Turkey and the Same Old Bollocks

Odd that I should by coincidence be reading a biography of Kemal Ataturk - the founder of the modern Turkish state - at the very time when an election in Turkey has generated a minor fuss among British politicians and foreign-office types (and bloggers, natch).

Simon Scott Plummer in the Telegraph has the right of it: Turkey has recently seen impartial, well-conducted elections and the victory of the moderate Islamic AKP party and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and now is the time for the EU to start seriously talking about Turkish membership. “A democratic Muslim country with a dynamic economy should be welcomed by a continent faced with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism,” he writes, and he could have added that Turkey is a democratic Muslim country with a secular constitution, no less, and a political elite willing to divorce itself from the powerful military. It is also one of the few Muslim countries to have dealt maturely with the creation of the State of Israel, and one of the few in which the government is in some way accountable to its populace. It is a powerful, influential presence in the Middle East, ideally poised to throw its weight behind Israel-Palestine peace talks, a security regime for Iraq, and demonstrate the worth of good governance to its neighbours. The EU should be opening its doors with open arms.

It won’t, though, because in the main members of the EU find it difficult to see the big picture. They hear that the AKP is an Islamic party (never mind that it is a moderate one, and that explicitly Christian parties are the norm in Central and Northern Europe) and they become nervous. Daniel Hannon believes that there is also fear of an energetic, patriotic and populous country coming along and spoiling the EU party, and I’m inclined to agree. The Kurdish problem is something Europeans are also wary of (hypocritically, since it was Europe which originally denied the Kurdish people a State of their own).

But I also have to wonder whether the old spectre of racism isn’t involved too. Europeans still haven’t quite adjusted to the fact that those without white European roots can be economically competitive and politically powerful. It’s never put explicitly, but there is still a marked tendency to patronize and belittle, and it manifests itself most often in attitudes towards Palestinians, Iraqis and Iranians, which persist in seeing them as victims and irrational actors, rather than intellectual equals. (Most Europeans, for example, are incapable of understanding that Palestinian terrorist organizations behave in a rational, intelligent way - we prefer to see them as desperate men driven by fear and powerlessness.) Turkey is another victim of that tendency; whereas European countries are capable of incorporating Christianity into their democratic systems, it is believed that Muslim countries are not - the implication being that Islam is inherently irrational and Muslim peoples are generally not capable of running a country well.

Huck, Jim and The River

.
"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn... There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."

Hemingway apparently said this. As mentioned previously, I've decided to read some older books that perhaps I have missed out on in the past due to not studying Literature at school. I've heard a few suggestions from people, and shortly after I posted about it noisms loaned me a couple of books.

I still have Moby Dick to read, but I thought that I would start by reading The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, as I remember when I was eight or nine I read some of either Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. I don't remember what I thought about it at the time, and if I'm honest I don't know what I make of it now.

Whenever you read a book that was written some time ago it can be difficult at first to appreciate what people might be talking about, or to relate to their situation. At the end of the day, we are all human though (and I guess not many people pre-20th century wrote about being other than human) so we have that to grab hold of, so it is merely the difference in circumstances that can confuse. For me, in reading Huckleberry Finn, the big thing that astonished me was the attitude to slavery.

OK, I understand that it was written at a different time, but to see Huck thinking and accepting that he will go to hell for helping Jim escape is quite a hard thing to relate to. Did people really think so little of other people? I suppose that despite tabloid headlines and celebrity slip-ups we do like to think that we are living in better times, when racism and prejudice are merely things that happen when we're not careful. It's a lie, you only have to look harder and see the prejudice that is still a very great reality in some parts of the world and in our own societies.

Still, that, for me, was the most shocking attitude in the book, that people could think that way about other people, and that the slaves would seem to just accept it.

It's not that I dislike Huckleberry Finn, actually there is a lot to like about it, although I think some of the episodes in it do go on for longer than is neccessary (the king and the duke long outstayed their welcome in my opinion); the incidents that Twain puts Huck and Jim through are genuinely interesting - and I suppose what surprises me is that after everything they go through on the river and all their trials and tribulations Huck really does think that he is damned for deciding to help Jim, even though Jim has time and again shown him exceptional kindness and true friendship.

(what was also quite amusing is that I was reading noisms annotated copy from whenever he studied the book; running across "V IMPORTANT" and "funniest line ever" in several places was a different way of reading a book)

Part of me thinks that the final few chapters are a little too convenient, too many things suddenly turn out right - Jim's freedom, the fate of Huck's father (one wonders if Miyazaki has ever read Huckleberry Finn) - but in some respects life is just like that, things can seem to be going all wrong and then everything surprises you and comes together.

Part of me yearns for their raft, for just floating down the river. In the same way, I first really longed to travel when I read On The Road - but both Huck and Jim's journey and Kerouac's travelling are closed off to me, they're just not realities any more (unless I'm wrong and someone knows that these sorts of "trips" are still made in America). Still, they make me want to get out there and see more of the world.

I don't know if Hemingway is right or not, and I'm still uncertain about how much I really enjoyed Huck Finn. Saying that, the way that the themes - especially the idea of drifting along the river - have stayed in my mind since I've finished it, I can't help but recommend it if you have never read it. And if you have read it, maybe you should find time to re-read it.

I've just started Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, and after that I'll go on to Moby Dick.

One day, however, I am certain that I will join Huck and Jim on the raft again, and see where the river takes us...