"Do Turkey’s civil society organizations accurately represent the public?
Do Turkey’s civil society organizations accurately represent the public? by ULVİ SARAN
The function of civil society and the role of civil society organizations have become popular and a focal point of public opinion with recent developments that have occupied Turkey's daily agenda.
Trouble-On-Demand: University Clash Update
It seems the incident that sparked the violent outbreak at Akdeniz University a few days ago (see my April 7 post) was personal, not political — a male student verbally harrassing a female student, and when he was told off, sneaking into her dorm and sexually harrassing her. A female friend tried to protect her, then other men inside and outside the dorm became involved until the two groups went after each other with sticks and chains. Two people, both non-students, used guns. According to news accounts, one group consisted of “PKK sympathizers”, the other — including the female student’s fiance — “ultranationalists”. (click for article in Turkish)(article in English)
Violent Provocation at University
Tensions between right-wing and left-wing students at Akdeniz University in Antalya (on the Mediterranean coast) have been rising over the past few weeks and yesterday turned violent as groups of students, together numbering about 150, attacked each other with knives and sticks and shots rang out. The police used armored vehicles to separate the groups. Seven people were wounded and 34 arrested. Photos taken during the clash, however, showed that one of the two shooters was not a student, but an unknown man with a tattoo of the Sword of Zulfikar across his forehead. A week earlier, a group of left-oriented students had approached the local police station and asked for protection from a group of right-wing students that they said were preparing to attack them. (for article in Turkish click here)
Turk unions relaunch mass protests against labor law
What we earn, and how
Not only, but also because the government currently debates the social security of workers in Turkey, it is worth looking at how people in this country actually make their living.
Literacy is Up, But Turks Don’t Read
Antalya Governor Alaaddin Yüksel asked last week, “Why is it that in this country there are over 400,000 coffeehouses, when there are only 1,500 libraries?” Turkey currently has 800,000 carded library members compared to 36 million members in Mexico. In Turkey, there is one library for every 50,000 citizens, compared to one for every 7,558 people on average in the EU. A survey by the Child Society found that only 8 percent of regular library-goers go there to actually read.Headscarves depict Turkey in art event
A Slovakian artist's depictions of the faces of today's Turkey in portraits that included women wearing headscarves are part of an exhibition that opened in Ankara Monday under the patronage ofTragedy in Sulukule
According to news reports, the thousand-year old Romani (gypsy) Sulukule neighborhood that dates back to Byzantium has become a site of despair as more and more houses are torn down with many residents given only 24-hour notice. (70 houses have been demolished so far.) An urban transformation project will replace the existing houses with middle-class villas and tourist facilities.
Photo from Turkish Daily NewsLearning Turkish
I have been a little discouraged lately about my Turkish. I see that I’m still struggling to have deep conversations in the language spoken by my neighbors, friends and acquaintances. I was happy to see that Today’s Namaz had a piece by Charlotte McPhearson about language-learning plateaus.
