All a Façade
Istanbul - A grandiose city. A scourged city. That's how Korhan Gümüs, an architect, sees it: "Sometimes one party loses the election, sometimes the other. Istanbul loses every time. Ever since the founding of the republic." Perhaps even longer. If you stick a shovel in the ground, you can't miss hitting Byzantium and Rome: 2,500 years are overlaid here layer for layer, buried and forgotten.
At least the city of the Ottoman sultans was to have been spared this fate. The Turks wanted to preserve the legacy of their ancestors, and UNESCO declared the Old Town a World Heritage Site in 1985. In the red afterglow of the sunset, when clouds of seagulls circle the minarets of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, the silhouette of this city perched on a headland between the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn still has the power to disarm every visitor.
The good news is that the minarets and the seagulls are not in danger.
But the rest is. Nervous tension lies like a pall over the city, disbelief: UNESCO wants to revoke Istanbul's World Heritage status. The Old Town is to be put on the red list of endangered cultural heritage sites. And more than a few people nod to themselves, thinking that's just where it belongs. But what a resounding slap in the face for the authorities, what a scandal if it really happens: now of all times, when the city fathers are still gloating over earning the title of European Capital of Culture 2010.
Fomenting paranoia
Anyone who would like to know how things came to this pass can begin by taking a walk through the Fener and Balat districts. This is where the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate has its seat; and Armenians, Jews and Bulgarians once lived here. These are quaint quarters still full of old Ottoman wooden houses.
UNESCO launched a project to save these buildings. Britta Wienholz, a German, fell in love with one such house: painted a wild-cherry red and in an advanced state of disrepair, its garden was filled with rubbish but she could still picture the idyllic setting it has become today. She has been living here for two years. From the roof she can look out over the water of the Golden Horn.
She is still bewildered at how differently everything turned out from what the historic preservationists had envisioned. And she is incredulous at the city's plans for Balat. "It's still so unreal to me", she says. "So I'm trying not to get upset yet."
The municipal administration in Fatih is in charge of this part of the city. When UNESCO arrived with money and know-how, the administration not only didn't lift a finger to support the project – it even did everything in its power to sabotage it. "They insinuated to the inhabitants that this was a clandestine project of the Greek patriarchate", says attorney Aysegül Kaya. "The patriarchate supposedly wanted to set up a second Vatican here with the help of the UN: an independent church state."
Crazy? This country has plenty of practice in fomenting paranoia amongst its citizens. When the UNESCO team fanned out to bestow money and restoration plans on the homeowners, many residents slammed the door in their faces. The time was ripe for the AKP-led municipal administration to take action. Middlemen swooped down and persuaded owners to sell their houses below market price – threatening that they would otherwise be confiscated.
Victim to cronyism
Now the authorities are undertaking their own brand of "restoration": tearing down the old buildings and putting up new ones. In the "Ottoman style". Attorney Aysegül Kaya moved here a few years ago. "They say that the old houses are not earthquake-proof. What nonsense! Now, only the facades are left standing. The quarter is becoming a gigantic real-estate development project." Kaya has founded a citizens' initiative. She is furious: "They've already torn down hundreds of houses. The whole area within the city walls is falling victim to cronyism. The speculators."
Korhan Gümüs says that the city government is turning a vital district into an Ottoman Disney World. He thinks that they brought down the UNESCO project because they felt they were unable to exert control over it: "It would have become a model project. Transparent, with neighbourhood participation. The success of the project would have had an impact far beyond the district itself: it would have shown that politics à la Turka no longer works. And that was another reason why it was made to fail." Politics à la Turka?
"The State does without expert knowledge, without the intelligence available in the society. It acts technocratically. Instead of architects or historic preservationists, it hires construction companies. The results are corruption and injustice. The authorities represent the interests of the most powerful players: the entrepreneurs."
Gümüs is not just any architect. He sits on the committee responsible for Istanbul's year as European Capital of Culture, in charge of urban planning projects. He represented Turkey at UNESCO's 2006 World Heritage session. He was a driving force behind the city's efforts to be named European Capital of Culture in 2010. "Because I thought it would help us to finally solve our cultural heritage problem." It didn't.
A free hand to reap profits
UNESCO has been threatening for years to put Istanbul on its red list. The Fener and Balat districts are not the only problem areas. Ignorance is also being demonstrated elsewhere: in the planned Metro Bridge over the Golden Horn for example, or in the case of the Roman city walls, where once again construction companies have been put in charge of restoration rather than archaeologists. Promises were made; none have been kept.
Now something has happened that the government did not think possible: UNESCO experts presented a report in June recommending that Istanbul be stricken from the list of World Heritage Sites. UNESCO will be meeting next week in Brazil to make its decision.
There are people like author Murat Belge who presume that the authorities have now achieved just what they wanted – a free hand to reap profits and to spread a vision of modernism stemming from Western thinking in the 1960s and 70s. But the government is also evidently in a state of panic, fearing a disgrace. "Behind the scenes, Turkey is exerting great pressure on UNESCO", says Korhan Gümüs. "It would be a huge scandal."
The architect remains optimistic. Sure, he has lost many a battle. "But every defeat reveals a bit more of what we can also gain." Istanbul-brand forbearance. Meanwhile, the city continues to take a beating.
Kai Strittmatter
© Süddeutsche Zeitung/Qantara.de 2010
Translated from the German by Jennifer Taylor
Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de
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