I condemn all sorts of terror, oppression, brutality and murders.

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

Tamirci Çýraðý (Cem Karaca)

gönlüme bir ateþ düþtü yanar ha yanar yanar
ümit gönlümün ekmeði umar ha umar umar

elleri ak yumuk yumuk , ojeli týrnaklarý
nerelere gizlesin þu avucum nasýrlarý

otomobili tamire geldi dün bizim tamirhaneye
görür görmez vurularak baþladým ben sevmeye

ayaðýnda uzun etek dalga dalga saçlarý
ustam seslendi uzaktan oðlum al takýmlarý

bi romanda okumuþtum buna benzer bir þeyi
cildi parlak kaðýt kaplý, pahalý bir kitaptý

ne olmuþ nasýl olmuþsa aþýk olmuþtu genç kýz
yine böyle bir durumda tamirci çýrapýna

ustama dedim ki bugün giymeyim tulumlarý
arkasý kuþlu aynamda taradým saçlarýmý

gelecekti bugün geri arabayý almaya
o romandaki hayali belki gerçek yapmaya

durdu zaman durdu dünya girdi içeri kapýdan
öylece bakakaldým gözümü ayýrmadan

arabanýn kapýsýný açtým , açtým girsin içeri
kalktý hilal kaþlarý sordu kim bu serseri

çekti gitti arabayla egzozuna boðuldum
gözümde tomurcuk yaþlar aðýr aðýr doðruldum

ustam geldi sýrtýma vurdu unut dedi romanlarý
iþçisin sen iþçi kal giy dedi tulumlarý

A CAR MECHANIC´S APPRENTICE

My heart caught fire it burns oh burns
hope is its only solace, it keeps hoping oh hoping

her baby hands were so white and and the nails polished
where would I hide the calluses in my palms

yesterday her car came to our garage for repairs
I fell for her immediately at first sight

she wore a long skirt and her hair was curly
my master yelled for me from afar:  sonnie get your stuff, will you!

I had read something like this in a novel
it was a pricey book and had  a glossy sleeve

this way or another, the young girl had fallen for the apprentice
in a setting almost exactly like this

I begged my master to let me lose the overalls just for today
I tidied up my hair in my cheap pocket mirror

She would come back today to reclaim the car
Maybe she would make the dream in that story come true

Time froze and the world stood still as she entered
I just kept staring at her not being able to look elsewhere

then I opened the door of the car to let her in
her crescent shaped eye-brows raised in anger and asked who´d this jerk be

she went away in that car leaving me in fumes
tear drops were forming in my eyes as I slowly raised

my master came by me saying forget about those novels
you are a worker, put on the overalls and continue to be one

That´s the way it was reported in the newspaper.

Since rain water is almost pure a kg of it will have a volume of one cubic decimeter hence one liter.

Today there was a striking piece of news in a Turkish newspaper, the amount of precipitation accumulated after the 30 minute heavy rain fall of yesterday (90kgs)  was higher than the amount of average total precipitation of the entire year (80kgs).

Every year torrential floods happen in this country. They are a very serious problem especially for the Black Sea region where precipitation amounts are particularly high and where most towns are located at the mouths of natural gullies on a mountainous terrain with sharp slopes.

Melek, we are talking about the general aspects of society. There is no society on Earth where problems about choice have been completely solved. There is a certain interaction between coercion and people. Demands evolve within society and they are answered by way of laws, regulations and a new order is established by  the gradual  change of  mentality. If one individual is not aware of or does not have a need for a certain freedom which is considered necessary elsewhere, this would not be the problem of the system or the regime.

Just look at the world outside by remembering the conditions majority of people are in. If you want a feminist movement in Saudi Arabia which even in my book is nowhere near a true democracy, you should be able to create demand for sexual equality among Saudi women majority of whom essentially believe in the necessity of a male run society.  In Iran and Afghanistan too, women are oppressed by militia. Nevertheless, these are not democracies. Turkey is a democracy. There are laws like the Civil Code which was modeled around the Swiss Civil Code and the Penal Code that follows the outlines of the French one. Though not comperable to aforementioned countries, no gender discrimination is allowed in this country. A sizeable portion of society however are subjected to rules other than those decided by the Parliament. My Kurdish friends tell me, their family council would gather and decide on a honor killing should even a wire of his sister´s or mother´s hair is seen  by a stranger or should there be a rumour about her whether true or not. There are also feuds continuing for years. There is no way that such primitive traditions can be tolerated. I have written about those earlier. Nonetheless, it is not possible to correct them overnight by passing a certain law or by enforcing it. You need to play with the internal dynamics of that community and gain their consent. Since consent is always the keyword in all these matters.

I would like you to focus on the word "consent" and also the way society is described as common work of people. This is the basis of all modern-day nations. Laws are made around the principle of people´s consent to coercion by government for the benefit and welfare of society.  There are also regimes not fitting into this definition e.g. dictatorships, olligarchies and other oppressive regimes where people´s choices are ignored. In other words, we must respect the freedom of choice.

Hitler considered his race superior to others. He scorned the Jews and wanted to eradicate them from Europe. He considered them as subhuman creatures contaminating the noble German race and sucking their blood through their collective organizations. His view represents the epitome of the xenophobic European conservatism which is itself based on the Greek notion that viewed other races as barbarians. In between there were episodes of slavery, colonism, cultural imperialism, sectarian wars, crusades, religious bigotry and the cold war era. If you draw a line through them, you will find those were the products of the same standpoint: us and them.

On the Eastern front too, there are nationalist movements, their leaders, grey wolves, pan-Turanists and jihad fighters to name just a few.

The driving force behind them are the stereotypes I mentioned.

There is nothing to defend in Tami´s attitude about these matters and you may be right about his being a young angry man with an unsatiable hatred for the West. Nevertheless, you take him way more seriously than you think. Your answer proves that. You should remember that when you communicate ideas of the sort advocated by the likes of Tami you are indeed contradicting with the way you are positioning yourself. You are bashing Tami for the stereotypes in his mind and respond to him by opening up the doors of your own gallery of stereotypes.

In the below paragraph, you intended to depreciate Arabic countries. It would be a hype to claim otherwise. The following sentences do not only describe Tami but also you in this context. 

We should start by accepting the presence of cultures, religions, thoughts and a huge array of human values other than our own. 

Even if you could climb Mt Everest, you could see just a portion of the world that we are living in. There are worlds within worlds of Sherpas, Indians, Tamils, the Chinese and a myriad of lives full of different sets of realities within them. Anyone living in this world must respect the cultures formed with the consent of the people who made them. This is the essence of peace and understanding. No one has a right to scorn any nation, any race and/or ethnicity. We are all humans, it is just that some of us are more fortunate than the others at this stage in human history.

Anatolia is also known as the cradle of civilizations.  Where are all those people? They are us. We are the heirs of all the civilizations that lived in Anatolia. That´s why they call Anatolia a mozaic. Turk is not the name of a race, it is the name of the people of anatolia. Femmefatal said something about this matter that made sense.

I stayed in Diyarbakir for three months  in the early 80´s, as a guest of my uncle who had been  working in the City as a doctor  (doctors are required to serve in the East for a certain period of time before they can work elsewhere). My impression of Diyarbakir was a bit mixed. There used to be dwellings on one side of the town that resembled medieval towns where people led traditional lives in complete misery.  There were also nicer streets (one of them being Ofis) where civil servants and wealthier people lived. Since there was not much of economic activity other than craftsmanship and petty trade, civil servants were considered rich.

In the streets of Diyarbakir, there was a feeling of tension, a keen awareness of anything non-Kurdish. When you entered a shop where a few people had been talking to one another in their local Kurdish dialect, the conversation would immediately stop and people would turn all their attention to you. If you have a lighter complexion which is a tell-tale sign of your not belonging there, you would notice this more often.