National habits

Or, at least, this is one of the few convenient subjects after the fifth bottle or glass is consumed and when art, philosophy and politics are exhausted - and when it is too sophisticated to talk of local scandal and too trying to talk of politics.

Recently, a brilliant friend told me that she had written a paper in the past about "national illnesses" and their effects on work life. In France, for example, when someone reports a "crise de foie" on a Monday, every one understands and sympathizes and he or she takes the day off without any problem. In Turkey, it must either be a migraine (as opposed to an ordinary headache one would get when faced with ordinary red tape) or a backache.

There certainly is a whole literature around national traits, ranging from Richard Hill’s "We European" to the short-and-cruel "Bluffer’s Guides." Your columnist is one admirer of such books, hoping it would give her an insight to Danish entrepreneurship, Finnish humor, German cuisine, Spanish egocentricity, Dutch courage and, well, the mysterious way the Belgian mind works.Â

A song to sing
Songs, unlike books, do not take the whole gamut of national habits/emotions. Eartha Kitt, whose brilliant life came to an end last December, sang of the way that different nationalities loved in her song, "An Englishman Needs Time."

Cooing softly against the backdrop of an English gentlemen’s club (do find the clip at the EU), she claimed that different nationalities courted differently: A New Yorker's need is variety and speed, while the Dutch begin with a bottle of gin, and the Italians long for an operatic song or a soft Sicilian rhyme. The French fall in love at the drop of a glove.

But, she added, an Englishman needs time...

Of course, I have done a cross-check with my international girlfriends on the song’s assumptions Ğ and not necessarily limited only to the nationalities mentioned above, but that is another column for Erospolis.

In the aftermath of the local elections, where the Justice and Development Party, AKP, did not quite lose and the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, did not quite win, I could not help but wonder whether the voting habits of nations are similar to their love habits.

Electing
After all, hasn’t Akif Beki, ex-prime ministerial spokesman and recent columnist, compared women’s expectations with politicians’ expectations in his column in Radikal?

In other words, as Eartha Kitt says, does a New Yorker voter need variety and speed to elect someone, while an Italian voter prefers a smooth singer Äž sorry, talker? Is Mr. Berlusconi there, despite everything, because his mere appearance makes you think of (soap) opera? Is Mr. Obama there because he is, indisputably, variety?

Do the French, after the loss of their last patriarch, Mitterrand, change leaders at the drop of a glove and opt for a president who looks as if he can change policies, ministers, wives, watches and all the rest rather fast? And where would you put the Turks?

Right along with the Brits: "A Turk needs his time" before he chucks out a politician Äž and it hardly matters if he is in power or with the opposition.

That is, unless he decides to leave himself, such as the Democratic Left Party, or DSP’s, Zeki Sezer after the elections. One wonders if any politician understood the greatness of this gesture.