A Tale of Two Countries

Kayseri is almost exactly in the middle of Turkey—roughly 5 hours by bus Southeast of Ankara. It is notable for the snow-capped Mt. Erciyes towering in the background and its Seljuk architecture (the Seljuk Turks, migrants from Central Asia, based their short-lived empire from Persia and slowly captured Byzantine territory). Despite its proximity to tourist-ridden Cappadocia, Kayseri remains a conservative Turkish city of approximately 500,000 people.

This was the first place in Turkey where I felt outnumbered by the women wearing headscarves. While I didn’t find this a problem, I did take offense with the numerous “aile salons,” or family areas, dotting the city’s restaurants and Internet cafes. One evening, with much work to do, I found an Internet café that boasted top-of-the-line computers replete with headphones and cameras for chatting. The large room that housed the majority of computers also had a tiny corner blocked off with a half-dozen computers—for the women. I’ve tried to keep an open attitude about the role of women in Turkey, but being stuck in an overcrowded room made no sense to me. Contrasted with familiar scenes in Istanbul of independent women working, socializing, drinking, and dressing in ways that many Americans know, one realizes that Turkey does have a couple of faces.

Erciyes University, the university in Kayseri, occupies a dusty campus spread out over many acres. Negotiating the campus involves a lot of walking, and without the entertaining profusion of signs, posters, and advertisements that hang on many U.S. campuses. For the most part, the students described themselves as politically right of center, meaning that they support more conservative politics. When I asked whether they consider themselves to be a religious person, most said “yes, Islamic,” where in the past I usually heard “yes, a bit” or “no, not so much.”
The school and city struck me as being a vacuum devoid of information. Indeed, while the students struck me as eager to learn and earnest thinking, their professors, particularly within the Foreign Languages Department, exemplified one of the roadblocks to a more active and critically thinking student population. After my first interview, the teacher who had introduced me to the student and who had also overheard the interview brought me to the Director of the Department who informed me that the questions were too political in nature and that I needed to get permission from the higher-ups. So, armed with a letter from the Fulbright office, I visited several offices, including the General Secretary of the school, in the quest for the golden permission, which I obtained the next morning.

Triumphantly I returned to the Director of the Foreign Language Department, permission in hand, hoping for him to introduce me to several more students. At this point, 20 hours after I first left because of lack of permission, he told me that I could only interview students if I omitted the political questions. He explained that because his department was technically a preparatory department for students before they began their four-year university career, they were too young to think about or be influenced by politics. I found it remarkable that they would keep students politically in the dark given that the students that I had met thus far were of voting age, and I told him so. He replied that because Kayseri is a conservative town, they’ve had problems in the past with groups talking to and influencing students.

My whole experience in Kayseri is, in my opinion, indicative of what is holding Turkey back—conservative ideals coupled with a desire by those in power—wherever that may be—to keep complete control over their domain, be it family, university, or city. This attitude squelches the access to information that is necessary for Turkey to move beyond its current position. By keeping students in the dark and women in small corners, the people in this region are limiting their potential.