Last night David and Laura took me to watch the Turkey – Czech game at a Turkish beer garden in Kreuzberg. Borg am See, I believe it was called. At first I was only so-so in to it. I have never been a big sports fan. But mass psychosis soon had me standing on the bench screaming Türk-i-ye! Türk-i-ye! with the rest of them. That and the fact that Turkey got back from almost losing 0-2, then made 3 goals in rapid succession toward the end. As soon as the game was over people streamed to their cars and commenced speeding and flag-waving through the streets until the riot police came out in full force.
First I was tempted to find a Turkish flag of my own. Then, after an hour or so I’d had it up to here with the nationalism and the giant posters of Kemal Atatürk. I was tempted to start shouting “PKK! Ödzalan!” and “Free Kurdistan” or something along those lines. Probably good that I didn’t.
Unfortunately I left my camera at home. This slide show in the Berliner Zeitung pretty much captures what the streets looked like.
