Happy first anniversary, Istanbul!

One year ago, I got on an unmarked Egypt Air plane for my one-way ticket bringing me (back) to Istanbul. Leaving Cairo was a difficult decision--I was leaving my friends, leaving the place that had been home for years. Unlike when I left the year before, this time I knew it would be very unlikely I would return as a resident.

Me and little baby Ziza monster, Istanbul bound!

What changed in that year? While I love Egypt, the move was a long time coming. The rise of Sisi brought a crackdown on dissent and a feeling of morose among those who considered themselves revolutionaries. My friends, both Egyptian and foreign, began to leave. The difficulties of every day life, namely the harassment, were no longer manageable. Or perhaps before I was better able to deal with it because there was hope, the promise that things would get better, a feeling that I was in a place moving forward. But Egypt stopped moving forward. Instead, it went backward. The crackdown on dissent, the disappearances, the extrajudicial killings. It's all worse than under Mubarak.

A few days before I left, leading up to the fourth anniversary of the January 25 revolution, activist Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh was killed while trying to lay a flower down, peaceful protest. Police shot her at close range with bird shot. Seeing her image, the sadness in her friend's eyes... I went home and drank a bottle of smuggled wine because I just could not deal with it anymore. I internalized Egypt's politics too much. I asked some of my formerly active friends how they dealt with it--they said they stopped caring. But I kept on getting angry. I kept on getting sad. I began to think only distance would make this feeling go away.

Egypt's infamous sexual harassment also took its toll. I could no longer walk past a male on the street without tensing up, getting quiet being scared, without bracing for physical contact. When I moved to Egypt, I wasn't a violent person. After a year, I started to want to hit the guys on the street. Then I wanted to shoot them. At the end, I didn't want to shoot them. I wanted to make them suffer, to really feel the pain and fear they inflict on women every day. I wanted to kill them slowly and painfully. Not normal.

It got to the point I didn't like any kind of physical contact, any kind of compliments after being sexually degraded on the streets for so long. At the end of my stay in Egypt, I stopped going out completely. Fuck it--not going out to be sexually harassed. I'll just sit at my apartment with my fur ball.

I was once in Vienna, Austria, and a group of Austrian teenage boys were walking behind me. I got so angry--why were they there? What were they saying? My heart was racing. Borderline PTSD.

Now, one year later, I can walk past groups of men--old men, young men, middle aged men--and not think twice. For the most part, people don't even look at me. Sometimes I meet eyes with a male stranger--and nothing. He doesn't take it as a come on. We just look away. Sometimes I notice that I'm passing by a group of shabaab-looking kids--and they don't even look at me. They just continue doing what they're doing.

I love the fact I can walk in the streets here, ride the metro, and be anonymous. I'm just another person, just like everyone else. In Egypt I felt like a peacock.

I no longer get scared. That is probably the most important change, and something I would never give up again.

A tale of golden toilets

Turkey's parliamentary elections are around the corner, elections that could be considered the most important in history. Not only is the parliament in the balance, but the parliamentary system is as well. Ex-prime minister and current president Erdogan announced plans to turn Turkey into a presidential system (what a coincidence! Now that he's president, he wants to put all the power in that office).

An upstart political party called the HDP that was once considered aligned with Kurds and therefore terrorists/separatists but now gaining popularity across the board is in a position to potentially block this--if they reach the 10 percent threshold, Erdogan and his followers won't have enough support for the presidential shift. The HDP is going for inclusivity, fielding a roster of not only Kurdish activists, but socialists, religious Muslims, minority candidates including Roma and Armenians, and a transgender candidate. If they lose, however, the seats they gained will be divided between the winning parties, making the AKP even stronger.

Erdogan surrounded by his Ottoman-style guards

I am not convinced Erdogan will lose this election, even if he loses the vote. Funny business tends to happen during Turkish elections (like a stray cat who got into a transformer and cut the electricity right as vote-counting began in an anti-Erodgan area). He's made it clear he is in charge of Turkey and that he has no intention of compromise, let alone ever leaving. 

A man who was once considered a modernizer now surrounds himself with Ottoman-styled guards in a bizarre and controversial $615 million palace he built on what was meant to be conserved land. His rants about golden toilets are grabbing headlines here, rants that followed him daring those who opposed the construction of his palace to come down and take it from him. He has engaged in verbal warfare with both foreign and local journalists. He singled out the NYT for its coverage, calling it and its former Turkey head and "enemy" of himself and the state. He has sued a local journalist for coverage on shipments of arms from the Turkish equivalent of the CIA to Syrian fighters. That journalist has been threatened by the prosecutor general with a life sentence due to his "espionage." In rhetoric that echos Egypt, he accuses the NYT, CNN, and the BBC of trying to weaken and divide Turkey. While these accusations and actions border on farcical, the stifling effect can be felt. Whenever he speaks, the stock market crashes. 

Erdogan is everywhere despite the fact he's not actually running for office. His face, never a smile, looks down on us in the metro, on buildings, in tea shops. Election propaganda is technically banned from public transport, yet Erdogan's face beams down from buses and inside the metro. Erdogan, as president, technically is nonpartisan, although he admits to having the AKP in his heart. 

Some may pass this off as election season blovating, but I think he actually believes the stuff coming out of his mouth. He sees an enemy around every corner. He believes the opposition parties are conspiring against him (which, to be fair, is true as that is the entire point of being in the opposition). This is an election about him, not about Turkey, not about the Parliament. That his words aren't just rhetoric is what makes the situation so difficult. 

Fear

After a long hiatus, I'm back at the blog.

Last June, I returned to Egypt from Turkey. I was burned out from my job in Istanbul. I had no time to make friends or enjoy the city that people told me was awesome. I was generally unhappy. I missed my crew in Cairo, missed the sense of community and the way of life. Things are more difficult there, but at the same time more real.

After six months in Sisi's Egypt, I left and returned to Istanbul. I had been there for his takeover, but this time it was stifling. The cult of personality, the hostility toward those who did not accept the official narrative without question, became too much. People began to joke about being disappeared, informed upon, detained--jokes that are only actually funny when there's a chance it may happen. One day, traffic was stopped for a VIP on a major street in the middle of rush hour. The driver I was with started irately honking--the cabbie next to us half-jokingly told us to stop or we would all be detained. Friends would post things on facebook with the disclaimer "Don't inform on me" (haha).

One night I was out to dinner with friends and we started talking about politics. I told them to hush, to speak quietly. They thought I was being paranoid. We went home and read about how that day, journalists were arrested in a cafe downtown for the same crime. And don't even get me started about journalists. Journalists who do not have international attention--Al Jazeera guys--are left in prisons, forgotten, held indefinitely without charges and without any venue to justice. By virtue of being "only" Egyptian, of having the wrong passport. Of working in their own country.

I wasn't the only one who left. My Egyptian friends began to leave in droves--for masters, for jobs, for anything. Those who stayed largely disengaged from politics. It's the only way to stay sane, one former activist told me.

On the fourth anniversary of January 25, I came home from dinner with my friends, opened Facebook and Twitter, read about a peaceful protester getting killed by bird shot. Social media circulated a photo of her, blood coming out her back and mouth, a shocked expression, with a friend frantically grasping her waist. Later, we learn the police attempted to accuse one of her party members with her murder. Then the Muslim Brotherhood. Police refused to call for help for the shot woman, and also arrested those who tried to help her. They dragged the men away, left her dying, slumped on a plastic chair in the middle of downtown Cairo.

Now, her party members have been slammed with charges of participating in an unregistered protest, with up to six years in jail. This, as the likes of the Mubaraks and Habib al-Adly walk free.

I finished a bottle of wine by myself that night. Her death was the nail in the revolution's coffin.

It of course didn't end with me leaving. Ahmed Samih, the director of the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies, a leading human rights activist, was detained following a raid on his office. He is also the head of Radio Horytna and, incidentally, my first employer in Cairo. His case is just one of many in an attempt to stifle civil society. Radio Horytna is a nonpartisan, unaffiliated online news portal. Because Egyptian news is controlled by the government and total shit.

Egypt had become like that--an endless cycle of lost hope, repression, jumpiness. I would open the news and get angry every day. I would drive to my house from the gym--maybe 15 minutes--and get stuck in multiple checkpoints. When I was with Egyptian males, they would get pulled over and harassed by the police. The police were making the point--we are back, and we are back with a vengeance. Their presence was ostensibly about protecting the people, but in reality their presence is keeping the people down. I see that here in Istanbul too-tens of heavily armed police standing in the middle of Istiklal, a pedestrian shopping street, with their hands on their automatic weapons, riot gear in hand. Who are you protecting? Who are you serving? The people you are only too antsy to shoot?

Turkey recently passed a law allowing security forces to use live fire against protesters with firecrackers or anything like that. In the middle of the afternoon on Istiklal, surrounded by shoppers, tourists, and random passers by, I've been in the vicinity of a protest that erupted and firecrackers start going off. What is to happen then? Judging by the police's use of tear gas and water cannons (indiscriminate), I--and many others--are less than comfortable.

There are also reports Turkey just banned Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It's a losing battle, my friend. The information is out and people will always find a way to access it. You will just be chasing your own tail.

But when it comes down to it, who are these governments afraid of? What do they fear? Is it the very people they serve?

NOTE: I write this with recognition of the limitations and acts of violence of the police in my own country. I am writing about MY experience. I don't live in the US so don't accuse me of ignoring brutality elsewhere. 

Erdogan, Erdogan all around: Turkey's campaign season

Campaign season is in full mode in Turkey, which is set to vote on its next president August 10. There is not much suspense over the result-- presently Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodgan will be president. Erdogan, who has been prime minister for the last eight years, looks set to pull a Putin-Medvedev.

Does that logo look familiar to anyone? Yes, we can. 

Visiting Istanbul over eid, the city was covered in huge Erdogan posters. Erdogan's image loomed over ancient aqueducts, over Taxim, along highways. You could not escape him. His publicly financed campaign rallies made headlines, his voice screamed from television screens. He even played in a football (soccer) match at the opening of an Istanbul stadium. The crowds roared as he scored goal after goal.

There were smaller posters seen for his opponent whats-his-face. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu's lack of a chance of winning is evident in the lack of airtime he his given. In the fact his image is unseen in Taxim. In the fact that he does not make crowds roar. His campaign rallies were poorly covered, with low public visibility.

The good "Profesor Doktor"

Ihsanoglu is a technocrat. He's had a successful career in diplomacy. He has little standing in domestic politics. He's got the hopes of a fragmented opposition resting on his distinguished, internationally-respected shoulders (remind you of anyone, Mohamed El Baradei?) I cringed when I saw one of his few campaign posters around--he called himself "Professor Doctor." Again similar to El Baradei's perceived elitism. Does the Turkish street care if someone is a "professor doctor?" Do they identify with "professor doctors?" Do they feel represented by "professor doctors?" My intuition is the answer to all these questions is a resounding "no."

Is Erdogan breaking the law? Campaign-wise, probably not. But that's not the point. You can follow the letter of the law and flagrantly ignore its spirit. You can have an unrigged election produce an undemocratic result when the cards are so obviously stacked against the opposition. Without breaking the law, without becoming a formal dictatorship, you can marginalize the opposition, squeeze them from the public sphere and secure your own position.

Before this year, I criticized my Egyptian friends for boycotting elections. This is why you guys aren't being represented, I said. You have to make change from within. You have to be in parliament, have to make yourself heard. You need an agenda and need to get into grassroots organizing.

But after this year... what's the point? Your voice will not be heard. There is no campaign rigging, but there does not need to be. There is no space for opposition. You're with us or against us. You're for a new Turkey or for a return to the past. Opposition figures are given less airtime. Their images and campaign materials are minimal or absent. The city is plastered by the image of the preferred candidate. Those who dare campaign for an opposite result face harassment and arrest. And perhaps most worringly, few see a problem with that.

I ask again, what's the point?

Is participating giving legitimacy to a sham? Or is it refusing to be marginalized? 

The day Twitter died

Last night, Twitter went offline here in Turkey shortly after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told supporters at an election rally, "We'll eradicate Twitter. I don't care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic!"

And so it happened. Apparently Erdoğan obtained a court order allowing him to take the website down. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media websites have been the target of his ire since the Gezi Park protests for not only allowing activists to air their grievances and coordinate, but the websites have also been used to circulate a bunch of incredibly embarrassing leaked audiotapes. The audiotapes implicate senior businessmen and government officials, including Erdoğan himself,  in corruption. One tape alleged to be between Erdoğan and his son and fellow SAISer, Bilal, has Erdoğan telling his son to hide an incredible amount of money as anti-corruption operations ensnared those in his inner circle. The anti-corruption drive is largely believed to be orchestrated by the shadowy Gülen Movement, which the government claims infiltrated state institutions (I have apparently lived in Egypt too long because I think its not an unlikely possibility this is true).

Erdoğan says the tapes are "fabricated" but also says the Gülenists illegally wiretapped him and his associates and has not refuted the veracity of the content of the tapes.

On a statement published on the website of pro-government Sabah newspaper and translated by Al Monitor, Erdoğan said, "In the ongoing situation, Twitter has remained indifferent to remove certain links despite court orders favoring the citizens of the Turkish Republic. We came to [the] conclusion that in order to relieve our citizens, there is no way left beyond blocking Twitter, which disregards court orders, does not obey the rule of law."

The EU called the ban "groundless, pointless, cowardly."

Turkish President Abdullah Gül, often at odds with the prime minister and considered the more democratically oriented, sent a Tweet the morning after the ban saying he did not approve of the ban and instructed officials to examine legal ways of reopening access.

Turks were certainly relieved. In fact, the Turkish Twitterati quickly took to the social media website to fight back, posting with hashtags such as #twitterisblockedinturkey and #dictatorerdogan. This morning, I could not access Twitter on my phone or normal Google Chrome but was able to get on via a VPN. I didn't necessarily need or want to use Twitter, but if I'm told I can't do something, I'll do it.

Erdoğan apparently failed to get the message that khalas, it happened. The internet was invented. You can't stop it or the spread of information. Information is now open, available--democratic, if you will. Ban Twitter, ban Facebook, ban them all, ban the internet. The world has changed and people will find a way to get to access information.

I've been here for about two months now. There is definitely the feeling Turkey is at a turning point. About a week or so ago, a 15-year-old boy who was hit in the head by a teargas canister during the Gezi Park protests died after being in a coma for 269 days. Turks took to the streets in thousands in a show of support for Berkin Elvan's family and against the system that killed him. He had become a symbol of the opposition and the excessive use of force used against protesters. The police fought back with tear gas and water cannons. Public transport was closed that day to try to keep people from reaching central Istanbul, making my trip home interesting and full of tear gas.

Instead of recognizing the tragedy of a life lost, Erdoğan said the dead child was a terrorist, at first claiming he had a bomb in his pocket (which the security forces apparently kept secret for 270 days and only decided to publicize after the kid died) and later said he had a slingshot.

"The kid with steel marbles in his pockets, with a slingshot in his hand, his face covered with a scarf, who had been taken up into terror organizations, was unfortunately subjected to pepper gas," said Erodğan.

He even got a crowd to boo the dead child's mother, who had said it was not God who killed her son, but the prime minister.

"His mother says, 'My son's killer is the prime minister.' I know love, fondness for one's child, but I could not understand why you threw steel marbles and carnations into your son's grave," Erdoğan told a campaign rally.

She had left marbles in the grave.

There is also a narrative being told by the government that the international community just does not understand what is going on in Turkey--very similar to the narrative perpetuated in Egypt following Rabaa. In both cases, "they" just don't understand. This is a fight against terror and a fight to the death.

Municipal elections are coming up on March 30 and many Turks are holding their breath. A power struggle is playing out between the AK Party under Erdoğan and the Gülenists, with most Turks hostage and democratic ideas be damned.

Opposition leaders have cautioned their supporters against taking to the streets after the Twitter ban and the words against Berkin's mother, saying the government is trying to provoke protesters to justify a heavy-handed response and alienate opposition and their cause from the wider Turkish public.

Many young Turks I talk to have no idea who they will vote for in the elections. They do not like Erdoğan, but the opposition leadership sucks as well and is equally out of touch with the younger generation.

So we wait.