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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Hair Today, Prime Minister Tomorrow

"Hair Today, Prime Minister Tomorrow
By Soner Cagaptay
Monocle, August 24, 2010

Turkey has nearly a year to go before it holds elections, but one outcome seems certain: the country's next prime minister will wear a moustache.

Over the past two decades a streak of hair between the nose and upper lip has gone from a sign of manhood to a class symbol. Until the early 1990s, almost all Turkish men had one, whereas today the moustache belongs to those only in the lower-middle and working-class neighbourhoods known as varos. These concrete-heavy boroughs unattractively encircle all of Turkey's cities, monuments to a period of massive industrialisation and urban migration."

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