Istanbul: city of layers and counter-currents

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many cities are centers of trade, or crossroads of cultures, or seats of power with histories of conflicts between the many and the few. Many cities are influenced or defined by their proximity to distinct waterways and harbors. And many cities are defined by distinct architectural structures and monuments that symbolize the city. Istanbul has all of these, but each is layered, each contains counter-currents. The essence of Istanbul (as the cultural capital of Turkey) does all of this and more. First, it stands alone in its unique geographic and political setting: balancing east and west (Europe and Asia – including Iran) and north and south (Russia, via the Black Sea and the Middle East),;tradition and modernity. Istanbul has often been characterized by use of the metaphor of a ‘veil,’ a city, like many of its people, hidden and mysterious. Like many ancient cities, its archeological layers hide or reveal its complicated past. Strolling among the neighborhoods of the older city, on both sides of the Bosphorus, reveals layered juxtapositions of hyper modernity and genuine and also reactive tradition. The focus of the current political regime on rooting out widespread political conspiracies by repressing dissent is only the most recent example of an attempt to ‘re-found’ the state on an imagined community of Turks, and re-embracing the use of the veil. The Bosphorus strait provides the best example of layers and counter-currents. The 30 km long strait, notoriously difficult to navigate, is highly unusual: it features a colder surface current, flowing south from the freshwater Black Sea, and a warmer saltier (and heavier) ‘counter current,’ flowing the opposite direction underneath. This natural feature which unites the city is layered and divided – it is an embodiment of the layers and countercurrents of the contemporary city of Istanbul. This chapter combines reflections on the city from an outsider, with thoughts on the meaning of political conspiracy and role of the city in the founding of a nation state.