The gay men in the film Zenne Dancer kiss on the cheek, not on the mouth. The only time they go further than that is when they need photographs of gay sex, to convince a military committee they are actually gay and for that reason get exempt from doing their military service (which is not a procedure invented for the …
The bottom line is: Turkey and the Netherlands are friends. Officially since 400 years ago, but in practice even much longer. No temporary political wind can change that. According to Jan-Paul Dirkse, the Dutch ambassador to Turkey, all you need to do is look at the map: ‘Then you see that we are in the same sphere. It makes it …
Sometimes, I just go travelling in Turkey without a specific goal, just to see where I end up. As I did this week. And where did I find myself a few days later? In the village of Entelköy! Never heard of it? You will: the movie ‘Entelköy’ will be released this year, or the beginning of next year – also …
Arabesk, the blues of Istanbul
Those of you who know Arabesk, Arabic-style music created in Turkey, will be shocked by the title of this blog post. Defining Arabesk as the blues of Istanbul! Ridiculous! Arabesk is a genre by itself, with its own history and development, you can’t call that the blues of Istanbul! I know, dear readers. Still, the title perfectly explains what this …
Banned officially in 1925, but still very much alive in Turkey, is the Mevlevi Order, a spiritual Islamic sect. Most people know them from the ‘whirling dervishes’, a ceremony performed by the followers of the order (called ‘dervishes’) as a way to connect with God. Up until now I never really got into it very deeply, probably because they are hardly ever …
About Ahmet Kaya and a young woman
The whole evening, actually the whole Kurdish question came together in one young woman last night. I saw and heard her during a break in the commemoration night for Ahmet Kayak, a Kurdish singer who died ten years ago in exile in Paris. She was being interviewed on camera about what Ahmet Kaya meant for her. The journalist wanted her …
Churches are hot news these days in Turkey. Yesterday a mass was held at the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross in the eastern province of Van; some weeks ago a religious service was held outside the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Sümela in Trabzon province. And last week, a group of Greeks from the United States were set to come …
He was proud and brave the whole day, smiling and dancing like he was supposed to do. But at the end, he cried and clung to his mother for comfort. All the tension of the day, all the excitement of what had just happened, it was just too much.
Cenker is seven, and he just got circumcised. In …
What I like about being in ‘the village’ in Kapadokya in central Anatolia are the seasons that are defined by which kind of crop is in the center of everyday life. At the end of september, it’s grapes (and pumpkins): they are ripe and being harvested. In the streets there are horse carts with wooden boxes full of grapes, on …
Ununderstandable really, that I never watched ‘Wilco’s bus’ before. Wilco’s bus (in Turkish: Wilco’nun karavanı) is a programme on Iz TV made by Wilco van Herpen, a Dutchman who has been living in Turkey since 1999. With his bus he travels around Turkey and shows Turks their own country through his Dutch eyes.
Wonderful TV, especially when you compare …
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