"A Fez of the Heart" by Jeremy Seal--Prologue

Probably the most interesting passage to me comes on Page 13 where Seal writes of his conversation with Halil: “’I’ve eaten’ and pointed at his fez. I thought it was illegal to wear that.’ ‘My boss like me to wear it,’ he replied in English. ‘He think to bring tourists.’ From his disgruntlement, it was apparent that he was an unwilling fez wearer.” I found this passage to really speak volumes, and that’s why I found it interesting. To me, it shows something that is a much bigger deal than you’d think—the effect of tourism on economies and culture. I’ll get into more in a little bit, but I also related this back to our class discussions on culture, and how it can change over time. At one time, fezzes were worn legally and with normality. Then they were illegal. Then they were illegal, but accepted in order to help with business because it’s still a recognizable part of Turkish culture.

            In terms of the interactions of economics and culture, the passage I described above is one huge relationship we can take from the reading. Economics (in this case, the possibility of another sale) overrides the culture of the time, where it was not really popular to wear fezzes. Economics can have that effect on culture, almost rendering it so futile, because the power of money really means more than any sort of cultural insensitivity might. Another quote I really enjoyed reading about was on Page 14, where Seal writes, “It was as if the country’s enduring search for its own identity—Eastern or Western, Islamic or secular, traditional or liberal—were encapsulated in these two contrasting objects and their symbolic payloads that even in shape had a certain resemblance. Pink flesh or purple felt?” What I feel this has to do with economics and culture really comes from my knowledge of Turkey before reading this piece. I have friends from Turkey, and I’ve read the past several years about how Turkey can be a model for the Middle East with their economy and their liberal agenda. Yet, Turkey seems to have somewhat of a dichotomy of sorts when it comes to culture. Seal really hit the nail on the hammer—the two items really do represent two very different Turkeys, so to speak. I think that the Turkey the economic world feels is a potential world power is the liberal Turkey, seeing as no strict Islamic country really leads the world in GDP (you know what I mean). The question is, which Turkey will win out?

            I think that tourism and culture really can go hand in hand, the problem becomes when you have a culture of tourism, and not the other way around. That’s to say, you want to attract people (tourists) for the right reasons, and not compromise on a culture that’s been in the making for ages. The problem with the Turkish village was that they let themselves fall into a culture of tourism, which really means that their culture was directly influenced by their tourists around them. In reality, the tourists didn’t go to a Turkish village. With the signs in English and German all around, it really shows how much was adapted. And to me, some adaptation is good. But the passage I chose to start—with Halil begrudgingly wearing the fez, I felt really showed how much was compromised for the sake of tourism.