Impersonating free speech

Watching Bill Maher's standup act a few weeks ago it suddenly struck me that there is no equivalent in Turkey. (Ok so perhaps I'm a little slow to catch on but anyhow...) It was refreshing to watch him, he didn't give a damn about political correctness and just pointed out what he saw as wrongs. There is no Turkish comedian who gets up and slags off the prime minister, government policy and religion with a decent helping of curse words thrown in. The majority stick to safer topics of family relationships, dealing with the boss and so on.

Over six years ago when I first arrived here we had 'Reyting Hamdi' and 'Olacak O Kadar' which were skit shows that would gently parody politicians among other things. But they've disappeared now, replaced by endless soap operas and game shows. A quick read of comments on various news sites indicates that political satire is still alive and well albeit sheltered behind anonymity.

Why did it disappear? Well after the prime minister sued a comic book for publishing caricatures of his head attached to various zoo animals the mainstream media has kept its toes well behind the party line. There are very few television channels who oppose that, one recently had its founder arrested. One national newspaper claims to be objective and also had a senior journalist arrested at the same time.

Censorship is becoming the norm. Individuals who bring a case to court can persuade a judge to block access to websites. In the past year YouTube has been blocked multiple times, reinstated after they deleted the insulting material, WordPress ISP is blocked completely and last week Google groups were blocked.

It's not a healthy atmosphere. The only political comedy is provided by two lads on a Turkish Cypriot channel who annoyingly break off the comedy to talk directly a lot of the time. Rory Bremner and the two John's, if the UK doesn't provide enough material there's rich pickings over here.

The Story of Stuff

A few weeks ago my friend Nassim sent a link around to The Story of Stuff. It's a twenty minute animated video about stuff, from extraction to production to market to home to disposal. It's well made and fun to watch but I'll be honest I thought 'doesn't everyone know this?", followed quickly by the discouraging thought that life ain't that simple.

But perhaps people don't know or rather don't think about it at all. Maybe if we did we wouldn't be so easily taken in by advertising and campaigns. There's an ad on Turkish television at the moment featuring an annoying girl in a stripy top posing as a doctor. Her patient sits in a gown looking worried while she looks at his x-ray. He has 10 ytl worth of points lodged in his chest, a situation brought about by buying lots of petrol from a particular petrol station on a particular credit card. So how can he be cured? 'Spend it and it'll pass' says the chirpy girl.

So having bought the most expensive petrol in the world (3.30 ytl/1.56 Euro/2.48 USD per litre!) the poor lad now has to go and spend even more money! It's all feeding back into the golden arrow. Perhaps he can spend his 10 ytl buying rice before the shortage hits in.

Gender stereotyping

I witnessed a very disturbing scene last week when I spent an afternoon with the Brown-eyed Girl in her preschool. After attempting to teach twelve four year olds 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes' in English and determining that the average attention span is nine minutes, I was treated to a mini concert. The Brown-eyed Girl performed a solo of the 'Walnut Man' complete with actions, then the choir chimed in with a lovely rhyme about a dog who wanted to fly. Starting with his aeronautical ambitions and ending with splat after he launched himself from the balcony, it stirred the heart and made me glad to see my little girl in such an educationally stimulating class.

But by far the most excitement was generated when the teacher began the song 'Little soldier, little Ayse'. First the boys jumped to attention, marched about and saluted as they sang their chant about protecting their loved ones, then the girls leapt up, rocking imaginary babies and singing about staying home and making babies. It was all I could do to pick my chin up off the floor at such a blatant display of gender stereotyping being taught to impressionable four-year olds. I resisted the temptation to launch into a rant at the teacher about equality, feminism and suffrage. A disgrace in a society that can demean women and lock them into traditional roles. Surely they should be teaching that a girl can do anything she puts her mind to, and that a boy does not have to fight if he doesn't want to.


But the mothers of most of the children in the preschool work outside the home, they are teachers or university lecturers. I am the exception there: I am a stay-at-home mother, I made my babies and rocked them. I do the cooking and the cleaning and keep house. You could place me in the 1950's and I wouldn't stand out. I never had a career exactly and hope to carve one out by working from home. So my example to my children, so far, upholds the stereotypes.


And in a country with compulsory military service, all the boys do have to fight.

Spring in the air

The mundane task of hanging out the clothes was a joy today. A slight tingle of warmth on my back and the chorus of birds trilling their hearts out brought spring to mind. There are buds on every tree in the garden and we even did some digging over the weekend.

I was back to my grandmother's kitchen in Dublin, a self-conscious eleven-year old, trying hard to put on a teenage air of disaffection. My grandmother would always break this down with a cup of milky coffee and a few slices of half-stale fruitcake. On this particular day she held a leaflet in her hand, a newsletter from the local supermarket. She shared this hilarious piece with everyone who came into the house...

'Spring is sprung, the grass is riz,

I wonder where the birdies is.

Oh look a bird upon the wing.

Ain't that a funny thing,

I thought the wing was on the bird!"

I picture her there surrounded by clutter, reading it out in her Roscommon accent, slow and deliberate, while my sister and I exchange bewildered glances. She never threw anything out, margarine cartons, letters, envelopes. I wonder if that leaflet was among the papers my mother threw out after she died many years later.

Traditional Christmas

We started a tradition bound to continue yesterday; we bought a battery-operated toy that broke within five minutes!
In hindsight there were omens, the cheap yellow plastic, the suspiciously delicate appendages, and worst of all 'Quality Toy - Made in China' in font size 4 on the back of the package. It came out of the box intact, survived putting in the batteries, climbed 4x4 style over the cushions and then lost its treads. Replacing them several times in the following five minutes became tedious and we discussed how we could permanently fix the problem; put the rubber treads in the fridge to shorten them; put them in hot water; glue them to the wheels. Alas while these talks were underway Little Boy Blue tore the treads apart in his curiosity.
Not to worry there was another vehicle to play with. Attaching a trailer to it was fiddly and ultimately pointless as the attachment broke. Still the Brown-eyed Girl played with it, pausing briefly to scream at Little Boy Blue when he wandered close with a 'gimme' look in his eye. She retrieved the box and polystyrene packaging from within the piles of wrapping paper and has played happily ever since, leaving a stream of white confetti in her wake.
Terrible to be so stereotypical...

In the Tranquil Garden

Peace reigned in the garden of the little blue house. The toddler sat on the swing hands holding firmly on the ropes, his woolly hat and winter coat at odds with the bright sunshine. A slight breeze rustled the leaves of the trees, a mere breath compared to the usual gale. I pushed the swing several times giving it enough height for me to do my chores. Behind the house I disturbed two chaffinches sitting on the woodpile, they chirped and fluttered wildly as they made for the safety of the trees. Having gathered the wood and kindling I pushed the toddler again, reaching him before he called for me.

After months of drought, the rains of October had brought life back to the grass which sprouted an uneven carpet of green. Outside the garden wall the olive trees were laden with fruit, glistening in the sunshine. This time I left to hang the clothes, returning when the toddler’s shout disturbed the birdsong. Finches, bluetits and great tits all clamoured to be heard as flocks of sparrows glided by. Even the hum of cars on the main road below the field seemed to harmonise, giving a bass note to the high shrills of the birds.

It came as I pushed the swing with the empty clothes basin under my arm. From the south, from out of the sun’s glare it came between the olive trees along the ridge. I shielded my eyes and saw its pointed nose and wingtips. The wingtips were lighter green then its smooth underbody. Silently it flew above us, probably no more than 20 metres up. As I turned to watch it fly beyond me the noise hit. It seemed to reverberate in my chest before roaring in my ears, loud and inescapable. The toddler screamed as the neighbour’s dogs howled in unison. Dropping the basin I held him where he sat on the swing watching the jet as it lifted its nose and rose vertically above the houses. It climbed and climbed until, just as it was about to flip over, its wing dipped and it began a graceful curving dive. The sound died away to a deep roar that echoed along the horizon as the jet disappeared behind the houses.

Beneath his coat my son’s heart beat a staccato rhythm as his shaking subsided.

Out of Date

I don't get downtown that regularly but when I do, I inevitably call into the newsagents near the clock tower. He stocks a few English-language newspapers and a small selection of English books. So pausing briefly in the chill wind yesterday I made the snap decision to choose Turkish Daily News over Today's Zaman. TDN is the oldest English language daily in Turkey with 46 years of publishing behind it. They recently published 'Gold Fever in Turkey', my article about the hypocrisy between gold consumption and mining in Turkey.

Once inside I browsed the books, while trying to keep my toddler from pulling everything off the shelves. He took a great liking to 'Galatasaray Destani' and insisted on trying to read three of them at once. I grabbed a book and headed to the counter where I paid, but only after having bought Newsweek too. With them under your hand at the counter, it's impossible to leave without picking one up, especially as you wait while the newsagent carefully puts a bookmark into the book you buy.

So after picking up the preschooler, waiting for DH to finish work, getting home, bringing in the laundry, lighting the fire, fixing the dinner, eating the dinner and making the tea, I finally got to look at the newspaper.

First thing that struck me was the top left corner 'Flat transition from page to big screen', a review of 'Love in the Time of Cholera'; I'm sure I read about that recently. Skimmed the main headline, 'Childhood not Child's Play'; they're always putting headlines about the social make up of the country, only last week there was a poll about the middle-class. Anyway I continued through the paper, skimming here, reading there until I got to David Judson's editorial about the paper's success since they moved their base to Istanbul last year. Half way down the first column I realise he's talking about Nov 20 being the day of their big move. Now very briefly the thought crosses my mind that they've published the editorial on the wrong day; Judson in the paragraph previous admits to publishing a photo of Imran Khan, who turned out not to be. But no, they couldn't make a mistake that big, could they?

No, they couldn't. It took me until page 14 but I finally figured out that I'm reading Tuesday's paper having bought it on Wednesday! Not only that but I had read Tuesday's paper online, hence why that review seemed so familiar. And when I looked at the bookmark the newsagent had given me, it had a calender from 2006 on the back! Talk about feeling the eejit!

So I may stick to reading the paper online from now on, though I can't resist the smell of newspaper ink and cannot quell the hope that one day I'll find a paper like the Irish Times in my local newsagent.