Atatürk in Lausanne

In October 1922 the victorious Allies of the First World War wanted to negotiate with representatives of the Ottoman Empire, as well as of the Nationalist government. They invited both the Turkish bodies to Lausanne in Switzerland, and the Nationalists refused the invitation. They de-facto were a new Turkey, so any negotiations which would have included the old powers would have been purely harmful for their position. As a result, Atatürk and his government were the only body of a nation that had lost in the Great War that was negotiated with as equals. The next month the Grand National Assembly declared that the Ottoman Empire had, in fact, stopped being the government in 1920, when the Allies entered Istanbul. This, in course, led to the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923, with Atatürk as president and Ankara as capital. The birth of a modern Turkish state.

This modern, Turkish state now needs to enter postmodernity, and finally arrive in Switzerland.

One of the greatest achievements and strengths of the western European democracies, especially since ’68, is their relative stability under social pressure. This is achieved in part through a diversification of functions of political criticism through heckling, sacrilege, satire and street protest. These do not threaten the state, since the state itself is multifaceted and usually can offer different faces to the various desires of its members. This is far from the unitary and absolute image of the state that was created in the French revolution, which the modern Turkish state still seems to want to emulate.

Yes, the Turkish state does need to be afraid, as long as it resists diversification. As long as it is imaginable that one single party can control the whole state, without checks and balances, those currently in control must fear a loss of power absolutely. This is why the deep state in the hands of some old CHP party cadres does need to be afraid, and it is a fear they have brought upon themselves. They have to recognize the Atatürk in themselves: old men afraid of the dark.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland…

Compared to the massive transfer and eradications of whole populations that characterized the time of the First World War, and also politics in Anatolia immediately following it, Switzerland must seem like a haven of peace. Some 50 years before the Great War, in 1847, Switzerland fought its own civil war, the Sonderbundkrieg, between liberal federalists and rebellious catholic conservatives who wanted to retain the autonomy of their cantons. Total casualties were less than a hundred. Compared to the massive blood spills in other parts of the world, the resolution of conflict between centralized state and regionalist nationalism of the Swiss seems civilized, acceptable and even necessary.

This must be the target when Turkey gets dragged, kicking and screaming, into the European Union. Once again we will face conservative religious nationalists, breaching constitutions and common agreements, trying to break off their own part of a constructed political whole. We will face them in all member states of the EU, and they will be shouting with a single massive voice of islamophobia. “Keep Turkey out”, they will shout. “Keep the Muslim hordes away.” And at the same time, a group of old men afraid of their own shadows in Ankara will do their best to keep Turkey out , to maintain their own corner of the world.

Their behavior is an insult to Atatürk. Yes, he was a chain-smoking alcoholic in the end, but he was a also a great modernizer, a creator of a modern nation, that now is weighed down by the dogma of those who claim to be his followers.

In order to survive, Turkish secularism must accept that there can be a religious party in power at times. The Bavarians, somehow, managed to live under such conditions for near to five decades, and are still considered a somewhat secular state.

In order to survive, Turkish secularism must enter the larger Union. It must give up its powers with a minimum of resistance; go through an acceptable Sonderbund war, of course allying itself with other national reactionaries fighting for the control of their precious national sovereignty. And they must allow themselves to lose, democratically, with a minimum of casualties. And they, like the other reactionaries, must accept that they are united in a secular Union.

In order to survive, Turkish secularism must lose its claim for being a unique modern construct. Only through seeing its role in a complex interconnected political reality, where relations and the relative, not in the sense of the old uncle who helped you to power, but in the sense of comparison, of weight and counterweight, will it be able to renew itself. Only by postmodernity can the legacy of the modern be saved.

Anyway, yesterday I missed my train. No bad luck, just stupidity, I remembered the time wrong. This is the last train we’re talking about, last one to Aalst from Brussels, at 23.26. Ridiculously early for someone who grew up in Espoo (a Helsinki suburb) in the 90′s and you could catch the last train home to behind nowhere at 1.42 on weekdays, 3.06 on weekends. They later changed the 1.42 to 1.47, I think.

Anyway, Aalst is unreachable already before midnight. Talk about a dampener on social life. No buses, no trains, no nothing. Weekends aren’t any better, and Sunday evenings even worse, as I have learned.

Even in this case the universe had tried to conspire in my favour by delaying all trains by a fire at Bruxelles-Nord, but it wasn’t enough, the train was gone. So my options were to call up my co-workers and ask to crash at their place, or to jump on a train that goes kind of close. Since I’ve already used the first option once in the past two weeks, I decide for adventure. Denderleeuw is a beautiful name for a horrible little Spießer-town where I arrived at one in the night. This place is only 10 kilometers from Aalst, so quite a typical walk for a drunk Finnish teenager in summer, and the night was warm, a 2/3-moon was out and in general things were nice. Felt quite nostalgic, actually.

No taxi at the station. No people anywhere. 10 km to go. So get walking.

After the first kilometer I started doubting my way. Bike path signs that are easily twistable are a bad basis for decisionmaking, and I decided to trust my own instincts rather than them, which was a good choise, as it turned out. Still, when I saw headlights approaching and a car with the magic shining yellow sign on top, I waved like crazy.

Lesson 1: use whatever you can of the local language, but then shift over to English. This will prove you are the rarest kind of ally: a foreigner with an interest. Works especially well in minority language regions or groups with weak selfconfidence for other reasons.

So after managing to (in Dutch) managing to find out that the taxi first had another ride and the ageing driver coming from Aalst wanted a totally absurd Vijfentwintig euro for the 9 km ride, I happily waved him on.

Lesson 2: Show effort but only as much as you are happy with.

Since I managed to at least confirm the direction to Aalst from the driver in English, I felt happy continuing on my way. A nice walk, some jogging and marvelling at the horrors that are the faux medieval castles of the petite bourgeoisie. My thought runs like this: If I make it from the city of Denderleeuw to the city of Aalst, the taxi driver will come by on his way back, and pick me up. He will even be wondering if I’ve gotten lost. Each meter that he has to feel a bit of worry, worry that I’ve misunderstood the instructions and gotten lost or something, will give him a feeling of relief once he finally sees my thin, pale cloth jacket light up in his headlights.

So I jog, but not enough. If he doesn’t come by I don’t want to exhaust myself. I will just have to sleep a bit longer.

Lesson 3: Accept help

He does, of course. I look around when the first headlights in the whole 40 minutes I’ve been wandering turn up behind me, and smile. The taxi pulls up next to me five minutes after I’ve made it into the district of Aalst, and the driver opens the door and nods to me to get in. Without a doubt I jump in. I’m home clear.

Lesson 4: Being nice doesn’t cost anything, and makes you something else than a customer.

Apparently the driver had picked up a regular customer that took the same train as me to Denderleeuw, driven her somewhere even further away, and was now on his way back to Aalst. Technically it didn’t cost him anything to pick me up for the last bit, but the last thing I wanted him to do was to see me as a potential or lost customer. So talk, talk, talk. Sit in the front seat, never in the back. Be nice. Keep company. The same goes for all hitch-hiking, of course.

Lesson 5: When you know payment will not be accepted, do offer to give it.

Again, a part of being nice is acknowledging that you have just been made a favour. So, once the cab stops in front of my home door, I ask how much I owe the driver, knowing well that this is just a formality, that he can not ask me for anything (since I turned down his first offer, since I made it into the next town, since he stopped to pick me up without being flagged), bit it does offer one big opportunity: for me to be sincerely grateful and to express it. So I thank him and thank him again. And am home not one minute sooner than if I had taken up his first offer of 25 €, at 2 in the morning.

In some bigger things, where luck doesn’t count for as much, I have more trouble. Last Saturday I lost a very tight vote in the Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) General Assembly for the position of Secretary General. I made it to the second round in fierce competition with three excellent competitors, and lost in the second round against Bruno Nicostrate, the ex-office administrator, current SecGen of FYEG, with a result of 27 to 32.

That pretty much puts an end to my period in the Young Greens. I still have to hand over some of the tasks I’ve had in there, and I wouldn’t mind being given new tasks either, as long as they are not inside actual Young Green structures, but that is still in the future. Now I will concentrate on the EP Press Room, and get ready for the wedding in August and for moving back to Berlin in the Autumn.

And will keep counting my small blessings.

And a guy she used to share a flat with, that once talked drugs with me on a bus ride to Copenhagen, won a Emmy. Cool!

And Mike P went to Cannes. He won a Emmy as well. Same one. Very cool.

Heya!

Things are going OK, except I was the 2nd to come back from my lunch break that was supposed to end at 13.45, and only 2 other have returned since then… Wonder if they know somethin I don´t! So I´m sitting in a big room with work space for 10 people. Have my own computer, with a set or earphones but no microphone, a small screen, a lamp and a phone. As well as a set of drawers. The people seem nice, all the other new stagiaires are a little confused, especially one girl seems quite lost. There are some old stagiaires that seem nice. So we´re 4 new people in this room, and there´s a somewhat stressed-seeming woman who basically told us that nothing is going to be happening this afternoon, and that introduction stuff is tomorrow morning at 9. But that we should be a bit early…

Anyway, I have already proven myself as a brave and capable co-worker to the other stagiaires by:

 a) calling up the helpdesk when we had trouble logging in

b) leading the group to the EP cafeteria when it lost the one older stagiaire that was going to lead us there. She dropped in to a kiosk to buy cigarrettes and then disappeared somehow.

 So things seem OK so far.

 I also dropped by the FYEG office and said hi to Bruno, and am now thinking about calling him to see if he, Marina and Bartek have some programme for the afternoon.

 The amount of new stagiaires starting at the same time was really huge, more than a 100, and most of them seem rather lost. Many of the boys have horrible dress-sense, but I was one of only 3 or 4 men that I saw who didn´t have a tie! Horreur… Most of them tie the ties very badly as well.

 Also, I have a huge spot on my forehead. Great start, right? Hmm. This is starting to sound like I should put it on my blog, unedited, right?

 Maybe I´ll do that.

 Also, apparently the EP exercise rooms only cost 45 €/month for stagiaires, without any extra costs. And with that you get access also to the guided things, like lunch kickboxing on Mondays… lunch yoga on Tuesdays… some kind of self defence for lunch on Wednesdays… I might end up skipping lunches totally!

 Good luck with the old-turkish… One of the girls in my group is German with Turkish parents, and apparently a language freak. I didn´t impress her with my “Evet” and “Hayir”…

 And Thursdays are after-work French conversation courses in the Mickey Mouse bar.

 I feel myself integrating in the EP society already. How horrible!

 Love you. Talk to you tonight…

And then you realize it wasn’t enough.

Anyway, congratulations to Jakop and Maria!

In the other news, I’m going to be buying a new computer. Expect me to agonise some over my non-geekishness that seems to be keeping me from getting an amazing little Asus eee PC with a screen of around 7 inches, a linux pre-install and pretty much no moving parts. In the end I’m probably going to go for a 13 inch power-monster at way too much money for my budget, and then start saving up for a separate screen.

My current HP Pavilion 17 inch monster is three years old now, and suffering for it. Once I do have my next computer, expect some interesting shots from its insides, when I see what pieces I can rip out of it.