ISTANBUL – The Turkish Education Ministry has stopped distributing a documentary about the events leading up to the mass killings of Armenians in the latter days of the Ottoman Empire, almost a hundred years ago. The film, distributed to primary schools, was heavily criticised because it could stir up hatred between different ethnic groups, daily […]
I got both (soft) criticism and (warm) compliments after writing about the Kurdish question. Thanks for both. I feel a bit reluctant to write about it again, but what can I do? It’s an important issue and it keeps coming up in the news. Tonight, I deliberately went to see something about Kurds; I admit… […]
Diyarbakir was a troubled city yesterday: protests by Kurds against the arrest of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, ten years ago this weekend, lead to riots, some people were wounded and a dozen were arrested. Some of the disturbances took place in front of the headquarters of DTP, the pro-Kurdish party that is also represented in […]
Yours truly has started twittering. In English of course (and now and then some private twitterings in Dutch, never mind those). I’ll be twittering about daily life in Turkey, and of course about the news. At the moment, I’m working on getting my mobile devices in order, so that I can twitter on the road […]
‘Baby, I started counting down the number plates today.’ I know, this makes no sense to anybody who never had a Turkish lover in the army, but for any woman that ever did, it’s clear what this means: only 81 days left till army time is over. Okay, I’ll explain. Number plates on cars in […]
ISTANBUL – Televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and even furniture: the authorities in the eastern Turkish province of Tunceli are handing them out generously to the poor this week. Social policy, they say. Opponents of the hand-out of free goods on the other hand see a connection with the upcoming local elections at the end of […]
I am walking around a village in the southeast of Turkey when I see some women baking bread in an outdoor oven. We start to chat a bit, the usual ‘where are you from, what are you doing here’ type of conversation. A few children look at me curiously and one of the girls, about […]
My assistant and I are having a cup of Turkish coffee with the mayor. We are visiting a town in the region of Batman in south-eastern Turkey. The town has 10,000 inhabitants and beautifully situated in rough hilly landscape surrounded by snowy mountains. It’s rare for ‘strangers’ to come here, so we were advised to inform […]
Sometimes I introduce myself as Feride Gedik. It’s the Turkish equivalent of my Dutch name, and so much easier to get around with than my real name. Some people smile when I say it, but mostly it is accepted without a blink of the eye. That is until I came to Diyarbakir this week, the […]
My Turkish friend A. got married. The most unusual marriage I have ever seen, but then again, I haven’t seen that many. The bride was in a borrowed purple dress with great shiny purple heels underneath, while groom T. was in jeans. Short ceremony, few friends, lunch afterwards, that was it. Now both the families try […]