Dying to Divorce

So, an Englishman Abroad has been quiet recently. I am trying to finish The Book before Spring.

“Between A Rock and A Hard Place” will attempt to tell the story of the passage of one hundred years, from the dawn of Atatürk’s secular republic through the emergence of Political Islam in the late 20^th Century to Erdoğan’s putative New Republic in 2023. It will also explain along the way why my shed is tidy, how to cook a village chicken and other stories from the Ex Pat Bubble. Should be a corker (smiley face).

However, I thought I would break cover to tell of recent developments in my Turkish life.

Firstly, I hit the watershed 70th. Interestingly (to me and Sneaky the cat at least), my birthday falls the same day, 10^th November, that the Turkish Republic (the old one anyway) commemorates each year the loss of its (founding) Father (Ata in Turkish means just that).

The family (bless them) clubbed together and bought me an astonishingly expensive Garmin™ sports performance watch; the sort that is worn by people for whom shaving 3 seconds of their previous best five mile run time really matters. That The Fams believe both that, in the arena of human sporting endeavor I can still raise my game and that I have yet the mental capacity to master this piece of blistering technology shows commendable optimism.

Although I am not one of those miserable defeatists who think that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, I am reluctantly coming to accept that my ability to master ever smarter tech has boundaries. The Garmin is a challenge.

However, I have knuckled down. After spending a fair time downloading apps and connecting the Wrist Dictator to phone and computer, all sorts of things started buzzing and kicking off at random times. When I tried to check the time in the middle of the night, for example, my watch glared ‘79 High Stress’.

“I’m in bed for Chrissake!”

I couldn’t get back to sleep for worrying.

Also, I get messages on it. Take the one from a swimming buddy with whom I can only claim a moderate acquaintance. In response to his very helpful message, the Wristopedia offered only: Yes / No / Busy / Love You.

The first three of these seemed unreasonably terse and the last appeared, to say the least of it, overly familiar. However, in a spirit of Modernity I went with ‘Love you’ and made a mental note to follow up on the phone later with an explanatory message to him (reminder to self ‘Really – really – must do that’).

Also the Clockopedia monitors your sleep. Now this does interest me. I feel I have been much blessed in my life but not with the knack of sleeping easily. Bad sleep has followed me toute ma vie. So, in the hope that I can effect some improvement, I have thrown myself in to the metrics of sleep: Deep Sleep, REM sleep, Light Sleep, Wake Time, Nocturnal Movement etc.

I have been on this for three nights now and I am getting somewhere. The Garmin Blog on measuring and improving sleep offers many tips. One is that lettuce contains something that induces sleep. Now I know this to be scientific fact because when Peter Rabbit breaks in to Farmer McGregor’s vegetable garden, he stuffs himself on lettuce and falls asleep. When he wakes he is trussed up for the pot in the Evil McGregor’s kitchen. If you want to know how that plays out you will have to find the story online.

It sounds horrible but I stewed some up. It tastes worse than it sounds. However, I woke up early and very refreshed. This was despite coming out of a dream wherein the Special and I were in a house with a Kalkan friend and two strangers, one naked, both suffering (my dream state told me) from severe Alzheimer’s.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, I want to talk briefly of a new documentary film on domestic violence in Turkey that is set to make quite a splash on the world stage. Online publication Arab News said of the film; “Dying to Divorce has already triggered a global public debate about the issue”.

Made by a collaboration between a Turkish and a British filmmaker who met at Bristol University, it is the UK’s official entry for an Oscar in the ‘Best International Feature Film’ category. If it is shortlisted and especially if it wins, it is going to point a massive accusatory finger at Turkey. Actually, not just at Turkey generally, but at the conservative ruling party in particular and especially at Turkey’s highly conservative president. Under his leadership Turkey has withdrawn from the Istanbul Convention (an agreement on human rights) and made changes to family law such as attempting to pass a law granting amnesty to child rapists in Turkey if they marry their victim.

The prestigious Istanbul Film Festival has already declined to show the film on the basis that it is too controversial (yup!).

If the film does not get banned in Turkey, (even now the film’s Facebook page is not accessible here), I would be interested in showing the documentary in a private group of a carefully picked panel to handle questions and debate the film. This is not because domestic violence is not an absolute wrong. Apart from those few cases where the assailant has herself (usually) suffered for a long time as a victim of domestic violence, it is an absolute wrong. But it would be good to understand more fully the cultural and political dynamics involved. We who live here need to be extremely well informed when passing judgement on our host country. And I foresee questions of the “How can you live in a country like that?” sort coming our way.

Next year’s Oscars fall exactly a year before the last date for the 2023 Presidential elections, which are extremely high stakes. So this is a gift to the opposition at a highly sensitive time.

As I have observed more than once, we are in turbulent waters. Even if all seems calm.

Now what time is it “85. High stress!”

Bugger