I began to feel that PM Erdoğan is moving away from the knowledge of sense of people he knew very well. After a week of barraging at some citizens’ lifestyle, was he expecting no backlash? An upper middle class fanbase is already “anxious” with AKP politics and PM Erdoğan’s pejorative way to approach to alcoholic beverage drinkers (tıksarana kadar içiyorlar, birşey mi dedik?) may have paved the way to extraordinary protest against him two nights ago at Galatasaray’s new stadium’s opening game. Another issue to be noted is that protesters are accused of ungratefulness as PM Erdoğan was behind the stadium’s quick construction. So, first of all, what a professional football club is rewarded like that and secondly, whose money was spent there? Taxpayers’ or Erdoğan’s own?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAwjBlhSzqM

Adding Insult to Injury | Throw Them to the Lions

After bidding farewell to its legendary Ali Sami Yen Stadium, Red and Yellow moved into the Türk Telekom Arena with a friendly against Ajax Saturday night. The match ended scoreless. The team color red must however will be in their faces after the booing incident that happened when the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and several cabinet members attended the grand opening ceremony.

The incident at Türk Telekom Arena

Protesting the prime minister

Protesters at new stadium ‘ungrateful,’ Turkish PM says

New Report on Marriage Practices in Turkey

İlknur Yüksel Kaptanoğlu and Banu Ergöçmen at Hacettepe University?s Population Research Institute have released findings of a study of marriage practices in Turkey (news article here). Although polygamy is illegal in Turkey, they found that the husbands of at least 186,000 women have taken another woman as a second ?wife?, usually using religious ceremonies, which have no legal standing. This is particularly common in the east, although I have encountered several examples in both the poor neighborhoods of Istanbul and among educated Islamist intellectuals. The legal wives are devastated by the situation, but have no financial means of leaving or are expected to stay by attitudes in their community. (Among the intellectuals, it would be seen as ?treason to the cause? to make a scene about something like this that is, after all, allowed in Islam. Because of their precarious position socially in Turkey, even educated Islamist women can?t afford to lose the protection and goodwill of their community.)

Ataturk as Cult Figure, and a Poll

Ataturk in Arnavutkoy, image from www.dubretzelausimit.com

Sculptor Aylin Tekiner has written a book on Atatürk monuments, Atatürk Sculptures: Cult, Aesthetics, Politics. A discussion of the book and interviews can be found here. An excerpt:

Yüksek Sadakat to represent Turkey at Eurovision

Two Locks of Hair: The Missing Girls Of Dersim

Mavi Boncuk | Two Locks of Hair: The Missing Girls Of Dersim (Turkish: İki Tutam Saç: Dersim’in Kayıp Kızları) TÜRKİYE/TURKEY, 2010, betacam, color, 55 min. Kurdish; English & Turkish s.t.: directed by Nezahat Gündoğan.

Turkish Automotive Industries Profile

Mavi Boncuk | Automotive

In the global automotive industry, opportunities and risks are everywhere ? in emerging and mature markets alike. While possibilities are plentiful, profitable growth is becoming more difficult to achieve and challenges ? from the supply chain to the retail environment ? can upend even the best laid plans. Amidst this landscape, automotive organizations must conduct their business, while at the same time adapting to new regulations, reducing costs, managing capacity and inventory, and controlling healthcare and compensation costs.

Turkey?s Audacious Experiment In ?Post Modern? Monetary Policy

The recent decision of the Turkish Central Bank to lower rather than to raise interest rates in an risky attempt to quench the inflation flames that many feel are threatening to engulf what some call an ?overheating? economy (or here) has lead to a good deal of heart-searching and consternation in the economic and financial press of late. After all, at the end of the day aren?t they doing exactly the opposite of what the text book says they should? Well, as is usual in the realm of the dismal science, all is not exactly what it seems to be.

Catching Up Quickly with the ODTU (Middle East Technical University) Protest

Apologies for the delay here at Istanbul Alti headquarters as real life and day jobs have a nasty habit of getting in our way. We?ll try and do a recap of some issues that we?ve missed in the past week in order to get caught back up to speed next week.

Student protests in Turkey are not new experiences, and are not all that shocking in a historical context. So when you hear that 500 students are protesting the AKP in Ankara, realize that we?re not talking about a Green Revolution or anything. We?re talking about the grand history of Turkish students here.

Turks embracing malls, research says