Born in Istanbul: the geographic escapism of the perpetually dissatisfied

The fantasy of being born in Istanbul: the problem isn't the place

What if you had been born in Constantinople? The question, spelled out in lavish detail, painted an elite high school with lockets for flirting, cultured teachers and a motto in French: "J'aime la qualité, j'aime la supériorité". Galatasaray High School as a lost paradise, and Istanbul as the life that never was. It's not an isolated daydream: it belongs to a recurring genre that also fantasizes about California, the Midwest, or anywhere that promises more than home.

The fantasy spared no detail: the foggy weather of Kadikoy, Slavic genetics shining on the football pitch, brutal snowfalls. But reality's answer was swift and sharp. For some, the real Turkey is quite another thing: a country with chronic nepotism, a soap-opera image that clashes with the actual population, and unfinished business with Armenians and Kurds that no period drama can settle.

The diaspora eats döner, it doesn't live in Bebek

The cruellest image placed the dreamer not in Galata, but behind the counter of a döner shop in Duisburg. The Turkish diaspora in Germany doesn't live the life of the TV series, but that of second-class emigration. That's where the mirage breaks: the Turk who wasn't born in Constantinople doesn't dream of it, but of forgetting it in a German city. Others pointed out that the city fell in 1453, but no one walking through Istanbul today would mistake the traffic and the lira for a rich country. The dream feeds on a frozen image, kept alive by afternoon soap operas.

If you're born in Istanbul, you'll dream of Frankfurt

The final blow came with a reflection as simple as it was devastating: if you had been born in Istanbul, you'd be complaining right now about the country's backwardness and fantasizing about being born in Frankfurt. The problem isn't the place. Chronic dissatisfaction — the kind that makes you think life is better somewhere else — travels with you everywhere. It's the same engine that drove Galatasaray High School: that obsession with quality and superiority which, applied to geography, becomes a sentence.

The unsettling detail: the motto of that idyllic school is in French, the language of another empire. Superiority is always proclaimed in someone else's language. And those born in Istanbul are probably wondering right now what life would be like in wonderful Andorra.