We’re jaded, spoilt, cynical, pampered and obnoxious, but there are also negative aspects to being a Turkish diplomat’s kid.Most people think that the life of a diplobrat is all fun and games, as if it only involved cocktail parties, tennis and polo, summers in Bali and winters in Saint Moritz, chauffeur-driven bulletproof Chevrolets, maids and cooks and butlers, weekends partying by a swimming pool, attending the best schools money and influence can buy, and… actually, come to think of it, that’s exactly what it’s like. But did you know that such an idyllic upbringing can have adverse effects on diplobrats in the future? Just kidding. It’s the best life in the world!
Diplobrats are easy to spot in Istanbul because they’re loud and drunk and probably doing something really stupid every time you look their way. Actually there are two types in the Corps Diplobratique: the levelheaded ones who steer straight along the course prescribed them by parents with high expectations, and the ones who do a 180-degree flip to stray completely from that course by doing something irresponsibly artsy and hopelessly impractical with their lives instead.
Regardless of the path taken, the diplobrat always has one thing to fall back on: Team Daddy. This is a network of dedicated ambassadors all over the globe ready to spring into action with phone calls and mutual favors every time one of their diplobrat progeny encounters trouble getting a student visa to the U.S., or realizes their passport has expired upon having already arrived half-drunk at Mexico City airport, or suddenly finds they’re broke while filming a documentary in Berlin, or off sailing in Vanuatu. Team Daddy is ready for every ridiculous eventuality that a screwed-up diplobrat is capable of – and they’re capable of A LOT. You name it, missed flights, traffic accidents, bail, angry pimps demanding their money… Some may argue that the Team Daddy security net actually hampers the diplobrats’ maturation into full-fledged adulthood as responsible members of society, to which an official diplobratic response might go something along the lines of PFFF, CARE FACTOR?
But despite this state-sponsored tax-funded pseudo-aristocratic louche lifestyle, there’s also the problem of diplobratic crises which have to be dealt with from time to time. A life constantly spent leaving places without establishing any roots, generally devoid of any traditional or cultural anchors of identity, having everything brought to your feet and encountering almost no significant obstacles throughout one’s childhood, all takes a toll on fitting into normal society in adulthood, on relating to your own personal, social and national identity, and even on giving you some sort of reason and meaning for living when all your life you’ve experienced firsthand the relativity of values which others might hold to be absolute and sacrosanct. Therapy may be the obvious answer to overcoming this existential diplobratic crisis, but a better way does exist: alcohol abuse. Nothing helps you forget your problems like booze-driven short-term amnesia… provided you keep it up consistently over a long period of time, preferably all your life. Think of it as a diplobratic hobby. Um… where was I? Oh yeah, diplobrats.
So is there nothing endearing about these lost souls? Sure it’s hard to feel sympathy for children who have had it all, but did you know that eventually as they grow older they have to forfeit their red diplobratic passports and accept blue ones, as if they were riff raff? Try traveling on a Turkish blue passport and you’ll know what that means. Unless you go to Pakistan and Azerbaijan a lot, you’ll be spending lots of time and money dealing with officious visa trolls whose only joy in their pathetic measly lives will be to subject you to the same quotidian hell that constitutes their own pointless and unnoticed Sisyphean sojourn on Earth. Besides that, diplobrats also eventually have to get jobs themselves and make a living without any government support and with nothing to fall back on but the occasional Team Daddy intervention. Granted, employment can be postponed until well into your thirties, but sooner or later it has to happen. And as if having to work wasn’t enough, eventually, as diplobrats, we too are expected to have to save money, have a meaningful relationship, marry, breed, and – yes – even get a career. I’m sorry to use the c-word there but sometimes it’s better to face the brutal truth than to keep avoiding it. Which reminds me, it’s time for another drink.
But I don’t want you all to get the impression that diplobracy is only comprised of maturationally-challenged socially-reprobate ontologically-void culturally-estranged spiritually-vapid pleonastic strings of endless adjectival hyphenation thrown in to fill up the necessary word limit on yet another pointless article by a bitter asshole whose only pursuit in life can best be described as a sort of aimlessly creative procrastination… like, say, me. Because some diplobrats do go on to do great things. And besides, even if we don’t, at least we’re not as fucked up as dictabrats. I mean, Kim Jong-Il? Uday Hussein? Marko Milosevic? Those guys are just plain creepy. Plus they all have this nuclear weapons fetish which diplobrats tend to shy from. It’s good to know that at least the A-bomb is one thing even Team Daddy can’t provide.
