I’m recently back from a wonderful trip to Turkey with my 15-year old daughter. We had a marvellous time and there’s so much to tell. I set out to tell that story today, but those aren’t the words that came out. That’s not what this post is about.
We’ve been home for eight days now. And in that eight days, a lot changed.
Just four days after we arrived home, an ISIS, suicide bomber blew up more than 30 young people – and injured over 100 more – in a town called Suruç, on the Turkish side of the border with Syria. Despite popular belief in our part of the world, these weren’t just Kurds. These young activists had planned a trip to the area to build a library, plant a forest and build a playground in the town. In fact, one was an alumnae of my Turkish high school in Istanbul: Kadıköy Anadolu Lisesi.
An already fragile country politically, protests in Istanbul (and probably elsewhere) followed, with the almost requisite water cannons and tear gas, as have arrests of ISIS sympathizers. And late last week the Turkey struck back with its first military strikes against ISIS and has agreed finally to allow the US government to use İncirlik – a strategically located airbase – as a place to launch their own strikes. Of course, it’s way more complicated than this, but these are the headlines.
Turkey has taken in something like million Syrian refugees who have become homeless due to the violence in their country. The CBC’s Nil Köksal did a story on the plight of the children just a few days ago.
Military service is a requirement for Turkish boys. For between 6 and 12 months – assuming they’ve gone to university – their lives belong to their country. Of course, there are always exceptions, and ways around it, but that’s the basic rule. Some of my Turkish girlfriends have sons that are close to needing to do their service, so it’s not surprising it was a topic of discussion while I was there: how they really didn’t want their sons to have to do it and how they were looking for some of the loopholes.
As a 40-something year old woman with a son now old enough to serve in the Canadian army, I had a new appreciation last November for Remembrance Day and the sacrifices made by our soldiers and their families all. So I had some small appreciation for my friends’ concerns about their sons. And while I’m not suggesting all out war is in Turkey’s future, I can only imagine how their own thoughts may be going to more frightening places than they were just a few days ago.
Events like this remind me how lucky I am to live in a “boring” country. I remind my kids of this often, and now daughter has seen firsthand how quickly things can change.
Like the rest of the world, I will watch the news carefully in the coming days and weeks to see how things progress. And maybe just a little more than the average Canadian, I will keep my friends and their families in my thoughts and prayers as events unfold as I savour the lokum we brought home with us – tiny sweet remembrances of a special time with my daughter in special place in the last moments before things changed.
