Picture this: A school in Kayseri, a vibrant city in the heart of Turkey. Not a big school, only 450 students. Girls only, aged between let’s say 13 and 17. And then picture me coming in with Allard, a Dutch photographer I sometimes work with. At first the girls are shy; when we try to get the ones I interview …
Doctors warn against ‘relax pills for students’, as they might do more harm than good. Newspapers have been publishing sample exams for weeks. Private schools drill their students for the last time. What’s going on? Tomorrow the university entrance exams take place. About one and a half million students compete for one of the approximately 200 thousand places at universities …
Some time ago, I interviewed a political scientist. The interview was not about the government, but of course we had to discuss the policies of the ruling AK Party, which is accused of trying to Islamize Turkey and undermine secularism. He said people had no reason to be afraid of any Islamic agenda in the AKP. In fact, …
The Turkish economy is growing by about 6 percent a year. You could call that positive, but for many Turks it’s hard to see it that way. The official growth doesn’t result in a higher national income or less unemployment. Some Turks still dream of going abroad to increase their standard of living, but more and more young people have no …
I had an interview with Sibil, a young Armenian Turk. She’s in ‘Hadig’, a group of young Armenian people who want to carry on Hrant Dink’s legacy. Hrant Dink, the Turkish Armenian journalist and founder of bilingual newspaper Agos, was murdered almost a year ago. One of Dink’s missions was to make the Armenian community in Turkey more visible. After …
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