Istanbul: Ground Zero For All Our Modern Problems …

Istanbul is a staggeringly beautiful and fascinating city. It feels ancient and modern at the same time. It is booming economically but its politics could explode at any moment. It seems mysterious and exotic and distant and unimportant but this is the place that has bequeathed us conflicts that still threaten world peace. Maybe we need to learn more about what is going on here.

Constantinople was the capital of Byzantium (the successful half of the Roman Empire) for a millennium and then, captured by the Turks in 1453, became Istanbul and the capital of the Ottoman Empire for almost another 500 years after that. From Budapest to Baghdad, from the Caspian Sea to Algeria, half of the Mediterranean, both sides of the Red Sea, Greece, and Turkey. A huge area held together by force of arms and fragile, venal alliances. An explosion of wealth and splendor and influence that eclipsed and threatened Europe for most of this time.

Then in 1914 an assassination in Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb set off the First World War and all this unravelled within a decade. Incompetent Ottoman leadership and the bungling of Britain and France exposed ethnic and religious fault lines and unleashed a century of genocide, ethic cleansing, wars, and terrorism that we will be dealing with for another century for sure.

Greeks versus Turks, Serbs versus Bosnians, Sunni versus Shia, Orthodox versus Muslim, Turks repressing Armenians and Kurds. The biggest geopolitical issues that worry and plague us today, all have their roots in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire – Russia competing for Ukraine, Islamists fighting for a Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, the failed Arab Spring, Benghazi, and, of course, Palestine.

A fascinating place to visit and learn about for sure. Oh. and the food and the wine and the beer and the people and the public transport and the museums and historic sites are all wonderful.