The Attack in Istanbul Says A Lot About Us

The Attack in Istanbul Says A Lot About Us
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Zareen Abbasi: Büyük Mecidiye Camii in Beşiktaş, Istanbul 2016

I regularly pass through airports. I was en route to Atlanta from Chicago two days ago when I heard about the devastating attacks at Atatürk Airport in Istanbul – unnervingly, on a TV at the airport terminal. I’ve been a tourist in Istanbul, a student, a resident. I’ve seen Istanbul in transit and in all four seasons. I was just in Istanbul a few months ago and frequented Atatürk International a dozen times before that. The only airport I know better than O’Hare – my home base – is Atatürk. This attack, killing 42 people and injuring over 200, has left a city of unrealized potential completely disenchanted.

Turkey is a country I hold in sacrosanct. I lived and studied in Istanbul back in 2012, making this attack particularly sobering. Students don’t opt for Turkey as a study abroad destination out of conventional wisdom. Istanbul isn’t the “it” destination for study abroad like the sought-after Barcelona or Rome. I chose Istanbul intuitively, and I noticed just a few hours after arriving how infectiously vibrant it was. Istanbul was a city that had a personality and history of a unique depth.

This frontier where east meets west reoriented the entire globe for me. Turkey is etched in my mind as a mosaic of memories and lessons. Istanbul was where I met friends I treasure most. It’s where street food vendors tossed me simit on the way to class and mussels drizzled in lemon. Istanbul was conversations with cab drivers and shopkeepers, when neither of us really understood the other but communicated in our respective languages through laughter, acts of kindness, and other gestures that are universally understood.

Istanbul was the coiled route down to Bebek I took many nights just to eat a waffle dressed in Nutella on the Bosphorous. There was the Old City nestled around the Golden Horn and Asia sitting on the opposite side as a backdrop. In panoramic view, the Bosphorous Bridge and moon together were glow worms that illuminated the ebbs in the distance.

Istanbul is where more minarets peek out as you look at the sky than birds, and each minaret is home to a mosque more majestic than the last, more ornate than the next. Istanbul was the giggles of school children in uniform and the sound of footballs being kicked around cobblestone. The chants of Galatasaray fans in the square. Imparting the air were feint echoes of Turkish pop music in sync with the call to prayer.

Istanbul was a place where the çay streamed seamlessly and chocolate baklava made my fingers as sticky as my heart content. Istanbul was lahmacun for dinner almost every night for a modest 2 Lira at Urfam Ocakbaşı. And freshly squeezed pomegranate juice — or salep — depending on the season, for the walk home.

Istanbul was an opportunity and an oyster. Tamam this and tamam that. Merhaba and teşekkür ederim, greetings and gratitude. This list just became a prayer.

ISIL assaulted a Muslim country. A Muslim country that is admired, celebrated, and adored by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. They struck in the holiest of months during the ten holiest of days. This in itself speaks to the fact these terrorizers aren’t Muslim by definition, in theory or actuality. They rail against the most fundamental facets of the faith. Do a simple Google search on ISIL-related attacks in 2016, plot the events on a timeline and you’d find an overwhelming majority of the hundreds of attacks this year have hurt Muslims. This has less to do with religion and more to do with vested political interests.

In the past year, Turkey has been targeted a dozen times by militants and terrorist organizations. This attack surpasses those in scale, this attack is symbolic. Istanbul connects two continents and its airport, like most, is a corridor of exchange: the exchange of people, culture, the exchange of thought. Travel and tourism directly contributed to 12.9% to Turkey's GDP in 2015, according to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council. Attacks like these don’t just shatter a country’s tourism — Turkey’s has been thriving for the last decade — but wreck infrastructure.

In an op-ed by Soner Cagaptay, Director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, he wrote "If ISIS is the anomaly in Islam, Turkey is the norm in Islam.” Turkey is a democratic society with a secular constitution. Turkey is a member of NATO and in succession talks with the European Union. Turkey isn’t just a friend of the West, but the biggest advocate of the West in the region. It has made perpetual efforts to establish cross-border projects that hone on arts, culture, youth empowerment, education, and sustaining development across geography.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk himself, the first President of Turkey, was a revolutionary in his own right. Atatürk led a single party regime for over two decades and is credited for instating Turkey as a secular republic. His social and political reforms — the abolition of religious institutions, emancipation for women, tax reform, the unification of education and innovation in fine arts, and the transition to a Latin script — were pivotal for Turkey and exemplary in scale and scope.

The West isn’t a singular victim of ISIL. The attack at Atatürk was not just another day in Istanbul. Turkey is mischaracterized as a place where violence is commonplace. This propagates the belief Istanbul is accountable for such crimes, and because of that, the weight of this tragedy does not measure up to the Brussels Airport Attacks in March or the Paris Attacks. Cities like Istanbul sadly don’t prompt the same degree of sympathy as Orlando, Brussels, or Paris which are more quintessential to mainstream global recognition. The Istanbul attacks are being discussed in the media within the context of Western ISIS attacks because it’s more “digestible” but it belittles the tragedy at hand.

News is binary. Newsworthiness is gauged by a set of arbitrary factors like what people find fascinating or repulsive. What the news tends to do is create dichotomies of us and “the other”. Not-so-newsworthy tales of challenging the status quo and unmasking inconvenient precisions are often glossed over because they deflect newsworthiness. They don’t fit the bill.

In a statement issued by UEFA, Quarter-finalists at Euro 2016 will not be observing a moment of silence for the Istanbul attacks because the tragedy is irrelevant to tournament and sport itself. This however, collocates protocol last November, when Euro 2016 qualifiers observed a minute of silence for the Paris Terror Attacks.

We’ve allowed a human tragedy to fall in the latter class of not-so-newsworthy. I’m not a fan of gimmicky activism in the wake of global catastrophes. It feels misguided and lazy. But incidents like the Istanbul Attacks need to be treated with a certain sensitivity. All tragedies of a similar vein should be mourned evenly and in unison.

Either we really are overtly bias about which tragedies matter, or we don’t hear, feel, or see them. Whichever, it says a lot about us.

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