Ravished Armenia and Ezidi lands 6 August 2014 While Islamic State was starting to take over Ezidi towns in Iraqi Kurdistan this weekend, I was driving around in Dersim and Erzincan provinces. I was following the trail of Arshalus Mardiganian. She was 14 years old in 1915, when she and her family and all other […]
‘You are in charge’, Z. said. We were standing in the kitchen and we wanted to make an omelette. Since there were no eggs in the fridge, Z. went out to get some, while I was making a basic salad. I’m no good at breaking eggs, so I poured oil in the pan and asked […]
‘So’, the young man in the group I talk to in a park in Sirnak summarizes, ‘you are looking for several Kurds to interview about the situation thirty years after the first PKK attack on the Turkish state, and that will be published in the Netherlands? Somebody is interested in that?’ He laughs; he just […]
Who would I vote for in the second round? I am not a Turkish citizen so I have no right to vote in the presidential elections, but even if you pressed me, I couldn’t answer this question. A religious man who speaks of democracy but doesn’t put it into practice? Or a religious man put […]
For the last couple of days I was in Fethiye, Mugla province. I needed to go to the coast to make an item for Dutch radio about the start of Ramadan in a tourist town, and chose Fethiye because a Dutch friend is living there, and it was about time we did some catching up. […]
Last week, I moved to a new house in Diyarbakir. My apartment block has a common garden, and when I came home at night after a solidarity concert for Roboski (it’s been more than 900 days now that the truth about the murder of 34 people hasn’t come out) I was invited to sit with […]
East Timor, spring 2003. The country, formerly a part of Indonesia, which is again formerly a colony of the Netherlands (but East Timor was, before becoming part of Indonesia, not colonized by the Dutch but by Portugal), had been in existence for one year. I jumped on a plane and flew there to make stories […]
‘The leader says the peace process continues.’ I am standing between the graves of Medeni Yildirim, murdered by the state in Lice last year while protesting new army posts, and the grave of Ramazan Baran, that is just being closed. The middle aged man I talk to is standing next to me. He has tears […]
‘Turkey’s largest-ever civil uprising’, I read a few days ago referring to the Gezi protests of last year. I agree that Gezi was big, both in the number of people participating and in the way it was spread over many parts of the country, but no, it was not the largest-ever uprising in Turkey’s history. […]
The swallows are about to leave their nest. Father and mother swallow encourage their little ones to take the dive into the bigger world, despite all the dangers out there. Every now and then, I see the adult swallows try to scare off the cats that come too close to the nest. It’s their way […]