Category: Culture/Art

Turkish Lessons gaining popularity in Sidon

Turkish language courses gaining popularity in Sidon

By Mohammed Zaatari

SIDON: More than 100 students in the southern coastal city of Sidon have registered for Turkish language classes aimed at fostering economic and social relations between the two countries.

“It is useful to learn Turkish, and its importance has grown since the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla, carrying aid, was targeted by an Israeli raid in May of last year,” said Allaa al-Saleh, a television anchor who recently enrolled in the course.

“Many Turks have been learning Arabic for Palestine, and for their love to our country; we will learn Turkish,” said Saleh.

Words like “Tashakkurat” (much thanks), are being exchanged between Turkish instructors and their Lebanese and Palestinians students, who conjugate verbs in one of the halls of the House for Orphans Care in Sidon, where lessons take place.

Saleh registered for this year’s session after hearing about the language course through an online advertisement. He claims his interest in the language comes from the many cultural and religious factors that bring the Turks and Arabs together.

“History, culture, religion and the recent Turkish stances toward Palestine, amid the negligence of Arab countries [have spurred me to take lessons],” Saleh added.

Lebanon and Turkey have a long history of enmity, sowed during the Ottoman era, which saw Lebanon dominated by the Turks for centuries. The semiautonomous Mount Lebanon was treated harshly at the height of World War I, when the Lebanese struggle for liberation was crushed after Jamal Pasha was appointed the sole Turkish commander-in-chief in the region.

Despite the oppression and famine caused by Ottoman policies (sic.) in Lebanon, common legal, economic and cultural connections have remained long after the Ottomans withdrew following the end of World War I.

Both the Turkish efforts to send ship aid to the Gaza strip and the firm anti-Israeli stance of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2009, have yielded widespread Arab and Lebanese praise for the Turkish leadership.

Another student Randa Dahsha related her interest in the language classes to her husband’s job which allows the pair to occasionally travel to Turkey. “My husband is a businessman; we go to Turkey several times a year and I always fit in with the people there,” said Dahsha.

According to Dahsha the Turkish language, although harsher in tone, has many similarities with Arabic.

“There is common vocabulary with the Arabic language, so why not learn it,” she added.

Dahsha was lucky and registered in time for the course, but many other interested students were denied a place this term because of high demand, course operators said.

Administrator accepted only 100 students for this session. “We have already started to register students for the second session which would start in June,” said the president of House for Orphans Care, Saeed Makkawi.

All walks of life including engineers, teachers and businessmen are among the students, who attend two three-hour classes a week

“For many people in Lebanon and especially in Sidon, Turkey has become a trade and tourism hub,” said Dahsha.

www.dailystar.com.lb, February 14, 2011

February 14, 2011
Turkey and Armenia: Two vast and ugly blocks of stone

The prime minister looks on a city’s works, and despairs

Turkey and Armenia

Jan 13th 2011 | ANKARA | from PRINT EDITION

STATUES in Kars are not safe when Recep Tayyip Erdogan is around. When Turkey’s prime minister visited the city last year, the local mayor, who belongs to Mr Erdogan’s mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party, sought to avoid his ire by ordering the removal of a public fountain featuring bare-breasted nymphs. Last week, during another trip to Kars, which lies about 45km west of the border with Armenia, Mr Erdogan called for the demolition of a local monument designed to promote reconciliation between Turks and Armenians. The statue, of two 30-metre-tall concrete figures reaching out to each other, was, he said, a “freak”.

Mr Erdogan insisted that his distaste was purely aesthetic. Yet some suspect him of pandering to nationalist sentiment in the run-up to elections in June. Many Turks see the statue as an admission of Armenia’s charge that the slaughter of up to 1.5m Armenians by Ottoman forces in 1915 amounted to genocide. In 2009 the then mayor of Kars, Naif Alibeyoglu, who had commissioned the statue, was forced out under pressure from Mr Erdogan and the city’s 20% ethnic Azeri population (egged on by Azerbaijan, which disliked Turkey’s efforts to make peace with Armenia).

Mr Erdogan has backed away from a set of protocols signed with Armenia in 2009 that foresaw the establishment of diplomatic relations and the reopening of borders. These were sealed in 1993 after Armenia’s short war with Azerbaijan over the mainly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr Erdogan insists that the protocols can only be ratified if Armenia withdraws from seven regions it occupies around the enclave. Armenia is threatening to scrap the deal altogether.

But there is also a whiff of Islamic orthodoxy in the air. Mr Erdogan’s tirade against the Kars statue included references to Hasan Harakani, an ancient Muslim scholar buried nearby. “They erected a strange thing next to his mausoleum… it is unthinkable,” he complained. Many Muslim scholars consider statues to be idolatrous, and other AK officials have not disguised their aversion to them. Ankara’s mayor, Melih Gokcek, has systematically dismantled statues erected by his pro-secular predecessors. “I spit on this kind of art,” he once said.

Mehmet Aksoy, the designer of the Kars monument, says that the government risks being seen as “the Taliban” if it presses its demands. But Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has backed his boss, arguing that Mr Aksoy’s work fails to blend into the Seljuk, Ottoman and Russian character of the city. He might have included Kars’ Armenian legacy, but that is being erased. A long-abandoned tenth-century Armenian church recently reopened—as a mosque.

from PRINT EDITION | Europe

via Turkey and Armenia: Two vast and ugly blocks of stone | The Economist.

January 14, 2011
Turkey to Tear Down Friendship Monument

By MARC CHAMPION

ISTANBUL—Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the weekend ordered a monument to friendship between Turkey and Armenia torn down, signaling the depth of a freeze in efforts to reopen the border and improve relations between the two neighbors.

Mr. Erdogan described the monument as “a freak,” speaking Saturday in the city of Kars in Eastern Turkey. He called on the local mayor, who is from Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, to pull it down by the time of his next visit and build a park instead, according to Anadolu Ajansi, Turkey’s state-owned news agency.

The prime minister based his objections on artistic grounds. “They put a freak there…it is impossible to think that such a thing should exist next to fundamental works of art,” he said, according to AA.

Mr. Erdogan’s decision is likely to prove good domestic politics ahead of elections in June. It brought a quick response from the main opposition Republican Peoples Party, or CHP.

“The sculpture…is neither strange nor ugly,” AA quoted former culture minister and CHP legislator Ercan Karakas as saying. He described the monument as high art and an antidote to genocide monuments and called on Mr. Erdogan to reverse his decision. There are monuments to claims of genocide by Turks on Armenians in Armenia, and by Armenians on Turks in Turkey.

The statue of two 100 foot-tall (30-meter tall) concrete figures reaching out to each other was built on a rise above Kars, just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Armenian border, in 2008. It was commissioned by the former mayor of Kars, who made extensive efforts to build relations with Armenia, believing that reopening the border for trade could only benefit the remote town.

At the time, Turkey and Armenia were in talks aimed at overcoming decades of mistrust fired by the former Ottoman empire’s slaughter of up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians during World War I, and by Armenia’s occupation since the 1990s of a swathe or territory in Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan. The effort reached a high point in October 2009, when the two governments signed protocols to reopen the border and set up a joint historical commission, among other measures. The protocols were never ratified, however, and the process is moribund.

The statues were controversial from the start. Nationalists and representatives from the city’s 20% ethnic Azeri population objected to the Ministry of Culture, on grounds that no permission had been obtained. The final hand on one statue was never installed, and was abandoned instead on the gravel below.

A stalemate followed as the local administration awaited instructions from Ankara, which saw little benefit in taking steps during efforts at rapprochement with Armenia. This weekend, the stalemate appeared to be broken.

—Erkan Öz

contributed to this article.

via Turkey to Tear Down Friendship Monument – WSJ.com.

January 10, 2011
Turkish academics sacked over porn dissertation project

Three academics at one of Turkey’s top universities have been sacked after a student made a pornographic film for his dissertation project.

Bilgi University in Istanbul has shut its film department, and police are looking into possible criminal charges.

A number of other academics have protested against the response.

The incident has drawn attention to the clash between traditional values and the sometimes experimental arts and lifestyles practised in Istanbul.

Fail

When film student Deniz Ozgun first broached his idea for a dissertation project with his professors, they were hesitant.

He wanted to make a pornographic film, he said, but also to reveal how synthetic the sexual scenes in it were.

They told him the project needed to make a stronger intellectual point. Evidently he did not succeed – his film was marked a fail.

None of this caused a stir. But after Mr Ozgun gave an interview to a news magazine, describing how he made the film on campus, his project caused an uproar.

Parents wanted to know what kinds of things went on at Bilgi, one of Turkey’s most prestigious private universities.

And, say some academics there, the Board of Education put pressure on the university to act.

As well as the firing of the three academics – who are now being investigated by the police – the entire Communications Faculty has been shut down.

Mr Ozgun, and the former student who starred in his film, have gone into hiding.

A number of academics have protested against this draconian response.

Neither the university nor the government is making any comment.

Bilgi has a reputation as one of the most liberal universities in Turkey – it was among the first to ignore the ban on Muslim women wearing headscarves on campus. But this issue has clearly touched a nerve.

Boundaries tested

People from different walks of life in Turkey now hold strikingly divergent values.

In much of the country they still adhere to strict moral codes, in which alcohol is banned, clothing is conservative and sex never discussed openly.

Politicians in the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) largely subscribe to this view.

But in Istanbul many people have very liberal attitudes to sex, alcohol and the arts. Indeed you can find films, plays and art exhibitions every bit as provocative and experimental as in any other European city.

Last September, guests attending new exhibitions at three art galleries in central Istanbul were attacked by local residents enraged by the sight of them drinking alcohol on the street outside.

They might have been even more enraged had they seen the content of the exhibitions, which challenged a number of taboo topics.

A publisher who translated erotic European literature was also put on trial last year, but eventually acquitted.

Turkey is now the world’s fifteenth biggest economy; its people are more prosperous and more exposed to outside influences than ever before.

Boundaries are constantly being tested. But when they are, sometimes there is a powerful reaction.

via BBC News – Turkish academics sacked over porn dissertation project.

January 9, 2011
Urartian king’s burial chamber opened for first time in E Turkey

The burial chambers of an Urartian king and his family have been opened for the first time for Anatolia news agency. The graves in the ancient Van castle, an important work of architecture from the Urartian Empire that ruled eastern Anatolia between the ninth and sixth centuries B.C. are normally off limits to visitors, but were revealed to the agency

The burial chambers of Urartian King Argishti I and his family in the western wing of an ancient castle in the eastern Turkish province of Van have been opened for the first time.

“The burial chamber is in the western part of Van castle and bears workmanship of the highest quality. It is reached through a 24-step staircase,” said Rafet Çavuşoğlu, a professor at Van Yüzüncü Yıl University’s Archaeology Department.

King Argishti I was buried in a rock burial chamber called “Horhor Cave,” said the professor, who specially opened the doors to the graves to Anatolia news agency.

Van castle, which is 120 meters by 80 meters and was built on a rocky peak along Lake Van, has been the site of recent excavations headed by lecturer Altan Çilingiroğlu of Ege University.

Çavuşoğlu said Urartian writing on the wall of the burial chamber was very interesting.

“There are nail holes in spaces between doors opening to the chambers inside. These holes were used to hang torches and gifts,” said the Yüzüncü Yıl professor. “There are four inner chambers and each chamber has four alcoves on the walls. The location of the alcoves and doors and the dimension of the chambers are similar to each other.”

He said religious ceremonies were held in the hall in burial chambers and valuable objects were buried in the adjacent chambers.

“The burial chambers are described as caves in the 17th-century Ottoman plan and Evliya Çelebi’s travel book. They served as an armory, a food depot and a workshop in the time of the Ottomans,” he said.

Before kingdom in ancient times

Centered in eastern Anatolia, the Kingdom of Urartu ruled between the ninth and sixth centuries B.C. until its defeat by Media in the early 6th century B.C. The best monuments of Urartu exist in Van as the city was the capital of the kingdom with the name Tushpa.

The ancient castle, which has traces of a 3,000-year-old civilization and is composed of five separate sections, draws hundreds of visitors from Turkey and overseas every year. However, because the burial chambers of Urartian King Argishti I and his family are kept closed to visitors, only Anatolia was allowed in to take photographs of the graves’ interior.

Argishti I was the sixth known king of the ancient kingdom, reigning from 786 B.C. to 764 B.C. As the son and the successor of Menua, he continued a series of conquests initiated by his predecessors. Victorious against the Assyrians, he conquered the northern part of Syria and made Urartu the most powerful state in the post-Hittite Near East.

Hürriyet

January 4, 2011
Listening to Istanbul premier of Fazıl Say and BIPO

STARTING POINT: Listening to Istanbul premier of Fazıl Say and BIPO

Listening to Turkish pianist Fazıl Say has always aroused excitement, and at a recent three-day festival Say played new compositions with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, or BIPO.

Say performed the songs “Nirvana Burning,” “Istanbul Symphony” and “Nasreddin Hoca” while other compositions were performed at the festival by the Borusan Quartet and other talented musicians.

Even though the compositions did not feature lyrics the notes briefly spoke to the audience, with Say weaving a story into the notes of his music.

The music first told the story of heaven and hell in “Nirvana Burning,” which he performed on Dec. 23 at the Lütfi Kırdar Convention and Exhibition Center. Nirvana, according to the composer, is the heaven we all have inside us, however as time passes we turn it into a hell with our fears and envies. His piano composition started with soft and easy tones, depicting the voices of beautiful birds in heaven. Then the notes give way to the hard and violent tones of piano, depicting human fears.

It is really worth watching Say while he performs, as he visibly encounters the violence and beauty as he plays.

Say loves composing in Turkish musical traditions. In his “Nasreddin Hoca,” it is possible to hear old-style Turkish music in the contemporary refrains. However nothing seems more real than Say’s “Istanbul Symphony,” as the pianist portrays the various areas of the city thematically.

Hearing Fazıl Say perform has never been more fun. The tunes, the themes, instruments – every aspect of the festival was special, with the encore performed at the Borusan Music House on Dec. 24 a particular treat, with Say and the Borusan Quartet playing a humorous interpretation of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” making the audience laugh.

January 2, 2011