La Gira

OR: PHOTOS NOT TO BE TAKEN
Already on the previous occasion when I had been in the city centre, I had been somewhat surprised by the amount of police around – sure it is the time before elections, the candidates just nominated; there had been demonstrations too … – and as I do not understand the language to the degree that would allow me to know what the demonstrations had been about, I feel a little bit surprised of my spontaneous disagreement, rejection. Though I am not really Hegelian, didn’t he see in his Philosophy of Right the police as particularly important in representing the even the universal?

In any case, this day I felt very much tempted to make a photo of the young women, standing next to the police bus, holding the machine gun at the ready. – But I know from a similar occasion in Ireland – a colleague from Slovakia wanted to take a photo of the guards protecting the money transport from BOI – that such photo shots are not the best idea (not in Ireland, not in Turkey and not in any other place – I have the vague feeling I know why, not least as I heard the other day that the office of the German headquarter of attac had been visited by these people in green*: they had been looking for some documents which the office could obtain and containing some information relevant with some finance market stuff ).

Another photo not taken: I am sitting already in the minibus, going back back to ODTU. The driver is first – while managing driving through the dense traffic in the centre and at the same time dealing with the money – moving the rosary through his fingers; then, after the traffic ceased a bit, he is frequently moving his fist against somebody whom he considers being in the way, or he is symbolically pushing somebody out of the minibus while stopping at one of these non-existing bus stops, thus asking by this gesture the words he doesn’t say: “Can’t you move faster?”

Or perhaps should I have taken the photo from the young woman who enters the minibus: made-up and smartened, showing with every movement, every look and with every gesture her discomfort: “This is not the place where I should be. A private limousine would be much more appropriate.” The driver is now driving most appropriate for a training session for a formula 1 competition – and the young woman’s real fear – an accident – seem to mingle with the fear of loss of status.

Well, no imagery of pretended, self-nominated nobility – finally I didn’t (even feel tempted to) take a photo of one of the many shoe polishers – some of them surely cleaning the shoes of those people who – though possibly only metaphorically – give them a kick in the …, well, a kick somewhere with the same shoe they get cleaned.

But the photos are not really my concern. Nor the deep impression the situations left behind.

It is more the road marks I mentioned in a recent post and the question they evoked: “Where is the energy of the Turkish people going to harmonise/ maintain incompatibility of the contradictoriness or to move to modernisation, the road-markings you mentioned?”

Yes, as I answered then – while making reference to army-helicopters, so frequently flying across the campus and mushrooming shopping centres – I will come back to it – and I will make another reference, one that may seem far-fetched, bizarre and it is surely not comprehendible at first sight: the reference to three of my current ‘projects’: (1) editing a book on social policy and religion, (2) preparing the workshop on Human Rights in the framework of the Forum “Human Rights in a Globalized World – Challenges to The Media” (Human Rights, a topic that will also be the focus of my later work at the MPI and (3) editing another book, looking at the question of precarity.

What all this is about is a frequent topic here – coming up when talking to colleagues and friends: hegemony, integration, control. The mode of regulation can definitely show different forms – and while writing these lines some ideas come up on how to tackle this topic later academically (I promised in Munich to link the question of “human rights beginning at the breakfast table” as Féilim apparently emphasises with the much more fundamental question of how is the breakfast table actually defined by existing accumulation regimes as there is surely a difference between the full Irish, the continental and South American etc.).

As offensive, mind-bugling it is to look after so many years again in the barrel of a riffle, it is somewhat similar offensive and mind-bugling to walk through shopping malls, seeing people who are not able to cross the glass ceilings of political institutions, hierarchies in business and go beyond the glass walls erected between affluence and poverty, put up in front of them as mirror in which they, the poor or at least not well-off, see their alleged failure, standing upright as spur to contribute to a suggested growth of the Wealth of the Nation.

In the first case Moral Sentiments are added as possible tools to clean up after the bloodshed, in the second case these very same Moral Sentiments as as reminder, aiming on evoking incitement: consumo ergo sum as moral quality of the bourgeois, suggesting ethical life by hoping for Hegel’s Sittlichkeit for the citoyen.

As said it is a topic frequently coming up, and I said for a couple of times: oppression, disguised as free market, should not be underestimated – a strong hegemonic power – not using weapons of physical violence, even if it is only by showing the potentiality of the use; not using the call of commandments: a multitude of norms reduced on ten simple rules. Instead it is using the expostulation: you are point of departure and point of destiny of all your acts – if there is any practice left it is only the aggregation of a multitude of individuals.

– It is surely a slippery ground, possibly belittling the brute violence, still bringing people into arrest in this country: people who are democratically saying their opinion, aiming on contributing to a debate and facing the odd reality: a country that does not provide space for debate, does not provide space for debaters either. And still, what is the answer on my statement: “Don’t underestimate the opressive side of the market as hegemon. A power in every day life we are not aware of, just following the flow, without considering what it actually does to our entire thinking – taking the energy out of everybody and anything we do.” You can imagine the answer of the colleagues and friends here? Well, after surely saying something like: “We know what oppression, what brute force is about.” a little surprise follows: “You say in your countries you do not mention the violence, the force of strict control. When we are there we definitely mention it … – we as foreigners.”

It is a surprise, distraction from what I mean and confirmation nevertheless too: follow the rule, be one of us – and it also asks: be ONE of us, do not be any kind of group: just an individual: behaving rationally with all the information you are given (but don’t ask for more, for really complete information) and behave to achieve your own happiness – this then will bring happiness for all. The foreigner is possibly foreigner also because s/he is not just ONE, not (yet) reducible on the one utilitarian being. And is seems simple then: if the one control mechanism doesn’t work, the other has to be used.

There is another dimension to some parts of these little excerpts from life: from beautification to militant oppression. This kind of beautification: the strive for the “Western look”, the imitation of a mirage surely contributes to an increase of GDP and looking at the armed forces and administrative units of the country we surely find the same: GDP in excess … . At least in terms of simple calculation these are all activities, part of a process of production, that cont as contribution marble, bricks and iron. If we look at the armed forces alone, this must add up to a huge amount. And if we look at the glass and concrete of the new buildings, the mirrors of the shops in the malls there are more contributions to the raise of that figure: artificially boosted figures, though only abstract, on paper and not translating into the life of the many. So the other bricks, moved by the people themselves, the polish that emerges from people’s hand, delivered on the streets remain artificial too although this is true in an entirely different way: they remain outside of the calculation of the GDP, and they remain outside as well as they will not translate into purchases of the goods of the posh high street.

Driving home, for a short second only, the question appears why the shields of the modern armed forces, though not made from glass, look like it: transparent, clean and …, repelling: you will not see any blood on them, not for long at least: who on the public would like to see private victims taken from the partners? But perhaps there is still a way: not allowing to be captured but to capture: PPP, suggested as public private partnership, and frequently being an instrument to lull citizens may then also be understood as People – Power – Participation.

I am back in the apartment, boot the computer – the humming of the machine, taking a few seconds only – mingles with the chant coming from the Mosque located off-campus. A lasting chant – a call. Excluded? Being at the ready for a conservative come back?

Contradictions, tensions. Diversity in unity, unity in diversity, naivety – sheepish

– At the end, back from the little excursion, entering the campus again, showing my card. I take my UCC-staff card now as I am sitting very close to the door through which security staff enters. And indeed, he looks closely …, and understands. It is not in any way a valid record. But why bother – he pats me on the back, knowing, and also knowing that I know … – sure there is hegemony; and not less sure: there is – even and at least – in small things some kind of resistance – reminiscence !?.

I remember words Antonio Gramsci said, something like:

One has to educate sober, patient – people who do ot despair when facing the bold terror, people ahow are not getting exciting by every stupidity. Pessimism of mind, optimism of volition.

* colour of uniforms of German police force

Well, Der Hauptmann von Koepenick is well known in German, not so well in the wider world the Captain of Koepenick though even many Germans refer more to the Hero of Zuckmayer’s novel rather than to the real Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt who, in the first decade of the 20th century mislead the German authorities by using their own means: the unconditional acceptance of authorities and their symbols. Similarly the Swiss novelist Keller had been  earlier dealing with the very similar sujet: reputation, status, outwardness, symbols are decisive when it comes to assessment and recognition of people: Kleider Machen Leute (Clothes Make the Man or: Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds).

Now, times changed – and legal science and sociology for instance know too well that status doesn’t matter anymore. Today it is the contract: the law that may define status but it is the law that is decisive and it finds its expression in documents. Everything and everybody is judged according to documents and everything is documented – and even if we don’t possess the necessary document we are defined by it, for instance by being classified  as undocumented migrant (and this status is well documented somewhere).

Actually, it may be that I am currently one of them – or nearly one of them: Before traveling here I had been told I would need a visa and I would have to buy it at the airport, after arrival in Turkey. But then I had been told that I would not need one – so I am now sitting here without visa and with much hope that the latter information is true. As, of course I know: it is not man making history but historical documents making man.

And this is something we know here at my current university – Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi – too. Finally it had been in some way a typical American style campus university. And although the US had been fired at a very early stage (and one may even say: literally fired) several of the features are carried on. For instance: one cannot simply enter the campus. One needs the right document: finally we know as well: it is not the consciousness nor the real existence that de4ermines the consciousness – rather it is the document that makes the human being somewhat reality.

So, as i returned Saturday from my trip to Ankara, taking one of the minibuses, we stop briefly after entering campus ground. A guy peeps into the bus and the folks show well-behaved a little plastic cards. Peepy is happy, nearly. He begins to stare at me – and even my documented ignorance towards authorities does not help. And Sibel’s letter, saying the entire truth and authorising efendi Herrmann to enter the holy grail of science and knowledge is somewhere in the apartment. And as I do not want to offend efendi peepy, I pick my little wallet out of the pocket. Star… – stars from different coffee houses: pay 9 overprized warm drinks and we earned enough to give you the impression of inviting you for the 10th. Which one …, OK, it should be plastic and it should not emphasise too much the coffee – finally science and academia is about serious work and not about drinking coffee – and finally real existence is about human serious documents and not just about dressing up and of course it is not about mimicking authority.

A Mister Guttenberg had to learn this, a Turkish army may still has to learn it – and if and to which the the world really changes may be left an unanswered question for a while. Sometimes at least one could get the impression that there is not such a fundamental difference between a wrong captain, a wrong count and a pretending document holder. Though one point is surely important in all these cases: the pretender is always depending on the believer. – This made the year Zero possible and it is a principle that still works over 2000 years later and it also works after Adorno’s book on the Authoritiarian Personality had been published little it more than 60 years ago.

Something we should not forget in a country like this – and something we should also see when we hope with huge credulity that overcoming greed will help to make a better world.

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Der Paß ist der edelste Teil von einem Menschen. Er kommt auch nicht auf so einfache Weise zustand wie ein Mensch. Ein Mensch kann überall zustandkommen, auf die leichtsinnigste Art und ohne gescheiten Grund, aber ein Paß niemals. Dafür wird er auch anerkannt, wenn er gut ist, während ein Mensch noch so gut sein kann und doch nicht anerkannt wird.

[The passport is the noblest part of a human being. It doesn’t come about as easy as a human being. A human being can ocur everywhere, recklessly and without brainy reason, but this will never happen with a passport. But for that reason it will be accepted, if it is a good one, whereas a human being can be as good as we can think and still will not be recognised.]

(Bertolt Brecht, ‘Flüchtlingsgespräche’, 1940; transl. PH)