THE MAIL

To the Editors of the Crimson:

As one Turk among many who has been incensed by the overtly anti-Turkish character of the movie "Mid-night Express," I feel I have to respond to Mr. Contreras' highly favorable review (November 4, 1978).

It is unfortunate that Mr. Contreras' exaggerated enthusiasm for the artistic and technical features of the film leads him to almost ignore its grossly offensive depiction of the Turkish people. It is not until the very end of his long review that Mr. Contreras finally refers, as an afterthought, to what is a major (if not the major) theme underlying the movie: A hatred of the Turkish nation so blatant that it borders on racism. Throughout the film, the audience is treated to a sequence of violent and disturbing scenes where the Turks feature heavily as a nation of brutes and loonies. So stark is this characterization that one waits in vain for the appearance of at least one half-decent Turk.

Although based on the outlines of a true story, "Midnight Express" is more akin to fantasy, albert a nightmarish one. How else can one explain the wholesale brutality of the Turkish characters, the unreal prison conditions, and the imaginary arbitrariness of the Turkish judicial system, not to mention Billy Hayes' unbelievably easy escape? Not one technique is spared to impress on the audience the repulsiveness of Turkey. Violent scenes are accompanied by Turkish folk music as if to show the necessary relationship between the two. Even the normally beautiful Istanbul skyline is transformed by the camera into somber and gloomy scenery--a feat in itself.

The movie, therefore, is not just an innocent and harmless depiction of Billy Hayes' transformation "into an Everyman-type hero coping with the erosion of his identity in a nether world of sadism, greed, and madness." As abstract as Mr. Contrer as makes it sound, this world is one where "sadism, greed, and madness" are clearly portrayed as the intrinsic characteristics of a country and its people. "Midnight Express" may be a compelling story of personal struggle, but this comes at the expense of dehumanizing an entire nation.

"Midnight Express" is nothing less than the continuation of the centuries-old misconception of the "terrible Turk."

It was not long ago that Turkey had to bear the brunt of American pressure because of its poppy cultivation. Turkey then was an easy scapegoat for the concerned parents of American drug addicts and the U.S. administration. It is certainly ironic that "Midnight Express" puts the country once again in the culprit's seat: this time not because it is lax in its regulation of opium cultivation, but because it is harsh with misguided foreigners who try to smuggle hashish out of the country. If Billy Hayes got a "raw deal" from the Turkish government, this was due not to any wickedness on the part of the Turks, but to the constant American pressure on Turkey which led to the government's decision to show once and for all how serious it indeed was in its enforcement of drug laws.

But all this is lost in the gibberish of the Turkish prosecutor, and, for lack of subtitles, Mr. Contreras may be excused for not quite grasping the motives of the Turkish government in sentencing Billy Hayes to life imprisonment. Nonetheless, I find it inadmissible to acclaim a movie which is so outrageously biased in its depiction of a whole nation. "Midnight Express" is offensive only not only to Turks, but to all self-respecting human beings. Dani Rodrik '79

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I want to congratulate Mr. Marsden on his timely and splendidly written article on going to Ox-bridge (Crimson October 31). Students thinking of going that way next fall will be a good deal better prepared after reading what Mr. Marsden has to say.

I do, however, want to express one small misgiving, and that has to do with what seems to me perhaps an excessive stress on the difficulty of an Ox-bridge education relative to an American one, or at least a Harvard one.

My experience has been that Harvard and Radcliffe students do not, generally, find the academics at English universities all that heavy going although most of them do experience initial feelings of inferiority in the face of their very articulate and--as Mr. Marsden indicates--well-prepared British classmates. I have no statistics, but I would be very surprised if our students showed significantly worse on Tripos or Finals than the natives, or worked any harder preparing for them.

As far as the PhD is concerned, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion (reluctantly since I have a Cambridge PhD) that Harvard graduate work, at least in my field, is rather more rigorous than what one finds at Ox-bridge and, generally, a better preparation for university teaching. It is true that Ox-bridge PhD candidates are given a great deal of independence, but very few of those I was with at Cambridge considered this "exhilarating." I think we though of it more in the way of benign neglect.   Peter Dale   Senior Tutor, Adams House