"The Comeback of Extremists in Turkey
Filed under: Lead Story, Turkey — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on August 20, 2008 @ 9:48 pm CEST
PoliGazette’s Michael van der Galiën reports from Istanbul, Turkey.
ISTANBUL, TURKEY - When I visited the former capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, last year, I noticed more women wear a headscarf here than in Turkey’s second city, Izmir.
Additionally, I was greatly impressed by the size of Istanbul. For Dutch standards, Izmir is gigantic with its four million inhabitants. Istanbul, however, is so big that the Dutch nor English language have words to describe the feeling a Dutchman gets when he walks in Istanbul for the first time. The amount of people - from all races, classes, religions, backgrounds - is breathtaking. People and cars are everywhere. Crossing the street is an adventure; it could literally be your death if you do not run. One gets the impression that all 15 million inhabitants of the city want to get to work at the same time."
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