Letter From Istanbul

Erdogan Is Dismantling Turkish Democracy

7 min readDec 7, 2023

December 7, 2023

My wife and I recently spent two weeks in Greece and a week in Istanbul. Our trip reminded us how many aspects of Western civilization are based on the ideas and values of the ancient Greeks. But we also learned that contemporary Greece is a blend of European and Middle Eastern cultures. Meanwhile, Turkey is a Middle Eastern country that happens to share a border with Europe.

The differences between the two countries are striking. Greece is small, with a population of 11 million. Primarily mountainous and arid, the country relies heavily on tourism. Turkey is a large nation, with almost 86 million inhabitants and the second-largest army in NATO. Turkey produces lots of goods, including cars. Tourism is an important but not critical part of its economy.

So Turkey operates on a larger scale than Greece does. Athens is a large city, with about 5 million residents. But Istanbul is huge, a sprawling metropolis of 15 million, twice the size of New York City’s population.

The frontier between the two nations has marked the fault line between the Christian and Muslim worlds for centuries. Religion plays a key role in the cultures of both countries. Our time in Istanbul was particularly eye-opening, since we had never visited a Muslim nation before.

Istanbul’s Long History

Istanbul is a city of contrasts, partly because it contains so many layers of history. Greeks founded the town of Byzantium about 660 B.C., as they created colonies in Asia Minor. The Romans ruled the city for about 800 years, from 196 B.C. to 565 A.D. Constantinople then served as the capital of the Byzantine Empire for almost 900 years, until the Ottomans conquered it in 1453.

In the oldest section of the city, on the southern European side, the Romans built the Hagia Sofia basilica and an underground cistern. They are both 1,500 years old, massive, and intact. The Ottomans constructed elegant, huge mosques and palaces four centuries ago that remain in excellent condition.

Photo: Hagia Sofia-once a Christian basilica, now a mosque.

The newer parts of Istanbul lie on the European side north of the Golden Horn and on the Asian side across the Bosporus. “Newer” is a highly relative term, given the long span of the city’s history. Christian merchants, notably Italians, established neighborhoods above the Golden Horn in the 1400s.

A Modern, Booming Metropolis

Istanbul is a fascinating blend of the modern and the old. The airport, immense and beautiful, puts New York’s Kennedy to shame. Travelers and tourists from all over the world throng its terminals; Istanbul is a global crossroads.

As we entered the city, we were impressed by the gigantic apartment blocks and soaring office towers that dot the landscape. Istanbul seems to be booming, despite sky-high inflation, about 60% so far this year, and a weak exchange rate. There are many large construction projects.

Istanbul’s three main sections are separated by the Golden Horn and the Bosporus. Both are crowded with ferries carrying commuters and shoppers across their waters. Istanbul has an impressive public transport system. Besides the fleets of ferries, the city has trams and a metro.

Istanbul Is Not European

In 1987, Turkey applied to join the European Union. However, several European leaders balked, and the application did not move forward. Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France from 2007 to 2012, was particularly vociferous in his opposition.

Sarkozy was worried about admitting a Muslim country and granting its citizens the right to move to any country in the EU. The French President was particularly concerned about the possibility of a large influx of Muslim immigrants. Unfortunately, many French Muslims, who represent 10–15% of the country’s population, have not assimilated well into French society.

We only spent a week in Istanbul, but we understand the concerns expressed by Sarkozy and others. The city is fascinating, and it has many cosmopolitan aspects, but Istanbul is not European by any stretch of the imagination.

The music and the food are Middle Eastern. The call to prayer blasts through loudspeakers five times a day. We saw many women, perhaps 50% or more, wearing head scarves in the old city. That was also the case in the newer, more cosmopolitan neighborhoods on the European side, as well. Turkey has become more overtly religious and conservative under President Recep Yayyip Erdogan, who has led the country for 20 years.

Islam Is A Key Difference

Greek music and food also have Middle Eastern characteristics, of course. But Greek cities and the countryside are filled with churches, all flying the Greek flag. Many of them are small, akin to a chapel. That may be because Greek Orthodox Christians had to keep a low profile during the four hundred years that the Ottomans ruled their country. Building large churches would not have been wise. Meanwhile, in Istanbul, mosques are ubiquitous and often enormous.

The Turks are very tolerant of visitors to mosques, regardless of their religion. The mosques are open except during religious services, although part of the sanctuary is reserved for the faithful. Visitors must take off their shoes, so as not to defile the holy space, and women must cover their heads.

Photo: The interior of a mosque

We were fascinated by the mosques, but we were put off by some Islamic practices. Women sit separately from the men, either behind a wooden barrier or in a gallery upstairs. Consequently, they are virtually invisible. There are practical reasons for this approach, but my wife thought that it relegated women to second-class status.

For Westerners, here’s another cultural difference based on religion. The Greeks decorate every inch of their churches with icons (paintings) of Jesus, Mary, saints and sometimes, portraits of church leaders. The Turks cover the walls of their mosques with beautiful Arabic inscriptions and gorgeous geometric designs…but no images. There are no pictures or sculptures, because Islam proscribes any depictions of Allah (God), the Prophet Mohammed, other holy figures, or human beings in mosques.

Photo: A richly decorated Greek Orthodox Church

We admired the mosques’ architecture and decoration, but we felt that something was missing. They seemed austere and empty, compared to a church. You might say that reaction reflects our cultural bias. You could also say it reflects our culture.

Hustle As Well As Bustle

In the older, touristy section of Istanbul, a bazaar-type mentality prevails. We were constantly accosted by Turks who struck up conversations that quickly turned into sales pitches, often very aggressive ones, to show us the sights or take us to a carpet store. We learned to avoid certain streets because of waiters who almost shouted at us to come to their restaurants. We resented these tactics and felt harassed.

Nothing like that took place in Greece, even in uber-touristy downtown Athens or the islands of Hydra and Santorini. In Athens, waiters in the Plaka district did try to hawk their restaurants, but they quickly backed off.

Leaving aside the hustlers, we generally found the Turks to be courteous, competent, and efficient. However, our conversations with them were limited, as few Turks spoke English well. In our hotel and some high-end restaurants, most servers had only mastered a few basic phrases.

In Greece, we encountered many people who spoke English fluently, so we got to know them better. That may be because tourism is such a crucial industry for Greece. In any case, we felt more relaxed in Greece partly because of the language issue.

Age-Old Conflict Between Islam And Christianity

To understand why religion has been such a dividing line between Greece and Turkey, and between the West and the Muslim world, we must know something of the city’s history. Like Jerusalem, Istanbul is one of the great religious centers in the world. And like Jerusalem, Constantinople/Istanbul has also been a source of great conflict.

The Greeks in Asia Minor and mainland Greece were “early adopters” of Christianity; the church first flourished in Greek cities. The Roman emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as the official religion of his realm, and he moved the capital from Rome to Byzantium in 330 A.D. The city’s inhabitants quickly renamed it Constantinople, or “Constantine’s city”.

Two centuries later, around 530 A.D., Emperor Justinian built the massive Hagia Sofia basilica, making Constantinople the center of the Christian faith. Hagia Sofia remained the largest church in the world for almost 1,000 years, as the Roman Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox church went their separate ways.

But in 1453, the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, after gradually gaining control of Asia Minor over the course of two centuries. Suddenly, the city became the capital of a Muslim empire that eventually encompassed much of Eastern Europe, as well as large swaths of the Arab world, including Egypt. The Turks promptly turned Hagia Sofia into the world’s largest mosque, and the call to prayer replaced the pealing of church bells.

Ottomans’ Blood Tax

Subsequently, sultans built one magnificent, huge mosque after another, and they dominate the city’s skyline. Like Western monarchs, the sultans had a dual purpose: glorifying Allah and displaying their wealth and power. The Ottomans followed a relatively moderate form of Islam, and the sultans tolerated the large Christian Greek community in and near the city.

However, over two centuries the Ottomans also enforced a “blood tax” throughout their realm, conscripting young Christian men into the sultan’s service. The Ottomans took the young Christians away from their families and forced them to convert to Islam. Although in many cases the conscripts flourished, and some rose to very high positions in the Ottoman empire, the practice infuriated most of the sultans’ Christian subjects. To this day, irritated parents in Bulgaria and Romania warn unruly children, “Behave! Or the Turk will get you!”

In our next article on Turkey, we will discuss its political scene and how President Erdogan has courted conservative, religious Turks to tighten his grip on power, as he grows more authoritarian.