In particular, UK citizens might be alarmed and surprised to see that all the police on patrol are armed. For us Brits, the sight of guns in the hands of the police could surely only mean that some major incident was going down, possibly involving gangsters, bank robbers or more unfortunately ubiquitous these days, terrorists. Even more unsettling perhaps could be those officers not only armed with pistols but also toting sub-machine guns. But, perhaps, many would think this is a policing policy limited to the borders and that once really inside the country itself, then such armed apparitions bristling with frightening firepower would discreetly disappear behind the doors and walls of the police stations. Not so.In keeping with a majority of countries in the world, from the US, through Europe and ever-eastwards to Russia and beyond, Turkey maintains a fully and permanently armed security force. This has also extended to the personnel of licensed private security firms who guard banks, corporate buildings, shopping malls and so on. At first experience, all this paramilitary muscle may be rather disconcerting and if you are planning to settle down to living and working in Turkey, it can take some time getting used to.
Funnily enough, France, which is the most popular destination of choice for British tourists due to its proximity and now rapid and easy access by rail through the Channel Tunnel, has had a fully armed police and gendarmerie force forever. And yet, somehow, we don’t seem to notice them so much. Perhaps it’s the fact that France is familiar to us, foreign, yes, and apparently friendly, yet with whom we have fought decades of wars on and off throughout history and, conversely, to whose aid we came in the last two global wars. And the feeling is mutual; some 350,000 French people live and work in the UK, over 100,000 in London alone. We in turn, adore their gastronomy, wines, sun-soaked southern regions and comparatively cheap houses. We cannot get enough of Paris, Provence or the Pyrenees and, to a very profound level, our histories are so deeply intertwined from Anglo-French monarchical mixed marriages to the Norman conquest and a profound belief in the superiority of our customs and cultures. We may be divided by language, but we are most certainly united in arrogance, which ensures a begrudging mutual respect beneath the traditional hostilities.
So why would the sight of Turkish policemen and policewomen loaded down with lethal ironmongery be a source of anxiety to some of us? It has to do in part, I think, with the fact that Turkey is an exotic location; it is resolutely foreign to us in so many ways. Turkey has remained a mystery for so long, despite the history of the Ottoman Empire and our attempts to control and colonize at least Constantinople (as İstanbul then was) even if the Anatolian hinterland had remained historically beyond our ken. Orientalists such as Lord Cromer would make sweeping generalizations about the Turks of such supercilious ignorance as to be unrecognizable to those of us who live or have lived in the country for any significant amount of time. (Evelyn Baring, 1st earl of Cromer (1841-1917), was named British controller in Egypt in 1879 and later served there as agent and consul general from 1883 to 1907.)
Furthermore, while Turkey is currently striving zealously to become a member of the European Union, and while cities such as İstanbul that have a historical pedigree of European influence, especially French -- which can still be seen around what was Pera, now Beyoğlu, up-market areas around Bağdat Caddesi or Moda on the Asian side and Nisantaşı on the European bank of the Bosporus -- seek to emulate European commercialism and society, one city does not a country or a culture make. Crucially, what the politicos in Ankara and the intellectuals and the upwardly mobile of İstanbul may want is not necessarily echoed by the vox populi on the streets, in the fields, the factories, homes and villages where “normal” people congregate.
Meanwhile, in England, the wisdom or otherwise of sending armed police out onto the streets of a nation continues to cause controversy. This has been highlighted by recent events in the UK. Gun crime in London has risen by 30 percent since last year and the police are monitoring the reactions to and results of what is at the moment an “experiment” in a geographically defined area of the UK capital. The elephant in the room, of course, is the recurrence of a fatal error such as the shooting to death by armed police of student, and wrongly suspected suicide bomber, Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in 2005.
Personally, I was generally quite comfortable walking around the streets of İstanbul, which is regarded as the world’s safest city per capita. In the increasingly disturbed and dangerous world in which we live, cops carrying guns is the least of our worries. Most states police these days by coercion, and the UK’s policy of consent may, unfortunately, now be over. Coercion or consent, which method is effective these days? It may be time for a reality check.
