23rd September 2006 – 08:51
Things change rapidly. In last three days, a military coup ousted the current parliament, Elif Shafak has been acquitted and tomorrow Ramadan starts.
I would like to write more about Shafak’s trial since I am particularly interested in freedom of speech in my country. I watched the news on BBC on the day of trial. Ultra-nationalists were waiting at the entrance of the courthouse and they were preparing their slogans and posters. They put the EU flags on the ground but there were swastikas at the centre of the circle of stars on the blue flags. This was ironic since many Turkish nationalists believe that the genocide committed against Jews during the Second World War is an exaggeration and it actually happened in a much smaller scale. When it comes to compare their betrayers with Europe’s fascists, swastika becomes important to them. It symbolizes blood and terror. Same thing happened aftermath of Pope’s speech as well. A Turkish deputy minister compared Pope’s words with those of Hitler. Isn’t it a contradiction?
Then trial took only 20 minutes to be adjourned. This trial was making Turkish and International press busy for very long time but it was simply for nothing. I think everybody knows that novel characters can not be judged and EU pressure on the trials can not be ignored. Nothing would insult Turkishness more than a decision of jailing a writer because of her words in a novel. Turkey should consider this trial as if Turkey herself has been in trial in terms of general ethics and human rights. However, the article 301 is still valid and I am sure there will be more victims in the future for these kinds of crimes. Prime minister flashed a green light for changing the Penal Code and asked Opposition Party to have a meeting to discuss the details. Let’s wait and see how far they can go!
Other than this event, I do not really think much. My days are passing with daily works. Actually, we already finished the final exams. I have to start marking the exam papers. I have applied to use five days of my annual leave this October. It has been approved so I will be in Thailand between October 7 and October 16. I am hoping that I can meet many friends and speak a lot of Turkish. I have been away from speaking Turkish for almost four months, feeling strange a little bit. I eve stopped writing in Turkish. I consider this as a dangerous situation since at the end I am a Turkish-language writer. What I write in English is usually away from aesthetical beauty and artistic perspective.
For this reason, I started another blog which will be only in Turkish. I will start to publish old stories one by one. After that I will start to write in Turkish as well. This actually means that I will d a lot of editing for the first two months because I already have more than fifty short stories written in Turkish. They need to be edited one more time before being published under my name. The address of this new blog is http://aliarican.blogspot.com/ and it has a link on the side bar of this blog.
Other than writing, I have played frisbee last weekend and looking forward to play again very soon. It does not require much technical skills except for running and throwing the disc with a proper angle. It is fun and needs a lot of energy.
I am currently reading Roald Dahl’s collected stories. I have read four stories so far and they all seem nice. His stories so far focus on unhappy marriages and their ironic conclusions. He has a good style and I believe his resolution parts need a little bit more taming. They end with a final cut which sometimes feel me I am in a vacuum. Before I am ready to end the story, the story ends itself.
Things change rapidly. In last three days, a military coup ousted the current parliament, Elif Shafak has been acquitted and tomorrow Ramadan starts.
I would like to write more about Shafak’s trial since I am particularly interested in freedom of speech in my country. I watched the news on BBC on the day of trial. Ultra-nationalists were waiting at the entrance of the courthouse and they were preparing their slogans and posters. They put the EU flags on the ground but there were swastikas at the centre of the circle of stars on the blue flags. This was ironic since many Turkish nationalists believe that the genocide committed against Jews during the Second World War is an exaggeration and it actually happened in a much smaller scale. When it comes to compare their betrayers with Europe’s fascists, swastika becomes important to them. It symbolizes blood and terror. Same thing happened aftermath of Pope’s speech as well. A Turkish deputy minister compared Pope’s words with those of Hitler. Isn’t it a contradiction?
Then trial took only 20 minutes to be adjourned. This trial was making Turkish and International press busy for very long time but it was simply for nothing. I think everybody knows that novel characters can not be judged and EU pressure on the trials can not be ignored. Nothing would insult Turkishness more than a decision of jailing a writer because of her words in a novel. Turkey should consider this trial as if Turkey herself has been in trial in terms of general ethics and human rights. However, the article 301 is still valid and I am sure there will be more victims in the future for these kinds of crimes. Prime minister flashed a green light for changing the Penal Code and asked Opposition Party to have a meeting to discuss the details. Let’s wait and see how far they can go!
Other than this event, I do not really think much. My days are passing with daily works. Actually, we already finished the final exams. I have to start marking the exam papers. I have applied to use five days of my annual leave this October. It has been approved so I will be in Thailand between October 7 and October 16. I am hoping that I can meet many friends and speak a lot of Turkish. I have been away from speaking Turkish for almost four months, feeling strange a little bit. I eve stopped writing in Turkish. I consider this as a dangerous situation since at the end I am a Turkish-language writer. What I write in English is usually away from aesthetical beauty and artistic perspective.
For this reason, I started another blog which will be only in Turkish. I will start to publish old stories one by one. After that I will start to write in Turkish as well. This actually means that I will d a lot of editing for the first two months because I already have more than fifty short stories written in Turkish. They need to be edited one more time before being published under my name. The address of this new blog is http://aliarican.blogspot.com/ and it has a link on the side bar of this blog.
Other than writing, I have played frisbee last weekend and looking forward to play again very soon. It does not require much technical skills except for running and throwing the disc with a proper angle. It is fun and needs a lot of energy.
I am currently reading Roald Dahl’s collected stories. I have read four stories so far and they all seem nice. His stories so far focus on unhappy marriages and their ironic conclusions. He has a good style and I believe his resolution parts need a little bit more taming. They end with a final cut which sometimes feel me I am in a vacuum. Before I am ready to end the story, the story ends itself.
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