Turkey is Typing….

It has been a quiet week in the Turkish blogosphere, some of my favorite bloggers such as Turkish Torque and Talk Turkey have been silent. Mavi Boncuk and Erkan's Field Diary, however, have been as active as ever.

The trial of Orhan Pamuk, Turkish Novelist, for speaking out against the Republic of Turkey, has drawn a lot of attention from the rest of the world. Erkan's Field Diary gives us some brief impressions of the Orhan Pamuk situation, and even has pictures of the riot police outside the courthouse holding his trial.

Mavi Boncuk posts a set of links of various recipes that his blog has featured since the blog's beginning, and also advertises his own food blog, Tastes of Mavi Boncuk.

There is a new podcast episode of Kevin and Fatma Take On the World, this time including Fatma! The Mp3 blog, Unomundo has been focusing on hip hop music for this week.

Socioeconomics had some random thoughts about the King Kong movie. Ignore Me If You Can writes about a movie she has recently seen called Havoc. She also writes about the commericalism of Christmas and New Years in Istanbul, a subject she also touches upon on Metroblogging:Istanbul. Phanja from The Need to Know announces that she will be taking a “holiday Break”.

Yogurtland has a post about making wedding invitations and favors, and a recipe for Strained Yogurt Cake, which I actually used for one of my final projects this semester, to which I would like to add my thanks!

New find for this week, a Turkish blog in English, called Ne Var, New York?, it's title is a play off of the term “Ne Var, Ne Yok” (literally What is there, what isn't there) which is the Turkish slang equilvent of “what's up?”.
Also found this week was the blog Queen of Flub, she is a Turkish American MIT student, who like many of us University students are in the last phases of our finals. Mert Ulas, a Turkish University student in the US normally translates his Turkish posts into English, however he has been busy with the end of the semester, however the picture on his last Turkish post says it all.

9 comments

  • Erkan

    Oh I guess it is a bit late but still good luck with your finals, Deborah! Same wish to all bloggers. I am glad I am done with all this stuff, finals I mean, but i feel worse is coming next year when I will be writing my thesis:) For now, I am having tea in my warm apartment, waiting snow to start, surfing the net for new updates in my blog, reading from time to time and wathching a movie in this Sunday. Simply enjoying my time. But my wishes are sincere!

  • So Turkish Torque is silent? Get used to it, Deborah.

    Mr. Akinci usually keeps quiet for months, and then makes up for the delay in a matter of days. :)

  • I think it will be good to explain why Pamuk,the best seller writer and famous novelist, is on trial. He openly talked about Armenian Genocide where 1 million people,according to Pamuk, were killed by Turkish army at 1915. He also mentioned about 30 thousands Kurds were murdered by Turkish army. United Nations and European Parlement recognised that Armenian genocide happended but Turkey refused it.

  • And recently Lithuania has joined the band-wagon. If the govt doesn’t punish Pamuk, the public will kill or maim him- mark my words. He’s now marked himself like Salman Rushdie. Freedom of speech in Turkey is limited for a few reason, I think, which I tried to scratch the surface of last night in an entry about ethnicity versus nationality.

    I am snubbed from this week’s name-dropping by Deborah Ann. Hopefully I have not offended anyone.

  • according to Farid (maybe paraphrasing Pamuk), the 1 million Armenians are “killed” but the 30,000 Kurds are “murdered.” What a ‘novel’ concept!! Was that by design or an unintentional play of words.

    I’d like to ask: What constitues a “Genocide?” Is it dependent on the numbers of killed/murdered or is it the ‘state’ ordered mass execution of a specific ethnic or religious group within its borders. If it occurs outside borders, it’s called “war??”

    Oh I forgot! In “War,” civilians are never killed or murdered. (i.e. Iraq??)

    Anyway, someone clarify this issue for me. I am not admitting/denying the existence of ‘genocide’ per se, but I am confused as to its parameters.

  • faridpouya

    I am sorry for this misunderstanding. I just didn’t want to use one verb twice.For me murdered & killed are the same. Concerning Genocide
    I should say I am just refering to UN. According to United Nations there are three Genocides in 20 century: Armenian Jews and Rwanda…
    It is obvious not only Kurds Armenians were murdered or killed in Turkey but Assirians Aramenians and so on. Best

  • farid:
    by your reasoning, are you calling the Turks murderers?
    are you referring to the Turkish government or the Turkish people or both?
    how is it ‘obvious’ that assirians and others were also killed by Turkey?
    were these murders committed against Turkish citizens (since the armenians and others were subjects of the Ottoman Empire or kurds in Turkey being Turkish citizens?
    why were some ethnic groups selected while others not for such murders?
    did Turkey open its doors for persecuted Jews both in the inquisition era, as well as the more recent holocaust era?
    were any murders committed against Greeks living in Turkey as Turkish citizens?
    just a few questions that puzzle me…

  • When one looks at the Jewish Holocaust and compares it against the Armenian deaths of WW1, there is a striking disparity, making it very clear that the same word cannot be used to describe both events. This doesn’t equate to a denial of the events in question. It’s a re-defining of the overall tragedy. As I continue to educate myself with proper sources, going forward I hope to contribute more thoughts on this subject.

  • […] Last week I posted about the trial of Orhan Pamuk, and from that post ensued a very lively debate about the situation between the Turks and the Armenians. This week the debate continues. Amerikan Turk (who I forgot to cover last week-sorry agabeyim) writes about the truth of the issue, and Erkan’s Field Diary has more information about the trial, including the security issues that the author has to deal with. The outcome of this trial will be very important as the the future of free speech in Turkey. […]

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