Erkan's field diary

Turkey’s Culture of Violence

By Jenny White on violence against women in Turkey

The murder of Italian artist Pippa Bacca has raised a discussion in the Turkish media of violence in general in Turkey and violence against women in particular. Bacca was hitchhiking across Europe and the Middle East dressed as a bride in a demonstration for world peace and was picked up in Turkey by a truck driver who raped and murdered her. (click for article) While a crime like this can happen anywhere, it also provides an occasion to take a closer look at the particular circumstances of violent behavior in Turkey and its relation to being male and female. In a previous post, I mentioned the glorification of fighting and dying in educational textbooks. Violence is presented as bringing honor to men. Guarding honor is a theme in violence against women (from surveillance and beatings by male relatives all the way to so-called “honor” killings of women who disobey family expectations — or even just appear to), but also in violence by men against other men.......

more pippas will come to be slain

By Galip

pippabacca, the peace artist or the "peacebride" as the turkish press dubbed her because she traveled in a wedding dress to promote peace, was killed as the resultant of the same introverted, anti-introspective, paranoid schizoid mentality that plagues droves of turkish fans after almost every international football meet.

Self-criticism over Bacca’s tragic death

The murder of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, also known as Pippa Bacca, an Italian artist and activist who went missing while hitchhiking across Turkey dressed in a wedding gown as part of an appeal for world peace, has stirred widespread anger, condemnation and grief across the country.

Turks smoking away despite looming ban

The government's efforts to limit cigarette smoking and the harm it causes seem to be failing. Recent figures show the daily consumption of cigarettes in Turkey has reached