ABSTRACT
People would hear as much Turkish as they did Arabic, Persian, English, French, German, or Russian. That was and remains the real Istanbul. The young people in that club represent a new breed of Turks and their friends from around the (Muslim) world. Such clubs, cafes, markets, bookstores, movie theatres, or opera houses are all specific insignia of a living, thriving urbanity – the figurative emblem of a deeply rooted cosmopolitanism that is definitive to Istanbul. These young men and women may have come from anywhere, from India to Morocco. But they were not “foreigners” in Istanbul. This is the perfectly normal post-colonial growth of Istanbul from deep roots of its Ottoman lineage, a vastly and deeply pluralistic society, welcoming artists, literati, intellectuals, journalists, and political activists from four corners of the world.
