The suicide bombing in Taksim Square this past Monday reminded me that Turkey is still the place I studied and found fascinating from the liberal/idealist isolation of Portland, Oregon. There are passions here that cannot be solved through the beaurocratic channels in Ankara. Recent clues as to identity of the bomber point to his motivations rooted in the 80 year old struggle of Kurdish seperatists to gain their own state from, or at least representation within, Turkey. Their previous efforts to win political and cultural autonomy were dismissed by Ankara as terroristic and a heresy against their doctrine of Turkish nationalism. In a city rife with old amputees subsisting on their income from selling tissues and fat gypsy women, surrounded by their fithly chidren, begging for change, it is difficult to empathize with a 24 year-old
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