A small translation matter this weekend turned into an interesting cultural discussion. It began with the word ‘gavur’. The most logical translation for that is ‘infidel’. But ‘infidel’ doesn’t have anything like all the implications and connotations that ‘gavur’ has in Turkish.
The word came up because I wrote a short article about Caroline, a Dutch character in a Turkish soap. …
I remember visiting Anitkabir (Atatürk’s tomb in Ankara) with a friend of mine who admires Atatürk. He was sort of on top of the world, and I asked him why. He answered: ‘You know, Muslims go to Mecca, Kemalists go to Anitkabir.’
I couldn’t get it out out of my mind today. In the news there was an event that took …
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 …
It would have been too cruel, of course, to take Istanbul off the World Heritage List in the year that the city is European Capital of Culture. UNESCO decided not to transfer Istanbul to the World Heritage in Danger List. Just like last year, and the year before. And it doesn’t look like the yearly decision-making meeting of UNESCO is …
It was 50 years ago today, May 27th, that the first military coup took place in Turkey. President Celal Bayar, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and others were arrested, put on trial and sentenced to death. In September 1961 Menderes and two of his ministers were hanged. Bayar’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
The trials against the politicians took place in …
Ever seen a caricature of Atatürk? I did! Earlier today, a whole lot of them. Frankly, I didn’t totally understand them all. To do that, I would have to know many more details about the times in which Atatürk lived, and all the relevant persons and discussions at the time. Because the caricatures I saw dated back to the period …
I’ve had some emails this week about the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voting on the ‘Armenian Genocide Bill’. Both groups pro and anti informed me about their stance and some asked me to write letters to the Committee to support their point of view.
Now the resolution is accepted. I always thought I was against it mainly because politicians shouldn’t …
She lived a long life, the adopted daughter of Atatürk, Sabiha Gökçen. Istanbuls second airport is named after her – I was there this week, recently a brand new and huge terminal was opened. Of course there is a reason why the airport was named after her: Sabiha, born in 1913 and deceased in 2001, is very well known in …
I went to the Netherlands for a week, and even though I always intend to keep reading the Turkish papers online, I never really manage to do it: when you’re out of the country, somehow the news doesn’t get through your skull very well. Now that I am back, I’m catching up on the news and again I realize why …
A concert of Zülfü Livaneli is guaranteed to give you goose bumps. Zülfü Livaneli? Outside Turkey he is not very well known, but in Turkey he has been popular for decades. He is a singer/composer, novelist, and you could call him an activist for humanity too. All these sides of his personality came together in last night’s concert in Harbiye …
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