Istanbul from cruise ship May 2012

Istanbul

I experienced one of the most wonderful visits to one of the most historically significant cities in the world.  I chocked as much into a day and a half as is possible and found every minute invigorating.  For 2 days, we visited Istanbul, the only city in the world, which straddles both Asia and Europe (split in two by the Bosporus Straights).

A special aspect of the visit was having spectacular views (from our ship) overlooking the Bosporus Straight (and Golden Horn) of key sites including Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, and The Blue Mosque with its 6 minarets.  I had breakfast and dinner overlooking this spectacular water view.

Because Istanbul IS a port city, we had easy access from the ship.  Within minutes (or a short tram ride) a cruise passenger can enjoy major sites.  On our second day, I took the tram from Trophane to Eminonu, to begin my tour. I loved the frenetic energy of the city and felt comfortable touring around on my own, day 2.

Touring around, I felt the glory/power of this once mighty city that served as capital of two of the world’s most powerful empires Byzantine (for 900+ years) and Ottoman Empire (for 600+ years).  The Ottoman Empire was an economic, military, and religious powerhouse that ruled a huge chunk of the world spanning, Europe, Asia, and Africa from the 14^th till the 20^th century.

As we docked in Istanbul in the early morning, we were greeted by a robust and lively folk band of musicians dressed in traditional Turkish decorative uniforms.  I was able to zoom in and capture great close ups of them right from my private balcony.

I met my private tour group (of threee couples I met online) in our usual spot, across from the tour desk on deck 3.

We joined our tour guide, Ozlem (ozlemaydin33@gmail.com), who directed us to our bus, whose driver took us directly to the site-filled area: Sultanahmet.  Sultanahmet is the Old Town, where the city’s top landmarks are concentrated---including Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, The Blue Mosque, The Basilica Cisterns, Hippodrome Square, and the nearby The Grand Bazaar.

Here are some comments/reflections about my time in Istanbul:

We only used the bus twice: at the beginning and end of our day.  Traffic was very congested (a new James Bond movie was being filmed) and the Old Town is best explored on foot.

Sultanahmet Park, situated between the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, provides a great photo opp for both grand structures.

The Hagia Sophia is one of the most impressive buildings in the world and the crowning achievement of the Byzantine Empire.  Constructed by Emperor Justinian during the 6^th century, it remained the largest basilica in the world for centuries and the remains the worlds 4^th largest ever built.  It served as the Patriarchal church of Constantinople nearly a millennium until the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453.  Although the Ottoman Turks were Muslim, they were so captivated by the cathedral’s grand scale and beauty, they chose to preserve rather than destroy it.  Instead, they converted it to a mosque adding minarets, covering Christian mosaics and frescoes with Islamic artwork, and adding an imam’s pulpit and mihrab facing Mecca, among its many modifications.  After the secular Republic of Turkey was established, the Hagia Sophia was converted to a museum in 1936.  As a result, many (well-preserved), original Christian frescoes, which had been plastered over with whitewash, were uncovered and are now on display.  The eight iconic 24-ft wide leather medallions with Arabic calligraphy continue to dominate the apse, center and arches above the imperial gate. 

 

The Blue Mosque was the first mosque outside Mecca to have six minarets, likely a display of the Sultan’s wealth.  In order to avoid upstaging the central mosque in Mecca, which had six minarets, Sultan Ahmet I financed construction of a  seventh minaret there.  Construction of this mosque marks the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s decline because it exhausted the treasury that was never restored due to a succession of wars and incompetent rulers.

I saw the famous Medusa heads in the underground Basilica Cistern (the vast, dimly-lit, former underground water reservoir, built in the 6^th century).

The Waterway intersection of The Golden Horn, Bosporus Straight, and Sea of Marmara is one of the busiest in the world.  There was a continuous flow of ferry, barge, commercial ship, cruise ship etc. traffic.  With its spectacular views, it’s no wonder that Sultan Mehmet The Conqueror chose to this prime location on which to build his Topkapi palace.

We had a delectable and inexpensive lunch at Buhara 93 (Nakilbend Caddesi 15-near the Hippodrome).  I ordered the chicken Kebab with rice and salad for 8 or 9TL.  They have open wood-fired ovens where you can watch men baking the famous lavas (flat bread).  (It really is mentioned in Rick Steve’s guide, as their sign says)

 

I found the vendors at the Grand Bazaar (and Spice market) to be in-your-face aggressive.  The whole experience can be a bit overwhelming at first, but, the loud, colorful, crowded covered malls grow on you after a while.  The opening line in Turkish bazaars is always, “Where are you from”?  I am always delighted when vendors cannot guess where I am from since they are generally skilled at discerning the heritage of tourists. My favorite line was, “How can I hassle you today?”.  My favorite sign was “Real Fake Watches Sold Here”. There are more than 4000 stalls in a maze of streets in the grand bazaar selling carpets, ceramics, jewelry (gold, silver, precious/semi-precious stone, byzantine replicas), textiles, copperware, mosaics, spices, Turkish handicrafts, clothing, water pipes, Turkish delights, Evil eye merchandise, and of course, souvenirs, and more. 

see video

 

On my next visit, I will go to the bustling Taksim Square and Istikal Cadessi (Street) via the tram and funicular.

Black Identity and Racism Collide in Brazil

Black Identity and Racism Collide in Brazil

Here is an article by: Dion Rabouin, Posted: June 17 2014, that exposes the reality of racism in the country with the largest Black population outside of Africa.

 

The country’s complex history with race gains the spotlight as the World Cup attempts to address the recent wave of racist attacks against black players.

Before teams representing their countries from around the world arrived in Brazil, the country’s president, Dilma Rousseff, took the opportunity to label 2014 the “anti-racism World Cup.”

The declaration came after a wave of racist incidents in soccer around the world targeting black players, many of whom are Brazilian. While it’s a well-intentioned gesture and a particularly important one for a World Cup being hosted in the country that’s home to the largest population of people of African descent outside of Africa, Brazil has a complex past and present when it comes to race.

That complexity can perhaps best be illustrated by the fact that many black Brazilians don’t think of themselves as black. Brazilian soccer star Neymar is a great example. Asked during an interview in 2010 if he had ever experienced racism, his response was, “Never.” He added, “Not inside nor outside of the soccer field. Even more because I'm not black, right?”

 

Neymar

This denial of blackness may seem confusing to many Americans, because despite his long, straightened and occasionally blond hair, Neymar is clearly black. (Take a look at a picture of young Neymar with his family.) But for Brazilians, being black is very different from what it is in the United States.

“The darker a person is in Brazil, the more racism she or he is going to suffer. Light-skinned black people don’t identify as black most of the time,” says Daniela Gomes, a black Brazilian activist who is currently pursuing a doctorate in African Diaspora studies at the University of Texas. “A lot of people choose to deny their blackness. They don’t believe they are black, but they suffer racism without knowing why.”

Gomes calls it a “brainwash” that Brazilians go through in a country that likes to hold itself up as a model for racial harmony. But she also points to differences in the histories of the United States and Brazil. “We never had segregation, we never had the one-drop rule, we never had those kinds of things that are so normal for an African American,” she said. “What happened in Brazil was the opposite.”

Integration and miscegenation were actually government policy in Brazil. Around the time that slaves were freed, in 1888, the government sought to whiten its population through the importation of European immigrants. This idea was made law by Decree 528 in 1890 and opened the country’s borders to foreign immigrants, except for those from Africa and Asia.

The goal of this immigration effort was depicted in an 1895 painting by Brazilian artist Modesto Brocos known as The Redemption of Ham, which features a black grandmother, mixed-race mother, white father and white baby. The grandmother stands to the left with her hands raised in prayer, praising God that her grandson is white. This, says Brazilian entrepreneur and activist Carlos Alberto David, is the “final point” of racism in Brazil.

“Racism in Brazil is very sophisticated and structured,” says David. “The racism here is not physical. It works on people psychologically.”

Neymar, whose son looks very similar to the grandson in The Redemption of Ham, seems to have had quite a different experience in the four years since saying that he wasn’t black. The star forward has been subjected to monkey noises made by his own teammates, had multiple bananas thrown at him during international matches and even confronted an opposing coach he thought called him a monkey during a game.

That harassment may have been at the heart of a campaign he started after fellow Brazilian team member Dani Alves had a banana thrown at him by fans during a match in Spain. Rather than protest, Alves picked up the banana, peeled it and ate it, then continued playing. Later, Neymar posted a photo to Instagram of himself and his son holding bananas with the slogan, “Somos todos macacos” (“We are all monkeys”).

The campaign took off in Brazil, with many of the country’s notable artists and personalities also tweeting photos of themselves with bananas. But many in the country protested the movement, citing it as a trivialization of a very serious problem in soccer and in society.

“The comparison between blacks and monkeys is racist in its essence,” wrote Brazilian activist and history professor Douglas Belchior on his NegroBelchior blog. “However, many people don’t understand the seriousness of using the monkey as an offense, as an insult to black people.”

This can be a particularly complex issue in a country full of people whom outsiders see as black but who don’t think of themselves as such. That divide is evidenced by growing monkey taunts of black players and officials in Brazil.

In March, Brazilian midfielder Marcos Arouca da Silva was called a monkey during a postgame interview, an event that he said wasn’t an isolated incident. Brazilian referee Marcio Chagas da Silva says he’s been subjected to more than 200 racially based attacks during his career refereeing matches in the country. During a recent game between Brazilian clubs Esportivo and Veranopolis, fans reportedly yelled at him from the stands, “You belong in a circus. Go back to the forest, you monkey.”

Such events are what led Rousseff, along with FIFA, to push for this year’s World Cup to become “a global marker against racism.” Before the start of the World Cup, Brazil’s soccer federation also commenced a campaign against racism that is less controversial than Neymar’s, called “Somos iguais,” or “We are equal.”

As the World Cup moves forward and more fans see their teams bounced from the tournament by teams led by star black players like Italy’s Mario Balotelli, Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, Belgium’s Vincent Kompany, France’s Paul Pogba and others, Brazil’s hopes for a global marker against racism may be tested.

Dion Rabouin is a freelance writer currently based in Rio de Janeiro. Follow him on Twitter.

Before teams representing their countries from around the world arrived in Brazil, the country’s president, Dilma Rousseff, took the opportunity to label 2014 the “anti-racism World Cup.”

The declaration came after a wave of racist incidents in soccer around the world targeting black players, many of whom are Brazilian. While it’s a well-intentioned gesture and a particularly important one for a World Cup being hosted in the country that’s home to the largest population of people of African descent outside of Africa, Brazil has a complex past and present when it comes to race.

That complexity can perhaps best be illustrated by the fact that many black Brazilians don’t think of themselves as black. Brazilian soccer star Neymar is a great example. Asked during an interview in 2010 if he had ever experienced racism, his response was, “Never.” He added, “Not inside nor outside of the soccer field. Even more because I'm not black, right?”

This denial of blackness may seem confusing to many Americans, because despite his long, straightened and occasionally blond hair, Neymar is clearly black. (Take a look at a picture of young Neymar with his family.) But for Brazilians, being black is very different from what it is in the United States.

“The darker a person is in Brazil, the more racism she or he is going to suffer. Light-skinned black people don’t identify as black most of the time,” says Daniela Gomes, a black Brazilian activist who is currently pursuing a doctorate in African Diaspora studies at the University of Texas. “A lot of people choose to deny their blackness. They don’t believe they are black, but they suffer racism without knowing why.”

Gomes calls it a “brainwash” that Brazilians go through in a country that likes to hold itself up as a model for racial harmony. But she also points to differences in the histories of the United States and Brazil. “We never had segregation, we never had the one-drop rule, we never had those kinds of things that are so normal for an African American,” she said. “What happened in Brazil was the opposite.”

Integration and miscegenation were actually government policy in Brazil. Around the time that slaves were freed, in 1888, the government sought to whiten its population through the importation of European immigrants. This idea was made law by Decree 528 in 1890 and opened the country’s borders to foreign immigrants, except for those from Africa and Asia.

The goal of this immigration effort was depicted in an 1895 painting by Brazilian artist Modesto Brocos known as The Redemption of Ham, which features a black grandmother, mixed-race mother, white father and white baby. The grandmother stands to the left with her hands raised in prayer, praising God that her grandson is white. This, says Brazilian entrepreneur and activist Carlos Alberto David, is the “final point” of racism in Brazil.

“Racism in Brazil is very sophisticated and structured,” says David. “The racism here is not physical. It works on people psychologically.”

Neymar, whose son looks very similar to the grandson in The Redemption of Ham, seems to have had quite a different experience in the four years since saying that he wasn’t black. The star forward has been subjected to monkey noises made by his own teammates, had multiple bananas thrown at him during international matches and even confronted an opposing coach he thought called him a