Antique shops in Turkey’s major cities are booming as the revival of Ottomanism continues. Tuðras, berats calligraphic scripts in Ottoman, the Ottoman coat of arms, postcards from Ottoman times -- simply anything that has the crescent and the star or any Ottoman symbol on it -- is worth respectable amounts of money.

Roaming through the streets of the old imperial capital Istanbul is a true feat for a provincial Ankaran like myself. Almost every corner of this city offers the depth, history and mysticism that our official, almost artificially modern capital so severely lacks.

Almost every discussion about the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) at the public level comes down to one issue: the bureaucracy. You hear it from mid-level bureaucrats -- from the ordinary man who happens to have a relative in the bureaucracy to someone in a think tank.    

These are days when conferences on Turkey are decorated with panels declaring “Who lost Turkey?” or “Are we losing Turkey?”