This evening with my family has been the first time I've actually sat down and watched an hour of the news in Turkish. I had no idea what I was missing out on.
Hilarious headlines/topics include:
There has recently been an outbreak of some disease carried by ticks that has killed a few people. Many Turks in rural areas, including our own in Eşenler, are very worried. While I couldn't understand the meat of the story, the title was pretty clear: Pasted over a picture of a huge tick rampaging through an innocent piece of foliage, the words BYÖ-TERÖR? Um... no. No it's not.
A brief report from the Eastern Front was summed up with a pair of brief headlines: 1 soldier martyred, 2 PKK dead.
While Fatih Terim may be the leader of the Turkish soccer team, the leader of Fatih Terim is Ataturk.
I don't have a one-liner for the last item, but man, it was great. While I couldn't follow all the Turkish being spoken, I would assume that the commentary began as something along the lines of "Islamist radicals have always recruited from innocent - the unemployed, the uneducated, the insufficiently Kemalist. But now, the Islamists are targeting someone new: your children. (DUH DUH DUUUUUUM)" A new wave of religious kids' games are being marketed, such as a version of Monopoly that features the Kaaba and the Dome of the Rock as properties to acquire. The segment ended with a clip of a young girl playing this and saying to herself "bismi lah rrahmanirrahim bir ve uç" or "in the name of Allah the merciful and compassionate [I rolled a] 1 and a 3." While I don't know that the phrase "Do not pass go, do not collect 72 virgins." appears somewhere in the game, I can certainly pray that it does.
I guess I don't really have a coherent point about all of this, and maybe it's not much more terrifying than the evening news in the U.S., but still. I felt pretty alarmed about the state of Turkey after reading the headlines. We've heard that the military is convinced that Turkey is constantly surrounded by existential threats. I wonder what gave them that idea? Or, more likely, I wonder what they're using to transmit that idea to the general public?
Hilarious headlines/topics include:
There has recently been an outbreak of some disease carried by ticks that has killed a few people. Many Turks in rural areas, including our own in Eşenler, are very worried. While I couldn't understand the meat of the story, the title was pretty clear: Pasted over a picture of a huge tick rampaging through an innocent piece of foliage, the words BYÖ-TERÖR? Um... no. No it's not.
A brief report from the Eastern Front was summed up with a pair of brief headlines: 1 soldier martyred, 2 PKK dead.
While Fatih Terim may be the leader of the Turkish soccer team, the leader of Fatih Terim is Ataturk.
I don't have a one-liner for the last item, but man, it was great. While I couldn't follow all the Turkish being spoken, I would assume that the commentary began as something along the lines of "Islamist radicals have always recruited from innocent - the unemployed, the uneducated, the insufficiently Kemalist. But now, the Islamists are targeting someone new: your children. (DUH DUH DUUUUUUM)" A new wave of religious kids' games are being marketed, such as a version of Monopoly that features the Kaaba and the Dome of the Rock as properties to acquire. The segment ended with a clip of a young girl playing this and saying to herself "bismi lah rrahmanirrahim bir ve uç" or "in the name of Allah the merciful and compassionate [I rolled a] 1 and a 3." While I don't know that the phrase "Do not pass go, do not collect 72 virgins." appears somewhere in the game, I can certainly pray that it does.
I guess I don't really have a coherent point about all of this, and maybe it's not much more terrifying than the evening news in the U.S., but still. I felt pretty alarmed about the state of Turkey after reading the headlines. We've heard that the military is convinced that Turkey is constantly surrounded by existential threats. I wonder what gave them that idea? Or, more likely, I wonder what they're using to transmit that idea to the general public?
1 comment:
Glad that you had some quality TV/conversational time with the family as well as got caught up on what is happening around the world. (Speaking from personal experience, I hope that everyone stayed awake past the news.) Do they actually watch the 6:30 evening news every night? Do they have CNN International or any English news? It seemed from your earlier blog that they were sort of uninterested in world events - especially if they are not watching the world cherry futures on Wall Street - but I may have read your comments incorrectly... How do they practice their English if there are no English-speaking (note the correct use of the hyphen) channels?
I guess a gigantic bio tick would be significant news - especially if I had a personal viewing. And the Islamic terrorist Monopoly game sounds like a new idea from a Turkish entrepreneur or the plot for a new horror movie. Or both as most board games are a horror for me. You will of course remember my skill with Dutch Blitz.
I believe that Turkey is in fact surrounded by significant threats - the least of which is their delayed entry into the EU. But on the otherhand, if they were in the EU, they would have to use the Euro currency which would prevent or at a minimum reduce their US university study abroad traffic and hurt the economy. So maybe their delayed entry is not a delaying tactic from the other members of EU, but a deliberate strategy of the Turks. Smart.
What is happening on the eastern front? Don't hear much in the US press about the PKK, Kurds, etc.
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