A Fez of the Heart

An analysis of

A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat

by Jeremy Seal

I found multiple passages interesting in this Prologue by Jeremy Seal. The most interesting, noneconomic part of the Prologue by Seal was that a city on the shores of the Turkish Mediterranean was named Pomegranate, which means Side in Turkish. I always thought the term Pomegranate referred to the fruit from India. The most interesting, economic part of this was that when tourism first arrived in Pomegranate, the Muslim Turks had so much respect for their culture that the villagers who wore a bikini in town were stoned. Later on, it became illegal for a Turk to wear a fez; they only wore one to attract tourist.

Based on this passage, it seems people can easily manipulate their cultural beliefs to make a few bucks. It only took the Pomegranate people twenty years to change. At first, none of them would accept disrespect.

"Some visitors started to wander back from the beach in their bikinis... several of them were stoned by incensed villagers." (6)

 The Turkish, especially the Muslim Turkish, knew what they stood for and forced those who were disrespectful to change or leave. Their desire to grow economically, changed their viewpoints. In regards to nudity, they went from absolutely no tolerance of it, to accepting all of it.

"Images of mosques and markets, fresh vegetables and leather jackets were punctuated by insisten close-ups of naked breasts until it seemed that Turkey's beaches were nothing but a kind of bosomy paradise" (10).

The change to allow nudity and skimpy clothes, was a huge success for Pomegranate's economy, but they lost so much more.

"Pomegranate's twenty-five bed capacity soon doubled, and doubled again, setting a pattern for years to come."(6)

The people of Pomegranate lost all the characteristics that made attractive and now they are just servants of the masses.Clearly, people are willing to alter their culture to attract tourists and make money.

I believe that it was easy for Pomegranate to make the change because it was a farming communing with an extensive beach. They could not attract tourist with their architecture as easily as the beach could. In Scotland, many travel to see the Glasgow Cathedral because of its architecture and history. The Glasgow Cathedral was built before the 12th century and was known as the Roman Catholic mother church.