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May 23, 2008
The Liberation of Turkey—From Heavy Smoke
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
I have never understood why people smoke cigarettes. I have tried about a little less than a dozen of them throughout my life, and each and every one was horrible. Therefore, even if they were magical health potions that heal the body and the mind, I would have a hard time using them. So it is completely beyond me why people pay to smoke those stinking white paper tubes, which only kills them slowly.
Yet I am also tolerant. I know that humans are not terribly rational beings and they do all sorts of things that do not fit into reason. And we have no option other than being lenient to their wrongdoings. I am also an empiricist. I believe people find the truth mainly by learning from their mistakes. Thus, I think, we need to expose more cigarette deaths, so that more people, hopefully, might come to their senses.
Men In Smoke
So my personal humble policy on this matter is this: Let freedom reign and let people smoke but not in my space. They have the right to poison themselves, but not others who chose to live a healthy, clean and non-stinking life. Some people would object by saying that a smoking ban is a limitation on individual freedoms, and this does not fit into the liberalism that some, including me, cherish. But individual freedom has limits within liberalism, too. You cannot walk around by carrying a blood-dripping sword and a sign that reads, I will butcher the first Pisces I see. That would freak people out, so infringing their right to live in security. Similarly, smoking in a closed space infringes other people's right to breathe clean air.
No wonder I have been personally combating public smoking for long. In the offices of the Turkish Daily News, I have turned off some colleagues by insisting, Could you please put that cigarette out. I have also declared that I wouldn't join meetings if smoking were allowed. Call me an anti-smoke fanatic. I am indeed one, and I am dangerous: Now I have even the law behind me!
What I am referring to is the recently introduced smoking ban in Turkey in all closed public spaces. I think it is just great. There are indeed only a few bans that the good-old Turkish Republic has introduced and has been helpful to the Turkish people. This one should be, I think, on the top of the list.
This is not just a good step for public health, but also a radical one for the Turkish mind. Smoking is such an integral part of the Turkish culture, and especially the male subculture. Young boys often start smoking in order to prove that they have come of age. Studies suggest that more than 55 percent of all Turkish males smoke, and the country ranks as the seventh most-smoking nation in the world.
Even if you see no polls, just a simple observation of Turkish society will show you drones of men who just sit down, smoke cigarettes, and drink tea. The tea is also an important phenomenon here. It is served in very small light bellied glasses, so you have refill them after a few sips. They could well be served in big-size mugs; but no, the idea is just to refill them frequently and endlessly. Therefore the tea-and-cigarette practice turns into a full time activity in itself. If you don't have much to do, it is, apparently, a good way to kill time. And if you are putting those white sugar cubes in every glass, it is a guaranteed way to put on weight.
Whenever I go to Ankara, which is very rare, I see these tea-and-cigarette men all around, and especially at hotel lobbies. They wear dark blue or dark brown suits, carry golden or seemingly golden watches, and, yes, sit down to drink tea and smoke cigarettes. Eser Karakaş, a liberal economy professor, once wrote about such men in the hotel lobbies of Ankara, and curiously asked what these people do there all day. His suggestion was that these were people were waiting for a politician or a bureaucrat who would give a decision which would grant them some advantage. So, they were lobbyists of some sort. But they were not doing that by writing reports or holding conferences. Their activity was just to show up, sit down, do the tea-and-cigarette ritual, and expect some generosity from the state the mother of all Turks.
Men Without Smoke
I used to be a bit pessimistic about the possibility of change within this stagnant culture. The political situation, such as the absolutely insane closure case opened against the incumbent AKP (Justice and Development Party), just give me the impression that that business-as-usual will go on Turkey for quite some time.
But despite all the efforts to keep business-as-usual intact, there is indeed change in Turkish society, and that ultimately influences the state as well. This ban on smoking is a testimony to that change. It has been welcomed by a greater enthusiasm than what I would have hoped for. Even the leaders of our political parties, who are constantly at war with each other, agreed to appear on a campaign which supports the ban and promotes a smoke-free environment. (Well, with one exception: Deniz Baykal, not too surprisingly, turned out to be the only one who refused to join the campaign.)
Anyway, welcome to smoke-free Turkey. I hope it will indeed be so. If I see violators, I won't refrain from calling for stronger law enforcement. Let the state's authority be of some real use.
Posted by Mustafa Akyol at May 23, 2008 4:19 PM
Thanks indeed for a truly informative and refreshing piece...
Posted by: Admirim at May 23, 2008 7:37 PM
Well, I disagree with you on this one Mustafa. I'm not a smoker myself (although I appreciate the occasional cigar or waterpipe), but there are more respectful ways for individual freedoms to protect non-smokers.
I'm all for having smokers/tabacco companies bear alone the costs of their choices (like having them pay higher health insurance fees, special taxes, etc.). You could have smoke-free restaurants vs smoker ones (think licenses for example, which would pay for the costs generated by tobacco). But outright prohibition is not only illiberal, it's pointless.
Posted by: Chahine at May 23, 2008 9:46 PM
I agree with recent smoking bans. Smokers do not have the right to affect nonsmokers in roofed public places.
However, there is something arguable in the law that supports the ex-one and has extended new bans as well.
From the September of 2009, according to the law, smoking is going to be completely prohibited in all pubs, night clubs, and restaurants.
I can understand how this ban will be implemented in restaurants. But, when we consider night clubs and pubs, some sort of problems, i think, are awaiting us.
We might say some small pubs(meyhane) and some night clubs (pavyon) are also the part of Turkish entertainment culture. Especially in some big cities of Turkey like Ankara and İstanbul, there are night clubs in which people come, drink a lot, watch the shows and smoke too. With applying of this recent law, people who go to one of these places might drink as much as they wish, watch the shows that they call striptease in American culture, call the women who perform there to their tables to talk, eat, drink with and even for possible future relations with them. Solicitation will somehow be allowed. Nevertheless, when these people want to smoke, the owners of the place will come to you and say "I am sorry sir, everything, being dizzy, watching striptease girls, some kind of humiliating them and even bargaining for them to be together are all okay. But no smoking!"
It may seem like illogical and irrational.
Or you may say that, smoking is a serious health problem. You cannot take these recent bans like this. In some countries of Europe and states of America, everything is the same as this. You come, drink, watch, see how to be with some prostitutes but must not smoke! Because the only problem here is to smoke...
Isn't it interesting?
Posted by: Kubilay Ant at May 26, 2008 12:29 PM
So let's not smoke, not drink, not fornicate....Let's live pure lives because a certain Mustafa Akyol or whatever his name, wants us to do so. He knows better what is good for us. Well, I do not smoke, but I do drink and enjoy womanising. And there is no way some sanctimonious Islamists like Akyol will prevent me from doing both, especially during the Ramadan, of course.
Posted by: Parviz at May 29, 2008 11:58 PM
I believe anti-smoking activists are concerned with avoiding the image of patronizing, paternalistic ideologues, considering us stupid little kids who need supervision, who need to be told what to eat, what to do, etc. for our own good. That’s why the issue shifted from active smoking to passive smoking. If we can show that passive smoking causes harm to innocent bystanders, we satisfy Mill’s harm principle, according to which (a) the person’s own good is never sufficient warrant to restrict his personal choices, and (b) it is only the harm done to other people that warrants such interference.
Out of curiousity I checked Pubmed for recent articles on passive smoking. The majority of the studies conclude an increase in the risk for various health conditions due to passive smoking between 17 and 20 percent. So far so good, but let’s see what are the conditions under which passive smoking occurs. A large majority of studies are conducted (for obvious reasons) on subjects that are exposed to passive smoking on an hourly basis – there are two categories: (1) spouses and children of smokers and (2) waiters, waitresses, bartenders.
The nonsmoking spouse of a smoker – supposing both of them do have a job, and, therefore, spend some time outside the household—is present at about 15 hours per day in a smoky environment. A nonsmoking waiter would spend about 8 hours in such an environment, supposing he doesn’t have a smoker spouse. Chidren of smokers would spend quite a lot of time in such environment, almost all time the smoking parent is at home.
Does the smoking ban in public institutions and pubs protect these people? Not at all. If there were a smoking ban on smoking in your own apartment (which anti-smoking activist (health-fascists like the author of this blog) would surely support, but for the moment society is not sufficiently “emancipated” for that purpose), that would solve the problem.
In light of these, leaving aside that the existence of smoking and nonsmoking rooms in a pub (with appropriate measures for smoke insulation and ventilation) does no harm at all to the nonsmoker (and actually protects him or her from the spouses polution done at home, in the sense that the nonsmoker has a smoke free place to drink and eat), the question boils down to: who is likely to spend at least 8 hours in a smoky pub, except the waiters (who have a choice to work in some other place)? Some really heavy drinkers (eating a meal takes at most 30 mins, and is unlikely that someone spends more than 3 hours a day with eating in a pub or restaurant) who, besides, can afford spending 8 inactive (unpaid) hours each and every day in a pub.
Now since, to my knowledge, heavy drinking is somewhat correlated with smoking, we get an even thinner category, those who are heavy drinkers, nonsmokers, and can afford spending at least 8 hours in a pub every day.
Further, given scientific data on alcoholism, it is likely that these people develop health conditions similar in gravity to those developed by smokers, regardless of whether they smoke or not.
The question is then who are at the end of the day protected by this mindless ban, just exactly?
Posted by: István Aranyosi at May 30, 2008 6:12 AM
People who can't stand your fumes and don't want to get cancer are protected. Your right to smoke does not trump my right to have fresh air.
Posted by: emre at June 1, 2008 12:44 PM
Emre, specious argument. Both rights are not mutually exclusive.
Posted by: Chahine at June 2, 2008 6:33 AM
Parviz,
You lack any intellectual merit and sound very lame. Relating womanising and drinking as a form a civil liberty issue smacks of stupidity. You show no respect and have utter contempt for Mustafa Akyol. If you dislike Mustafa Akyol that much why don't you not write on this blog. It is as simple as that. My recommendation for you is to go to your local brothel to womanise and celebrate your so-called freedom. Rather than to waste time writting offensive and provacative blogs on this site.
Posted by: Goksel Doganay at June 3, 2008 7:47 AM
The fact that Mustafa allows Parviz's postings is a show of good character. They add nothing interesting to his pages and they are blatantly malicious. Despite this, he still allows such people with 'word rage' to offload their chest on his website. They wait to re-read their posting for a few cheap frills before they chose the next article to attack incoherently.
Posted by: Ceyhan at June 3, 2008 5:56 PM
Chahine: You need to flesh out your argument. I think mine is clear.
Posted by: emre at June 25, 2008 7:13 PM
I agree with Mr. Akyol that smoking bans are a good idea. Smoking should only be done in a way that does not harm other people's health, i.e. not in restaurants, trains etc. Apart from these limitations, destroying his or her own lung is every adult's right.
Posted by: A. A. B. at June 29, 2008 6:30 PM