Politics n' stuff

Thousands have recently taken to the streets of Istanbul in protest of the imprisonment of journalists - an issue that has only recently berthed actual large-scale protests for greater freedom of the press. Even websites, including youtube and blogspot (which I'm currently using), have been shut down in seemingly arbitrary fashion. So while I wrote a thesis on the AKP's contribution to democratization in Turkey, I'm second-guessing much of the credit I offered them. It seems though that the burgeoning tide of freedom-demanding protests and revolutions sweeping the globe are the trappings of a global movement. This is democracy in action, peeling back a the hypocritical rhetoric that kept despots and authoritarian leadership the recipients of Western aid and support. It's a beautiful movement, and the answer to millions of people's prayers. Turkey has moved in a positive direction for the most part, but I feel as though its wavering on a precipice. Strongly-worded calls for freedom and liberty ring hollow against the backdrop of a regime that consistently defies it's purported values. The AKP, now, seems to have no entity able to hold them accountable. Where are the opposition parties in all of this? I would check the newspapers, but it's not reported.

I feel like somewhat of a revolutionary, then, delicately alluding to pressing issues facing Turkish society. The "word association" game did just that, because while I asked them to share adjectives describing America, I also asked them to describe Turkey from what they believed to be an American's perspective. Words like "genocide" and "Kurds" and "restrictions on the press" emerged, and I was relieved in a way. Nationalism supplants history with "preferred history" and veils reality in distorted, unfair ways. Narratives are strung together based on wishes and desires of what ought to be and not what was, easing any sense of dissonance or uneasiness associated with dark chapters of history. It's of course the same in the United States. How often do school children confront accounts of genocide against the Native Americans? How is it that we still celebrate Columbus Day? Perhaps it's that my perspective as an outsider that illuminates the lies and myths of Turkish history in a more glaring light. 1.5 million Armenians were killed between 1915 and 1917. They were dispelled as part of the establishment of a new country, and to this day, I've heard them referred to as "liars" - as criminals and punishers and savages and oppressors. It stings but I feel that, in time, Turkey will come to grips with the bad as well as the good, not as a means by which to somehow take back what's been done, but to acknowledge the crime for what it was and move forward from there.

Every week I've been tying in ways to draw similarities between US and Turkish culture and society. I do this sometimes through humor, and always through PowerPoint. Time to march back to my flat, crank the heat, and watch a episode of MadMen. Let the good times roll.