Tweet
TURKISH REPUBLIC OF SHALLOWNESS
Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Aug 17 2013
BELGİN AKALTAN
Oh, how I wished, when I was 15, to be the flag-bearer for Turkey
at an international sports event. Just like other Turkish teenagers
who imagine themselves undertaking this honorable duty: Carrying the
Turkish flag while walking in front of the Turkish team...
Well, not anymore... When I say "not anymore," I mean this honorable
deed has lost its meaning in my eyes and probably in the eyes of many
others. What should otherwise be a glorious moment has fallen victim
to shallowness; just like so many other things in today's Turkey. We
seem to be going through times of massive superficiality.
What actually happened? Olympic medal-winning wrestler Rıza Kayaalp
posted racist tweets during the Gezi Park incidents, insulting
Armenians. The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles
(FILA) suspended him for six months, banning him from competing
in international tournaments. The Turkish federation appealed the
decision. The suspension has been suspended pending the appeal process.
Immediately after posting racist tweets, Kayaalp was picked to bear
the Turkish flag during the opening ceremony of the Mediterranean
Games in Mersin. It was as if he was being rewarded for his racist
outbursts. Turkish sports officials all acted very protectively
toward him.
The government, which is trying so hard to keep politics out of
stadiums just before the football season begins, has, in a sharp
contrast, politicized the sports arena to an irreversible extent. I
think the next athlete to become the flag-bearer of Turkey will not
be able to do it with peace of mind.
What could be the reasons for this scandal? First of all, we have
fallen so behind international standards that the distance between
us and the contemporary world is widening every second. We have
also lost our ability to catch up because we have gone back a couple
of centuries. Instead of adopting the newest and the best, we have
developed an admiration for the past. This makes us unaware of what is
going on in the world, around us. We are very much behind in gender
equality, individual rights, minority rights, freedom of expression;
we have not updated our thoughts on hate speech, discrimination,
all kinds of violence, advanced democracy, women comfortably wearing
shorts... We are obsessed with the female body, how to cover it, how
to oppress it, how to restrict it... Medieval primitive chauvinism
has conquered our administration, academia, media, small towns and
certain neighborhoods of big cities. Those parts of Turkey are not
aware that the year is actually 2013.
The second reason is the effort to raise monotype people. Because
we Turks basically all have military minds, making soldiers out of
every individual is the aim of our entire education system. We want to
create a big, huge country with identical souls. It is as if accepting
everybody is Muslim, everybody is Turkish. And indeed everybody is
Sunni. We have destroyed our minorities. Even in Istanbul, the number
of minorities is decreasing day by day. Instead of communicating to
our people to love and embrace the person who may be different than
us, we have been preached at, or rather told, to hate the different.
We so resemble each other - there is no room left for the "different."
Another factor is our official perception of Armenians. Because of
our own dilemma about the tragic events of 1915, we keep avoiding
confronting our past. We only hear about how the Armenians betrayed
us, how they betrayed the Ottoman Empire, how they tried to stab us
in the back, how they united with the enemy and tried to take our
land, how they attacked Turkish villages and innocent Turkish women
and children. And then tragic events happened. With the implication
that Armenians are all bad people and that they deserved what they got.
So we have developed a natural hatred against Armenians. The word
Armenian is used like an insult by certain segments, sometime by
officials. And this vicious practice is not being prevented or
discouraged. To call someone Armenian or of Armenian origin is used
like a swear word. Instead of fighting back against this dangerous
trend, nobody is doing anything about it. And a young athlete picks
it up and uses it...
Now, in this superficial environment my interpretations appear to
be not-so-deep either. What do you expect? I am also a product of
this land.
To break this superficiality and add some sophistication, here is a
paragraph from Mustafa Akyol's column this week, titled, "Why Muslims
have few Nobel Prizes":
"Today's common Muslim mind, including the intellectual Muslim
mind, is quite insular, and is focused on protecting an "Islamic"
(and quite closed) mental sphere from influences from the outside
world. The result is a defensive culture that refuses to engage with
the ideas of 'the unbelievers,' and therefore only repeats what it has
learned from its own forebears. If we Muslims want more Nobel Prizes -
and all the knowledge, sophistication and success that they imply -
we must begin with challenging this closed-mindedness, and strive to
have more open minds."
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-republic-of-shallowness.aspx?pageID=238&nID=52672&NewsCatID=46 9
Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Aug 17 2013
BELGİN AKALTAN
Oh, how I wished, when I was 15, to be the flag-bearer for Turkey
at an international sports event. Just like other Turkish teenagers
who imagine themselves undertaking this honorable duty: Carrying the
Turkish flag while walking in front of the Turkish team...
Well, not anymore... When I say "not anymore," I mean this honorable
deed has lost its meaning in my eyes and probably in the eyes of many
others. What should otherwise be a glorious moment has fallen victim
to shallowness; just like so many other things in today's Turkey. We
seem to be going through times of massive superficiality.
What actually happened? Olympic medal-winning wrestler Rıza Kayaalp
posted racist tweets during the Gezi Park incidents, insulting
Armenians. The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles
(FILA) suspended him for six months, banning him from competing
in international tournaments. The Turkish federation appealed the
decision. The suspension has been suspended pending the appeal process.
Immediately after posting racist tweets, Kayaalp was picked to bear
the Turkish flag during the opening ceremony of the Mediterranean
Games in Mersin. It was as if he was being rewarded for his racist
outbursts. Turkish sports officials all acted very protectively
toward him.
The government, which is trying so hard to keep politics out of
stadiums just before the football season begins, has, in a sharp
contrast, politicized the sports arena to an irreversible extent. I
think the next athlete to become the flag-bearer of Turkey will not
be able to do it with peace of mind.
What could be the reasons for this scandal? First of all, we have
fallen so behind international standards that the distance between
us and the contemporary world is widening every second. We have
also lost our ability to catch up because we have gone back a couple
of centuries. Instead of adopting the newest and the best, we have
developed an admiration for the past. This makes us unaware of what is
going on in the world, around us. We are very much behind in gender
equality, individual rights, minority rights, freedom of expression;
we have not updated our thoughts on hate speech, discrimination,
all kinds of violence, advanced democracy, women comfortably wearing
shorts... We are obsessed with the female body, how to cover it, how
to oppress it, how to restrict it... Medieval primitive chauvinism
has conquered our administration, academia, media, small towns and
certain neighborhoods of big cities. Those parts of Turkey are not
aware that the year is actually 2013.
The second reason is the effort to raise monotype people. Because
we Turks basically all have military minds, making soldiers out of
every individual is the aim of our entire education system. We want to
create a big, huge country with identical souls. It is as if accepting
everybody is Muslim, everybody is Turkish. And indeed everybody is
Sunni. We have destroyed our minorities. Even in Istanbul, the number
of minorities is decreasing day by day. Instead of communicating to
our people to love and embrace the person who may be different than
us, we have been preached at, or rather told, to hate the different.
We so resemble each other - there is no room left for the "different."
Another factor is our official perception of Armenians. Because of
our own dilemma about the tragic events of 1915, we keep avoiding
confronting our past. We only hear about how the Armenians betrayed
us, how they betrayed the Ottoman Empire, how they tried to stab us
in the back, how they united with the enemy and tried to take our
land, how they attacked Turkish villages and innocent Turkish women
and children. And then tragic events happened. With the implication
that Armenians are all bad people and that they deserved what they got.
So we have developed a natural hatred against Armenians. The word
Armenian is used like an insult by certain segments, sometime by
officials. And this vicious practice is not being prevented or
discouraged. To call someone Armenian or of Armenian origin is used
like a swear word. Instead of fighting back against this dangerous
trend, nobody is doing anything about it. And a young athlete picks
it up and uses it...
Now, in this superficial environment my interpretations appear to
be not-so-deep either. What do you expect? I am also a product of
this land.
To break this superficiality and add some sophistication, here is a
paragraph from Mustafa Akyol's column this week, titled, "Why Muslims
have few Nobel Prizes":
"Today's common Muslim mind, including the intellectual Muslim
mind, is quite insular, and is focused on protecting an "Islamic"
(and quite closed) mental sphere from influences from the outside
world. The result is a defensive culture that refuses to engage with
the ideas of 'the unbelievers,' and therefore only repeats what it has
learned from its own forebears. If we Muslims want more Nobel Prizes -
and all the knowledge, sophistication and success that they imply -
we must begin with challenging this closed-mindedness, and strive to
have more open minds."
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-republic-of-shallowness.aspx?pageID=238&nID=52672&NewsCatID=46 9