the less touristic "Asian side" of the city. The ferry ride blew me away. I couldn't believe you could take such a scenic boat ride using the same card you swipe into the metro with! Coming from Boston, where the public transportation has been steadily deteriorating, it felt great to be in a city that seemed to get it right. 

Getting ready to board our ferry

Views!!

I was obsessed with this dog we saw waiting patiently for food at a market on the Asian side.

Somehow, the Asian side of Istanbul reminded me of El Alto, Bolivia. But rather than the mountains that separate La Paz and El Alto, water separates the European and Asian sides of Istanbul; rather than using cable cars to get between the two, people use the ferry. I suppose the El Alto comparison came to mind immediately because of how two cities (or parts of a city) right next to each other felt so different from one another. The Asian side also gave El Alto vibes because it felt more like it belonged to the locals, and less of a place tourists usually venture to. 

The more I travel, the more I find myself comparing new places to places I have already been. I guess it helps me feel more at ease in a new place, finding things that are familiar and holding on to them. As vastly different the world's cities and cultures are, there will always be more that connects us as human beings than separates us. No matter where we are, we all want to feel secure and safe in our communities, to have the resources we need to thrive and live our best lives. It is such a simple ask, yet my travels, studies, and activism these past years have shown that the current world order deliberately prevents the majority of human beings from attaining dignified lives. This world order allows very few to live opulent lives at the expense of the majority of people.

I cannot continue to write about my travels and the world we live in without acknowledging the fact that there is a genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Although I had engaged with the topic of genocide extensively (even spending a semester in Rwanda studying the topic), I never thought that I would be witnessing the ruthless slaughter of an entire people on social media. But I can't say I'm surprised. I have learned that governments work alongside corporations to further their own interests in profit, rather than the wellbeing of society. Maintaining people in oppressive hierarchies enables the obscene accumulation of profit, which can lead to fascism and genocide. Time and again, we learn of the widening wealth gap, of exorbitant military expenditures, of how the money exists to "end world hunger" yet the will to do so does not. I have been concerned with this for years and thought, at first, I would find the answers (as well as my dream job) in international institutions. Surely they were doing good work, and the glacial pace at which humanitarian initiatives move is just because of bureaucracy, right? Unfortunately, I have learned the hard way that these institutions continue to operate in the colonial world order on which they were established. Doing so enables those at the top to maintain power and hoard wealth. True power for change lies in everyday people.

These last few months, everyday people around the world have protested the genocide of Palestinians, standing in solidarity with those suffering at the hands of powerful governments, clamoring for the violence to stop. But it has not stopped–not when war is profitable for governments and arms companies, whose weapons are murdering people whose only wish is to live fulfilling lives in their homeland. While it has been infuriating that the United States government refuses to listen to people crying for a ceasefire and the liberation of Palestine, it has been inspiring to see actions aiming to stop the violence from the source. It seems that now more than ever, there is hope for the redistribution of power and genuine change. But, as James reflects in the next paragraph, the tension between mass movements and the governments that ostensibly represent them can be another road block to achieving justice.

In Istanbul's Taksim Square (site of last decade's massive anti-government demonstrations), alongside walls covered with ad roll of current Turkish TV programs and movies, a screen wrapping around the subway entrance plays, on repeat, a high-production value vignette of an orphaned young girl in Gaza, standing among the rubble and carnage, staring back at the viewer. It makes one wonder who paid for its creation and airtime in this central common space. Unsurprisingly, solidarity with Palestine is very common, if not universal, among Turkish society. But when Yemenis take to the streets, for example, their government matches their enthusiasm by taking direct action against the "Israeli" economy and war machine. What has the Turkish government done? Have they even ceased their exports of steel to the Zionist entity? At protests in the US, there is a clear message: end material support for the genocide. End government giveaways of arms, stop the operation of "Israeli" weapons corporations such as Elbit in our country. In my (admittedly limited) analysis, the cooption of protest by Turkey's government, and similar developments in other Muslim countries where populations are overwhelmingly supportive of Palestinian struggle, serves to co-opt movements before they can take aim at those same governments' complicity in Zionist oppression. That is to say nothing of struggles within and around these countries which often draw explicit parallels to the situation of Palestinians, whether Kurds and Armenians in the case of Turkey's sphere of influence, or Papuans under the Indonesian state (which, to its credit, recently brought a case to the ICJ against Israel, separate from South Africa's and focused more broadly on the illegality of "Israeli" occupation.) This critique of Turkey is not meant to deflect from the primary guilt of my own government, the United States, in what is currently happening. Still, I find it striking that a population so fully supportive of Palestine can be so easily disarmed by government cooption of their protest, and have their energy funneled towards waving Turkish flags rather than demanding concrete action. In conclusion, read (or listen free on Spotify premium) to Vincent Bevin's new book If We Burn, about protest movements of the 2010s (including that in Turkey) and their failure to coalesce around any coherent programs due to a lack of any central coordinating structures.

That is it for our thoughts on Turkey! I sure am glad to have found a partner who is able to engage with the world and its people so thoughtfully. Trust that there will be more to come.