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- Wednesday July 20, 2016
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- Sunny Cornwall
Very intresting indeed.Images of Ataturk - (3) -
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Ataturk and the Whirling Dervishes - The Museum of the Printing Press - Sultanahmet.
I could not believe my luck when this picture presented itself to me - it pretty much symbolises everything about Ataturk's vision of his modernisation process in the Republic. A bit of background is probably necessary why this is so for me. In the foreground are the famed whirling dervishes of the Sufi Mevlevi order. If you know what Sufis are skip this next bit - if not read on. The name Sufi probably is a corruption of the Arabic for wool - historically they wore rough woolen garments. The various fraternities trace their lineage - and hence authority - back to the time of the Prophet or his son-in-law Ali. Simply put they are the mystical tradition in Islam. They tend to be Sunnis but this is missing the point - they sort of sit above the great schism in Islam. The theological differences between them and mainstream Islam are horribly complex - trust me - but the most important thing is that Sufis understand that you can have direct ecstatic experience of the love of Allah during your life - and not solely post-mortem, as is the more commonly held position. They use various methods to achieve this state - and this is one of them. The dancers' spinning is perhaps best understood as dynamic meditation. In the west probably the most famous Sufi was the 13th C. poet and prose writer Rumi - who is even now, one of the biggest selling poets in the United States - for some reason beyond me, he has been taken up by the new age movement. I'm sure it would have puzzled him too. Commonly Sufis were the power behind the throne - and this was certainly true of the Ottoman period. It might sound odd for ascetics to end up so but it isn't really - if you want a medieval Christian comparison then the Cistercian monk Bernard of Clairvaux and his influence on the second crusade is a good place to start. So - after Ataturk abolished the Sultanate and the Caliphate in the 1920's he went for the Sufi orders next. They were never truly proscribed but heavily suppressed - their property seized, their rituals banned and they were politically emasculated. What remained was what you see above - something for tourists. So - this picture was taken in the museum of the printing press in Sultanahmet - the home tekke of the order was closed for renovation at the time - in the background is Attaturk reading a daily newspaper. What better symbol of progress in 1920s Turkey? Bear in mind that it took nearly 300 years from the invention of the movable type press to the first one to start printing in Turkish - then an Arabic script - but Ataturk changed that too - to the adapted Latin they use today. Although the ritual was devoid of any spiritual content - is was mesmerising to see.
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Book shop window - Istiklal Caddesi, Beyoglu.
So - Attaturk flanked by - on his left - 'The Guinness Book of Records' and - on the right - 'Harry Potter.' Below that 'The Turks Today' - which is actually very good. Underpinned by Coca Cola. Eighty odd years later - I'll leave you to interpret this picture as you see fit.
Thank you for looking and reading - yours - I.
@Barry Giddens @Blademonkey @Helveticum @William Dobson
Keep them comming if you have more
Coca Cola is present just about everywhere along with A Big Mac and fries!