Iranian money

From the pictures being posted on rebell.tv one can be sure that the Karawan team has safely arrived in Tehran. After an exciting time in Istanbul, the Karawaners Stefan and Bashar took a train eastwards across Turkey to reach Tatvan on the shores of Lake Van in the mountainous Kurdish populated far east of the country..

Train to Tehran

Lake Van

They took the ferry service across the lake (the train apparently does not continue its path beyond Tatvan) to Van, where the train service continues to Iran.

Tatvan

Van ferry service

Mosques and Marxists: Discovering Istanbul

A quick flash back to Karawan’s time in Istanbul. Stefan and Bashar did a three-part quick intro to Islam’s prayer practices, visiting a mosque (shooting some clips inside it too) and talking about the concept of an Imam and the differences between the sunni and shiite roles of the imam [German Language].

Bashar explains muslim prayer

The metropolitan and diverse nature of Istanbul has left a strong impression on the team.Taksim, in the European part of Istanbul, is, in Stefan’s words “more European than Europe”!

A man carries his baby a snugli. People with piercings. Ikea advertising.

In Taksim they met with Taylan Bilgic, a self-declared Marxist international affairs editor of a pro-western English-language Turkish daily (go figure :) They did a rambling podcast with the man in which they talked about everything from US imperialism, to Turkish moderate Islamists. As journalists often like to do, Karawan’s guest was painting a picture of global conflict in broad geopolitical strokes. The Rise of Russia and China and the Decline of the USA and so on.

One of the interesting things in this podcast was Bilgic’s disdain for the governing Islamists, which he called “Kalvinist Islamists”: those who were moulding a benign Islam which is compatible with capitalism (implying, rather unconvincingly and to Bashar’s apparent surprise, that ‘standard’ Islam had problems with capitalism). Hmm.. Maybe that’s a ‘Marxist’ thing ;-)

You can listen to the podcast [English!] here.

The Marxist editor left the Karawaners with a stark piece of advice: don’t go to Fatih district! All the Islamic extremists are there and they don’t like to see westerners with cameras! Scary, scary.

Needless to say the Karawan team did not heed this advice. The went to Fatih and shot videos there too :) And they reported that everything was rather normal.

Here is what Wikipedia says about Fatih:

Fatih is a district of Istanbul, Turkey, in the heart of the city. Fatih sits within the Roman walls, is home to Fatih Camii, the first prominent Ottoman mosque in Istanbul and thus contains some of the most important historical monuments in the city. Fatih is a cosmopolitan area that in recent years has acquired the exaggerated image of being Istanbul’s centre of Islamic extremism.

Notice the word “exaggerated” :)

Critical stance or self discovery?

Apparently, some followers of the Karawan’s trip have commented that the team might be approaching the cultural issues with Islam too naively, too uncritically. To that, Stefan answered in their last video installment from Istanbul, that he is not there to criticize another culture. The trip to him, is more of a journey of self discovery.

It say more about me than it says about them

Interesting how the attitude evolves now that the team is in Tehran.

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Comments

2 responses to “Karawan: the ‘Rebells’ arrive in Tehran”

  1. manal y Avatar
    manal y

    what they’re doing is amazing

  2. manal y Avatar
    manal y

    sad thing thier site is in germany…so you keep us updated,
    thank u