To Drink or Not to Drink

Let's lighten up the mood a little without straying completely off the subject. I want to tell you about a municipal ordinance that has been getting a lot of attention in Turkey lately.

Here's the background: Uskudar is a municipality on the Asian side of the Istanbul metropolitan area. The municipality has access to the Bosphorous. The current municipal government is controlled by the AK party (the same party that has control of the national government). As you might know, even though this party is now pretty mainstream and slightly right of the center, most of the party founders were in an Islamic political movement. There are still elements in the party who are very religious (Think of the Republican Party and the Religious Right). In any case, there are some secular Turks who will not take anything this party does at face value and constantly suspect the party members of harboring a secret agenda to impose Shar'ia rule in Turkey.

Here's what happened: The Uskudar municipality recently passed an ordinance forbidding open containers in public. What this means is that you can no longer drink your beer in a public park in Uskudar while taking in the view of the Bosphorous. If you do, you might be fined.

Deniz Som, a columnist for the leftist-Kemalist newspaper Cumhuriyet, and Bedri Baykam, a famous painter and staunch defender of Kemalism, declared that this was just a ploy in the great strategy to inch Turkey ever closer to religious rule. They organized a protest and showed up in Uskudar with 500 supporters. In order to protest the ordinance, everybody imbibed wine while facing the sign "No public drinking allowed." Bedri Baykam claimed that the "Enlightened, democrat, secular people of Turkey will not stand by and allow their drinking to be curtailed" and added that Turkey will never return to the Middle Ages and Islamic Rule.

The Uskudar municipality was not impressed. They said that there were designated places for drinking and there was no need to drink in parks. They are planning to stick with the ordinance.

I think this tempest in a teapot is really illustrative of how confused and complicated even trivial issues have become in Turkey. The protesters equate the "right" to drink alcohol in public with being enlightened, secular, democratic, Western and modern. I wonder whether they know that most local governments in the US have laws banning open alcohol containers in public. I think some European countries do as well. Heck-there are dry counties all over the US. I cannot imagine the reaction if any municipality in Turkey declared itself dry. It would be seen as a sure sign that religious rule has arrived.

You could make a compelling argument from a public health and safety point of view that public intoxication is not a good idea. At the same time, the protesters are probably right in that this municipality is probably against all kind of drinking and are only banning what they legally can.

I think at the end, it should not matter what the motives of the municipality are. Their actions are circumscribed by the established [Western] norms of public safety. This is a good thing, and I think a sign that Turkish democracy has come a long way, and not really a reason to panic.

And as far as the protesters go, I personally cannot think of a more fun way to protest anything. So good for them, too.

So this story, however ridiculous in some aspects, brings a smile to my face. I'll drink to that tonight on my balcony...