[Marxism] "Pamuk is a creature of Istanbul's haute bourgeoisie"

[Mehmet Cagatay]

During my seven years in Istanbul, I had never observed such a conflict
between East and West, Islam and modernity, etc. Perhaps it was because of
the deficiency of my perception of direction that I usually walk straight
ahead until realizing that I get lost or of the myopia that didn't allow
me to distinguish the battlefield of symbolic culture behind the diversity
of social relations. Rather, I saw ignorance of poverty circled with
wisdom of bourgeois wealth, nominal modernity of capitalism justifies
itself through the outdated forms of communal society, aesthetic
brilliance of architecture shadowed by the miserable ruins of shacks of
squatters and disturbing structures designed by the art of commodification
of architecture, unemployed multitude of Kurdish citizens, African
emigrants and potpourri of ethnic groups grappling with fascism molded by
the intellect of ruling classes, traditional taverns, bars playing Turkish
folk music, jazz, rock, merging alcohol and music like in everywhere, etc,
etc. 

I think the colossal heap of Turkish literature dedicated to analyze the
contradictions of symbolic cultures fails to notice how those symbols rise
from the material conditions of real man. Thus, these efforts to decode
symbolic systems of East-West have only produced new combinations of codes
that serve to define a self-image for the Kemalist coxcombs of Turkish
bourgeois: Gloomy residents of a cultural Araf lured by the fruits of
heaven but anyhow keeping themselves amused with the fascinating carnival
below in hell. 

Mehmet Çagatay
http://weblogmca.blogspot.com/


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