Palestine/ Jaffa 1924
Iraq 1930 - 1939
Syria/ Damascus 1954
Lebanon/ Beirut 1948
Lebanon/ Beirut 1940
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One of the things I miss in Istanbul is the carnival. Turkey is not masquerading. My first thought was that it's related to Islam and its unrepresentational aspect. But after doing a small research at the Arab Image Foundation, I found these photos from different dates and places from Muslim countries... Why is that the case then?
2 comments:
welcome back!
Holy shit, you have a blog too!
I'm afraid there is a huge mistake behind your reasoning: Although these are all Arab countries, not a single person on these photos needs to be a "Muslim".
Palestine was a British mandate until 1948, Iraq until 1932. All those chaps on the pictures are possibly British officers or governors, especially on the Iraqi one.
Syria was also a French protectorate, but not in 1954 Nevertheless, it has a 40% Christian and more than 20% "Alawite" minority that neatly coincides with the ruling class.
As for Lebanon, well, not only does it have a large Maronite population, but also, around 1940 it was a haven for every sort of European escaping the war in Europe. Add on top of that, Lebanon also as a large population of resident French.
Turkey had/has a fair share of dress-up carnivals both among its Greek population, and after them, among the secular-minded upper classes. At least in being upper class, then, are the masquarading Turks no different from their Arabic counterparts.
http://www.tsk.mil.tr/anitkabir/album/ata-10_k.jpg
"unrepresentational"? come on, is that even a word? :)
I'm sure that in this case, Islam is squarely to blame for the lack of carnivals in fucked-up (ie. middle eastern) countries.
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