It can be quite amusing when you have a foreign visitor in the car that is not used to a large and obvious military presence or a high profile police force. The other day, while driving down the road, my guest noticed a police tank just ahead in traffic.Another observation that my Western guests often tend to note is the security guards at malls. It seems security guards on duty are just a formality at some malls in America. For example, unlike in Turkey, not every mall in America has security guards using mirrors to look under the car for things that shouldn’t be there.
Security guards here are busy using mirrors to look underneath cars, but they don’t stop at that. They expect the driver to release the trunk lock so they can examine the trunk.
As you go through the main entrance, you are met by a man or woman in uniform to observe you as you go through a metal detector and your bags through an X-ray machine. It is very much like being at the airport. Don’t be surprised if the security guard may even want to open your bag or briefcase or handbag and feel around. If you look like a shady character, the guard may want to stop and frisk you. Foreign visitors are used to this at the airport now but not at a mall. In Turkey, the check at the entrance doors is not just a formality.
Turkey is not known for its strict zoning regulations, which some of you may be accustomed to from where you come from. Large shopping centers and malls are often built right beside a major thoroughfare or motorway with inadequate traffic planning. It is no surprise that traffic is blocked on motorways because the exit to the shopping center is backed up because of security checks holding up the flow of traffic entering the parking lot and garage. You will inevitably hear complaints about the “useless security checks” when you are stuck in one of the many short traffic jams leading to every mall’s parking lot -- after all, “What could really happen?”
Well, actually something could happen! Security checks have prevented bombs being set off in public places.
One of the worst bomb attacks in Turkey at a mall was just a few years ago. In May 2007, a bomb ripped through a shopping center in Ulus, the oldest part of Ankara.
Buses and bus stops as well as banks and consulates have also been targets of package bombs or suicide attacks.
Before that, in 2003, al-Qaeda suicide truck bombers attacked two synagogues, the British Consulate in İstanbul and a British bank, killing 58 people.
A bus bombing in the Mediterranean resort town of Marmaris injured 20 people, including 10 British tourists a few years ago.
Traffic barriers are also a way of conducting security checks here. While traveling around Turkey, you may notice traffic barriers set up so that only one car can pass at a time. These are not always set up to pull over speeders. Law enforcement officers may receive a tip off and be looking for a particular make of a car or a group of people who may be terrorists. If you are stopped, your ID will be checked and your car searched.
The other day, a British friend was telling me about an experience she had when she flew from Heathrow to a country in the Middle East where pork is forbidden. She said the sniffing dog, a cocker spaniel, was assisting law enforcement officers and was trained to discover counterfeit money or drugs. After taking a sniff at her suitcase, the dog sat down beside her and the case and looked up to the officer, very pleased with himself and confident that he had found something of interest. When the law officer asked my friend about the contents of the suitcase, she confessed she had two packs of bacon in the suitcase. Fortunately, she said, “It was not confiscated.”“Not a gift of a cow, nor a gift of land, nor yet a gift of food, is so important as the gift of safety, which is declared to be the great gift among all gifts in this world.” -- unknown
Note: Charlotte McPherson is the author of “Culture Smart: Turkey, 2005.” Please keep your questions and observations coming: I want to ensure this column is a help to you, Today’s Zaman’s readers. Email: c.mcpherson@todayszaman.com
