MIKA WALTARI: FROM HELSINKI TO ISTANBUL

cafebabel.com
cle/26313/mika-waltari-finland-turkey-membership-e urope.html
24/09/08
France

2008: the EU’s year for intercultural dialogue and the centenary of
Finnish writer Mika Waltari’s birth, who travelled Helsinki to Istanbul
by train in 1929. For the integration train, Turkey may be only a
stop along the way, but a necessary one. Imaginary journey via Berlin

Analysis By Antton Rönnholm.

Translation Media Consulta

Topkapi metro system, Istanbul 2006 (Image: glebis/ Flickr)

2008: the EU’s year for intercultural dialogue and the centenary of
Finnish writer Mika Waltari’s birth, who travelled Helsinki to Istanbul
by train in 1929. For the integration train, Turkey may be only a
stop along the way, but a necessary one. Imaginary journey via Berlin

Mika Waltari died in 1979 | (Image: Suomen historia by
K. O. Lindeqvist/ Wikimedia)Mika Waltari’s Yksinäisen miehen juna
(‘The Lonely Man’s Train’, 1929) takes us on a trip from Helsinki
to Istanbul, through a Europe taking a breath between world wars and
still balancing on the edge of the old and the new. The travel book
turns eighty next year, but Waltari’s way of seeing our part of the
world and its people seems timeless. In ‘searching for our time’,
the protagonist is primarily searching for himself and confronting
adulthood. The train’s movement is unstoppable, making its way toward
a new, modern unknown. The individual considers directions and put
together timetables and routes. In the end, the decision is simply
a question of whether or not to stay on board.

Via Germany In European integration, the train’s movement has gone
geographically broader and politically deeper. Finland’s special
position has been its proximity to the east as well as its position
as part of the west. Its voluntary decision to get on the train in
1995, together with Sweden and Austria, was emotionally important. As
a humanist, historian and a European, Waltari would wonder about
today’s dissembled discussions about expansion, deepening of ties
and Turkey’s EU membership. For him, Istanbul was the destination.

Avrupa newspaper reports | (Image: RokkenMurf/ Flickr)Passing Augsburg
on the trip south from Berlin, where the religious peace principle
‘He who governs the territory decides the religion’ got its name. In
a February 2008 low-key speech in Cologne, Turkish prime minister
Erdogan calls on Turks living in Germany to remain loyal to Turkey. The
membership process is a two-way street; has the candidate now put
on the brakes? Erdogan’s concept of Turks as an emotional community
within Germany is interesting. When turned around, the Augsburg
principle is: those who decide the religion govern the land. So if
the loyalty of Turks living in Berlin is to their former homeland,
does the prime minister in Ankara, rather than the chancellor in
Berlin, have power in Kreuzberg? Identities, loyalties and symbols
are still surprisingly important in Europe. Why else would a flag,
song or slogan become central problems in negotiating a constitution?

Istanbul – have we arrived?

The lonely man’s train is at its destination. Waltari was disappointed:
he wound up in Istanbul, not Constantinople. ‘I have already waited too
long; for me this city has become a symbol of all that is unattainable
and foreign.’ What Waltari had come to find no longer existed.

Kemal established the Turkish state railways | (Map: Tcdd network/
Wikipedia)

Today, Istanbul is a metropolis of 10 million residents. Outwardly,
it hardly differs from that of other cities. Its heart beats with
enthusiasm and youth, but it holds on to its traditions. Turkey’s
integration started in earnest when it joined NATO in 1952. Ten years
later the EEC agreement comes along and in 1996 the customs agreement
with the EU. Now a political player in the EU, Turkey reacted to
demands with caution, despite its desire to gain membership, which
is used as a threat. At the same time Turkey’s young people and their
potential to spur growth in the entire area enchant an aging Europe.

The biggest barriers to Turkey’s EU membership are other countries
Repression of the Armenians in 1915 no doubt served Mustafa Kemal’s
attempt to unite the ailing man that was Europe. As his legacy,
Kemal left Turkey to Turkey, but at the same time created an
ultra-nationalist ideology, secularism and a strict military to
oversee it. The EU demands that Turkey admit its past faults, but
closes its eyes to its own. Germany is probably the only country
that has had to truly look at itself in the mirror. 3 million
Armenians now have their own land. Nearly as many live in the USA and
Europe. As for other minorities, Kurds make up at least 15% of the
Turkish population, and their rights have been minimised. Can Turkey
control its churning nationalism and even accept the formation of an
independent Kurdistan? The biggest barriers to Turkey’s EU membership
are other countries that have already ensured themselves a place on
the integration train – countries that still have answers to only a
fraction of the questions put to them along the journey.

‘Hagia sofia’ or ‘holy wisdom’ | (Photo: Robertraderschatt/
Flickr)Waltari wanted to ‘feel and live within himself the painful
individualism of the countries and of the people’ from one edge
of Europe to the other. You too will meet the continent’s people
and countries ‘united in diversity’ in the cars on the train headed
for integration in Europe. Waltari also says that people everywhere
are the same. It makes no difference whether it is Istanbul’s Hagia
Sofia Orthodox Church, a mosque or a museum. As implied by its name
(‘Hagia Sofia’ means Holy Wisdom), being European does not depend on
whether you wear a fez, a headscarf or a bowler.

This is an adapted version of the original article by the winner of
the European Young Journalist of Finland 2008

–Boundary_(ID_GcLpKFJslwww3B8fH7sv8w)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress