Ezra Mannix

Bulgaria: Don’t Knock It Til You Try It

I sat on the empty platform waiting for the train to take me back to Plovdiv. The day was brutally hot, with a high of at least 40 degrees. Across the rusty train tracks overgrown with weeds were dilapidated, Communist.-era industrial buildings that sweated rust in the waning evening sun. I had been in Bulgaria for more than 24 hours, and yet that was the first time I had seen before me an industrial landscape that so perfectly fit my preconceived notions of what a post-Communist, Eastern European country should look like.

Read more Bulgaria: Don’t Knock It Til You Try It

So Long, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer

I got laid off today from Ihlas. Financial troubles. Happy Ramadan to me. At least I won’t have to put up with the closed cafeteria during the holy month. Today is my last day. Only four hours notice. This place is flying by the seat of its pants too much.

Coincidentally (or perhaps not???) Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the secretary general of NATO, stepped down the same time I was informed of my own departure and I edited a story about it. How fitting, because I had edited so many inane little stories about him giving press conferences where he gave fluffy statements about security issues, organizational news, little NATO memorial ceremonies, etc.

Well Jaap, maybe you and I can drown our pink slip sorrows in Amstel Lights in The Hague.

Oops, your departure was planned…nevermind!

Two Turkey must reads

Since I have been here, I  have swallowed two must reads about Turkey that make a great pair to read at the same time or in succession. The first is no hidden find, especially since its author won some Scandinavian bling back in ’06. It is Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk. You can read reviews of it here.

The second perhaps less famous one is Star & Crescent: Turkey Between Two Worlds by Stephen Kinzer. You can read a review of it here.

Whats nice about reading them together or in succession is that one offers the reader  reflective and emotional insights into a city whose best days have past it by. It is very human, even in its recounting of the city’s history in the last 200 years. Instead of Monday morning quarterbacking  Istanbul’s  decline, it breathes life into it by relating first-hand accounts made by European travelers in the 19th century who saw a poverty stricken yet enigmatically charming place. He weaves these accounts with his own memories of growing up in a family that was also losing its wealth and prestige, a melancholy (hüzünlü) bunch that Westernized in its own superficial way.

All well and good, but it doesn’t dump you right into the heat of the conflicts and issues of modern Turkey. For that we turn to Kinzer, a former New York Times Bureau chief who is obviously used to condensing issues in a way that doesn’t oversimplify or patronize the reader’s ability to grasp subtleties of a culture. I thought his book was going to be a cheerleader of how wonderful modern Turkey is and just regurgitate official lines about issues. Indeed,  from the cover, it looks like he is going to do just that. While he does suffer from tiny spurts of unqualified hyperbole about how amazing Turkey is, he gets to the real meat of issues such as the Armenian genocide question, the war with the Kurds, the censure of artists and writers, and more. Naturally being a yabanci (foreigner) helps him get away with a lot, but he doesnt offer a Holier than Thou, look-I-come-from-a-REAL-democracy perspective. He is humbled, for example, when one Turkish writer calls him a Turcophile, a badge he obviously continues to wear with pride.

And as a nice connection, Kinzer discusses his friendship with Pamuk and notes that Pamuk is naturally inclined to be a-political, a reminder to me how good these two books balance each other out.

Plus he really gets how great mezes, nargile, and ambling about forgotten ruins are!

Ah, to be named “Ezra” in Turkey!

Being named Ezra in Turkey suuure is fun!

You see, the name Ezra is one of those names that is remarkably similar to a common Turkish WOMAN’S name: Esra. In fact, when said quickly, the two sound almost indistinguishable, at least to the Turkish ear. Or so it seems judging from the looks I get when I say my name.

I have instead resorted to saying my name slowly. eZZZZra. No matter. I still get quizzical looks. I then immediately tell people “Ezra değil” (not “Esra”) but Ezzzzzra. With a “zet.”

“You know, there is a Turkish girls name called Esra. Did you know that?” they always say.

“Uh huh…I know.”

“There is also a less common Turkish girls name: “Azra.”” (means “untouched”)

“Yep.”

So between the two I am pretty much fucked.

Not to mention there is “Azrail,” which is the angel of death!

People are also eager to ask what the origins of my name are. I never divulge this until asked. I say its a Hebrew name, but I don’t say I am Jewish until asked. Even then I am coy. There is a latent anti-Semitism in Turkey. Most people I associate with are totally cool with Judaism and are eager to learn about it, or they relate stories of a Turkish Jewish friend they have or something they learned about Judaism.

Nevertheless, with Erdoğan’s mildly Islamist government in charge, I cant help but feel a bit more nationalism in the air this time around than 6 years ago. Though he is a pragmatist above all else, and though Turks are very good at distinguishing an individual from the politics of the country they are from, I feel like Turks today are more eager to voice anti-Israel sentiments and equate them with all Jews, Israeli or not.

I know one person who worked in the Jewish community, for example, who wont even discuss the nature of her work over the phone in public places. While this may be a bit of an extreme precaution, it goes to show that human rights in Turkey means tolerating minorities — sometimes barely — as opposed to embracing them. Turkey has a long way to go in this regard if it wants EU membership.