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Atatürk is depicted as a godless dictator, a coward and an arrogant, ambitious egoist who looked down on the people. Who, on top of all that, drank too much and had a weakness for women he couldn’t control. I read these critiques in an email which is being sent around the country at the moment, calling on people not to take their children to the movie Mustafa, which is currently playing in the cinemas. The movie would, according to the email, poison children’s minds. Atatürk should of course remain the untouchable mythical figure that he has been for decades, and should never be seen as a man with all the faults and weaknesses that all human beings have.
I …
I’m walking along the coast road by the Marmara Sea, alone with my thoughts, a fierce wind in my hair, the sun on my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a guy in a diving suit come out of the water, and another guy in a diving suit dragging a bag of mussels on shore. Then …
Maybe, just maybe, something positive might come out of the sexual abuse case that has attracted a lot of attention lately. It involves the rape of a 14 year old girl by Hüseyin Üzmez, a columnist of a national daily newspaper. He was arrested a few months ago but was released from prison recently because of some …
Turks must be happy now that Obama has won. At least the latest polls showed that the majority of Turks would prefer Obama to be president rather than McCain. Not so surprising, but let’s now compare both (former) candidates on their stance regarding the Armenian issue. Armenians in diaspora in the USA strongly advocate a bill that would classify the …
An intense weekend it was. I went to Diyarbakir, biggest city in the southeast of Turkey, to visit a sit-in protest by pro-Kurdish party DTP. They were protesting not only the (lack of) policies to deal with the problems of the Kurdish southeast of Turkey, but also the (alleged) mistreatment of Öcalan. The PKK-leader is serving a life sentence on …
It’s the Republic’s birthday today. It was born 85 years ago out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire. To turn Turkey into a modern, western nation state, that was Atatürk’s aim, and that’s what he accomplished. For days now, there have been banners over the streets and on bridges, wishing people a happy ‘cumhuriyet bayrami’ (‘republic’s holiday’) and even …
I just had a fight on the phone with some guy from IS Bankasi. He maintained his polite manner to missus Geerdink, while I begged him on my knees (but he didn’t see that) to give me some real assistance. After going to the bank a few times to get the required numbers, codes and whatever else they wanted and …
Tomorrow will be the second day of the Ergenekon trial, the case against dozens of people who tried to undermine the state and government (about whom I have already written). Monday, the first day, there was total chaos in the court room. Not enough space for the accused, family, lawyers and journalists, too much noise for anybody to …
Last year, I lived for about nine months in a rather boring town in Capadocia. My boyfriend and I would go to dinner now and then, and if we wanted to get out of the house at night, we could go visit friends or play billiards. If a movie came to town, we would go, no matter which movie it …
I remember getting interested in human rights at primary school. I gave presentations in class about, for example, the work of Amnesty International, which totally impressed me. Prison guards beating up prisoners or secret services making them ‘disappear’, (my main obsessions at the time), I just couldn’t comprehend. Turkey was one of the countries I read about. …
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