Steppin’ into the Turkish Blogosphere

Reviewing this week in the Turkish Blogs, November 10th marked the anniversary of the death of Mustafa Ataturk. Erkan's Field Diary has a wonderful article posted about the death of Ataturk and how he is celebrated. Turkish Torque also has a post praising the accomplishments of Mustafa Ataturk. Besides being the father of the modern Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is also accredited with major western reforms of the old Ottoman system, including language reforms which changed the Turkish language from being written in the Arabic script to the Latin script.

Amerikan Turk posts this week about how disillusioning it can be to live in America:

Sick things are happening the world over, as they have ever been. You don't need to look hard to find them. The ignorance of the typical American is astounding. Finding one who can hold a conversation is rare, for me. We're living such cushy lives, so insulated from danger and terror and bombs and famine and starvation.

Amerikan Turk talks about leftist student protesters in Ankara, coupled with a photo of a bleeding student being arrested. He also comments on the anti-Zarqawi protesters in Jordan. On a lighter note, he also posted about a new Nokia 888 phone that was designed by a young Turkish student. Several of the Turkish design blogs have been buzzing about this as well.

Turkish Torque has been prolific week. From posting Turgut Uyar poems to discussing the new European Court ruling support the hijab-ban in Turkey, Torque covers it all, including a post about the difficulties of translating from Turkish to English.

Phanja from The Need to Know talks about the right to choose to smoke cigarettes. And in talking about a recent incident of Russian porn being broadcast on Indian television accidently, she shares a humorous story of a misplaced XXX CD that was aired in an Educational summitt attended by the Turkish Education Minister in the ultra conservative town of Diyarbakir.

Metecem from Metroblogging: Istanbul reminisces about the differences in this life in Berlin and his life in Istanbul.

And first reported here last week, the first full length podcast of Kevin and Fatma take on the world is up and working.

And to conclude- the top finds of the week:
1. Food, food, food–yet another great food site (in Turkish) Hanife Dentarifler.
2. Bozdolap (refridgerator) is an interesting project, where people have been sending in photos of their fridge. Purpose=not sure, but great fun.

3 comments

  • i disagree with the american turk’s assessment about the typical american’s ignorance. in fact, i take issue with that. doesn’t he realize by realizing his ability to make such a statement (and as an american himself, i presume) and thus giving himself credit for what he seeks in the typical american, he may be contradicting himself. it is not the ignorance of the typical american, rather it is the ignoring of the issues by the typical american.

  • Metin, I should have qualified my idea of “typical american”, but I didn’t. Perhaps it is only me who is surrounded by idiots, but I doubt it. Consider the amount of war, death, suffering, disease and famine that exists outside of North America. Sure Americans face certain hardship everyday, but how does it measure up against the hardships endured throughout the rest of the world? I guess I did a poor job of making my point: Most Americans seem oblivious to the suffering that they are lucky enough never to face within these borders, and the occasional inconveniences or hardships that we complain about, would sicken the people outside who truly are suffering. We simply don’t realize just how good we have it here in the US, my friend.

  • thanks for your clarification. however, as americans, if we are oblivious to what’s going on outside of our world (the U.S.), and the point is….

    as individuals, we all need to look at ourselves as representatives of the collective community. if each of us is oblivious to what’s going on with others around us, how can we then make it an ‘american’ issue. the same can be said about the ‘non-americans’ being oblivious to the pain and suffering caused by the economy, homelessness, unemployment, the inability to afford the american dream, the race relations, and so on here in this country.

    bottom line: we DO realize how good we have it here and that’s why we are here and why we live here and that is also why we DON’T complain. we wish the others could be as civil as us and then, and only then, we may have an interest in others’ problems. but so long as the ‘others’ bicker amongst themselves – we will not help who can’t help themselves and we will not feel sorry for (them).

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