Üsküdar for beginners (3): market and second-hand stuff

The problem with tourists is that they often want to ‘go somewhere’, whereas I usually prefer just to wander around in the streets. But actually, in Üsküdar you can get stuck on busy streets, not knowing where to turn left or right to find somewhere nice. So I’ll direct you to somewhere specific, where you can just wander around: the …

A desperately needed signal

When you live in Turkey for some time and follow the news, you could get used to the considerable power the military still has in this country. They interfere in politics all the time on all sorts of issues, from the Kurdish question and relations with Armenia to matters of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. It’s a Turkish …

Wild West in credit cards

A friend of mine got a call from his bank some weeks ago asking if he wanted to have a credit card. No, he said, I don’t want that, because I don’t have a steady income and I’m sure I will not be able to pay the credit card debt. And what did he find in his post box two …

Taraf and the army

And again newspaper Taraf (meaning ‘side’) made the Turkish army look foolish. They published a story about alledged plans from the army to make short work of governing party AKP and the Gulen Movement (a big group of followers of religious leader Fethullah Gulen, a controversial figure in Turkey). The AKP already announced that it will file a lawsuit against …

Üsküdar for beginners (2): Şakirin Mosque

Since last month, Üsküdar has had a brand new masterpiece of architecture. It’s a mosque, but not just any mosque: the Şakirin Camii is designed by a woman and is the most modern, light, open and female-friendly mosque I have ever seen. It’s an absolute must-see, as is the big, huge, immense graveyard that surrounds it….

Six women

The Eastern Turkish city of Van is, according to certain travel books, much more modern than you would think. And then they sum up by informing us that young people hold hands on the street, that you can get beers in nice lively bars where women too can go without a problem, and that there is a huge university. Now …

Mines and the Constitutional Court Card

Imagine, you have about 600,000 mines along a border hundreds of kilometres long with a neighbouring country, and you want to get rid of the mines before 2014, since you promised to do so by signing an international treaty. But you don’t have enough money, and your own army doesn’t have enough specialists and specialized equipment to do the job. …

One million books, plus one

In my defence I can say that it just doesn’t exist in Holland, illegal book selling on the street. So when I walked from the boat in Kabataş to the metro line to Taksim and came across a piece of cloth on the …

Immunity

Again the judiciary has shown itself in its most fiercely secularist mode: an Ankara court has ruled that President Abdullah Gül can be tried for a fraud case that dates from his past involvement in a political party that no longer exists. According to the Constitution, the president can only be prosecuted for treason, but the court ruled that everybody …