Carpetblogger

O Silent* Ramazan Night!

*If by silent, we mean "drums and drum-set car alarms at 3am." This post is a total lie.

The first year in Turkey, it was a charming cultural tradition to be appreciated and embraced. The second year, it was an annoyance to be avoided. The third year, it has become a target for open hostility.  (Some day we'll do a post comparing and contrasting Ramazan in all the countries we've had the good fortune to visit during the Holy Month, particularly the Qat-fueled all night parties in Sana'a we saw last year. It's all fun for a couple of days. A month is too much).

Astute readers know that Ramazan, the Muslim holy month of daylight fasting which starts today, begins about two weeks earlier every year. This has practical implications for everyone, believers and infidels alike.

For example, it's much easier to fast in December when days are very short and cool than it is to fast in July and August, when days are very long and hot. Ramadan is going to be a summer holiday for the next few years. It also means that the drummers, an old Ottoman tradition in which guys with drums troll neighborhoods waking people pre-dawn for sahur (pre-dawn meal), start earlier and earlier. This year, drumming would probably start around 3 am. Every day. For 30 days. Also, it being August, people like to sleep with their windows open, even if their bedroom overlooks the Sokak. Our Sokak seems to be home to some heavy sleepers and drummers like to pay special attention to it. After a month of this, even the most ardent cultural relativist begins to fantasize about beebee guns and water balloons.

Recognizing that most people own modern conveniences such as "alarm clocks," that some drummers are opportunists who accept tips to not drum on certain streets and that some harass residents at the end of Ramazan for tips, some municipalities have banned drumming. We applaud those municipalities, but until now, ours has not been one of them. 

As the Turkish Life has noted, "I'm just waiting for some mayor to say 'Globalization has given us McDonald's and TV dinners. You can easily eat throughout the year without killing a big cow at Kurban Bayramı. And if you want to show off to the neighbors, well, that's what fancy cars and iPhones are for.'"

But! TL has issued a late report that drumming in Beyoğlu has been banned this year. Despite heavy skepticism in Yabancı Köy about any ban not involving YouTube actually being observed in Turkey, it appears to be the case. No drumming last night! It may be a peaceful month after all, inşallah.

A Bayram Visit to Cowshwitz

İyi bayramlar! It's that time of year when it really sucks to be a sheep or cow -- Kurban Bayram (Eid Al-Adha, or the feast of the sacrifice). Today, all good Muslims  purchase a cow or sheep according to their resources, ritually slaughter it and distribute the meat to the poor and to their own families. (We were first exposed to Kurban Bayram in Baku, and speculated about one's charitable options in Istanbul last year here and here). 

Old Istanbul hands remember when the annual butchery took place in the streets. In deference to oversensitive EU proponents who find the practice of slaughtering animals with axes in the streets barbaric, the Municipality has worked hard to contain the bloodshed to pre-approved Kesım Yerleri (slaughtering places). The good news is that even with Kesım Yerleri, it's still possible to see barbarism committed in a god's name in Istanbul.

We started our Bayram morning at the Kesım Yeri on aptly named Boğazkesen (throatcutter) Caddesi in our neighborhood. On all other days, it serves as a car- and carpet-wash but on Bayram, it opens its easily-hoseable concrete wash bay to butchers and Imams. We watched a single family join an Imam in quiet prayer over a tightly bound heifer then turned our back as the blood swished out of a slit in its throat.

It was pretty civilized, as these things go, and we should have left it at that and gone straight home to the couch. But no. Thinking that we wanted a bit more "earthy"  experience, we hiked over to Tarlabaşı, a largely Kurdish neighborhood we fondly refer to as "the ghetto." It did not disappoint!

The Kesım Yeri was smellable before it was visible. A dozen yellow tarp enclosures sheltered hundreds of sheep and cattle in a muddy, trash-strewn hillside lot. Families milled around, poking and prodding sheep, identifying The One (look kids! A petting zoo!). Freelance butchers in bloody jeans dragged the unlucky from the pens to an equally muddy part of the lot, strewn with heads, legs, stomachs and stained red with gallons of blood, where the "sacrifice" took place. 

 After hanging around long enough, we began to notice all the auxiliary services that kept the process moving. A young man in a brown suit selling matching brown sheep from the sidewalk argued to police that he wasn't operating outside the Kesım Yeri.  Women dragged bulging stomachs to the side of the lot, slit them open  and dumped out half-digested hay into smelly yellow piles. Knife sharpeners kept the tools -- many of them quite crude - sharp. Cattle butchers hoisted carcasses with mechanized winches. A truck driver offered to drive our live animal wherever we wanted. Taxi drivers with open trunks stood ready to haul plastic garbage bags of fresh meat home (memo to self: double check taxi trunks before loading baggage during Bayram). Since every massacre needs levity, a balloon seller entertained the kids with inflatable spidermen and dalmations.

We've seen plenty of animal slaughters, but we take serious issue with the idea that Kurban sacrifices are humane. With amateur butchers wielding what appeared to be steak knives, this was the most fucking barbaric scene we've ever seen. Not that offering a prayer ever justifies savagery, there didn't even appear to be any ritual accompanying the sacrifice. It was a frantic free-for-all of struggling animals, spurting blood, men whacking away at carcasses with axes and unidentifiable body parts lying in slimy heaps in the mud.

Surely, when sheep and cows talk about genocide, this is what they have in mind. They could have used the Producer there to disarm some of the knife wielders.

Carpetblogger's Menu of Ramazan Suck

It's Ramazan again! It seems like just yesterday the Ramazan Davulcusu passed through the neighborhood beating their drums and chanting their 4 am prayers, disturbing the rest of believers and infidels alike (described and photographed here, here, here and here). Last year, we thought it was an opportunity to experience a  charming dying cultural tradition. This year, it's 30 days of being woken up by drums beneath our open bedroom windows every.single.morning at 3 am, and more than a mild irritant.

Astute readers know that Ramazan is the month-long fast celebrated by Muslims around the world. There are two important things to know about Ramazan: it moves about one month earlier every year and people fast from sunrise to sunset. That means that Ramazan in December is much more popular among Turks than, say, Ramazan in August or September because the days are a lot shorter and the fast is less demanding. Summertime Ramazans result in extra crankiness and diminished activity among people who break no productivity records fully nourished.

Ramazan in September is not at all popular with Carpetblogger because it gets light around 5:30 am. That means the drums start pounding the streets at 3 am, waking people up so they can eat the morning meal before the sun comes up. It's still hot out and closing the windows at night isn't practical. This morning's drummer probably knew we'd kept our neighbors awake until 3 am with all manner of haraam foolishness Saturday night at The Producer's 40th Birthday party, so stood extra long beneath our windows as payback.

So, you say, "Carpetblogger! Quit bitching! It could be worse! Few restaurants close during Ramazan in Turkey and lots of people don't fast. You could be in Saudi Arabia or Yemen, where even hotel restaurants shut down and eating is strictly forbidden.  Not only that, it's 5000 degrees in Saudi this time of year, you aren't even allowed to drink water and you have to dress like a pre-Vatican nun. Now that would be 1000 kinds of suck."

Well, as it turns out, our oft-postponed trip to Saudi, Pakistan and Yemen is almost certain to fall during the holy month (we are intensely curious about whether Yemenis stop chewing Qat during the day). So, while we will escape the drums (which I believe are uniquely Turkish), we'll be in countries are not quite as laid back about one of the pillars of Islam as the Turks. We plan to bring our own food.

Since last year, we spent most of Ramazan in Kyiv which is pretty much the opposite of a Muslim country in all the important ways (ample pork, booze and scantily clad devushkas), Allah must be punishing us this year.

Carpetblog Recommends: The Desert Store

Carpetblogger loves to shop and we love a challenge! We are here to announce our discovery of an on-line store we've discovered that has everything for the fashionable AND modest woman!

And, for the woman who is neither but has to go to Saudi Arabia.

Like all business travel, this trip presents wardrobe-related logistical challenges for girls. To start with, it's not just Saudi, but includes Pakistan and Yemen as well. Both have slightly differing standards of female modesty. Second, it's August, which means it will be 150 degrees and humid in seaside Jedd-ah and tail end of monsoon in Islamabad. Sana'a sits at 7500 feet. The only way this trip could suck more is if it fell in September, which is Ramadan, and included a visit to Kabul. (Vigilant ancestors will be pleased to know the Afghanistan portion of the trip has been canceled out of security concerns).

Our current wardrobe, while completely appropriate for "consulting" from the couch in Istanbul, doesn't quite meet Wahabbist standards for female modesty or anyone else's definition of "professional" or "attractive." You'd think that, as a resident of a city that has one or two Muslims, we'd be able to find something suitable without a lot of effort. The Grand Bazaar is a good place to shop if you want to  dress like a housewife from Fatih or like sequins. However, as it is hot, crowded and disorganized, shopping there demands substantially more effort than we wanted to devote to this project.

Our biggest clothes-related question has been "how much can we get away with?" Since Jedd-ah is the Berkeley of Saudi Arabia, an abaya may be optional (it isn't in Riyadh). It's difficult to articulate just how much we don't want to wear such a garment in summer Gulf heat. We understand that women do it all the time -- women who are not us. Last time we were in Pakistan, we purchased a shalwar and wore it all the time, not because we wanted to be respectful but because it deflected the attention of thousands of horny Pakistanis. We have no idea what to wear in Yemen, but assume something long and sack-like is expected.

Surely, the internets would have the answer to our problems.

We found The Desert Store and many problems were solved. The Desert Store is a Saudi-based on-line store offering "Islamic Clothing for the Family." I found their offerings to be both fashionable (well...) and reasonably priced! They provide the uniforms for Saudia flight crews (which I anticipate being able to assess personally), which established them, in my eyes, as a legitimate design house. And the chance to use a credit card to purchase on-line from a store in Saudi Arabia proved irresistible. The site is simple and well-organized and clearly written in a language recognizable as English. They promise delivery via DHL. There are helpful photos of management (all Saudi) and workers (all Southeast Asian). Their common characteristic appears to be a penis.

  After scouring the site and resisting the temptation to purchase Miswak (alert readers will recall it was -- and still is -- our favorite flavor of toothpaste), we settled on two tunic blouses and a skirt that we are certain will keep the religious police off our infidel ass. We already own 5000 head-scarves so didn't purchase the Saudi-style chador, which, at $7.50 seemed like a real bargain.

So, should you find yourself in the position of having to find yourself some modest clothing for your next trip to the Gulf, we highly recommend The Desert Store.

Crusaders Verus Jihadis: Battle of the High School Mascots

Carpetblog could not be what it is had its author not been educated in the Jesuit tradition, which encourages a healthy skepticism toward authority figures as well as tolerance for recreational buggery. Of course, unintended consequences are not unheard of, including, but not limited to, atheism and astonishing late-in-life revelations like the one we had the other night.

Many years have passed since Carpetblogger graduated from Eastside Catholic High School in Bellevue, Washington, a fine Catholic educational institution that prepares students well to thrive at other fine Catholic educational institutions such as Santa Clara, Gonzaga and St. Mary's. We remember it as the place where it was first suggested that everything that is reported in the Bible may not be factual!

We haven't spent a lot of time thinking about our high school or its mascot over the past 22 years. That is until, in the course of a meandering, wine-fueled conversation with a friend the other night, we recalled that our high school mascot is The Crusaders.

The what? You mean the Crusader, which in some circles (see: Islam) is seen as shorthand for imperialism, aggression and state-sanctioned religious intolerance, was our high school mascot?  You don't say! How did it take this long -- not to mention four years of living in Muslim countries, including on the battleground one of the most infamous Crusades -- for this to occur to us?

Let's say for the sake of argument, you think that securing access to the Holy Land (controlled by Muslims) and spreading Christian faith (also known as "converting or killing Jews and Muslims") were legitimate military goals. Even so, you'd have to be off-put by the Fourth Crusade, the one in which the the Crusaders got distracted from their goal of liberating the Holy Land via Egypt and sacked Byzantine-controlled Constantinople (also known as, "the one where Christians killed Christians") instead. A fun fact!  The Fourth Crusade took place in our Istanbul neighborhood! From Wikipedia's entry on the Fourth Crusade:

The Crusaders followed south, and attacked the Tower of Galata, which held one end of the chain that blocked access to the Golden Horn. As they laid siege to the Tower, the Greeks counterattacked with some initial success. However, when the Crusaders rallied and the Greeks retreated to the Tower, the Crusaders were able to follow the soldiers through the Gate, and the Tower surrendered. The Golden Horn now lay open to the Crusaders, and the Venetian fleet entered.

The Fourth Crusade was so unseemly, Pope JP II apologized not once, but twice. I guess we now know what it takes to pry an admission of guilt from the Church.

I'm willing to entertain the thought that over the course of 14 years of high school and college, I wasn't paying attention on the day a teacher suggested that there might have been an alternative narrative to the Crusades. I wasn't paying attention through multiple semesters of algebra and French either, so nothing can be ruled out. But that no one mentioned our high school mascot could, to some observers, represent not just widescale killing of Muslims, Jews and Greek Christians, but also elective war and military failure, seems like a pretty substantial oversight. Has this not occurred to any authority figures at Eastside Catholic? How come it's not taught in Sophomore religion class, right after the part about the whole Bible not being so much "fact?"

We hate it, too, when the forces of political correctness spark uncomfortable debates about beloved high school mascotry, especially when the word "Crusader" can be so easily disassociated from its bloody past. Still, are there any Catholic high schools out there with the "Inquisitors" or "Pedophiles" as their mascot? (The Producer was somewhat relieved to recall that his Jesuit High School's mascot is the less polarizing "Marauder.") The Issaquah Indians (my hometown high school) even had to change their name under pressure and everyone loves Indians and their casinos.

Because we know how sensitive topics like these can be, Carpetblog thinks increased dialog is important. To start with, we propose a friendly soccer match between the Eastside Catholic Crusaders and the South Peshawar Jihadis.

Bayram Questions Answered!

Reader Bulent, who always answers questions we didn't know we had, fills in some of the blanks on the Kurban charity option:

Here's another fun bit for you. You probably have noticed by now the deep mistrust Turks hold for organized charities asking for donations. Turkish Red Crescent has a solution for that this year. You pay them for your 'kurban,' they slaughter it in front of a notary public, film it, make a VCD of the slaughter, and send you the 'evidence' along with 1/2 kg of the meat ('kavurma', not the spoilable fresh version). The rest goes to the poor. They figure this scheme will give them an edge over the other charities who don't provide such high-tech evidence of the good deed actually getting done. Here's the link: Haber 7.

On the other hand, when I mentioned this to a local shopkeeper he immediately theorized that they probably have three or four films of various animals getting slaughtered and a VCD duplication machine. Just has to be so, y'know, because, 'they' are always out to con us.

Carpetblog is service journalism at its best!

Drummer Accountability Project (DAP)

I've started a new NGO. It's called the Drummer Accountability Project. So far it has achieved measurable results: The drummers who asked me for money on Friday were the same ones I photographed earlier in the week.

Did I give them money? Ha Ha. Would you reward people who stood underneath your window at 3 am every morning for a month banging drums? At best, wouldn't you ask them for payment or alternatively, pelt them with eggs? As a grant-giving organization, DAP believes that its grant recipients need to strive for sustainability and cultivate local funding sources.

DAP also noticed that the local drummers are building capacity for future activities. As they paraded through the neighborhood, their intern -- who based on the tone of his voice was probably seven -- was calling out the prayers.

 

The drummer in question's face is in the lower right

Catch you next year, Davulcu.

Know Your Neighborhood Drummer

Helpful reader  Bulent Murtezaoglu offers a valuable piece of pre-Bayram advice: Know your drummer!

"He'll go door to door asking for money tomorrow. At least you know what yours looks like. It used to be not that uncommon for several to show up, each claiming he's the real one and the others are fake. The joke below is actually based on real pamphlets you'd occasionally see:"

It's a picture of Mr. Prime Minister Erdoğan and the top says "I am this neighborhood's drummer. Don't give money to any other drummer." I don't know what the rest says, 'cause my Turkish regresses daily. I bet it's funny though!

I'm so glad I got up at 4am to take a picture of my drummer. I would hate to reward an imposter for waking me up every single day between 3am and 4am this month.

Iyi Bayramlar indeed!

Since Ramazan is Almost Over

Couples sit beneath the reddening grape arbor, sipping tea in the garden beneath the minaret of the green Firuzaga mosque. On every corner, greasy doner kebabs slowly rotate in front of glowing orange heat panels, providing a quick lunch to doctors in white coats from the nearby public hospital. Tobacco smoke mixes with car exhaust on Sirasilever Caddesi. The casual observer of my Istanbul neighborhood might not know it’s the middle of Ramazan, Islam’s holiest month.

“Should we not eat outside today?” I asked my lunch companions, wanting to avoid offending those who are keeping the fast.

“Why not? It’s Cihangir! No one’s fasting here.”

Turkey’s polarized secularist-versus-Islamist political environment, some residents disregard their neighbors’ religious traditions without a second thought. As home to many of Istanbul’s artists, writers and free-thinkers, Cihangir probably has one of the lowest proportions of fasters in the whole city. For Istanbul’s secular elite, fasting during Ramazan is a tradition left to the pious.

But walk a few blocks downhill from Cihangir Square, into the warren of alleys threading between decaying wooden houses and decrepit Greek mansions perched on the hill above the Bosporus, the atmosphere changes noticeably. The number of headscarves and chadors increase. Most small cafes are closed because few eat in public during the day.

Iftar – the evening meal that breaks the daily fast -- falls at around 7:00 pm Aromas from the evening’s meal drift from open windows throughout the afternoon, dizzying to even those who haven’t eaten since, well, lunch. A line of men and children completing the final, pre-feast errand forms outside Ekmek Dunyasi (“Bread World”), the bakery that sells the best bread in the neighborhood. Their task is to collect the freshest, warmest Ramazan pide possible.  No fast can be broken without the round, flattish loaf sprinkled with black sesame seeds. Ekmek Dunyasi stays open 24 hours a day during Ramazan to meet the demand.

As the sun sets lower, people scurry to get home and a hum of excitement comes from every apartment as dishes and silverware are hurriedly set on tables and cranky children bicker and squawk. When a short, choppy ezan calls from the city’s thousands of minarets, the alleys fall silent. Iftar has begun.

Even in Cihangir, there’s one time of day, however, that not even the most devoted Kemalist can ignore Ramazan: 3:30 am. That’s when the “Ramazan Davulcusu,” or Ramazan drummers, make their way up and down the hill, providing a free-wake up call for fasters who want to be sure they have enough time for sahur, the pre-dawn meal that will sustain them through a long day with no food.  They do this every morning during the holy month of Ramazan.

The drummers, usually young men with booming voices carrying double headed drums (davul), are an anachronism left from the days when no one had alarm clocks. Because they are, to some, a nuisance, a few municipalities have banned them. Still, many Istanbullus remember them fondly from their childhoods or from their old lives in the village and are happy to give them tips.

Others give them tips to stay away.

Sometimes the davulcusu wait until 4:00 am to begin their rounds. Other mornings, inexplicably, they start at 2:30 am. They are expert at taking short breaks between staccato bursts of drum beats and mani (rhyming couplets), just long enough to allow me go back to sleep. Sometimes, it sounds like they position themselves for hours beneath my street-facing second floor bedroom window.

The davulcusu don’t discern between fasters and non-fasters. They wake the pious and pagan alike, gleefully rousting at 4 am the people who smugly sit at Cihangir’s outdoor cafes at noon, smoking and sipping tea.

The most unforgivably trite description of Istanbul is that it’s a bridge between continents, where east meets west. Not only is it a cliché, it oversimplifies the mix of cultures and attitudes that collide and co-exist, with varying degrees of success, every single day.  In the spirit of Ramazan, when Muslims are supposed to examine their lives and reacquaint themselves with the virtues of compassion and forgiveness, Cihangir’s believers and non-believers have figured out ways to annoy, if not completely accommodate, one another. It’s a step in the right direction.

Let's agree to disagree

Iyi Bayramlar!

Ramazan started this morning, and when I was told that the "Ramazan Davulcusu" would walk around the neighborhoods at daybreak beating drums to wake people up in time for Sahur, the morning feast before the day of fasting, I suspected that was probably a quaint tradition that lived on villages, but not in cosmopolitan Istanbul.

Since double-sided drums are being sold at the local Carrefour, I shouldn't have been surprised when, at 4 am this morning, about five young guys walked all around the neighborhood beating their drums and singing Ramazan carols. Um, 30 days of 4 am wake up calls with drums? Sorry I'll be missing that!

I have other fond Ramadan (Ramazan is the word in Turkish) memories:

In Azerbaijan, I was traveling in the regions with a young staffer who was fasting. We stopped to meet with the head of the regional government and the police chief and other assorted criminals in Goycay, the pomegranate capital of the known universe. It was a typical Azeri meal with multiple courses served underneath the pomegranate trees at a wedding palace, with ample vodka and complicated toasting. The two people at the table who were fasting sat quietly while plate after plate of lula kabob and fish shashlyk was passed around the table.

The local ex-comm began the toasts. He started by toasting the beautiful women at the table (pretty much me), the martyrs, those who couldn't  be with us because they are dead -- all the usual suspects. He finished up by offering a toast to those at the table who were fasting for Ramadan. That pretty much sums up Azerbaijan for me, right there.

Last year, I was flying from Kabul to Dubai at iftar time (when the fast is broken, at sunset). The flight attendants handed out plates of stringy mutton and rice, accented with raisins and dates. Most passengers just stared it (so did I, but for different reasons). As the sun set over the empty dryness of the desert, the Ariana pilot announced that, since we were flying over Iran, fasters were obligated to wait to break the fast until Iftar cannons in Iran were fired. A few minutes later, the pilot told passengers they could eat.

So far, Ramazan in Ukraine has gone largely unremarked upon, except for this nugget. The meal on AeroSvit  (an enemy combatant in one of the worst cases of FSU rage in which I have ever engaged) had a little tag with a pig with a line through it. "How atypically sensitive," I thought. Then I looked at the meal. Now, it could be the case that the Ukrainians (or, more likely, the Turks) have learned to simulate ham absolutely perfectly -- identical in taste, appearance and texture. But more likely, Aerosvit served a plate of ham to a bunch of Muslims during Ramazan.

Ramazan bayramınızı kutlar, nice mutlu bayramlar dilerim!