We have to educate women as little as possible, he said. His friend agreed, and added that women should not only have no education, they also shouldn’t work or leave their village too much. Because once you educate women and once they start earning an income, it will be a threat to marriage. Now, these […]
Many people will remember the enormous demonstrations after the assassination in Istanbul of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, exactly one year ago today. The fighting spirit that could be felt at the time amongst Turkish Armenians seems to have faded away now. The Armenian community, which became more visible because of Dink, has largely closed […]
Altering the ban on insulting ‘Turkishness’ will not help freedom of expression. It is better to get rid of Turkish taboos, says Fréderike Geerdink. (published in daily newspaper De Volkskrant, opinion page ‘Forum’) The Turkish government is working on an amendment to article 301 of the Penal Code, the article that forbids insulting ‘Turkishness’. The […]
My central heater wasn’t working properly. My landlord lives above me, which is useful in these sorts of situations. I heard him on the stairs in the hallway, asked him to come in and explained the problem. He would send somebody to fix it, he promised. And so he did, the very next day. And […]
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 […]
The European Union will be happy: finally Turkey will change article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code – at least the proposed change has been announced. Article 301 makes it illegal to insult ‘Turkishness’, and many journalists, writers and publishers have been brought to court for violating this article – when in fact all they […]
What if they were to start by forbidding smoking outside instead of inside? Now that’s a good idea. That men poison each other in their houses or offices wouldn’t be a problem if everyone smoked. Outside, you come across a non-smoker now and then. Me, for example. Sometimes, even now when it’s cold in Istanbul, […]
The old Istanbul city wall dates from the fifth century and protected the city for almost a thousand years: it served as a defensive structure till 1453. Since then it has beencrumbling down and has never been restored to its old glory. Which doesn’t mean a walk along the wall – about 6.5 kilometres long […]
Grandmother tosses a piece of meat towards me. Plop! About one and a half kilos I suppose, with quite a lot of fat on one side. I put the knife on the meat at an angle. First I want to get rid of this fat. With an arching motion I throw it into a bucket. The […]
Military action against the PKK in northern Iraq is intensifying. Several planes have bombed targets and the army says no civilians were killed. And once again, I’m amazed by the way some newspapers write about it. One applauded the ‘wonderful show’ in which the Turkish army showed how well equipped and trained they are. Well, […]