by Rick Steves
But Denmark’s government has tried to “normalize” Christiania, pressured by developers salivating at the potential profits of developing this once nearly worthless land, and by the US because of the residents’ celebrated open use of marijuana. There’s talk about opening the commune to market forces and developing posh apartments to replace existing residences, according to one government plan. Increasingly, this community of peaceniks is in danger of being evicted. But Christiania has a legal team, and litigation will likely drag on for many years.
Many predict that Christiania will withstand the government’s challenge, as it has in years past. The community, which also calls itself Freetown, fended off a similar attempt in 1976 with the help of fervent supporters from around Europe. Bevar Christiania—“Save Christiania”—banners fly everywhere, and locals are confident that their free way of life will survive. As history has shown, the challenge may just make this hippie haven a bit stronger.
As I left Christiania and headed back into clean, orderly, and conformist Denmark, I looked up at the back side of the “Welcome to Christiania” sign. It read, “You are entering the EU.”
Later that day on the bustling streets of downtown Copenhagen, I paused to watch a parade of ragtag soldiers-against-conformity dressed in black and waving “Save Christiania” banners. They walked sadly behind a WWII-vintage truck blasting Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.” (I had never really listened to the words before. But the anthem of self-imposed isolation and revolt against conformity seemed to perfectly fit the determination of the Christianians to stand up against thought control and stifled individuality.) On their banner, a slogan—painted onto an old bedsheet—read: Lev livet kunstnerisk! Kun døde fisk flyder med strømmen (“Live life artistically! Only dead fish follow the current”). Those marching flew the Christiania flag—three yellow dots on an orange background. They say the dots are from the o’s in “Love Love Love.”
While I wouldn’t choose to live in Christiania, I would feel a loss if it were shut down. There’s something unfortunately brutal about a world that makes the little Christianias—independent bookstores, family farms, nomadic communities, and so on—fight giants (such as developers, big chains, agribusiness, and centralized governments) to the death. Those economic and governmental behemoths always seem to win. And when they do, we may become safer and wealthier and even more comfortable…but it all comes at a cost.
The need for a Christiania is not limited to the Danes. After that trip, from the comfort of my suburban Seattle living room, I stumbled upon live TV coverage of the finale of the Burning Man Festival (the annual massing of America’s artistic free spirits each Labor Day in the Nevada desert). Watching it, I heard the cry of an American fringe community that—much like the tribe at Christiania—wants to be free in an increasingly interconnected world that demands conformity.
Traveling in Denmark, considering well-ordered Danish social-ism and reflecting on the free-spirited ideals and struggles of Christiania, gives me insight into parts of my own society that refuse to be just another brick in the wall. Hopefully when the pressures of conformity require selling a bit of our soul, travel experiences like these help us understand the potential loss before it’s regrettably gone.
Denmark is a riddle that I love puzzling over. On the one hand, their dedication to their social contract is the bedrock of their insistent happiness. On the other, in their longstanding acceptance of Christiania, the Danes seem to be unusually tolerant of free spirits. I imagine that the dramatic tension between these extremes is part of what keeps Danish life interesting… both for the Danes and for us visitors. As all societies vie to win the “most contented” surveys, traveling reminds us that contentment is based not on surrendering to conformity, but in finding that balance between working well together and letting creative spirits run free.
Chapter 6
Turkey and Morocco: Sampling Secular Islam
Istanbul Déjà Vu
Turkish Village Insights in Güzelyurt
Defending the Separation of Mosque and State…for Now
Islam in a Pistachio Shell
Morocco: Everything but Pork
The Human, the Bear, and the Forest
My Dad used to be absolutely distraught by the notion that God and Allah could be the same. Years ago, I couldn’t resist teaching my toddler Andy to hold out his arms, bob them up and down, and say, “Allah, Allah, Allah” after table grace just to freak out his Grandpa. Later, rather than just torture my Dad, I took a more loving (and certainly more effective) approach to opening him up to the Muslim world: I took him to Turkey. Now—while he’s still afraid of al-Qaeda—my Dad is no longer afraid of Islam.
While violent Islamic fundamentalists represent a tiny fraction of all Muslims, the threats they pose are real. And they get plenty of media coverage. To help balance my understanding of Islam, I make a point to travel to and learn about its reasonable, mainstream side. I spend time in Turkey, a Western-facing Islamic nation with a determination to stay secular and a desire to engage the US and Europe as friends without giving up its culture. Morocco is another good classroom for gaining a balanced take on Islam. Visiting moderate developing nations like these, which happen to be primarily Muslim, gives us an accessible look at our globe’s fastest-growing religion, practiced by more than 1.5 billion people worldwide. Nearly one in every four human beings prays to Mecca. Through travel, we can observe Islamic societies struggling (like our own society) with how to deal with a rough-and-tumble globalized world. In doing so, we gain empathy.
Turkey is also a good classroom in which to better understand our world because it gives us a peek at an emerging economy. With the frailties of the US economy and the G-8 stretching to G-20, it’s smart to pay attention to the globe’s new economic realities. Turkey—with its torrid modernization, its drift to the political right, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism—is a study in the cultural schizophrenia that modern change can cause, from Mumbai to Memphis.
The predictable question travelers get from loved ones is, “Why are you going to Turkey?” With each visit to Istanbul, one of my favorite cities in the world, my response is: Why would anyone not travel here?
Istanbul Déjà Vu
When I was in my twenties, I finished eight European trips in a row in Turkey. I didn’t plan it that way—it was the natural finale, the subconscious cherry on top of every year’s travel adventures. While my passion for Turkey hasn’t faded, my ability to spend time there has been a casualty of my busy schedule researching guidebooks and producing public television shows. But recently, realizing I hadn’t set foot in Istanbul for nearly a decade, I made a point to return to the city where East meets West. The comforting similarities and jarring differences between today’s Istanbul and the Istanbul I remember filled the trip both with nostalgia and with vivid examples of how change is sweeping the planet.
The moment I stepped off my plane, I remembered how much I enjoy this country. Marveling at the efficiency of Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, I popped onto the street and into a yellow taksi. Seeing the welcoming grin of the unshaven driver who greeted me with a “Merhaba,” I just blurted out, “Çok güzel.” I forgot I remembered the phrase. It just came to me—like a baby shouts for joy. I was back in Turkey, and it was “very beautiful” indeed. My first hours in Turkey were filled with similar déjà vu moments like no travel homecoming I could remember.
As the taksi turned off the highway and into the tangled lanes of the tourist zone—just below the Blue Mosque—all the tourist-friendly businesses were still lined up, providing a backdrop for their chorus line of barkers shouting, “Yes, Mister!”
I looked at the kids in the streets and remembered a rougher time, when kids like these would earn small change by hanging out the passenger door of ramshackle vans. They’d yell “Topkapı, Topkapı, Topkapı” (or whichever neighborhood was the destination) in a scramble to pick up passengers in the shared minibuses called dolmuş. (The dolmuş�
�a wild cross between a taxi, a bus, and a kidnapping vehicle—is literally and so appropriately called “stuffed”).
While Turkey’s new affluence has nearly killed the dolmuş, the echoes of the boys hollering from the vans bounced happily in my memory: “Aksaray, Aksaray, Aksaray…Sultanahmet, Sultanahmet, Sultanahmet.” I remembered my favorite call was for the train station’s neighborhood: “Sirkeci, Sirkeci, Sirkeci.” After dropping off my bag at my hotel, I stopped for tea—served in the customary small, tulip-shaped glass—before heading out to explore.
Istanbul, a city of over 10 million, is thriving. The city is poignantly littered both with remnants of grand (if eventually corrupt) empires and with living, breathing reminders of the harsh reality of life in the developing world. Sipping my tea, I watched old men shuffle by, hunched over as if still bent under the towering loads they had carried all of their human-beast-of-burden lives.
Like great cities in emerging economies around the world, Istanbul bustles with hope for a bright future.
And yet, this ancient city is striding into the future. During my visit, everyone was buzzing about the upcoming completion of the new tunnel under the Bosphorus, which would give a million commuters in the Asian suburbs of Istanbul an easy train link to their places of work in Europe. This tunnel (which opened in 2013) is emblematic of modern Turkey’s commitment to connecting East and West, just as Istanbul bridges Asia and Europe. I also see it as a concrete example of how parts of the developing world are emerging as economic dynamos.
Stepping out of my shoes, I entered the vast, turquoise (and therefore not-quite-rightly-named) Blue Mosque. Hoping for another déjà vu, I didn’t get it. Something was missing. Yes…gone was the smell of countless sweaty socks, knees, palms, and foreheads soaked into the ancient carpet upon which worshippers did their quite physical prayer work-outs. Sure enough, the Blue Mosque had a fresh new carpet—with a subtle design that keeps worshippers organized the same way that lined paper tames printed letters.
The prayer service let out, and a sea of Turks surged for the door. Being caught up in a crush of locals—where the only way to get any personal space is to look up—is a connecting-with-humanity ritual for me. I seek out these opportunities. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing the exhilaration of body-surfing above a mosh pit. Going outside with the worshipping flow, I scanned the dark sky. That scene—one I had forgotten was so breathtaking—played for me again: hard-pumping seagulls powering through the humid air in a black sky, surging into the light as they crossed in front of floodlit minarets.
Walking down to the Golden Horn inlet and Istanbul’s churning waterfront, I crossed the new Galata Bridge, which made me miss the dismantled and shipped-out old Galata Bridge—so crusty with life’s struggles. Feeling a wistful nostalgia, I thought of how all societies morph with the push and pull of the times.
But then I realized that, while the old bridge is gone, the new one has been engulfed with the same vibrant street life—boys casting their lines, old men sucking on water pipes, and sesame-seed bread rings filling cloudy glass-windowed carts.
Strolling the new Galata Bridge and still finding old scenes reminded me how stubborn cultural inertia can be. If you give a camel-riding Bedouin a new Mercedes, he still decorates it like a camel. I remember looking at tribal leaders in Afghanistan—shaved, cleaned up, and given a bureaucrat’s uniform. But looking more closely, I could see the bushy-gray-bearded men in dusty old robes still living behind those modern uniforms. On a trip to Kathmandu, I recall seeing a Californian who had dropped out of the “modern rat race”—calloused almost-animal feet, matted dreadlocks, draped in sackcloth as he stood, cane in hand, before the living virgin goddess. Somehow I could still see Los Angeles in his eyes. The resilience of a culture can’t be overcome with a haircut and a shave—or lack of one—or a new bridge.
On the sloppy adjacent harborfront, the venerable “fish and bread boats” were still rocking in the constant chop of the busy harbor. In a humbler day, they were 20-foot-long open dinghies—rough boats with battered car tires for fenders—with open fires for grilling fish literally fresh off the boat. For a few coins, the fishermen would bury a big white fillet in a hunk of fluffy white bread, wrap it in newsprint, and I was on my way…dining out on fish.
In recent years, the fish and bread boats had been shut down—they had no license. After a popular uproar, they came back. They’re a bit more hygienic, no longer using newspaper for wrapping, but still rocking in the waves and slamming out fresh fish.
In Turkey, I have more personal rituals than in other countries. I cap my days with a bowl of sütlaç. That’s rice pudding with a sprinkle of cinnamon—still served in a square and shiny stainless-steel bowl with a matching spoon, not much bigger than a gelato sampler.
And I don’t let a day go by in Turkey without enjoying a teahouse game of backgammon with a stranger. Boards have become less characteristic; they’re now cheap and mass-produced, almost disposable. Today’s dice—plastic and perfect—make me miss the tiny handmade “bones” of the 20th century, with their disobedient dots. But some things never change. To test a fun cultural quirk, I tossed my dice and paused. As I remembered, a bystander moved for me. When it comes to backgammon, there’s one right way… and everybody knows it. And in Turkey, as if a result of its ruthless history, when starting a new game, the winner goes first.
With each backgammon game, I think of one of my most precious possessions back home: an old-time, hand-hewn, inlaid backgammon board, with rusty little hinges held in place by hasty tacks, and soft, white wood worn deeper than the harder, dark wood. Twenty years after taking that backgammon board home, I open it and still smell the tobacco, tea, and soul of a traditional Turkish community. There’s almost nothing in my world that is worn or has been enjoyed long enough to absorb the smells of my life and community. It’s a reminder to me of the cost of modernity. And when the feel and smell of my old backgammon board takes me back to Turkey, I’m reminded how, in the face of all that modernity, the resilient charm of traditional cultures is endangered and worth preserving.
Today in Turkey, the people—like those dots on the modern dice—line up better. The weave of a mosque carpet provides direction. There’s a seat for everyone, as the dolmuş are no longer so stuffed. Fez sales to tourists are way down, but scarf wear by local women (a symbol of traditional Muslim identity) is way up. Each of my déjà vu moments shows a society confronting powerful forces of change while also wanting to stay the same.
My hotel’s inviting terrace was open at night, ideal for gazing past floodlit husks of forts and walls, out at the sleepy Bosphorus, with Asia lurking just across the inky straits. The strategic waterway was speckled with the lights of freighters at anchor stretching far into the distance.
Noticing the power of the moonlight shimmering on the water, I recalled the legend of the Turkish flag—a white star and crescent moon reflected in a pool of bright-red blood after a great and victorious battle. From my perch, it seemed that now the crescent moon shone over not blood, but money: trade and shipping…modern-day battles in the arena of capitalism.
At breakfast, the same view was lively, and already bright enough to make me wish I had sunglasses. An empty oil tanker heading for a Romanian fill-up was light and riding high. Its exposed tank made its prow cut through the water like a plow—a reminder of how, today, trade is sustenance and oil is a treasured crop. As I scanned the city, it occurred to me that Istanbul is physically not that different from my home city. I could replace the skyline of domed mosques and minarets with churches and steeples, and it could be the rough end of Any Port City, USA.
Rather than my standard bowl of cereal, for my Turkish breakfasts I go local: olives, goat cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, bread, and a horrible instant orange drink masquerading as juice. Gazing at my plate, I studied the olive oil. Ignoring the three olive pits, I saw tiny, mysterious flakes of spices. They were doing a silent and slow-motion do-si-do to a distant rhyth
m with lyrics that told of arduous camel-caravan rides along the fabled Silk Road from China.
Later that day, I immersed myself in Turkey, collecting random memories. Wandering under stiletto minarets, I listened as a hardworking loudspeaker—lashed to the minaret as if a religious crow’s nest—belted out a call to prayer. Noticing the twinkling lights strung up in honor of the holy month of Ramadan, I thought, “Charming—they’ve draped Christmas lights between the minarets.” But a Turk might come to my house and say, “Charming—he’s draped Ramadan lights on his Christmas tree.” I marveled at the multigenerational conviviality at the Hippodrome—that long, oblong plaza still shaped like the chariot racecourse it was 18 centuries ago. Precocious children high-fived me and tried out their only English phrase: “What is your name?” Just to enjoy their quizzical look, I’d say, “Seven o’clock.” As I struggle to understand their society, I guess my mischievous streak wanted them to deal with a little confusion as well.
It’s in this environment that, as a tour guide, I would introduce tour members (like my father) to Turkish culture and Islam. I recall well-educated professionals struggling to get things straight. People would quiz me: “So, where did they get the name Quran for their Bible? Could it be considered a Bible?” Turkish guides love to tell stories of tourists who ask, “So, was this church built before or after Christ?” But all guides repeat to themselves the first rule of guiding: “There are no stupid questions.” After all, it’s in environments like Istanbul—in countries all around the world—that thoughtful travelers get out of their comfort zones and enjoy the easy educational rewards that come with being steep on the learning curve.
