A Reporter’s Reflections: Cyprus

by Emily Ullmann

Sophomore Associate Editor Emily Ullmann thought she encountered a confusing world of media and journalism in Turkey: but it’s nothing like the complexity of Cyprus.

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Staying in the Republic of Cyprus side of the divided city of Nicosia, I only had to walk for five minutes to cross the border into the north. Armed guards checked my passport and stamped my visa on my way to speak to Perihan Aziz, director of the Turkish News Agency (Turkish acronym TAK), in what is really just the northern half of the city. TAK is a news agency that gives news in return for money to the fourteen government-subsidized papers in northern Cyprus (thirteen of which are in northern Nicosia).

The border crossing between north and south (Ullmann/TYG)

Aziz explained that TAK is an independent, objective agency that can and will write about everything, a situation that is in contrast to that in Turkey. TAK does its best to inform the northern Cypriot population of news in the south, publishing a news summary based on southern papers. Aziz described the press in northern Cyprus as a reflection of the political situation there. “Newspapers are supported by political parties, but this is not a problem because each party has their own paper,” she said.

Aziz also pointed out the contrast between this objectivity and journalism in southern Cyprus, which she deemed far too influenced by the Greek Orthodox Church. “Northern Cyprus does a better job separating politics, religion, and press than the south,” Aziz explained.

However, back in southern Nicosia, we heard a strikingly different story. Stefanos Evripidou, the Cyprus news editor at the Cyprus Mail criticized journalism on both sides of the island, but noted that the north, dominated by the government, is far worse. Most papers in the south, where people view the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as an illegal occupation of the island, refer to the organizations and institutions as “pseudo” or “so-called.”

The spectre of Hellenism and the Greek Orthodox Church hangs over the Republic of Cyprus, while Ankara hangs heavily over the TRNC. (Ullmann/TYG)

Similarly, Orestis Tringides and Dogukan Muezzinler, both of whom we got in contact through the organization The Cypriots’ Voices, described the Cypriot press as involving self-imposed censorship that is largely influenced by political links. Tringides and Muezzinler criticized Cyprus’s status as one of only four EU nations that has not signed onto Freedom of Information laws, which means that successful journalists must rely on well-established contacts. Tringides also explained that there is a relatively new tradition of journalism on the island, and even that tradition focuses more on advocacy journalism than any sort of investigative journalism. “Newspapers and news channels operate as mouthpieces for political parties and corporations,” Tringides said.

By the end of these meetings, my head was spinning in a whirl of he-said, she-said. Every story seemed slightly different and everyone seemed ready to point fingers, accusing the other side of faults and flaws. Yet these four passionate people, all so critical, failed to offer any real suggestions or solutions to the problems. With the exception of the opening of the north-south border in 2003, the Cypriot conflict has been stale since 1974 and people here do not seem to believe that significant change will happen in the near future.

From an outsider’s perspective, I cannot help but wonder how change can happen in a society where journalism and people’s concepts of reality are so skewed. How can the people demand accountability from their government if they have a press that does not inform them of what their government is doing? And why do the Cypriots not seem to desire a press that does this?

Journalism in Cyprus has become a source of misinformation and propaganda, but as with the case of the political conflict, the people seem content with the status quo. Before arriving here, my question regarding the Cyprus situation was, is it sustainable? I have come to realize that the issues in journalism are just another symptom of the greater problem of apathy among Cypriots. Until Cypriots decide they want to actually find a solution, it will not happen.

A day at Mt. Nemrut

by Margaret Zhang

Glo Urfa spent many hours in a tricked-out van yesterday, telling stories of our grandmothers and sleeping a fair amount. On our way to Mt. Nemrut, we made a few pit stops, stopping to gape at endless caves, ruins of castles past and the magnificent bucolic scenery of rural Turkey.

Fortunately for us, our traveling was not just limited to listening to our tour guide explain the history (fun fact: he calls some of us his historiadors, rather than historians. I think I’m going to add historiador to my everyday vocab). Because yesterday was a national holiday in Turkey, Turkish citizens had the day off to relax, travel, or, in some cases, casually dance around famous archaeological sites.

dancing around Mt. Nemrut/credit: photo courtesy of Tümay Alper

A group of three vans of Turkish university students seemed to follow us to each one of our destinations, arriving with loud pop music blaring and then subsequently dancing while encircling a drummer and horn player. We were a bit confused the first time this happened, but eventually, our confusion turned into envy — we Globalistas wanted to have just as much fun! It was a good thing then that we were invited to dance with the group at the second destination, leading to a merry old time and our learning how to gyrate our hips Shakira-style. Or rather, typical Turkish-style.

Our new friends took several pictures with us, and seemed to really enjoy our company — though maybe it was just because of Luke’s movie star good looks. He attracted quite a few fans, with some Turkish girls even begging him not to leave them. Perhaps Luke will just stay in Turkey and become a trophy husband?

Luke's good looks can sometimes be too much to bear/credit: photo courtesy of Tümay Alper

When we saw our new Turkish friends the next few times, they kindly offered us food from their picnic (it was delicious, of course). We eventually came to find that they were 20-22 years old, all studying to be early childhood educators. Their future students are lucky — I could only hope for a kindergarten teacher who could dance as well as these ladies did!

Interspersed with our dancing and friend-making were amazing historical sites. Stone carvings of ancient kings and gods litter mountain tops in the area, their significance melted only by the endless mystery of caves. While the rest of us gave up on cave exploring after clumsily falling down after four steps in the cave, our fearless spelunker Rae attempted to climb into the deep belly of a cave, only to be coaxed out by our tour guide, who was worried about her safety.

We eventually came to see the statues at the top of Mt. Nemrut, giant stone monuments that seem to have been beheaded. The monuments, which included eagles, lions, and deities, were originally built to protect the tomb of King Antiochus I. His tomb lies in the large pile of fine sediment behind the monuments, though it has not be excavated due to the difficulties of removing a giant mound of sediment.

Atop Nemrut (Khan/TYG)

View from the top (Khan/TYG)

The heads made me think about how incredible it was that ancient civilization was able to haul up such heavy stones to such a high altitude without the use of any machinery. I mean, even our modern-day van had a few heart-stopping moments where the mountain climbing seemed to be impossible. The intricacies and sheer number of monuments atop Mt. Nemrut made me wonder about the boundaries of human ability.

Overall, it was a day exemplifying the magic of human ability to move past obstacles–from cross-cultural dancing and communication to pre-machinery heavy stone transportation, Turkey has taught has us Glo Urfans that, Oprah as it sounds, we are capable of achieving more than just our everyday successes.

A Taste of Turkey: street eats

by Emily Ullmann

             Our first few nights in Istanbul, the Globalist reporters and I dined in restaurants, sampling kebaps and shish. Although we all found the food delicious, we quickly realized that sticking to street carts and food counters was cheaper and more convenient, but equally tasty. The winding streets of Istanbul provided us with quite a few exciting and delicious experiences, so I wanted to give a recap of just a few of our favorites.

Fruit stands in Istanbul include everything from pomegranates to apples. (Osborn/TYG)

Carts:

            Vendors roll food carts up and down streets and alleys all day, selling grilled corn, grilled chestnuts, and simit, or large, thin bagels covered in sesame seeds. All seemed to be quite a bargain, though many of the Globalist staff seemed to like the chestnuts the most. They were always warm and fresh, pulled straight from the grill and plopped into small paper bags. Almost as unanimously popular were the midye dolmasi, mussels with rice that were spritzed with fresh lemon juice immediately before serving.

Roasted walnuts and corn are a common sight. (Osborn/TYG)

Margaret, our intrepid street food taste-tester, also tried both the corn and the simit. She found the taste good, but the bread stale. The corn looked grilled to perfection, but several of us agreed that it just did not taste as good as the American equivalent (which made Luke, our reporter from Nebraska, or cornhusker territory, very pleased).

Along the Golden Horn, we also found fish sandwich carts. Fishermen line the sides of the waterway and give their fresh catches directly to these carts, where the vendors season and grill the fish before placing it with lettuce, onion, and lemon juice in a soft baguette. For only 4 Turkish Lira (about $2.50), this sandwich proved a life-altering experience, leaving some of us to declare that we would move to Istanbul and live the rest of our lives eating nothing else.

A stand of simit was another common sight. (Osborn/TYG)

Sweets:

Baklava and Turkish delight (bottom row) is sold by weight at this store. (Osborn/TYG)

            On our first day walking through Istanbul, a few of us agreed that we all wanted to try Turkish delight, but realized that all we knew about them was that they were Edmund’s Achilles’ heel in the novel The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. As we ventured into the Spice Bazaar to sample, we found the gummy, nutty treats sweet. We enjoyed nibbling, but became distracted by the signs for a mixture of dried fruits and nuts, advertised with signs bearing the name, “Turkish Viagra.” Though the signs elicited quite a few chuckles, none of us proved adventurous to try them.

Turkish viagra? (Ullmann/TYG)

Almost as intriguing as these signs, the dondurma, ice cream, carts all across the city drew our attention long before our money. The vendors rang bells and mashed the ice cream with long poles, swinging massive chunks around above their heads. They scooped out the ice cream in flattened slabs, which they then piled upon cones. The vendors would wave the cones at potential buyers, tempting and teasing, before eventually winning them over with the creamy pistachio, chocolate, or vanilla scoops.

Among the sweet treats, all of us seemed to prefer the delicious baklava we found everywhere. I had believed baklava was distinctly Greek, but after eating more baklava than I could (or would want to) count, I can confirm that the Turkish people love baklava too. The types of baklava we devoured varied, as some had pistachios, some had walnuts, some were round, some rectangular, and some chocolatey. Differences aside, all had buttery, flaky pastry and nuts, glued together with gooey honey; more importantly, however, all were delicious.

Turkish delight is ... a delight. (Osborn/TYG)

New kids on the block

by Sanjena Sathian

For a small island, Cyprus is a bustling place. And for nine 18-21 year olds, I can’t help but be proud of our busy social and professional calendars in the mere 48 hours we’ve spent here so far.

So, you’re thinking about Cyprus. White sand beaches, rich Brits vacationing, lots of nightclubs? Right? Wrong. None of the above. While that version of Cyprus certainly exists, the version we’re seeing, in the capital, far away from the water seems to be a place full of a busy intellectual society, encompassing diplomats and NGO personnel and writers and filmmakers, and what’s coolest is that everyone just seems to know each other. And they want us to know everyone too. We’re like the shiny new toy, and we keep getting passed around between organizations who all want us to hear about the exciting progressive work that they’re doing in collaboration with thirty other groups… and it goes on. It’s exciting to penetrate a society so quickly and feel so immediately welcomed, and reaching into networks to understand a new place is exactly what a Glo trip — and journalism, more generally — is about.

We’ve been to meetings all over the place already: the UN buffer zone, which is a neutral zone that delineates between the illegal, unrecognized TRNC in the north and the internationally recognized EU member, the Republic of Cyprus in the south. We’ve discovered a vibrant civil society – it seems there are almost more NGOs than other organizations – and a group of people very concerned about journalism and each side’s contentious media portrayals of the other side.

Being here is fascinating – we have so little time but we’re filling it with discussion after discussion of trying to puzzle out one of the most complicated political and social situations most of us have come into close contact with, ever. Still, though we’ve begun traversing the social network of the intellectuals, activists and diplomats, it’s important to remember as reporters that the people we’re immediately exposed to and most comfortable with – this community of people who keep identifying themselves as “different” from the rest of the population of Cyprus – are not the only ones who we can speak to.

PS. Apologies for the lack of pictures: we’ve spent about 80% of our time in the UN buffer zone, where photography is forbidden.

Glo at Mount Nemrut

After spending a day in the bustling city of Urfa, we’ve been on a bus pretty much all day getting to Mount Nemrut and now to Gazantep. Blog posts to come, but first a teaser treat from Nemrut: looks like Glo can give the mighty Antiochus a run for his money.

A Taste of Turkey: çay and kahve

by Emily Ullmann

Turkish tea comes in hourglass-shaped cups. (Flickr Creative Commons)

The first word I learned here in Turkey was çay (pronounced chai), or tea. In Turkey, tea is more than just a beverage; tea also represents a common courtesy and means of social interaction. Shopkeepers, cafes, and even Turkish families all have similar hourglass-shaped cups to hold the rich, black çay. Turkish people generally serve tea on small coasters with accompanying cubes of sugar. Some find the tea too bitter and enjoy adding and stirring in sugar; I relish the rich, smooth flavor and find myself gulping down too much tea every time I have the chance.

At interviews and meetings, the appearance of tea cups signifies that the host feels ready for a real conversation, but in a comfortable environment, as if to say in a respectful, familiar way, “let’s get down to business.” In rug shops and the Grand Bazaar, store-owners bring out tea in a strategic attempt to woo a potential buyer. In homes, like the one several of my fellow reporters and I visited for dinner, the hosts bring out tea with dessert, prolonging the dining experience in a comfortable, calm environment.

Turkish coffee (Flickr Creative Commons)

Although not as common as çay, Türk Kahvesi, or Turkish coffee, has a special place in Turkish culture. Before I arriving, I knew that I wanted to try this legendary drink. I had heard Turkish coffee was very rich, but I drink coffee black, so I figured it would be similar to that. I was totally wrong.

Served kind of like a shot of espresso, Turkish coffee is thick and slightly sweet. A layer of sludge sits like mud on the bottom of the cup and tastes richer than any coffee I have ever tried before. In fact, coffee seems like a misnomer since it is so far removed from anything I would expect to find at a coffee shop. A few sips into the drink, I glanced over and say that some of my fellow reporters gulped down the entire cup, eyes gleaming as if ready for more. I, on the other hand, could not handle any more. So I have spent the rest of my time in Istanbul ordering çay.

Drinking çay and Turkish coffee present such special and uniquely Turkish experiences. Neither would seem quite the same served in an coffee shop in America or carried in a 12-ounce to-go cup. Although it would be impossible to understand the  complex culture and history of Turkey in only two weeks, to drink çay like a Turk provides a special glimpse of a uniquely Turkish experience. So as we continue to report from this incredible country, we will continue to drink çay, and gulp down as much Turkish culture as we can.

The Hajj in Urfa

by Jessica Shor

Sanliurfa is considered one of the most devout cities in Turkey, and evidence of this is sprinkled throughout the city’s historic center. Above doors in the winding stone alleyways, metal signs indicate that the owner of the house has completed the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Each sign has a unique design and displays the year in which the hajj was completed. Here are a few of the ones we spotted:

photo credit: Jessica Shor

the Globalist splits: Sanliurfa and Northern Cyprus

Dear Readers,

Today our group splits into two as we journey to very different places: one group left early this morning, around 4:30, to catch a flight to Sanliurfa (pronounced by Turks as “Shan-lurfa” and usually just referred to as “Urfa”) in southeastern Turkey. The world of Urfa, we’ve been told, will be nothing like what we’ve seen in Istanbul.

The other group will be leaving for Nicosia, the capital city of the island of Cyprus, which is divided between Northern and Southern Cyprus. The North, known as the Turkish Republic of Cyprus (TRNC), is only recognized as a legitimate state by Turkey and weighs heavily on Turkey’s attempts to enter the European Union. Questions of nationality and issues of state identity surround this tiny, beautiful island.

We’ll be blogging from both sites, and reconvening in Istanbul again on the 24th. Look forward to double the blog content and reading about two very different parts of Turkey. Jessie and Raisa, our trip planners, have done an incredible job putting together this itinerary and we can’t wait to see how this informs our research from two distinct perspectives.

Thanks for your loyal readership thus far,

Sanjena Sathian
Editor in Chief

On feeling at home in Istanbul

by Sanjena Sathian 

Last night, as part of our final evening in Istanbul for a while, a group of us went to a local family’s home for dinner. After a two and a half hour trek out to the suburbs in intense traffic – with a stop in the middle of the traffic to quench our growling stomachs with some street food AND a ferry ride, where we parked our enormous bus on the lower deck and wandered up to the top – we finally arrived in a suburb crowded with tall apartment complexes and the occasional mall. I felt a sudden wave of comfort as soon as we stepped into the apartment building and I saw piles of shoes outside each doorway – a practice common in my Indian family’s household, and a sight I’m used to seeing in my grandparents’ apartment complexes when I go to visit.

Istanbul traffic is one of the only things we don't like about the city. Luckily, this shot is from the ferry that saved us another hour or two of traffic crossing over the bridge to the Asian side of the city/credit: Sanjena Sathian

The family greeted us warmly; we left our shoes outside, entered, and shook the hands of a line of men and a single woman, completely covered in black except for her playful, colored headscarf. We were ushered upstairs to an enormous, decorated table with piles of delicious looking food on top of it: rice, stuffed peppers and grape leaves, chickpeas and green beans with gravies, lentil soup… I was ready to dive in. I sat down across from Daria, the mother-queen of it all, who was the only woman at the table from the family for most of the meal – and also the only person in the entire family who spoke English. She was over the moon, she told us, when we piled into their apartment and she saw five girls and only one boy. “I have too many boys,” she laughed, smiling at her nine and five year old, and then at her husband.

As I chatted with Daria in her careful English, my assumptions about headscarves came back to slap me across the face for the umpteenth time this trip: so many of our assumptions about social conservatism simply don’t translate here. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Daria command the table, rather than her non-English speaking husband, sons, nephews, and cousins, and I definitely shouldn’t have been surprised when she told us, in response to our copious compliments on what we assumed was her cooking, “Thank you, but I do not cook, because I am so busy at work.” Daria is a chemical engineer, working in the same company as her husband.

The apartment felt warm and lived-in, and as a bunch of college students who spend too much time away from home in favor of going on trips like this, nothing could have felt better. But for me, especially, so much of Turkey has started to feel closer and closer to comfortable. It’s strange to say you feel “at home” in a country you’ve barely known for a week, but as we’ve explored Istanbul from early wanderings through the Blue Mosque at seven AM to later night expeditions, we’ve all become enchanted by this city – and we keep saying to each other, “I don’t feel like this very often about a city…” like we’re reassuring each other that we’re not fickle about entering into love affairs with cities.

We asked Daria and her husband about their favorite parts of the city and found we agreed on Üsküdar, the area in the Asian side of the city near the water; we quizzed one another on our favorite Turkish foods and asked all about each other’s families. Daria and I traced all the words I’ve found that are the same in Turkish as in Hindi, the language I’ve been studying at Yale, and Turkish (Charlotte and I found they’re the same in Farsi, and Ali and I tracked them to Arabic as well): dunya for “world,” sehir for “city,” badam for “almond,” sebzi for “vegetable,” kitap for “book” – and probably many more I haven’t figured out yet. As I mimicked her pronunciation, she made my night when she said, “You must learn Turkish! You’re saying it all well.”

us with Daria's family/credit: Nebi Demirsoy

Istanbul wrapped us up in its deliciously enchanting arms already, but it’s Daria and her family who cemented it for me personally. This is, as we’ve been observing again and again in many forms, a land where the new and old are colliding, where the vocabulary of the West is challenged by a society heavy with the East. But each challenge has made me feel strangely “at home” in this country in a way that is hard to come by when you travel to a brand new place.

Like Uzra pointed out, it would be silly to pretend I’ve come to Turkey and “gotten it” in a week. But one of the great pleasures of traveling as a journalist is that we keep asking questions and pushing a place to tell us more and more about it. And if anything, we’ll always be left unsatisfied, wanting more. So I don’t know about the other Globalistas, but I’m coming back – in a year, or two, or more, but I’m coming with a whetted appetite. Get ready, Istanbul.

A Reporter’s Reflections: Istanbul

by Emily Ullmann

Sophomore Associate Editor Emily Ullmann is tracking the experience of reporting in a country without a free press as we make our way through Turkey. Halfway through the trip, she reflects on what this meant in Istanbul. Keep a lookout for her further reflections on making her way through Cyprus.

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“The Turkish people are not used to journalism. There is a division between society and journalism.”

As we sat on a rooftop terrace overlooking the strait of Bosphorus in Istanbul, Mahmut Çinar, professor of journalism at Bahçesehir University in Istanbul, explained to a small group of us the challenges journalists face in Turkey. Çinar described that as one of the most hated professions in Turkey today, journalists struggle to report because they face little popular support and lack any basic respect.

Mahmut Çinar, a professor of Journalism at B.U./credit: courtesy of European Journalism Centre

This perspective came as a surprise to me, despite following the evolving story of detained journalists and press freedom in Turkey. Although considered freer than most other nations in the Middle East, Turkey ranks as one of the worst nations of the world in terms of freedom of the press. All of the information I had read led me to believe that, much to the dismay the Turkish people, the government continues to censor its papers and tighten its grip on reporters.

Yet, when we spoke with Çinar, the picture became far more nuanced. Çinar’s students at Bahçesehir had experienced governmental constraints on their journalistic voices, with some even being detained and interrogated for several hours after attempting to report; however, Çinar also mentioned that he did not believe that the government really censored, he simply considered Turkey less free than the U.S.

“I don’t say there’s no censorship in Turkey. There is censorship, but not like you see from the outside. We don’t have chains restricting us.”

During our conversation, it occurred to me that perhaps my views of press freedom were so shaped by the U.S. that I could not totally grasp the implications of Çinar’s students’ experiences.

“I teach a class on Media Ethics for journalists. When my students have internships, they come back and tell me, ‘I’m sorry, but this [class] is useless.’”

From Çinar’s point of view, the lack of a tradition of free media in Turkey means that many journalists here self-censor and do not report on so-called “taboos,” like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president of Turkey, or the Armenian genocide. In contrast to the investigative journalism in the United States that often uncovers problems in the government and society, Turkish tradition holds that journalists report on some topics while totally avoiding some of the most hard-hitting questions.

As a journalist for the Globalist, I arrived in Istanbul with the intention of finding issues and controversies in Turkey, so this concept of self-censorship of taboos seems so foreign. In fact, in a nation where journalists avoid the toughest questions, those posed by my fellow Globalist reporters, whether about the Kurdish language or Muslim neighborhood pressures, seem even more crucial to answer.