GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Monday, June 23, 2008
EPHESUS – Two late nights last week Turkish citizens burst into the streets rejoicing. First was Sunday the 15th, after their national soccer team scored thrice in the last minutes to beat the Czechs and enter the European Cup’s quarterfinals. Again on Friday the 20th it crushed Croatia to make it to the semis. “Insha’Allah (God willing),” the Turkish pray, they will defeat Russia, Germany, and Spain or Italy to become the continent’s champion. The last time Turkey came this close to ruling Euro-soccer was when it also reached the knockout round in 2000. It then landed third in the World Cup 2002.
Those were banner years for Turkey’s economy as well. Anticipating a financial storm in 2000, Turkey borrowed from the IMF-World Bank for damage control. Inflation still hit 49 percent and interest rates 63 percent, bashing consumers like footballs. But it could have been worse had Turkey not swiftly reformed. The government took over insolvent banks and pried into their operations. Several key executives were arrested, including the nephew of a former president, for siphoning off funds in collusion with corrupt regulators. By 2002 the economic weather cleared, brightening the land with a phenomenal five-year rise. Per capita GDP doubled by 2007 from $7,000 to $15,000. “Insha’Allah,” says Rizanul Meral, president of Turkey’s Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists, this will reach $20,000 in two more years. (Philippine per capita GDP, or purchasing power parity, hovered at $4,600-$5,000 in 2002-2007.)
Manufacturing and construction are booming these days. Turkish textiles, televisions, and trucks dominate Europe and Central Asia; road and rail builders are expanding to Asia-Pacific. But tourism remains a top income grosser. More than half of Turkey’s 23 million visitors last year proceeded to this historic city in Izmir province facing the Aegean Sea. The ancient ruins offer an insight not only on Turkish grit but also on western civilization.
The olden city of Ephesus lies in the outskirts of the industrial city of Selçuk. Founded around 2000 B.C., it served as a key port of the Ionian Greeks and capital of Asia Minor (province of Asia). Archeological digs in the sprawling ruins reveal that the colony was inhabited as far back as the Neolithic Period (6000 B.C.). Scholars believe the city was built in the early Bronze Age from the village of Apasa. Legend has it that Prince Androklos founded Ephesus upon leaving Athens on the death of his father King Kadros. The Oracle of Delphi came true on the site: “a fish and a boar will show you the way.” Androkos banished the native inhabitants and united his people with the remainder to join the twelve cities of the Ionian League. He and his dog are depicted on the fresco of Hadrian’s Gate, erected during the Roman conquest. Later visiting historians and poets Pausanias, Strabo, Kallinos and Herodotus assigned the city’s mythological founding to Ephos, queen of the Amazons. (Surrounding Izmir region supposedly got its name from Smyrna, the Amazon princess whose great beauty Aphrodite envied.)
At the center of Ephesus is the Temple of (Greek goddess) Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The many-breasted Lady of Efes, also associated with the Anatolian (old Turkish) goddess Kybele, was venerated in the tall stone shrine. The settlement held other wonders. There was a giant open theater lined with fountains. Public toilets were ranged side by side without partitions. Ephesus housed the first brothel, with etchings on the marble sidewalk of a left foot, a heart and a woman’s head as road signs to veer to the city’s left side to find the woman of your desire. Lysimachus, Alexander the Great and Emperor Constantine had had to rebuild the city in 1000 B.C., 334 B.C., and 330 A.D. from ravages of war. The Ephesians later abandoned the great port as the sea receded from accretion. The ruins are located about eight kilometers inland.
A millennium later the Ottoman Empire emerged and reigned 700 years till 1923. Centered in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) in the north, it spanned three continents, controlling much of southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Turks then numbered only 11 million over 150 million conquered peoples. How did they maintain their rule? “Certainly not through despotism,” educator Sami Sahinduran recounts, “but deference to foreign cultures, strengthened by trade and education.”
Today Turkey is reasserting itself in European and Asian trade via a combined initiative of government and private sector leaders. At national and local levels, officials and businessmen talk of nothing but exchanging goods and joint venturing with other lands. Turkish businesses pitched in to build two elementary and high schools in Metro Manila and Zamboanga grounded in Math and Sciences. Fountain International School director Yusuf Ozdemir says it is his country’s contribution to Philippine progress.
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E-mail:
jariusbondoc@workmail.com
