My Beloved Turkey

Just a little about my love for and views on a country which at the moment is in turmoil.
It was 1996 the first time I went for a holiday to Turkey with my Mom and Uncle, it was one of the best experiences of my young life.
I had been to places in Europe before that but this was the first time in my life that I felt the world was a much bigger place than I had thought, full of variety and promise.
There was not even an airport in Bodrum then and we had to travel for four hours across the country to arrive at our destination.
For the first time I saw an actual live tumbleweed, the place we stopped at to get refreshment and respite on our journey was little more than a shack with a Coke sign and a no flushing toilet.
That was a shock!
When we arrived at our hotel finally it was a relief, the pool, the white family run hotel was beautiful, they were so welcoming and by the end of my holiday I felt like one of the family, playing with the owners niece teaching her how to swim.
I look Turkish as I am of mixed heritage and so it was very easy for me to blend in, I felt so at home. A few years later when came the time for me to venture off on my first holiday as an adult I was in no doubt as to where I wanted to go. Turkey! I said to my BF, Bodrum specifically, remembering the boats and the smell of grilled meat in warm air.
By sheer coincidence he managed to book the very same hotel I had stayed at so many years before. It was 2004 by then and when I got there again it smelled the same, the hotel looked the same, the welcome was the same and that feeling of being at home was exactly the same.
But things were different, the few bars and restaurants coupled with late night markets, provincial and sweet were now slicker and in greater numbers.
But they still had the best ice cream (lemon is my favorite) I had such a lovely two weeks.
Whenever I think about escaping England for sunnier pastures its always the place I dream of.
A place where I have witnessed the same stray Dog outside of the same shop every year and he gets fatter and fatter and no-one I repeat no-one, makes him move, even though he sits in the road and not on the curb, such a fixture that locals drive around him as if he is a curve in the road, he is one of so many animals that despite belonging to no-one are looked after, fed and watered by the locals without a second thought.
Since 2004 I have visited Turkey six times, the last time was 2 years ago, and I was thinking that I would try to go again this year until I turned on the news to see my favorite place in turmoil.
The last time I went to Turkey it became apparent to me just how much Turkey has changed in all those years, it was so different.
Firstly it has become the British holidaymakers number 1 holiday destination and rightly so with its beautiful beaches, friendly people, great food and until a few years ago reasonable prices (which have steadily risen to the point of things costing the same amount as they do at home) but you can't blame them can you?
For a lot of the people who run restaurants and bars have to make as much as they can before they go back to whatever part of Turkey they came from, when the season ends and live on the proceeds until it all begins again.
There was even a Starbucks in Bodrum last time I was there and that for me was when I knew that the old Turkey I had loved so much was changed for good.
More and more young middle class Turkish men and women were coming to Bodrum, not to work but to party, that was a huge change also, the culmination of the strong economy of the last 10 years could be seen in the University age Turkish girls and boys, living their lives like the English.
More beautiful Turkish ladies for the packs of young Brit boy's to ogle.
I have to acknowledge that I have seen the county become so rich under the current Prime Minister Erdogan, that it is hardly recognisable to me from the place I first saw all those years ago.
£10 before you even pass the threshold to get in and if you want to eat on the way home in the airport at least the same amount for a tiny slice of pizza (yes £10 for a piece of pizza)!
So to the nitty gritty why are Turkish people acting this way???
According to Erdogan the people gathering are 'extremists' 'looters' etc...
I have to say from the small amount of coverage I have seen on UK news channels the mix of people involved makes that explanation sound quite laughable.
Young, old, poor, middle class, women of all ages, religiously and ethnically diverse.
Although Turkey is a 99% Muslim county and 87% of the population are teetotal I have never in all my times there suffered a single comment about the way I have dressed, the fact that I drink, I have never been privy to extreme conversations of any kind.
As I have said that is not down to the fact that I am a tourist because I'd pass for a Turkish girl without incident anytime guaranteed.
I do not claim to have any knowledge of the politics of the country on a day to day basis and so I am no expert but I do understand the culture and the lives of the people I have met.
They work extremely long hours (12-16) for a small wage (average of £400 a month), but are wise and as living costs such as petrol and food are low much of this money is saved and industrious Turks are making businesses and buying property.
Every time I go there are more buildings and roads being built.
As far as the character of the people I know they are logical, fair minded, opinionated but willing to listen, giving and hospitable.
They respect one another in a way that we perhaps don't in the UK, older men and women are addressed with the proper greetings as are the young children, polite to a fault.
I think that the Turkish people with their long history with democracy, having been ruled by and being part of the Greek empire and the eternal meeting place of Europe and Asia where cultures have melted into a tapestry of epic and beautiful proportions are a rare breed of people, proud and humble at the same time.
They have such a strong identity as a nation of people and of course religion plays a big part in that providing morals and structure.
The separation of state and religion I think is a great thing and so do most Turk's.
God gives free will to us all so whatever we do is between him and us on a one to one personal basis, no other will answer for my or any other's sin so the state does not need to look after the soul of it's inhabitants, only safeguard the rights and freedoms of all of it's citizens.
And this I feel is where the problem lies, after so many years of this being the case the population, strong as it is, is not going to take any change to that precarious balance lightly.
Erdogan also wants to make changes to the Turkish constitution and to the powers that the elected Prime Minister/President (which of course in his mind means him) will have, taking him closer to being a 'dictator'.
As he won by a purported %49 of the vote maybe the other half now realise that if they do not act now in future they will not get the chance, it's huge youth population acting as the catalyst for the 'unrest'.
The heavy handedness with which peaceful protestors were met serving only to ram the point home to the rest of the masses about just how little they seem to matter to this former working class boy done good.
Ironic he accused those who have an occasional tipple of being drunkards when he himself seems to be the one who is drunk on that old Moonshine called power.
When Julius Caesar tried that even after all the achievements he had accomplished and the reverence he was given, he still died on the steps of the Senate at the hands of those who had put him in that position.
Power is a seductive mistress and I fear Erdogan has left his wife, the question is will he realise he has made a mistake and go home quickly or will he buy an apartment and a sports car and be an embarrassment to his children (the people).
The fact that he is friendly with the Americans, is acting against Turkey's neighbour Syria in a way that is different to what the majority of the population want, the chasing of evermore power, the changes to state and religious separation have all collided to make a very powerful bang!
I am sure for Erdogan it is a very rude awakening.
I was in Turkey once when Fenerbache won the league and I thought the Gog and Magog had finally come from behind their walled prison. The ground shook!
Couple that experience with the knowledge that every man over the age of 21 is a trained soldier (conscripted by the Government for a non paid 18 month service) and I think Erdogan is going to change tact at some point in the near future or he might just end up on the steps of the Senate.