Turkish Forum

Month: June 2010

  • Kurdish Heritage Reclaimed: Stephen Kinzer

    Kurdish Heritage Reclaimed: Stephen Kinzer

    After years of conflict, Turkey’s tradition-rich Kurdish minority is experiencing a joyous cultural reawakening

    • By Stephen Kinzer
    • Photographs by Lynsey Addario
    • Smithsonian magazine, June 2010

    Isolation allowed the Kurds to survive for thousands of years while other cultures faded from history.

    More from Smithsonian.com

    • Iraq’s Resilient Minority
    • Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?

    In the breathtakingly rugged Turkish province of Hakkari, pristine rivers surge through spectacular mountain gorges and partridges feed beneath tall clusters of white hollyhock. I’m attending the marriage celebration of 24-year-old Baris and his 21-year-old bride, Dilan, in the Kurdish heartland near the borders of Syria, Iran and Iraq. This is not the actual wedding; the civil and religious ceremonies were performed earlier in the week. Not until after this party, though, will the couple spend their first night together as husband and wife. It will be a short celebration by Kurdish standards—barely 36 hours.

    Neither eating nor drinking plays much of a role at a traditional Kurdish wedding. On the patio of a four-story apartment house, guests are served only small plates of rice and meatballs. Instead, the event is centered on music and dance. Hour after hour, the band plays lustily as lines of guests, their arms linked behind their backs, kick, step and join in song in ever-changing combinations. Children watch intently, absorbing a tradition passed down through generations.

    The women wear dazzling, embroidered gowns. But it’s the men who catch my eye. Some of them are wearing one-piece outfits—khaki or gray overalls with patterned cummerbunds—inspired by the uniforms of Kurdish guerrillas who fought a fierce campaign for self-rule against the Turkish government throughout much of the 1980s and ’90s. The Turkish military, which harshly suppressed this insurgency, would not have tolerated such outfits just a few years ago. These days, life is more relaxed.

    As darkness falls and there is still no sign of the bride, some friends and I decide to visit the center of Hakkari, the provincial capital. An armored personnel carrier, with a Turkish soldier in the turret peering over his machine gun, rumbles ominously through the city, which is swollen with unemployed Kurdish refugees from the countryside. But stalls in music stores overflow with CDs by Kurdish singers, including performers who were banned because Turkish authorities judged their music incendiary. Signs written in the once-taboo Kurdish language decorate shop windows.

    By luck, we encounter Ihsan Colemerikli, a Kurdish intellectual whose book Hakkari in Mesopotamian Civilization is a highly regarded work of historical research. He invites us to his home, where we sip tea under an arbor. Colemerikli says there have been 28 Kurdish rebellions in the past 86 years—inspired by centuries of successful resistance to outsiders, invaders and would-be conquerors.

    “Kurdish culture is a strong and mighty tree with deep roots,” he says. “Turks, Persians and Arabs have spent centuries trying to cut off this tree’s water so it would wither and die. But in the last 15 to 20 years there has been a new surge of water, so the tree is blossoming very richly.”

    Back at the wedding party, the bride finally appears, wearing a brightly patterned, translucent veil and surrounded by attendants carrying candles. She is led slowly through the crowd to one of two armchairs in the center of the patio. Her husband sits in the other one. For half an hour they sit quietly and watch the party, then rise for their first dance, again surrounded by candles. I notice that the bride never smiles, and I ask if something is amiss. No, I’m told. It is customary for a Kurdish bride to appear somber as a way of showing how sad she is to leave her parents.

    The party will go on until dawn, only to resume a few hours later. But as midnight approaches, my companions and I depart, our destination a corba salonu—a soup salon. In a few minutes we enter a brightly lit café. There are two soups on the menu. Lentil is my favorite, but when traveling I prefer the unfamiliar. The sheep’s head soup, made with meat scraped from inside the skull, is strong, lemony and assertive.

  • Turkish holidays still cheaper than staying in the UK

    Turkish holidays still cheaper than staying in the UK

    Holidaymakers who think they’re saving money by staying in the UK could end up spending more than those who jet off abroad.

    British resorts and businesses impose such high prices that it might be cheaper to fly thousands of miles to a resort abroad, a study shows.

    So a week at the seaside in this country is more expensive than Bodrum, in Turkey, Greece or Cyprus, which attract millions of families looking for sunshine.

    Turkey

    It is also cheaper to visit several East European countries, such as Slovenia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria, which offer beautiful cities and new experiences.

    Researchers at Tesco Bank looked at typical holiday expenses for one week for a family of four in August, including accommodation, car hire, eating out and family entertainment.

    While they did not include the cost of getting to the resort, the price gap is so large for many countries that it would still be cheaper to travel using a budget airline.

    The figure for Brighton came out at £2,209 – £390 more than buying the equivalent items in Bodrum.

    So even considering that return flights from London Gatwick to Bodrum would cost around £80 via easyJet, it’s still a bargain.

    Brighton certainly has a great history and many attractions, from the Royal Pavilion and the pier to nightclubs and the Lanes.

    But while it offers standard seaside fare of fish and chips and curry houses, Bodrum, on the Aegean Sea, boasts Turkish food as well as sun, sandy beaches and nightlife.

    There are also several all-inclusive hotel resorts where the cost of food and drink is included in the package.

    John Howells, head of travel money at Tesco Bank, said holiday costs have been impacted by the euro exchange rate.

    ‘With the average cost of a holiday for one week coming in at £2,076, a 2 per cent increase on last year, it is essential holidaymakers are not just looking into the cost of travel but also the expenses they are likely to incur once they are there.

    ‘For instance, car hire and accommodation make up 71 per cent of weekly spend and have risen 6 per cent on last year.’

    Meanwhile, lastminute.com has seen a rush of people logging on to look for travel deals after England’s elimination from the World Cup on Sunday.

    Bookings rose 25 per cent on the previous day in the hours after the final whistle was blown.

    The firm’s head of travel, Andy Washington, said: ‘People want a way of getting over the football blues, and for many a late summer break is the thing they need.’

    Lowcostholidays.com, meanwhile, said the number of people visiting its website rose 40 per cent compared to last week.

    The Daily Mail

  • Gilad Shalit: Hostage of Hamas

    Gilad Shalit: Hostage of Hamas

    The struggle to bring the soldier home has become a national passion for Israelis.

    By MICHAEL OREN

    In a small Jerusalem café, I sat with Noam Shalit and tried to discuss his son, Gilad. I say tried because each time Noam, a soft-spoken, bespectacled man, began a sentence, the owner of the café rushed over with complimentary plates of humus, salads and desserts. Passersby, glimpsing Noam through the window, burst inside to embrace him. “We are with you,” they cried. “We will get our Gilad home.”

    That our is the key to understanding the devotion that Israelis feel for Gilad Shalit. The Israel Defense Forces is a citizens’ army in which most young men serve for a minimum of three years, followed by several decades of reserve duty. Young women serve for at least two. Our soldiers are literally our parents, our siblings, our children. Israel is also a small country with few if any degrees of separation between families. Even those who have never met the Shalits know someone who has. And all of us have loved ones—a brother, a son—who could suffer the same ordeal that Gilad began four years ago today.

    Early on the morning of June 25, 2006, Hamas terrorists—using a tunnel secretly excavated during a cease-fire with Israel—infiltrated across the Gaza border and attacked an IDF base. Firing rocket grenades and automatic weapons, they killed two soldiers—Lt. Hanan Barak and Sgt. Pavel Slutzker, both 20—and kidnapped the 19-year-old corporal, Gilad Shalit. The IDF promptly launched a massive manhunt in Gaza, suffering an additional five fatalities, but failed to find the abductors. Hamas, meanwhile, demanded that Israel release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, most of them convicted terrorists, in exchange for Gilad’s freedom.

    Since then, Gilad’s parents, Noam and Aviva Shalit, have only received three letters from their son as well as a brief video showing an emaciated hostage with a haunted expression and lightless eyes. Hamas has refused to allow the Red Cross or other NGOs to visit Gilad, or to permit mail or aid packages to reach him. And to mock the Shalit family’s suffering, Hamas has staged re-enactments of the kidnapping, most recently in a Gaza summer camp, and plays in which actors portraying Gilad beg for their release. An animated Hamas film depicts an aged Noam Shalit grieving over his son’s coffin.

    The plight of Gilad Shalit poses painful dilemmas. Should Israel negotiate with Hamas, a terror organization sworn to its destruction, and unleash hundreds of terrorists, many of whom will quickly return to murdering? Or can Israel leave Gilad to languish alone indefinitely, prolonging his family’s agony and undermining the faith in which other families send their children to battle?

    There are no easy answers. Yet Israel has consistently sought to secure Gilad’s freedom through the good offices of intermediaries, all the while striving to reconcile the nation’s security needs with the time-honored Jewish principle of pidayon shivuyim, the redemption of prisoners.

    The struggle to bring Gilad home has become a national passion for Israelis. His birthday and the anniversary of his abduction are both commemorated with dramatic public events. In one such rally, some 2,000 young people sailed a “freedom for Gilad” fleet of homemade rafts across the Sea of Galilee. Photographs of Gilad as a whimsical teenager loom from public walls and flutter on flags from car antennas. His name is emblazoned on bracelets popular among Israeli youth and the days of his captivity are displayed on a booth near the prime minister’s residence.

    But the campaign to free Gilad Shalit is hardly limited to Israel. The mayors of Miami and New Orleans have made him an honorary citizen, as have the cities of Paris and Rome. President Nicolas Sarkozy has declared Gilad’s release “a top French priority,” and President Barack Obama has further condemned his “inhumane detention.”

    Nevertheless, Gilad Shalit remains in solitary confinement—in spite of the protests and his parents’ unflagging appeals to the international community. Lost in the recent tumult surrounding Israel’s efforts to block Iranian and Syrian arms shipments to Hamas, which has fired 10,000 rockets at Israeli civilians to date, is the unending nightmare of the Shalit family. Their pain is shared by countless Israelis and well-wishers worldwide. We must not rest until our Gilad is once again safely at home.

    Mr. Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

  • Sassounian’s column of July 1, 2010

    Sassounian’s column of July 1, 2010

    Turkish Propaganda Campaign, Part II:
    Exploiting Akhtamar Church Once Again


    Readers may recall that the Turkish government embarked on a worldwide publicity stunt in 2007 when it renovated and reopened as a museum the Armenian Holy Cross Church on Akhtamar Island in Lake Van.
    At the time, Turkey had gone to great lengths to lure to the opening ceremonies Armenians from around the world. Turkish officials did not conceal that their real purpose was to exploit this event for propaganda purposes. Even before the “Holy Cross Museum” was inaugurated, a Turkish Parliamentary delegation had arrived in Washington with a bulky photo album. Mehmet Dulger, then Chairman of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission, relayed the following message to Members of the U.S. Congress: “See, the Turks, whom you accuse of genocide, have renovated an Armenian Church with taxes collected from Turks. And those photos are the evidence.” The photo album was distributed worldwide to all organizations advocating “Armenian genocide claims,” according to the Turkish newspaper Zaman. Furthermore, Turkey invited to the opening of the “Holy Cross Museum” the culture ministers of all countries that had adopted or were considering to adopt resolutions recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
    In my column of March 22, 2007, I had asked that the Turkish government designate Holy Cross, not as a museum, but a Church with a cross on its dome, and place it under the jurisdiction of the Armenian Patriarchate in Turkey. If not, I had urged Armenians to boycott the opening ceremonies, in order to avoid being used as tools for Turkey’s campaign of genocide denial. In the end, the Turkish propaganda effort failed, as only a handful of Armenians from overseas traveled to Lake Van to attend the event.
    Now that Turkish officials have grudgingly allowed church services to be performed for one day only — on Sept. 19, 2010 — and a cross to be placed on the dome of this 10th Century Church, they have embarked on Part II of their publicity campaign. All Turkish Embassies and Consulates worldwide have been instructed to invite large numbers of Armenians to this one-time church service in order to accomplish three objectives: 1) Earn millions of dollars in revenue from 5,000 tourists expected on Sept. 19 and another million visitors during the next year; 2) secure concessions from Armenians in return for Ankara’s “magnanimous gesture”; and 3) score propaganda points with Europeans and Americans by presenting the image of a tolerant Turkish society.
    Hakan Tekin, Turkey’s energetic Consul General in Los Angeles, told “Today’s Zaman” that California’s “one million Armenians” are looking forward to take part in the upcoming religious worship. To impress his bosses in Ankara, Tekin proudly announced that the “one-day church service” has caused “a stir” among the Armenian community in Los Angeles — no doubt the result of his hard work! He expressed the wish that Armenia would take “reciprocal steps” in return for Turkey’s “constructive policy.” Tekin also hoped that such a “normalization process” would have a significant impact on Turkey’s relations with the Armenian Diaspora, “especially with Armenians living in California who are hard-liners.”
    In sparing no efforts to publicize the planned “one-day worship,” the Turkish government has undertaken the following preparations:
    — Special solar panels are being installed on Akhtamar Island, so that tourists can visit the Holy Cross Church by day and night.
    — Since hotels are supposedly fully booked, plans are being made to house tourists in school dormitories and private homes in Van.
    — Large video screens are to be placed outside the Church so the thousands of expected visitors can follow the services, as the building can only accommodate 50 worshipers.
    — A 90-page guidebook will be published in the Armenian language.
    — A 10-day Turkish-Armenian Cultural Festival is planned in Van.
    — The border may be opened for a few days, so that tourists can directly travel from Armenia to Van, rather than spending a dozen hours to get there via Georgia, according to the President of Van Chamber of Commerce.
    I urge all Armenians to boycott this new propaganda ploy, unless Turkish officials take the following steps:

    1. Officially designate Holy Cross as a Church, not a museum, opening it for year-round worship services, rather than for one day only.
    2. Place the Church under the jurisdiction of the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey, not the Ministry of Tourism.
    3. Allow Divine Liturgy to be celebrated regularly, after Holy Cross Church is properly consecrated in accordance with Armenian religious rites.

    Archbishop Aram Ateshian, Locum Tenens of the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul, is the appropriate religious official to present these demands to the Turkish authorities, without whose participation they would be unable to carry out the September 19 church services and propaganda campaign. It is doubtful, however, that such demands would be met by the Turkish government, given its traditional policy of callous disregard for the rights of the Armenian community in Turkey.
  • Mesut Ozil at head of the vanguard for new generation

    Mesut Ozil at head of the vanguard for new generation

    When the camera pans along the German team on Sunday, and that famous national anthem thunders out across the Durban stadium, Mesut Özil’s lips will be moving but he won’t be singing along.

    No, Özil will be reciting the Koran to himself. “It gives me strength,” he has explained. “If I don’t do it before a game it gives me a bad feeling.”

    Özil is at the vanguard of a new Germany. This is not the Mannschaft of Teutonic cliché, it is the most ethnically diverse squad in the tournament. Of the 23, 11 were eligible to play for a different country.

    While there have been several Polish-Germans of Silesian background to have played for Germany (including Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski in this squad), Joachim Löw’s team also has players of Bosnian-Serb, Brazilian, Ghanaian, Nigerian, Polish, Tunisian and Turkish descent.

    This new German team has been many years in the making. Hosting the last World Cup catalysed a reassessment of what it means to be a modern German.

    The success of Jürgen Klinsmann’s side at the tournament united the country and gave birth to a patriotism that was not weighed down by the baggage of history.

    The national flag, with all its dubious nationalist association, was suddenly an object of pride and, to the astonishment of many, was even hung from the windows of houses in the German-Turkish community.

    Germany was changing and so was its football team. Between 1995 and 2004, 1,278,424 foreigners took German citizenship and the laws regarding eligibility were liberalised in 1999 through major reforms.

    The new face of German was represented in the football team, with black players of African background like Gerald Asamoah, David Odonkor and Patrick Owomoyela winning caps.

    The latter was the subject of a predictable right-wing backlash when he was included in the squad for the World Cup four years ago.

    The right-wing NPD (the equivalent of the BNP) produced a calendar with a picture of the national shirt with Owomoyela’s squad number on it and the slogan: “White: not just the colour of the shirt! For a real National team!” The leader of the party was taken to court by Owomoyela and the German FA and found guilty of inciting racial hatred and given a seven-month suspended sentence.

    Four years on and there remain mumblings of nationalist discontent about whether this team represents the ‘real’ Germany. Most Germans are relaxed about the singing of the national anthem but the Bild newspaper has tried to force it as an issue. Klose and Podolski have always refused to sing it and several of the new generation joined them.

    And then there is Özil with his Koranic incantation. When Franz Beckenbauer was manager he demanded all his players sang the anthem – and this year he’s at it again. Times have changed.

    Özil is a fascinating case. With the injury to Michael Ballack, German fans have been looking to a new inspiration for the team and the Werder Bremen playmaker has stepped up. He is tremendously skilful and unpredictable and is arguably the most exciting young player at the finals.

    That he has even chosen to represent Germany could have resonance for the future of the Turkish-German community, especially if he leads them to success here. In a 2007 survey it was estimated that there were 1.7 million people living in Germany of Turkish descent, by far the largest ethnic minority in the country. Yet Turkish-Germans, like the Altintop brothers, often opted to play for the country of their parents.

    Özil is different. He is a third-generation immigrant who feels himself a blend of both cultures. He grew up playing with other immigrant children, from Bosnia, Lebanon and Turkey, in Gelsenkirchen- Bismarck, and rapidly emerged as an exceptional talent. “My technique and feeling for the ball is the Turkish side to my game,” he said, “the discipline, attitude and always-give- your-all is the German part.”

    At the European Under-21 Championships last summer, Özil destroyed England in the final, making two and scoring a free-kick as Germany won 4-0. In that same squad were Dennis Aogo, Sami Khedira and Jerome Boateng, sons of Nigerian, Tunisian and Ghanian fathers respectively. Marko Marin, a Bosnian-Serb whose family moved to Germany when he was two, was also in that group. All four have been promoted to what is Germany’s youngest squad at a World Cup.

    Boateng is the only player to play abroad, and he only signed for Manchester City last weekend for £10 million. He is the brother of Kevin-Prince, the Portsmouth forward. Both played for Germany at every youth level but last year Kevin-Prince declared for Ghana and they will be in opposition in the final group game on Wednesday week. It tells you everything you need to know about the mobility of international football that brothers can be in opposition at a World Cup.

    That mobility is also evident with Cacau. The Stuttgart striker is favourite to start ahead of Bayern Munich’s Miroslav Klose against Australia after some strong performances in the warm-up friendlies. He qualified for German citizenship after five years of residency and, like Marcos Senna with Spain and Eduardo of Croatia, has opted to represent his adopted country. He could be one of the surprises of this tournament.

    With a Brazilian-Polish strike partnership (Cacau-Podolski) , a Turkish playmaker (Özil), a Tunisian holding midfielder (Khedira), a Bosnian-Serb winger (Marin), Nigerian and Ghanaian full backs (Aogo and Boateng), and an elegant Turkish centre-back (Serdar Tasci), you can throw out all the old stereotypes about German football when they play Australia. This is a new Germany, and in South Africa, a country itself profoundly marked by racial division, they want to show that they are the future.

    Source : Daily Telegraph
    by Duncan White

  • Billy Hayes Reveals ‘The Real Midnight Express’

    Billy Hayes Reveals ‘The Real Midnight Express’

    The man behind ‘Midnight Express’ tells his side of the story in the season premiere of ‘Locked Up Abroad.’
    by Blair Marnell
    Jun 28, 2010

    On Wednesday, June 30, a new season of “Locked Up Abroad” will debut on the National Geographic Channel. The series — which often features gripping accounts of Americans held in foreign jails — is returning with the untold tale of one of the most famous American prisoners ever, Billy Hayes.

    In 1970, Hayes was arrested while attempting to smuggle Hash out of Turkey and sentenced to four years in jail. After his sentence was shifted into a life term only weeks away from his release, Hayes planned and successfully executed his escape from prison. Following his return to America, Hayes wrote a book about his experiences called “Midnight Express;” which was later adapted into a movie by director Alan Parker and screenwriter Oliver Stone with Brad Davis portraying Hayes on the big screen.

    However, Hayes has maintained for years that several details from the movie were not an accurate description of his escape. In the season premiere of “Locked Up Abroad,” Hayes offers a first person account of “The Real Midnight Express,” including new details never-before-revealed about his escape and his previous activity in Turkey.

    Crave Online recently had the opportunity to speak with Hayes about his story, along with some of his future plans beyond the “Midnight Express.”

    Crave Online: Can you tell us why you decided to come forward with this part of the story after all of these years?

    Billy Hayes: Because National Geographic gave me the opportunity to do it. To actually tell my story, which I certainly wasn’t able to do when I first got home.

    Crave Online: Which aspects of the “Midnight Express” film did you find objectionable?

    Billy Hayes: Not so much even objectionable, just that they had to make changes to my story to tell their story. And as a filmmaker, I understand why they would do that. The biggest problem I had with the film is the fact that you don’t see any good Turks at all in the movie. It creates an overall impression that Turkey is this terrible place and Turks are a terrible people. Which is not valid or true, both to my own experience and to reality. I actually loved Istanbul. I got along great with the Turks until I was arrested.

    I don’t like Turkish prisons and I certainly don’t like the Turkish legal system. But you know, you could fill in the blank with any country in the world and you’re not going to like their prison. And if you get arrested, you’re not going to like their legal system. So, my problem with the film is that it created this overall impression that all Turks are like that; even though I have said in every interview I have done over the last thirty years — just what I’m telling you now — that that’s not true. My little words get lost up against the images on the screen because Alan Parker, Brad Davis and the rest made an incredibly powerful film.

    Things like the courtroom scene, after the sentencing where they’ve got me (or Brad) saying “This is a nation of pigs and I f*** you all. And I f*** your mothers.” The Turks hated that scene and rightfully so. What I actually said (which is in the Turkish records and in my book) was something about “You know, I’ve been in your jail for four years now. And if you’re going to send me to more prison, I can’t agree with you. All I can do is forgive you.” That is what I said. That’s the diametric opposite of what was said in the film.

    Changes like that bothered me. The fact that the escape in the movie is like an afterthought. He kills the guard, which I didn’t do. I didn’t have too much of a problem with the guard’s portrayal because he was a brute and he was a sadist. Most guards were not like that, this guy was. This guy was actually shot by a fellow prisoner, who he had a beaten a year or two earlier. This prisoner shot him outside of the prison one morning while he was sitting and drinking his tea. The prisoner shot him eight times because he had disgraced this prisoner’s family while he was beating him. But I didn’t kill the guard and I actually escaped in a very different way than was shown in the film.

    Crave Online: What was the day-to-day life like in Turkish prison? And how does that compare with American prisons?

    Billy Hayes: The only difference that I can really say is that American jails are really structured. You wake up at 7am, piss at 7:05, eat at 7:15am… Turkish jails are not like that. They pretty much lock you in and close you in. And everything works on its own schedule, for the most part. Which I liked and I’m thrilled that I didn’t have to be in a really structured prison like an American jail.

    Crave Online: How did you escape?

    Billy Hayes: I got transferred to an island prison and I escaped off the island in a rowboat in a storm one night. And I spent three days running through Turkey and dying my hair. I didn’t know it at the time, but I found out afterwards that I crossed a minefield at the Turkish/Greek boarder and then swam the Maritsa river over to the other side, which was Greece and ultimately freedom. When the whole film thing came about I said, “I know they’ll do the escape. I don’t know what else they’ll change, [but] it’s made for Hollywood.” And they didn’t do it! Which stunned me when I first saw the film.

    In fact I saw it in a little screening room in New York, all by myself. I could barely breath at the end of the movie. And then Alan Parker said “Well Billy, what do you think?” I said “I loved the film, but I miss my row boat. What happened to the escape?” He said “what forty-five minutes of this film do you want to cut out to put in your escape? They’d had enough, get the audience out of the bloody theater.” And he may be right in that respect.

    But personally, I was such an idiot. I got myself busted and I put myself and my family and my friends through all of this grief. But then I actually got myself out. Literally holding my own fate in my hands as I was rowing away and I would have liked that in the film. That would have been good for me, personally. I understood why they didn’t have it in.

    Crave Online: Where did you get the row boat from?

    Billy Hayes: The prison island I was on — 17 miles off the mainland — wooden boats would come from the mainland with produce with [smaller boats] tied behind them. These boats were not allowed to spend the night in the harbor because it’s a prison island. Except as I noticed, the first time the seas were so rough and a storm was coming that the boats anchored. And they spent the night in our harbor. Each of them had a [smaller boat] behind them.

    That was my plan. I was big on plans. My first plan was to smuggle the hash and then my plan was to get a rowboat and row to the mainland. I wasn’t worried about swimming out to the boat, I was a life-guard and a surfer. But I needed to get to the mainland and then make my way back into Istanbul where I had a friend — who had been in prison for a couple of years — who had become a Muslim, spoke terrific Turkish and he owed me a really big favor for something that happened in jail. He was working as a manager of a hotel. I figured once I got to him, he’d hide me out in the basement for a week, we’d get a false passport, it would blow over and I’d go out of the country. But when I got to the hotel, they said “Oh, Wolfie! You just missed him. He left yesterday for Afghanistan.”

    That was the end of my plan. Everything else was improvised from there. It took me a few more days and I dyed my hair. Eventually, I swam the river into Greece.

    Crave Online: Were they looking for you at that point?

    Billy Hayes: They were looking for me once the sun came up. I had gotten past the night bed check, so I knew that once the sun came up, they’d start on the morning bed check and they’d discover that I was missing. Then they’d have to look for me around the island. Again, this was 1975, they wasn’t even e-mail back then. It took a while. But once the sun came up, I knew the alarm was going to go off. At that point, I knew the clock was ticking.

    Crave Online: How did the American embassy respond when you were in Greece?

    Billy Hayes: They came to me, because I was arrested after I swam the river. I ran into some border guards and I was kept in a little room in the woods because it’s really a restricted military zone. The Turks and the Greeks have been enemies for thousands of years and here I come wondering off into a military zone. The American consul was contacted and came out to visit me in this little jail I was in. He made the arrangements with the Greeks. I was essentially deported as “a bad influence upon the youth of Greece.” Which was the nicest thing the Greeks could have done and in truth it was the charge they had against Socrates. I didn’t have to drink any Hemlock, which was nice!

    I knew the Greeks would never send me back to Turkey. Not for hash. If I killed someone, that’s different. That was also one of the considerations I had in escaping. “Do you buy a gun or not buy a gun?” If you’ve got money, you can buy anything in jail. And I had some money smuggled in by my dad. But if I had a gun and somebody pointed a gun at me, I’m going to try to shoot them first. And then where am I going to go? I wouldn’t be safe anywhere. Moral and karmic implications of killing another human being aside, I’d have to live in Paraguay for the rest of my life.

    Crave Online: You came back to Turkey years later.

    Billy Hayes: Two years ago, I got to go back.

    Crave Online: I was wondering about that. How did you know they weren’t going to just put you back in prison?

    Billy Hayes: It’s interesting, because when this whole thing was coming about, all of my New York friends in particular said “Have you heard about ‘hey come to Yankee Stadium, and claim your prize!’ And all of those idiots get arrested because they have outstanding traffic tickets.” But the bottom line is that everyone — people or countries  —  do what’s in their best interest. And the best interest of Turkey was to not have any more “Billy Hayes ‘Midnight Express’ bad BS” against them. The worst thing that could happen to them is that I go back there and have something [bad] happen.

    In fact, the Turks were more concerned about me — my own physical safety — because the film was so derogatory against Turkey and the Turks. It destroyed the tourist industry for years and created this overall impression in the world — that they’re still dealing with — which was “Oh my God, Turkey, ‘Midnight Express.’ We don’t want to go there.” And the Turks who brought me back were actually very worried about my safety. So they actually took very good care of me.

    There was an international conference of 1,000 police officers from 85 countries in Istanbul meeting to talk about international police and global security. And these police had seen a Youtube video I did in 1997 where a Turk who I met at the Cannes Film Festival said that “I heard that you like Turkey.” And I said just what I’m telling you now. That “I like Turkey, I wish they’d shown some good Turks.”

    He said “this will be on television tomorrow.” And eventually it was! It’s on Youtube now and it’s like a 14 minute interview. These Turkish police saw this and contacted me. They said “If you will come to Istanbul for this global conference, we’d like you to say what you’ve been saying.” I’d always wanted to go back. I loved Istanbul. I wanted to go back and heal the breach because I was the most hated man in Turkey. I just didn’t want that. So I thought this would be a chance for me to go back to complete the circle and heal the breach between us.

    So, it was a little weird. But it turned out to be a very good thing. It was in all of the Turkish newspapers and on Turkish TV and it made a lot of European news. I loved it. I spent four days in Istanbul and I was amazed. Turkey 30 years ago was the poor man of Europe. They are now one of the economic powerhouses of the last ten years. The old part of Istanbul is the same. The new part has a skyline that dwarfs New York. Turkey is doing very well these days.

    Crave Online: You’re a filmmaker now. Was this something you were doing before you were arrested?

    Billy Hayes: No, I was a writer before I was arrested. It was one of the reasons I went out on to the road, to experience life before I could write about it. Surprise, surprise, I experienced more than I planned for. I was writing before I got arrested and I was writing in jail — I have a book of letters that will hopefully get published here — and I became an actor when I got out. I’m still acting and I still direct a lot of theater, which I love to do but you can’t make any money in theater. You have to do stuff in-between.

    Crave Online: What else have you worked on besides theater?

    Billy Hayes: I did a film about ten years ago that I directed. I’ve got two books that are sitting with my agent which will hopefully get published soon. One of the reasons I was happy about “Locked Up Abroad” is that it will raise my profile to the point where hopefully these books can get published. One of them is “Letters from a Turkish Prison” — all the letters I wrote home to people over five years — they kept and gave back to me when I was writing “The Midnight Express.” I put them in boxes in the attic and never looked at them again until a few years ago — through a real fluke — my lawyer got to look at the letters and pretty much insisted I put them all down and annotate them.

    I didn’t want to do it and I thought “Who cares about letters from forty years ago?” I certainly didn’t, but my lawyer is always right. He’s a real smart guy and it turns out that there was a very interesting arc in these letters. It’s terribly embarrassing and humbling in some respects to read about what you thought about life at 23 when you’re 60.

    Crave Online: How old are you?

    Billy Hayes: I’m 63.

    Crave Online: I would have guessed you were in your early to mid-fifties.

    Billy Hayes: I got lucky. Before I got arrested, I discovered yoga. And I’ve literally done yoga everyday for forty years. It’s the only thing that saved me in jail, physically and emotionally. And in Hollywood. Emotionally, you have to be really tough to be in this business, Yoga just helps keep me balanced everyday. It helps. I’ve been here in Hollywood for thirty years. My wife and I live back in New York and go back and forth,

    Crave Online: Did you know your wife when you were in prison?

    Billy Hayes: No, luckily I didn’t… I knew a lot of women, but nobody in particular or special. Which was great because that’s one of the harder parts of jail for guys who have wives or families. It was hard enough for me to be dealing with the fact that my parents and my family was suffering, which was by far the worst part of prison for me. But guys who have wives or kids, that’s so hard to be missing them.

    But I met my wife at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978 when “Midnight Express” premiered there. Of all places, at the height of the hip and hypocrisy of Cannes, I met the woman who is still my wife today thirty years later.

    Crave Online: What would your advice be to any Americans who get locked up abroad?

    Billy Hayes: First off, don’t get locked up abroad. That’s my first piece of advice. I did a whole bunch of college lectures in the ’80s and that was my answer. I would start each lecture like this “If you’re this stupid, this is what can happen to you.” And I saw a lot of college heads nodding. At the very least this should be a cautionary tale for anybody who sees it.

    If you do happen to get locked up… invariably I get e-mails and calls when people get locked up. I always tell them to do Yoga, I try to send them Yoga books because I know that it saved me. Very few really follow up, but you could not have anything better.

    Crave Online: Do you have anything else coming up?

    Billy Hayes: I’m doing a one-man show that’s going to open here in September or October in and around the [“Midnight Express”] subject matter.

    Crave Online: Do you have any closing thoughts?

    Billy Hayes: Tape it under your arms, they’ll never search you there! [laughs]