It was Sunday afternoon in Alanya, Turkey, and something was going on.
Cars draped with Turkish flags careened along the narrow streets, ricocheting through hairpin turns like pinballs. Bombastic military music, interspersed with cheeky car horns, had been playing for the past half hour. It had all the makings of an impromptu parade in Alanya, which despite lacking candy-lobbing clowns (something I believe adds to every occasion), definitely beat American parades.
About once a month, some incident ignites public excitement and provokes a spontaneous march through the streets. The fun part, besides watching hordes of pubescent drivers courting death, is guessing the occasion.
And so the questions began:
"Is it a circumcision?"
Circumcision is nearly universal among Turkish males. Some lucky ones, if lucky can at all describe their experience, are paraded through town by their proud parents beforehand.
This was a little more raucous than the typical circumcision ceremony, though. Perhaps on this date decades before the father of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, had visited the town. Maybe a young man leaving for his required military service was getting a final send-off from his friends, although those festivities usually involve Turkish pop music and not drums and trumpets.
As the horns persisted into the night, a defiant new sound joined the spectacle.
Gunshots?
It was early May, when Turkey's political uncertainty was at its peak. The governing Justice and Development Party had withdrawn Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's presidential bid after a parliamentary boycott and Constitutional Court decision blocked his election. It was at that point unclear how the mildly Islamist ruling party would respond to this setback, or if the widespread protests against a feared erosion of strict secularism would turn violent. The length to which the military would go to "protect the republic" from political Islam was and still is unknown. Was this parade no mere circumcision but related to a coup in the capital?
No, of course not. The "gunshots" were fireworks and it was silly to even entertain the idea. A friend who had been downtown soon returned with an explanation. The Fenerbahce Yellow Canaries had captured the Turkish league championship. The parade celebrated something no less integral to the Turkish male experience than circumcision or military service: soccer.
The next day, as I walked under a gigantic yellow and blue Fenerbahce banner strung between buildings, I reflected on that moment in which I thought, somewhat absurdly, that I just might get to witness a military coup.
For an instant, a brief instant, I hoped I would.
Let me qualify: I'm no fan of political Islam, but I disagree with the military's overbearing role in the political situation in Turkey. Simply put, I don't think the military should have a role at all in the political situation in Turkey.
And coups tend to have nasty consequences-namely, death or exile for the ousted leaders, public curfews, violations of free speech and general political chaos. Even a bloodless military coup, as occurred in Turkey in 1997, is a tragic flipping of the bird to democratic principles. A military intervention today, even if committed against perceived Islamic extremism, would be a shameful affront to civil liberties and stability in Turkey and a major setback for the country's status in the international community.
But nevertheless, a tiny, quickly suppressed part of me thought a coup would be interesting. As personally invested as I have become in Turkey over this past semester, that tiny part of me could not forget that regardless, I'd soon be back in the United States, where politics are often frustrating or inane but rarely truly dangerous.
Studying abroad is a wonderful experience, but it is also a somewhat bizarre social institution. I found myself in a nebulous position between long-term tourist and actual resident, uncertain how much to care, or how much I had the right to care, about the future of a country I could only temporarily call home.
Even now, back in America, I care a lot. I want to be involved with Turkey's development, and I hope that when I return this summer it will not be for the last time. But I wonder if I can eliminate those moments of parade-watching confusion, at least while I have my American passport to rely on.
They say study abroad increases your understanding in ways you will never forget. And it undoubtedly did. but what they don't tell you is that you leave understanding just enough to know how imperfect that understanding is.
Leslie Griffith is a Trinity junior and editorial page managing editor of The Chronicle. Her column runs every other Thursday during the summer.
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