Global Psyche: Backward? Let Us Prove You Wrong

When news broke that President Obama would be visiting Turkey, the media quickly cast the trip as the president's first visit to a "Muslim country." Turks, proud of their country's devotion to secularism, actually weren't pleased about that characterization. For weeks before Obama's trip, the Turkish media fretted over whether the president would deem Turkey a Muslim country rather than a secular one. (He didn't.) But for the most part, Turks relished the sight of the dark-skinned leader on the shores of Istanbul and in the statehouses of Ankara, for one reason especially: Turks see Obama as the quintessential underdog, which is also how they see themselves.

Before I moved to Istanbul in 2007, I heard the same advice over and over. When Turks ask you what you think of Turkey, Turkophiles would say, tell them it's the greatest place on earth.

Sure enough, shortly after my arrival, a Turkish academic noted the gulf between Turks' self-glorification and nagging insecurity. And a waiter who noticed my Turkish books exclaimed, "Ah! You're learning Turkish!" Then he whispered, "But why would you ever do that?"

Turks are a welcoming, generous people, and sometimes an invitation for tea feels slightly dutiful. A young woman who eagerly showed me around the city said, "I love my city, and I want others to love it, too. When they don't, I get upset." Worrying that I am disappointed by Istanbul's rougher edges, they wonder whether the men stare rudely or if the city's too chaotic, yet also quickly decry those stupid tourists who expect to find camels in such a civilized place.

"It's like propaganda at this point: We've heard so much about our own hospitality that we feel we need to keep it up," said one young Turk. "It comes back to our inferiority complex to the West, as if we're saying that despite whatever problems we have, we still offer, we still share."

According to Fatma Muge Gocek, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, Turks' "magnanimity is left over from the Ottoman imperial era, when it was customary to share one's good fortune with the rest of the world. Yet the wariness kicked in with the sudden loss of that empire and the transition to the tiny nation-state." Orhan Pamuk, in his book Istanbul: Memories and the City, called this sense of lost greatness a kind of melancholy. "In Istanbul the remains of a glorious past civilization are everywhere visible," he wrote.

Since the beginning of the last century, Turks have embarked on an enormous project of westernization, often brutally flinging off signs of "backwardness." Most famously, the Turkish republic's founder and national hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, banned the traditional Turkish fez in favor of the European hat. Istanbullus often point me toward only the most European-looking neighborhoods and restaurants, usually dropping the word "modern" to describe them.

I've already picked up some Turkish habits of hospitality. I want others to love the city I have grown to love. Maybe if I go out of my way to show them a good time, they'll see how special it can be.