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Much is
made of the fact that Istanbul (and the entire country of Turkey, for
that matter) forms a bridge between Europe and Asia, East and West.
Reams of material have been written about the political, economic, and
sociological ramifications of that fact. The focus is always on
the various material; i.e., economic, political and social advantages of
being a connection between two cultures. I want to change the
focus and approach things a little differently. I want to look at
the meaning and value, for a place as well as for individuals,
that are inherent in the mere fact of being a bridge.
Turkey
is a bridge between East and West, true, but it’s important to
remember that a bridge is neither one of the places it connects, but
rather a place (as well as an ontological
condition) in between. A bridge is a space like that of
the threshold between two rooms. The important thing about
standing on a threshold is that you’re definitely in an ‘in
between’ place -- you’re neither in one room (the one you came from)
nor the other (the room you’re about to enter). ‘In between’
places are, by nature, ýll-defined, fuzzy; their outlines are
blurry. (Oh, dear. I can almost hear you shifting in your
chair. I seem always to be nudging you into the realm
of metaphysics, don’t I?. I’ve sworn dozens of times to give
it up, but I just can’t seem to manage it. Please, dear reader,
I hope you will forgive me . . .) Being ‘in between’ can
provide the impetus for all kinds of transformation. Being
‘in between’ means being in a state of fecundity, of potentiality.
Being ‘in between’ is a positive condition. This may be hard
to grasp, conditioned as we all are to think in terms of something being
either one thing or another thing, and it may be the reason why I’ve
yet to read even one word about the ontological implications of Turkey
being a bridge. Its being ‘in between’ means that Turkey
itself is the included middle that I wrote about last time. It
also means that Turkey should never, ever apologize to the East nor
especially to the West for not being quite like either of them.
The
Latin word for ‘threshold’ is ‘limen’.
Anthropologists Edith and Victor Turner coined the term ‘liminality’
to refer to the state of being that pilgrims find themselves in while
they’re enroute to whatever holy place they’re headed for.
Pilgrims are indeed in a ‘liminal’ state. Say, for example, you’re
a duchess who decides to go on a pilgrimage. Once you’ve set
out, your former condition is no longer relevant. Just imagine it
– no matter what title, status, possessions, wealth, reputation, or
influence you have “back home,” once embarked on the way of the
pilgrim, those things count for nothing. In other words, they lose
all of their former significance, all of their former meaning. The
only thing that counts is your being (or lack of it). Probably a
lot of readers can relate to this condition since it certainly applies
to foreigners. It’s also interesting to consider the fact that
it applies to Turks who moved to Istanbul from other parts of the
country, too. All of these people form a liminal group, a
group whose antecedents count for far less than who and what they are
right this moment.
To
return to considering the implications of a geographical place being a
bridge, now that we know
something about the ontological condition of people who are in a liminal
state we can easily consider some of the implications of an entire
country or city being in the same state. Liminality is the source
of endless creativity and is inherently a condition of ceaseless
transformation. The meaning, the value and the sheer beauty
of Turkey is that it is precisely itself – an absolutely unique place
in all of space/time, and its sole task is to strive to fulfill its own
utterly unique potential. Perhaps in a way that other countries
are not, Turkey is perennially poised on the threshold of its own
future. (Moreover, on a certain level (I am not referring to
geo-political levels here) its future is neither in the East nor in the
West.) Another thing this means is that all of us who fall into one of
the two categories Ý referred to before – those of us who are
foreigners or those of us who are newly arrived in Istanbul from another
part of Turkey – are on precisely the same wave length, as it were, as
the place in which we find ourselves. We’re all beings poised on
the threshold of our own futures living in a country that is in the same
condition. We’re aligned. The very fact of being aligned
with something means that each thing supports the other on a deep, deep
level, a fact that may be important for persons who consistently feel
themselves to be foreign, disenfranchised, and ‘Other.’
Living here can actually help us do something meaningful with our life.
It
is for reasons like these that I think living in Istanbul is not, nor
will it ever be, the same as living in, say, Jersey City, New Jersey.
Notwithstanding the cement, the bureaucratic morasses, the cheap
facades, the increasing commercialism, and the incessant striving for
baubles, status, and cash, Istanbul has a soul that still persists.
Anyone who’s interested has got to get good at sweeping all those
distractions away. The alchemical gold is still here. You
just have to work hard at clearing levels of meaninglessness away from
it to see it. It isn’t the kind of place where everything is set
out clearly and neatly on display, like trinkets in a bazaar.
It’s the kind of place where when you find something, you need only
lift it up a bit to find more waiting. There’s always something
more there, waiting to be discovered. While most contemporary
women have uncovered themselves here, the true being of this place is
such that it is always veiled and having to be penetrated.
Personally, I find that a reason to get up in the morning. |
