Times Like These

                The years that I chose to go abroad were interesting times. In May of 2003, the United States was busily engaged militarily on the Roof of the World, all the while heartily rattling their sabres to let more blood on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates. Using poisoned language, and outright lies, they eventually unleashed the hounds of war in the ancient lands of Sumer, Ur, and Babylon. In August 2006, Israel was joyfully indulging its own blood thirsty demons, levelling entire city blocks with their fighter bombers in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, and obliterating the southern city of Sidon. The murderers of men, women and children were praised for their heroism, for pressing a button that literally rained death down upon the innocent from 20,000 feet, whilst those that opposed the carnage with nothing more than small arms, rocks, and passion were condemned as cowards and terrorists.

                In short, the world read like a Matthew Arnold poem, a place in which there was neither joy, nor hope, nor relief from pain. And I was abroad, not safe at home; I was able to witness a more international response to the times, and to those crimes. Despite the child-like wonder of being in foreign lands, living out a long held dream, I was at times apprehensive, nervous, and cynical about the world into which I was venturing into. I need not to have been. The world, as it so often does, in times like these, or in times long past, was able to show me that while ignorant armies may clash at night, the spirit of Humanity can still overcome.

                In the Great War, it fell to Sir Winston Churchill, as yet the Lord of the Admiralty, to smash through the Turkish defenses along the Dardanelles, and lay open the way to bombard and fire bomb the Celestial Porte; this would force the Turks into the uncomfortable position of either surrendering, or watching the capital of Istanbul burn. Churchill, in the manner of the wealthy military elite, chose not to pound the peninsula of Gallipoli with his battle ship’s long guns, but rather to land men, and storm over the Turkish trenches, Aussies’ and Kiwi’s being apparently of less worth than shells. It was not an easy fight, as Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk, Father of the modern Turkish nation) and the Turks were not willing to give an inch, and leave their capital exposed. The Mehmets fought the Johnnies to a standstill, their trenches mere metres apart in places.

                One of the Australian officers, a Lieutenant Casey, recalled later that after a bitter Anzac (Australia and New Zealand Army Corp) offensive, which the Turks repelled, one wounded Johnny lay in the hell of No-Man’s Land. He was too wounded to make his way back to his own lines, and so lay screaming in the mud, soaked in his own terror. One unknown Turkish soldier, after listening to the tortured cries, sprang into action, and went over the top himself, daring the bullets from all sides. He made it to the wounded man, and hoisted him up onto his shoulders. He did not turn and carry the man back to the safety of his own trench, but rather, stumbled forward, towards the lines of his enemy. The Anzacs looked on in wonder. Their own officers shouted for them to shoot, and so they did, aiming high into the air, realising that this man, their enemy, was risking his own life to save the life of their comrade. After he had delivered the wounded man to his compatriots, the Allied soldiers allowed him to return to his own lines undamaged, shooting high and wide yet again. It was an act of the utmost compassion, an act that showed how humanity can persevere, in even the worst of circumstances. Mustafa Kemal, after becoming the first President of the Turkish Republic, returned to the battlefield of Gallipoli, and ordered a statue built in commemoration of that act of compassion, the Mehmet carrying the wounded Johnny in his arms; it has forever enshrined those virtues to which all governments claim to espouse, but which so few actually achieve. It is a beautiful sight, a golden image quietly sitting amongst the pines and the grave stones.

                Other, less dramatic symbols of resistance to the violence that marks our race were present. In 2003, people across the UK protested their involvement in the upcoming war in Iraq. Placards were seen sarcastically congratulating their government for “Delivering Democracy”, the words superimposed over the image of a falling bomb. In Italy, rainbow coloured banners graced thousands of balconies, and roof tiles were repainted to beg the world for “Pace” (peace). The French bravely stood up to the United States in the UN, and I could see how proud it made them in the streets, to not be included in the infamous “Coalition of the Willing”.

                In 2006, Turkey faced another Kurdish uprising, and a bomb rang out in the Marmaris night, obliterating a section of downtown sidewalk. In the face of harsh governmental reprisals, the Kurdish independence movement had decided that the best way to affect change was to assault Turkey’s most important and profitable industry, that of tourism. The situation was tense, and the presence of machine gun touting policemen did little to reassure me. And yet, one night I sipped tea outside of the Aya Sofia, served to me by a soft spoken, insightful Kurd who hailed from Diyarbakir, carrying a canister of the scalding liquid on his back. He came to Istanbul every summer, he told me. There was no work in his home, which was the centre of the independence movement. The Turkish Army had left Diyarbakir a desolated place in the 1990’s, and it had yet to recover. And so he sold tea to Westerners like myself, making what must have been a pittance, but enough that he had money to send home to his wife and young children, who lived without their father for half of the year. What a life to lead, how lonely he must have been. But he did not complain to me about that. Instead he complained about the bomb, which was then only 2 week old news, and how it would only have a negative effect on everyone, be they Turk, or be they Kurd. Violence, the tea merchant assured me, was not the way to solve any issue. Turk and Kurd had to learn to live together in harmony, and joint prosperity. His outlook was more warming than the chai he sold.

                And so, in times like these, or in times like those, there have been violent deeds, and bitter lies in great abundance, but there have also been shining rays of light; soft candles held up by sometimes shaking hands to stave off the encroaching dark. If all of us were only so brave as to light a candle of our own, we would never need to curse that darkness; it would already be outshone.