‘No-alcohol trade zone’
I am at the Macrocenter of Cesme, Turkish coast. I ended up checking the shelf of the renowned artichokes (enginarlar) from Urla, despite I was looking for a bottle of local red wine. I am in the paradise of Turkish vines, not far from the Aegean, and today, 31 March 2024, I neither could do a coveted tasting in a wine shop in the hills nor buy a drop of wine at the supermarket. Why? Today is the last day of voting in the municipal elections; it is an obligatory alcohol-free moment.
Mediterranean spring unfolds in the quasi-orgiastic ritual of kahvalti at The Stay Hotel in Cesme, a sour-sweet tasting of seasonal vegetables sweetened by the velvet of kaymak with tahin. Last night I was dining at Od Urla, a dining oasis nestled in a beehive of olive trees, an ode to Turkaegean. I am in the land where the Anatolian peninsula becomes more Mediterranean, between the sanctuary of Ephesus, the Cave of Meryam, the village of Şirince, a hilly corner where more than a few Turks invest since an ancient legend promises salvation to those who fear the imminent end of the world.
The area between the town of Urla and Izmir was once a fertile trading ground for Greek shipowners and Phanariots, who conducted their fruitful business between the islands of the North-East Aegean (Chios, Lesbos, Samos…) and the bright Ottoman shores. From the cosmopolitan port of Smyrna, cotton, tobacco, grapes, figs were exported westwards, making the ancient city a carrefour of confessions, languages, ethnicities. For this reason, it was called the gâvur (unfaithful) city. The commercial evolution of this legacy is the Arkas holding, a local authority founded at the beginning of the 20th century and merged in the 1960s into the Lucien Arkas Ferry Agency, a pioneer in Turkey of international transport services.
Today, the holding brings together under its umbrella some 66 companies also operating in the energy, food and beverage, sports, construction and automotive sectors. Lucien Arkas is a true local squire who symbolically represents the heritage of a land that was once multicultural, then disputed and finally divided between the populations that had coexisted under Ottoman administration for five hundred years. The refined homes of Urla and Bornova (Izmir) and the Arkas Art Centre (located in the Honorary Consulate of France), are the legacy of a flourishing past, reminiscent in part of the former tenants who fled to Greece after the fire of Izmir and the exchange of populations sanctioned by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Although the flames have removed a significant part of the city, I came to Izmir to get to know the spirit of today’s most secular and free city in Turkey.
‘This is where you meet the best girls in Turkey, everyone knows that, Claudia,’ dear friend B, an Istanbulite, tells me. He suggests I listen to the lyrics of the song İzmir’in Kızları by Sezen Aksu. I think I catch a glimpse of the young performers mentioned in her lyric the evening I arrive in Izmir and walk down the main street of Alsancak, during the celebrations of the Christian Easter and the month of Ramadan, Pasquadan! The girls prance around in those short skirts and glittering outfits the singer talks about, while a few clubs crowd in for iftar and nobody seems to care whether or not to consume alcohol in the holy month of Islamic purification. The historic seafood meyhane Klüp Ali does not hesitate to dispense rivers of raki to the patrons of the restaurant where we choose to dine, a quaint mix of portraits of Ataturk and unified tv channels on the Fenerbahce – Vakifbank volleyball match.
The typical bombaci sweet is a metaphor for Izmir’s charm: a passable aesthetic appearance ready to burst into the melting, glowing filling (my favourite is always chocolate). I scroll through the local newspaper headlines over a freshly baked gevrek and kumru at Zeynel Ergin Firini. In the run-up to the vote, Izmir is confirmed as the stronghold of the CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), the republican party heir to Kemalism and guardian of secularism and fervent local business. I believe, however, that behind the maya veil of Turkey’s Mediterranean-facing liberals lies more complexity.
I reflect over this at the quaint Gul Kebap, enjoying a buttery Iskender in the Kemeralti bazaar. I get there after a long walk through the Syrian quarter and the ancient Roman agora. Kemeralti is one of the largest and oldest open-air bazaars in Turkey. This labyrinth of streets and alleys, developed from the 17th century onwards, extends to the historic Jewish quarter of Havra Sokağı. Although no longer as multicultural as it once was, Izmir is home to juxtaposed secular enclaves of Orthodox, Levantines and Jews. Heirs to the ancient merchants and ambassadors of the Italian maritime republics, the Levantines, Catholics who normally speak English or French and belong to the Church of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul, are a community that has always felt at home in many cultures, although they do not recognise themselves as belonging to any of them. Historically located in Istanbul’s Pera district, where today’s Levantine Circolo di Roma is still situated, in Izmir the Levantines attend the church of St Polycarp, support the business and cultural community of Casa Italia and educate themselves in schools dedicated to them. During the liturgical mass, they still struggle to accept preaching in Turkish, fearing to lose their cultural identity. The great challenge today is therefore to ensure the intergenerational passage of the Catholic faith to children born in Turkey, who speak Turkish and integrate into Turkish society, who risk feeling a hiatus between the language of their religion and that of everyday life.
Whereas at the end of the Ottoman period, Jews made up about 10 per cent of Izmir’s population, today they number just over a thousand. Having arrived in Izmir in the 16th century from the Iberian peninsula, Sephardic Jews built their places of worship in the so-called street of synagogues, the Havra Sokagi, where a statue dedicated to the Jewish-Italian singer Dario Moreno also stands. The landmark of this area of the Karatas neighbourhood is the Asansor, a magnificent architectural structure built by the Jewish entrepreneur Nesim Levi to connect Mithatpasa (at sea level) with Halil Rifat Pasa (at the top of the hill), avoiding the citizenry having to climb the 150 steps of the alternative staircase. The view of the gulf from the terrace of the Asansor is unparalleled, welcoming Izmir’s good-timers from morning to evening, caressing the aperitifs of chatty Izmir ladies as the sun sets over the Aegean.
Far away, on the Gulf, stands LANDCOM, NATO’s Allied Land Command, offspring of the LANDSOUTHEAST founded by the Atlantic Council in 1952. Headed by US General Christopher Donahue, the protagonist of many missions including Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), today Landcom exists to ensure the interoperability of NATO’s land forces and to provide complex command for any large-scale land operations, depending functionally on the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples and Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum. It is, therefore, a base of the utmost importance, necessary to guarantee prompt intervention in Eurasia and in the neighbouring areas of Turkish Mesopotamia and the Levant powder keg. Not bad that a NATO base is located right on the border of these major geopolitical theatres, in which Turkey, which boasts the second largest military contingent within the Atlantic alliance, has considerable conflicts of interest. Needless to overlook Turkish ambitions in the neighbouring Aegean islands, best summarised by Turkish Admiral Cem Gurdeniz in his well-known theory of the Blue Homeland (‘Mavi Vatan’), where he describes the new Turkish empire’s need for a maritime outlet. Nor can one ignore Turkey’s strategic and security interest in the neighbouring east in Syria, where the control of the Kurdish territory of Rojava coincides with both the project to build the new Cotton Road (IMEC) and the attempt to solve the crucial domestic issue of PKK terrorism.
In all this, what is the seemingly placid Izmir doing?
I’m on the rooftop night of its Swisshotel enjoying the election result, with a chamomile tea, of course, not a glass of Urla wine. The CHP won 35 of the 81 provinces with an overall turnout of 78%, expelling many of President Erdogan’s AKP strongholds, and managed to win in all five of the country’s biggest cities (Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa and Adana). In Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu was re-elected mayor by a margin of more than 10% and more than 1 million votes over his opponent, former Minister of Urban Planning Murat Kurum. I wonder, will he have to pay this price..?
In the city the celebrations are going crazy, it seems that Turkey has won the world championship tonight. I believe it is only the beginning.
Görüşürüz!
