February 2012
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Peodair Leihy East and West- new ways to look at our neighbours [13 Feb, 2012 01:00 AM]
How come Asia always has to rise? How many more headlines do we need about rising East and rising dragons, rising tigers, rising economies and rising powers? It seems journalists, and even academics moonlighting as journalists, can’t help themselves. Asia just rises.
In a way it’s...
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Turkishtime Interview with Ara Güler [December 2002, reprinted at mymerhaba.com]
The following is the interview with famous Turkish photographer Ara Güler published in December 2002 issue of the Turkishtime. (Ara Güler - Photo: Turkishtime).
What is it that’s important about me The walls are covered with signed autographs of people whom we see the pictures of in encyclopedias, books up...
January 2012
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Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper Multiple strategies of imperial statecraft: How empire ruled the world [13.01.2012]
Compared with the six hundred years of the Ottoman Empire and two millennia of (intermittent) Chinese imperial rule, the nation-state is a blip on the historical horizon. The transition from empire has lessons for the present, and maybe the future
Why, in 2011, think about...
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Vercihan Ziflioğlu Foreigners leave Turkey amid new residence law [27/January/2012]
A high nubmer of Armenian and Georgian people working in Turkey are leaving the country in the wake of a recent law implementation that complicates working permits for foreign people. While workers complain of extreme financial difficulties, Labor Ministry announces that there will be exceptions for house...
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İhsan Dağı The French disconnection [SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2011]
The resemblance between France and “old Turkey” is striking. One similarity regards their attitudes towards history. The French government is attempting to construct a “historical truth” for its citizens, who are not considered capable of making up their own minds about the events of the past.
I know this Jacobin attitude very well...
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Joanne O’Connor, Observer travel columnist Do your homework before booking a ‘cultural tour’ [Saturday 21 January 2012]
Many group holidays to visit indigenous peoples are little more than voyeurism from which only the tour operator profits
Members of the Bonda people, in Orissa, India, who are increasingly visited by ‘cultural tours’. Photograph: Boaz...
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Justin Vela Turkey: Are Turkish Youngsters Too Smart? [November 15, 2011 - 12:04pm]
Turkish university graduates struggling to find employment in their fields of study are often settling for menial part-time jobs until better times come around. The unemployment for Turks between the ages of 15 and 24 stands at 18.6 percent – nearly double the national average. (Photo: Justin Vela)
To get a...
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Constanze Letsch Turkey: Islamic Women’s Magazine Sparks Debate over Role of Fashion in Islam [November 18, 2011 - 2:04pm]
A new Turkish fashion magazine, featuring headscarf-clad models on the cover, hopes to attract stylish Muslim women, such as these women sitting outside a mosque in central Istanbul. “Âlâ” hit the shelves in July 2011, offering clothing advise, interviews with Muslim...
“If a fish were an anthropologist, the last thing it would discover would be water.”
Quoted in Kirk M. and Zander C., “Narrowing the digital divide: in search of a map to mend the gap,” Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, Vol. 20, No. 2 (December 2004): 168-75.
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Sibel Cingi China corners market of fake Turkish carpets [January/12/2012] Hereke carpets are some of the finest hand-woven Turkish carpets around. But Turkey is losing this trade name to China after it abolished the municipality of Hereke
Hereke, now an abolished municipality in the province of İzmit, is famous for its hand-woven carpets since the 19th century. AA photo
China is notorious...
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For Love of the Caucasus.: Caucasus Q&A: Karena... →
via thecaucasus:
1. Where were you born, raised, went to school, live now?
I was born in the UK, raised in LA, and am basically homeless at the moment but will be based in Krasnodar and Nalchik for the next 4-5 months.
2. What do you do (for a living, to pass time, as a hobby - doesn’t matter)?
I am a PhD student.
3. Where have you been in the Caucasus?
I have been all over Armenia and...
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Peter Beaumont Turkish air strikes kill dozens of villagers near Iraq border [29 December 2011 18.42 GMT] Turkey’s government forced to admit victims of bombing were not Kurdish separatist fighters
Bodies are mounted on to mules after the attack by Turkey’s air force near the Turkish village of Ortasu. Photograph: AP
The donkeys had been sent across Turkey’s...
December 2011
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Hürriyet, PARIS First Europe, then Turkey, says Sarkozy [December/13/2011]
AFP photo
France’s stance toward Ankara’s prospective EU membership has not changed despite the contrasting economic fortunes of the crisis-hit union and a dynamic Turkey, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said.
“You know, my reservations have not changed. Even if we raised these reservations, in the situation of...
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Hürriyet Daily News Turkey gets F grade in English [December/22/2011]
A study by the research foundation TEPAV, which warns about poor foreign language skills in Turkish society, claims a better English education would support economic growth
A group of young people are seen during a class at an English school in Istanbul. The level of English is important in terms of attracting...
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SADIE NICHOLAS Binge drinking, rapes, squalid deaths: a former Club 18-30 insider reveals the horrific truth about Britons abroad 13th August 2008
My heart sank as I read the e-mail report in my inbox: a young man holidaying with friends in the notorious resort of Magaluf in Majorca had jumped, drunk, from his fourth-floor hotel balcony, aiming for the pool below.
Only he had missed and hit...
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Emile Durkheim (1914) ‘Pragmatism & the Question of Truth,’ lectures 13-20, in Pragmatism and Sociology (1983) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
The General Spirit of Pragmatism
It has been said that pragmatism is above all an attempt to liberate the will. If the world is to solicit our activity, we must be able to change it; and for that to occur, it must be malleable....
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BİA News Center 20 NOVEMBER UNIVERSAL CHILDERN’S DAY: About the Difficulty of being a Child in Turkey [21 November 2011, Monday]
The first report on the situation of children that compares all 30 member states of the OECD revealed that Turkey ranks in the bottom row regarding health, environment, education and the financial situation of children in Turkey.
The Universal Children’s...
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Işıl CİNMEN EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS: Landmark Ruling on “Conscientious Objection” [23 November 2011, Wednesday]
For the first time, the European Court of Human Rights sentenced Turkey for a breach of Article 9 on freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Applicant Erçep’s lawyer Alsancak said the verdict manifested the right to conscientious objection in Turkey.
On...
November 2011
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TODAYSZAMAN.COM WITH WIRES Libyan gunman injures two in Topkapı Palace shooting [30 November 2011, Wednesday]
The assailant who wounded two when he opened fire with a pump-action rifle is seen in front of Topkapı Palace. (Photo: Cihan)
An unidentified assailant who opened fire with a pump-action rifle in a tourist district of İstanbul and wounded two people was killed in a clash with police....
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Niloufar Momeni Fifa appears ready to fix football’s Hijab issue once & for all [Nov 3, 2011 9:00:00 AM]
In June this year, the Iran women’s national team forfeited an Olympic qualifier after they were not allowed to wear head scarves, but will episodes like this soon become history?
From the looks of it, Fifa is taking the upper hand in solving...
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Scott Jaschik Not Feeling the Kinship [November 18, 2011 - 3:00am]
MONTREAL — As she opened a session here Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Virginia R. Dominguez of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and president of the group, told those gathered here that “we don’t have to agree. Sometimes consensus is oppressive.” That was one...
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October 2011
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Ghada Al Atrash Janbey The Deeper Meaning of the Arabic Word “Ghurba” [May 15, 2009]
I have found that there are certain words in a language that are simply untranslatable. As I translate from Arabic to English, I have come across several of these words, one of which is the Arabic word ghurba. Ghurba is a derivative of the Arabic word for stranger, and it embodies the meaning of life...
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September 2011
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Murad Ahmed Macho society under scrutiny as despair drives young men to ‘honourable death’ [January 5, 2008]
North London’s Turkish population has been stunned by a series of suicides that followed a pattern
Orhan Kaya and Can Onel were the first to kill themselves. The two friends, aged 24 and 19, hanged themselves at the same spot in the same church graveyard in Hackney, within weeks of each...
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DAN BILEFSKY Syrians’ New Ardor for a Turkey Looking Eastward [July 24, 2010]
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Well-heeled Syrians had already been coming to this ancient industrial city, drawn here by Louis Vuitton purses and storefront signs in Arabic. But local shop owners say Israel’s deadly raid on a Turkish-led flotilla to Gaza in May has solidified an already blossoming friendship between Syria and...
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Posta Kutusu ‘Home Office’in sizi görüşme odasına çağırma itimali var’ [28 Ağustos 2011, Pazar]
Nüsra Şahin, Ankara Anlaşması başvurularında Home Office’in kendisine sunulan evrakları yetersiz görmesi ya da dosyada tutarsızlık görmesi durumunda söz konusu başvuruyu yapan kişiyi görüşmeye çağırmasının mümkün olduğunu ifade etti.
Şahin, bunun yeni bir uygulama olmadığını belirterek son...
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Menekse Tokyay for Southeast European Times in Istanbul Child Brides in Turkey [16/08/11]
Turkey has one of the highest rates of juvenile marriages in the world.
Child marriage rates are still high, but falling. [Flying Broom]
“When my friends were going to school, I, as a little girl of 13 had been married with a man, a friend of my father, in his 30s. I was scared when he was at...
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Suzy Hansen Pressure Drop [April 17, 2009]
Over the past few months in Istanbul, the mahalles, or neighbourhoods, endured a ritual aesthetic assault of plastic flags. Every tree, lamppost and building was strung and flossed with ropes attached to the flags of political parties, dripping and flapping in the soppy late winter air.
It was local election time in Turkey. Most of the flags were red,...
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Ates Altinordu, Yale University The Debate on “Neighborhood Pressure” in Turkey [February 2009]
In May 2007, a preeminent Turkish sociologist, Serif Mardin, was interviewed by a journalist on the occasion of the publication of a collected volume of his articles, Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey (2006). In this interview, Mardin suggested that a major potential threat...
August 2011
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Emine ÖZCAN - Bianet Women in Tarlabaşı: Life in the Backstreets of Beyoğlu [23 March 2009]
On Sunday, bianet went to Tarlabaşı, the district of poor backstreets of Beyoğlu, central Istanbul. Beyoğlu is better known to many locals and tourists for the glittering Istiklal pedestrian precinct, lined with shops, cafés, restaurants and cinemas.
The people living in the streets behind face the...
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Anna Louise Sussman, with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Dimming the Red Lights in Turkey - NYTimes.com [August 19, 2011]
The unsavory, garbage-strewn pathway to the city’s sex district.
On a Sunday afternoon earlier this summer, hundreds of Turkish men disappeared down a short alleyway just a five-minute walk from the Istanbul Modern art museum. Some flicked prayer beads...