Bizarre Bazaar 09.07.02

For once, there are no jokes to make.

Two weeks ago, without any warning whatsoever, they shut down our street bazaar. Just like that. The court decided that’s how it was going to be, and now it’s just gone. Forever.

I have no idea how long the bazaar had been here before I moved here, but I’ve been attending nearly every Thursday for almost four years, and from what I understood it had been going on for many years before I arrived.

I’m angry and disappointed at the short-sightedness of the court’s decision. The municipal judge was quoted as saying that “street bazaars have no place in a civilised society.” Not only is that statement jaw-droppingly ridiculous, it’s downright offensive, both to the people who make their living as bazaar vendors, and to the traditional Turkish culture that spawned such a wonderful, rich institution where local people can meet, talk, and do their shopping once a week, right here in the streets of their own neighbourhood. There are not many places left in the world where you can see something as amazing as that… and now there’s one less.

I mean, forget the funny t-shirts— that’s a peripheral thing. We do our food shopping at the bazaar. Those vendors made their living from us. One of my elderly neighbours often mentioned how thankful she was that the we lived right in the middle of the bazaar, because she doesn’t find it so easy to get up to the shops anymore. Now I don’t know what she’ll do. No one in her family has a car to take her anywhere.

The bazaar was one of the last remaining remnants of real Turkish culture in this neighbourhood, and now it’s gone in the blink of an eye. All so the SUV squad can drive their fuel-guzzling monstrosities through here a little more conveniently on a Thursday. If that is what we term a “civilised society,” Turkey’s in worse trouble than I thought.

As you can see, a few vendors have stayed in defiance of the ruling (these photos were taken today), but I don’t think they’ll be here for long. I mean, a big part of me hopes they’ll band together and come back stronger next week, and even stronger the week after that… but that’s the part of me that watches too many underdog movies. I know it’s more likely that this trickle will die out completely within a month or so.

So what does this mean in terms of the Bizarre Bazaar photos? Well, nothing, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll just go to the Şarampol bazaar on a Friday instead (you know, until they shut that one down, too). I mean, I have to find some place to do our shopping anyway, so there’s no reason not to keep taking photos of t-shirts no matter where I end up. It’s not like the Meltem bazaar had the monopoly on Turklish production.

It had occurred to me that maybe this would be a good opportunity to wrap things up and move on, maybe do something else. But you know what? Although I fully embrace the idea of doing other things on this site as well (which you’ll know all too well very soon), I don’t feel that other features of the site and the bazaar posts have to be mutually exclusive. I feel privileged that the bazaar is as popular as it is, and I don’t think getting rid of it at this point will accomplish anything. In this day and age where people on the internet find it too taxing to pay attention for longer than 10 seconds, I’m honoured that I have managed to create something that people have enjoyed for nearly three years and counting. The bazaar is by far the most popular part of this site, and the subscriber numbers have grown steadily since its inception. Don’t get me wrong, I want to take it out on a high note when its time comes, but I just don’t feel that now is that time. People still get a lot of enjoyment out of it, and there’s no danger of it jumping the shark, as it started out on the wrong side of the shark to begin with. That’s kind of the whole point.

Oddly, back in March, I went through a thing at the bazaar where I was acutely aware of how special it was, how lucky I was to be living in the right part of Antalya/Turkey/Earth at the right time, and how I should soak it up as much as possible in case anything ever happened. I had no idea how soon that “anything” would come to pass, though. I was thinking more along the lines that eventually, in a few years’ time, we might be moving into a different house or a different city or whatever. I never dreamed that the bazaar would be the one to leave me, before I had a chance to say a proper goodbye.

Anyway, I’m getting sad again now. I’ve been experiencing something over the past two weeks that’s not entirely dissimilar to mourning.

We’ll fix it with laughter tomorrow, I promise.