Senior Graduation

So, I got invited to a senior graduation party, and decided I should probably get dressed up a bit. I hoped I wasn't overdressed in my black dress, black flats, and white scarf, but when two of my male students picked me up in suits, I realized I hadn't dressed up enough. I'd forgotten to wear nylons, and I could have worn heels. Sigh.

My students showed up dressed to the nines (as is common in Turkey for special events), their hair coiffured in gravity-defying styles and their 80's prom dresses all outfits they had likely bought for a wedding. I was a bit embarrassed.

Anyway, my students and I had a great time. I stayed after my colleagues left and danced with my students till 10:30. It was great. Here are some fun videos of Turkish dancing below.







Enjoy!

Flowers!

In honor of spring, here are some pictures of the flowers that have inspired me since I arrived in September 2009.

When diplomats become bullies

The head of my department, we'll call him O, loves to disseminate the daily BBC news to me, complete with numerous gesticulations and strongly-accented commentary.

The other day, he started yelling something (he speaks in yell) about how Israel had bullied Turkey. At first, the way he presented it was so convoluted that I had no idea what he was talking about, or when it had happened. But then I eventually realized he was talking about a very recent event, and I actually found it quite disturbing.

To make a long story short, Israel had been offended when a popular Turkish t.v. show Valley of the Wolves (also made into a film) depicted Israeli soldiers kidnapping Turkish babies. In another Turkish t.v. show last October, Israelis were shown killing Palestinians. In one particularly offensive scene, an Israeli soldier kills a young, smiling Palestinian girl at close range.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Ambassador Oguz Celikkol to a discusion, hoping that the Turkish ambassador would apologize over the series. The big hullaballoo that ensued resulted from the Ayalon's decision about how to treat the ambassador when he arrived.

Imagine this--it's a "diplomatic" meeting, and the table only had the Israeli flag...and the ambassador had to sit in a chair far below the Deputy Foreign Minister. You can see the picture above, the writing titles the picture as "The height of humiliation". Footage of the Israeli officials sitting high above the ambassador circulated around Israel, as well as Ayalon stating in Hebrew "there is only one flag" and "we are not smiling".


To really understand why this is a big deal, you have to know a bit more about Turkish-Israeli relations. Turkey has had an increasingly complex relationship with Isreal, as Turkey has begun to lean more heavily towards its Islamic roots and away from the west. Israel has become increasingy alarmed by Turkey's strengthening ties with Russia, Iran, and other Islamic countries, as has the U.S.

At the same time, Turkey's current Prime Minister, Recip Erdoğan, has raised an increasingly loud protesting voice against Israel's actions in the Gaza region, condemning the violence and "gangster" type policies Israel has been using to promote its agenda. While many praise Erdoğan for his protests, others claim that he doesn't have much room to condemn, given the oft-condemned violence against minority groups in Turkey.

I understand both points of view. On the one hand, it's hard to stomach Erdoğan's critique of Israel's "gangster" policies, while he is strengthening ties with Israel and Russia, two countries notorious for their less than inspiring diplomacy and democratic policies within their own nations. And at the same time, Israel's choice to belittle Turkey in such a way does nothing to strengthen the weakening ties they worry about, and only serves to further polarize the two regions. Turks already have views on Israelis and Jews that are very generalized, prejudiced, and dangerous. And it's ironic that they will bash Israelis for being nationalistic and prideful, when Turks and even Turkish immigrants constantly praise Turkey as the most glorious nation in the world with the best food, the best people, the richest history, etc.

At the same time, I worry about how the West approaches Turkey. Israel did apologize later, and then expressed its concern over Turkey's current political priorities. But the West has a delicate tight-rope to walk when it comes to Turkey, and when it comes to incorporating Islamic nations in general. On the one hand, we have to maintain our integrity about what we will and will not tolerate in human rights and foreign policiy, but at the same time, we have to realize that the more we push away, humiliate, and exlude Turkey, the more we polarize the nation and risk Turkey as an ally.

Obama was wise to come to Turkey first after he was elected president, and I'm curious to see what his continued policies will be. We should not underestimate how valuable it is to have Turkey strongly on our side. I am really beginning to understand how this Islamic nation with one foot in the West and one foot in the East truly might truly be the fulcrum that our Islamic diplomacy balances on.

The Number One Thing that DID NOT Originate from Turkey?

Turkeys. Yeah, I got a chuckle out of the irony there.

So, wanna know why we call them turkeys? Here ya go.

Apparently when Europeans were first trampling through North America, they incorrectly identified the wild native birds as Asian guinea fowl, or what was known then as a Turkey hen and Turkey cock (hey...that's what it says, don't look at me like that), because it was imported to Central Europe through Turkey (of course, it wasn't Turkey then, it was the Ottoman Empire, so now I'm super confused). Eventually, those crazy Europeans just shortened the bird's name to turkey, and that stuck as the name of the bird.

(And did you know that a group of turkeys is called a rafter? Seriously!)

My Turkish students are not super crazy about sharing a name with our fabulous bird. They keep asking me: Why don't you call us by our real name: Türkiye? I tell them there are two reasons: A. No one in the U.S. knows how to pronounce the umlaud (ü). And B.) What do they call us? A.B.D., which translates to: Amerika Birlesik Devletleri (United States of America). Every country calls other countries by their own special names.

Finally, Turkey as we now know it became a nation in 1923. Turkish students, I ask you this: You knew we were calling the birds turkeys then, but you chose to name your country Turkey anyway. So really, where does the blame lie?

Crazy Things That Apparently Originated in Turkey: Number Four!

Yes, Turkey is famous for things like baklava, yogurt, and Turkish kebab. But let's delve a little deeper, shall we? Here are my top four Turkic items, in order, Letterman style.

NUMBER FOUR: Blue eyes. This one might actually be true. See my blog on blue eyes below. (Just look for the big blue eye.)

Crazy Things That Apparently Originated in Turkey: Number Three!

NUMBER THREE: Santa Clause. Oh yeah, did I mention that Santa's Turkish? Well, actually, he was Byzantine. But if someone ever lived in Turkey or moved to Turkey, or really liked Turkey (slight exaggeration), they're basically Turkish. This one is actually true as well, though I'll admit that Santa Clause has some crazy complicated roots. But let's stick with the Christian ones. Saint Nicholas of Myra is considered the primary inspiration for the modern-day St. Nick. He was a 4th Century Greek Christian Bishop in Lycia (pron: Lyshia), a province of Byzantine Anatolia...and now known as Turkey. St. Nick was famous for his generosity and giving gifts to the poor--legend says he even gave three poor girls a dowry so they could get married and not have to go into prostitution. Now that's my kind of saint.

Anyway, of course there are pagan roots to Santa Clause as well, like his connection to the god Odin, but that's another topic. (But I have to ask, who do you think he looks more like, St. Nick in the fresco, or Gandalf, ahem...I mean Odin, to the right?)

The most important thing is that St. Nick's tomb is still in Turkey in Demre (Ancient Myra). Unfortunately, in 1084 a bunch of pesky Italian merchants who were keen on St. Nick pushed past the monks living at the monastery there and raided the sarcophagus. They stole the remains and whisked them off to Italy, where they now remained sealed in a cathedral in Bari,  because for some reason Italy has to have everyone's friggin' remains in their cathedrals. Pesky Italians! Must everything in Turkey relocate to Italy? Is someone still grumpy about losing Constantinople? 

To check out the church and more about the story, click here.

Crazy Things That Apparently Originated in Turkey: Number Two!

NUMBER TWO: The Christmas tree decoration ritual. Oh yeah, it's from Turkey. Apparently, even though almost everyone agrees that the christmas tree decoration originated in pre-Christian England or the Germanic peoples, archeologist Muazzez Ilmiye Çığ(nope--I can't pronounce it either) has a new opinion to share: Turks invented the Christmas tree.

Çığ argues that the ritual stems from the Turkish tradition of the wish-making tree. Apparently people put special things for God under a white pine around the time of the winter solstice (Dec. 22nd), in hopes of getting blessed by God the following year. They also tied special cloths on the tree's boughs, much like putting on ornaments. All of this was part of small festivities to celebrate the sun (like oh so many other pagan traditions), and people would "clean homes, sing folk songs, eat special foods and put on festive clothing."

But here's where he gets really convincing. Apparently this was a ritual originally practiced in Turkic Central Asia, then migrated to the Anatolian region (what is now Turkey). The birth of Jesus never used to be celebrated with a Christmas tree, but when the Council of Nicaea met in 325 A.D. (yes, in Turkey), it's possible that these traditions began to sneak their way through Europe. (Okay, it didn't quite sneak; Çığ says that it was Hunnish warriors that introduced it to Europe, so I’m guessing some murderous pillaging came along with it: Bow before my Christmas tree or I’ll chop off your head!).

Not everyone is down with this theory--in fact even some Turkish historians consider it wishful thinking. While there’s certainly some serious fact checking to do...it's definitely interesting! Still not a believer? For more on the topic, click here.

Crazy Things That Apparently Originated in Turkey: Number One!

And the NUMBER ONE most astonishing thing that came from Turkey is...(drum roll please...)

Native Americans are Turkish. Yup. You can even see pictures of Native Americans hanging on some walls around Turkey. I kid you not. Here’s the deal. A university in Istanbul recently (2008) held a symposium in the U.S. that explored the genealogical connections between Turks and Native Americans. All kinds of well-respected Turks from American and Istanbul universities presented their case on this topic.

Basically, they posited that Turks from Central Asia migrated over the Bering Strait thousands of years ago and settled in the Americas. They go on to say that some of the Native Americans of today descend from this group of people of Turkish origin. One way you can tell—they say—is by looking at commonalities in the language. For example in Eskimo, the word kayak means boat, while in Turkish, kayak means skiing, but kayık means boat. (Bore yourself to death on this topic here.) They’ve also looked at DNA and Y-Chromosomes…etc. Anyway, it’s actually pretty darn convincing as well. You can a five-minute presentation on this topic in the You Tube below.

But let's just pause for one moment, people. Native Americans. Are. Turks.

Really?



I have to say though, that the head Native American who attended the symposium soundly rejected these theories, stating that the language commonalities (over 300 Turkish words had cousins in Native languages) were a result of possible Native American migration that occurred in reverse, when Native Americans went back over the Bering Strait to Central Asia.

Come on, now, seriously? Is that the best you can do? Why would anyone return to Northern Russia? That's crazy talk.

I am a genetic mutant

Today I had a pretty exciting event on my social calendar. You ready for it? Well, first I gave a final exam--woo hoo! Then I went with two of my students downtown to buy a new projector for one of our classrooms. I drank tea and got to speak some horrible Turkish (though my student said my pronunciation was really good...probably because I say the same words over and over again). Then...and here's where it gets super exciting (or eggziting, as my students say)...then we went out to dinner! Having dinner companions is pretty amazing for me, quite frankly, I'm pretty much a hermit these days (not by choice).

Anyway, on our way out of the cafe, one of my students commented: "Teacher...everyone is looking at you. You want to know why? Because you are blonde." Then he went on to say that maybe it was because I also had blue eyes. "It is very eggziting for people (read: males) in Turkey," he said. Now, you may or may not agree that I'm a blonde, but that's besides the point. The point is that I'm a genetic mutant.

What, you say? Mutant, you say? Well, my student later went on to tell me that one of my colleagues had said that people with blue eyes have a genetic mutation. We're all supposed to have brown eyes. Of course, I heard that and thought that he was just being hegemonic (that was for you, Fielding) but then I decided to look it up. And you know what, folks? He was right!

Turns out the university of Copenhagen did some research on blue-eyed folk and discovered that they all have one common ancestor (they haven't tracked down her name yet though...sorry). In 2008, Hans Eiberg and his buds published an article Human Genetics that stated that discovered that (ready for this?)"a mutation in the 86th intron of the HERC2 gene, which is hypothesized to interact with the OCA2 gene promoter, reduced expression of OCA2 with subsequent reduction in melanin production."

Though it's quite possibly the most horrifying sentence I've ever read, it's basically saying that a mutation caused blue eyes. They then go on to say that this mutation can be tracked down to a single individual in the Near East or Black Sea region 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. Which is just great--yet another thing that Turks can claim originated in Turkey: blue friggin' eyes. (Turks are crazy for saying everything originates here, but that's a separate blog post.) Originally, it turns out we all had brown eyes. My colleague was right.

(Of course, he later went on to say that only clever people were bald and ordinary people have hair, but...we'll skip that one. And yes, he's bald.)

Apparently blue eyes are even becoming more rare in the United States. A 2002 study showed that 33.8% of the population born from 1936 to 1951 has blue eyes, down from 57.7% for those born from 1899 through 1905. Now only one in six children are born with blue eyes people! That's 22.4% of white Americans! Thanks ethnic blending...way to go. Why did we have to get all p.c. and allow intermarriage again?*

But let's quit all this depressing talk about my vanishing mutant race. Here's the thought I really want to leave you with...was it really a genetic mutation that cuased blue eyes?

Or was it...ALIENS???


This blog post was written solely with "facts" from Wikipedia. Feel free to disprove me. Please.
*Note: Writer is being sarcastic here. See through it, please. (<--you never know, people. Really.)
P.S. Why are eyes so creepy all by themselves?

Christmas in Konya

I just got back on Sunday evening from a lovely weekend in Konya, the place where Rumi died and is entombed. I have friends who live in Konya: Franny, an ELF like me, and Aundreta, who is a Fulbright teaching assistant. Patreshia, another ELF, joined as well, and we all stayed at Franny's great apartment. On Friday, we had a really wonderful Christmas dinner. It was so special to spend the day and evening with them. The next day went to see a tile museum of local Selcuk era tiles, and then went on to the Mevlana (another name for Rumi) museum.

The museum was a powerful place for me as I've been reading Rumi's poetry for over ten years. Being near his tomb was incredibly moving in ways I can't quite express in this blog. After the museum we visited a beautiful ceramic shop, owned by a dervish. He was a wonderful and humble man and we chatted with his children for some time. We also visited a carpet shop and a felt shop, both of which I've pictured here.

Finally we went to the sema, the whirling dervish performance. It was very beautiful, though it felt a bit more like a spectator experience than an intimate ritual like the other performances I've seen. That said, it was still special and I got some lovely pictures. Anyway, check out the album below, especially for the sema pictures at the end.

Here is a short blog entry I wrote about sema, and click here for a much more informative web page about sema as well.

Hope your holidays were fantastic!

And the moral of the story is...

I recently had my students write dialogs for our speaking class. We created the two characters as a class: Jason and Natasha, married Russian immigrants in their mid-thirties, with two kids. Natasha, a truck driver in Istanbul, was frustrated with Jason for his irresponsible spending during his frequent poker games and his drinking problem.

Here is one of my favorites, thanks to the surprise moral ending and the omniscient newscaster. I put corrections in parentheses.

(N=Natasha, J=Jason)

N: Sweetheart, give me a cigarette please.

J: Okay, if you smoke in (the) truck, I'll drink vodka.

N: Why are you comparing yourself with me?

J: Remember, we are equal.

N: You always do this to me! I hate the way you (argue)! I can't stand your drinking. You are always dizzy. You are a different man from (the one) I fell in love (with).

J: You are the same woman whom I fell in love, you say? Ohhh...come on!

N: Things have changed so (much). You said that I was losing my beauty. It (hurt) me!

J: We have been arguing lately. I'm bored with this. If it goes on, I'll hate you!

N: Do you want to divorce?

J: I think it is better for us.

N: I don't want to cry, I don't want to cry!

J: LOOOOOK!

N: Oh my G....

Newscaster: There was an accident last night. A couple argued and had an accident. Unfortunately, both of them died. Please people, be careful when you decide to marry...

(HA!)

O Tannenbaum

This is about as Christmas as it gets here in Turkey: Our Christmas tree. One of Fielding's friends bought a potted tree and we decorated it with a hard-to-find strand of lights, some home made snow flakes, a wall hanging that we decided to use as an ornament, and some carefully crafted popcorn strands that I made (a close-up of the snow flakes and popcorn are below).

Nonetheless, I think he's super cute. His name is Charlie Brown, but I think he'd better than Charlie Brown's trees by far. It's the simple things like this that help you feel not so far away from home. But still--I miss the holiday; it's my favorite. And I miss the subtle signs of it everywhere...here it's nowhere to be found. It's funny too because all the Turks call New Year's Eve Christmas, so they keep asking about my Christmas plans and insisting that they celebrate Christmas too--until I ask them what day they celebrate it on (December 31st of course!) and I explain the difference.

Happy Holidays to you!

Riots in Turkey--The Kurdish Issue Strikes Again

For those not so aware of Turkey's inner political tensions, I'll fill you in a little bit on some recent events that, surprisingly, haven't made their way to mainstream news. A few days ago, when I was having dinner at my student's apartment (see post below), one of them walked in and shared some "very bad news." Apparently the Turkish government had decided to ban the main Kurdish party, the Democratic Kurdish Society Party (DTP), effectively shutting out the Kurdish voice out of parliament.

There were already protests and some minor riots because the Kurdish people were angry that their PKK leader, Aubdullah Öcalan, had been moved into a smaller prison cell. But with this news, suddenly the riots escalated, and suddenly masses of people were rioting, throwing rocks through windows and at riot police.

A little background: Turkey began serious negotions to join the EU, back in 2005. While that is an entirely separate topic to address, some of the EU's social concerns about Turkey joining (at least the outwardly spoken ones) are Turkey's human rights issues: women's equality (which Turkey has made large strides in addressing), and its treatment of Armenians and Kurds in the country. I'm going to gloss over Armenia right now and focus quickly on the Kurds, for obvious reasons.

The Kurdish issue is a complicated one. Kurds are a separate ethnicity with their own Indo-European language, and comprise about 18% of the population in Turkey. Kurdish people live all over Turkey, but primarily in the southeast and eastern regions. Since 1930, when Turkey was founded, the Turkish government has created a lot of policies aimed at forced assimilation and Turkification of local Kurdish populations. For example, in the 1980 coup d'etat, the government banned Kurds from speaking their language in public. The ban was lifted in 1991, when a president was elected of partial Kurdish descent. However, Turkish remains the official language, the only one spoken in politics and public services. In 2003, the Turkish Parliament eased restrictions on Kurdish language rights in Turkey, yet Kurds are still largely banned from giving their children Kurdish names.

As a colleague carefully explained to me yesterday, Kurds feel that being Turkish is an ethnic and cultural heritage, not a nationality. They want to be recognized as Kurds living in Turkey, but they don't want to label themselves Turkish (it is a bit like if Jews had to give up calling themselves Jewish, and could only call themselves American, because calling themselves Jewish and speaking Hebrew would be forbidden.)

During the 1970's, the Kurdish separatist movement gave rise to a Marxist-Leninist party called the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK). Between 1984 and 1999, Turkey was engaged in a continuous conflict with the PKK. Human Rights Watch documented many cases where the Turkish government completely wiped out villages of local Kurds in an attempt to quell the PKK movement. During that period, an estimated 3,000 Turkish villages in Turkey were wiped from the map, displacing over 378,000 people (1).

All of this inner tension has continually resulted in constant riots and instability. Much of this began to change, however, when the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, promised Kurds equal rights and planned to relax previous restrictions. Erdogan has been praised for his recent attempts to peacefully address both the Armenian and Kurdish issues that Turkey faces. As one article wrote: "Last September, tens of thousands flooded the streets, holding flowers and 'celebrating brotherhood' with the Turks. Not a single stone was thrown. Not one angry word spoken."

Then a recent turn of events changed everything. The Turkish constitutional court ruled that the DTP, a party that many believe funds PKK terrorism in Turkey, should be banned because of it's alleged connection with the PKK. This resulted in further rioting on the streets, and a sense among Kurds that their voices are not being heard. Another political party was established in May (The Party for Peace and Democracy), when the members of the DTP discovered that their party would likely be banned. I'm not sure how they will be integrated into the government.

The question is: What's the right thing to do as Turkey moves forward? If they shut out the Kurdish political party, it seems that they'll create more opposition and more violence. But if they accept them--despite possible connections with a terrorist group--then they are essentially allowing a possibly violent faction to have an equal voice in politics. What is the best answer to achieving inner stability in the long term, while also acknowledging the rights of 20% of the nation's population? This is the question Turkey must wrestle with now--and fast--before this issue gets increasingly out of hand.

For more reading on this topic, check out a TIME magazine article here.

Or a recent news article about the riots here. (I don't like the patronizing tone of this article, but it has some decent history and explanations). The photo in this blog was taken from this article, and is of Protesters running from tear gas fired by riot police during a clash between Kurds and Turkish police in Diyarbakir on December 14, 2009.


(1): ^ "Still critical". Human Rights Watch. March 2005. p. 3. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/turkey0305/3.htm#_Toc97005223. Retrieved 2007-09-12.

Students make me dinner!

Some of my favorite students made me dinner last weekend and it was so fun. Ferdi, the cook, and Ilker, the chief of affairs (Ferdi appointed him), and several other students gathered for a tasty meal of tarhani soup, a delicious chicken dish, and my favorite: Turkish rice.

Anyway, it was fantastic and I had such a great time. I felt really welcomed by my students--a nice break from a bunch of quiet (and often lonely) evenings at home. Here is one more picture below of Sevtap, me, and Fielding.

Special Birthday Party

Last weekend was really special for me for a number of reasons. One of them was a birthday party I was invited to. One of my colleagues, Beture, has taken me under her wing, introduced me to several of her friends, and invited me to several dinners and breakfasts. Anyway, it was her 60th party--by the way, I think she looks fantastic for 60!

Her best friend Diljin and I planned the party a few weeks before, and I was so touched to be one of the five women invited; the guest list included her daughter and her two children, her best friend Diljin, two other women who she's extremely close with, and another best friend who couldn't make it. Diljin said that Beture would only want people she loved there, and I can't tell you how much it meant to me to be included on that intimate list.

Beture had thought she was just meeting Diljin and I for an afternoon tea, so the whole event was a beautiful surprise. We had picked out an incredibly designed cake, written notes to her that we put into an envelope, Diljin had printed up special photos from her life, Beture's grandaughters prepared songs that they sung and performed on the saz or bağlama, a popular Middle Eastern instrument.

It was truly one of the most special days for me here--complete with incredible food, moving expressions of love and friendship from everyone, and a real feeling that I belonged and was loved here in Turkey. I know my students love me here, but to really connect on a deep level with friends...that was a great gift.

As part of my gift to Beture, I took over 240 photos for her to treasure the event. I've selected a few here to share with you. Just click on the album below.

A view of one's own

Pics taken from my room. First one is sunset, second two are sunrise. Glorious!

Edward Cullen is a big fat psycho

Note: The following is a rant about the Twilight series thinly disguised as a blog about Turkey. If you haven't read the series or don't know anything about it...skip to the next post if you like.

I'll admit it; I read all four of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels. I took the first one with me on a trip to California one weekend, got totally sucked in (don't forgive the pun) and then read the next two while stuck in the airport and on route back to Colorado a few days later. So there--I admit it. Am I ashamed? Not that I read them, so much, but that I too, fell briefly in love with Edward Cullen. Let's face it--he is girl-porn to the extreme. I got pulled in by his Byronic Hero-esque personality, his undying love and unending affection, and couldn't stop turning the pages to see if the vampire and his human love would eventually end up together, despite all the odds.

Today I watched the second Twilight film, New Moon, with some of my students. It was a bootleg copy (yeah, yeah, I know) and we only watched it because I was running my Shakespeare Club, and the Macbeth adaptation we began to watch was not only unbelievably horrible, but also dubbed over in Turkish. My students begged me to turn it off--and I wanted to as well (they had blood pulsing in spurts out of a guy's neck in the first three minutes--really, Hollywood?). Anyway, the technology was all hooked up and one of my students had the copy, so they unanimously decided to watch it.

Oh god, people, it was horrible. I actually somewhat enjoyed the first Twilight film. Maybe because it was an intriguing love story, a semi-new world, and it played to the part of me that secretly wanted a crazy-hot immortal being to fall madly in love with me and no one else. And being a vampire in Meyer's world seems pretty darn cool; you're invincible, gorgeous, rich...who wouldn't want that reality?

But the second book got really twisted. Suddenly this wasn't a love story at all (or a falling madly in love story). It became a weird, psycho tale about a girl with no hobbies, no real friends, and clearly no self esteem, who gets crazy co-dependent with some vampire who doesn't know how to communicate his real feelings and has to fight constant urges to kill her. He treats her like a baby by making a decision about their relationship without consulting her, and she acts like that pathetic girl/woman we probably all know or fear who completely breaks down and can't function when her man leaves her.

The months pass by and Bella just stares out the window, unable to exist without him. She only finds some respite by engaging in life-threatening activities so she can have psychotic episodes where she sees visions of Edward in her head. And when it comes down to it--when Edward's life is at stake--she'll gladly give her own because life just ain't worth living when the guy you've been dating for five months might not be around.

Yeah, it's just a story for teens; a story about teenage angst and loneliness. Okay, fine. If that's all it was, then I wouldn't be writing this post. But the fact is, people, it's not just teens who are into it, and the teens that are into it are going KUHRAZY! Girls cut themselves when they see actor Robert Pattinson (who plays Edward) and ask them if he wants to suck their blood. I have several friends (my age) who confessed that Edward made them question the man they were in relationship with. And I have students who tell me about romances like this that happen in the villages in Turkey where young people will kill themselves when they can't be with their seventeen year old boyfriend because their father won't allow it.

What does this say about our culture that we are so obsessed with a story about one girl's inability to be happy without her man? This clearly has tapped into many a woman's psyche, because I have several women friends and have heard of many other adult women who have gone nuts for this guy--myself included. We're all oohing and ahhing over dreamy Edward, when the reality is, the guy's a stalker. Edward Cullen is a big fat psycho.

I think this Edward phenomenon is dangerous, honestly, as it adds to the disturbing heaps of literature, film, and media that creates unrealistic men that women want to be with. Real men are not like Edward. And if they were, they'd be that super creepy guy you dated for a month before you found out he was staring in your window at night without your permission. I mean, really. Is that what you want?

But what disturbs me most is not Edward, but Bella, who is a lifeless, hopeless thing whose whole world revolves around one man. I wish young girls would go crazy over someone like Hermione Granger, the teenage heroine in Harry Potter. The girl was super smart, cute, caring, and tough. Or Lyra from the Golden Compass trilogy, or Sabriel from the Abhorsen Trilogy. I write young adult fiction; I know the genre. There are strong female characters out there that know how to respect themselves and love someone else at the same time. Why aren't these the role models young girls are going crazy over?

The truth is, I want young women (okay, all women) to fall in love with healthy, balanced men. There, I said it. I want them to ooh and ahh over men who can communicate. Men who don't stalk them. Men who don't keep secrets and hide their love. Men who don't want to suck their blood. Maybe it's because I recognize the sad, desparate part of me that went a bit crazy for unavailable guys when I was a teen (hell, in my twenties)--but I can now see all my insecurities, all the parts of me that wanted validation and suffered from a low sense of self-worth. And because I know what it stemmed from, because I know why I had those obsessive feelings, that's why I worry for girls today. I just want them to be loved in all the right ways. I want them to be strong, tough, and happy on their own.

This book will make you squirm

I'm not entirely sure how to write this blog post, because I'm uncomfortable with what people might say. But I'll be brave and write what I think anyway, because I think it's important, and because it's something I've been struggling to write about since I arrived here.

I just finished Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir, Infidel, a narrative about her time growing up in Somalia, moving to various Islamic and African countries such as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Ali was also subjected to female genital mutilation (fgm). For much of her teenage years in Nairobi, Kenya, she was a devout Muslim, joining the Muslim Brotherhood and donning a back hijab (the full Muslim cover that only shows a woman's eyes).

Ali eventually moved to Holland, obtained Dutch citizenship, and began to question her Islamic teachings. But the harassment she encountered when she cut her hair and began wearing jeans was nothing compared to the death threats she received and the massive riots that broke out when she made a documentary called Submission, a film-short about the sufferings Islamic women must endure. Without giving away the ending, I'll simply say that Ali's main goal now is to try to wake Western cultures up about the violent messages inherent in Islamic doctrine, and to try to get them to be more conscious about how they integrate these cultures into their own. She's concerned about our fear of questioning other doctrines in order to avoid being racist, and feels that we're guilty of an over-tolerance that's allowing unhealthy and violent Islamic doctrine to flourish in Europe and throughout the world, in places where it directly counters the principles those Western nations are founded on. Ali thinks it's necessary for Islamic women and men to rethink the violent aspects of their religious doctrine and create a new, enlightened form of their tradition.

Infidel is a hard book to read, quite honestly. Partly because her stories about growing up in Africa during the tribal wars, her experience as a female who was often treated like property, her time living in Saudi Arabia, and the threats she got exercising her freedom of speech, are all quietly horrifying (not to mention the most horrifying story of all: her excision).

But it's also hard to read on another level. I grew up in California and have lived in mostly socially liberal communities, and to have a woman whose authority I respect (as someone who comes from the tradition in question) ask me to rethink the value of the extreme multiculturalism and tolerance that I've treasured all my life....well, it's shaking my foundation.

On the one hand, it's clearly so important to have religious and cultural tolerance. This is absolutely undeniable. And I recognize that this is ONE woman's experience in Saudi Arabia and Somalia--two very extreme versions of Islamic life.

But do we do when sects of a religion consistently teach that Jews are evil? What if it consistently teaches that gays are suffering from a disease or a psychological disorder? What if it forces women to have their genitals mutilated, or thinks it's acceptable for women to be locked away in their homes during the day, unable to work, and that they must completely cover themselves when walking outside, and only travel around in public accompanied by a man? Do I have to be tolerant of that?

This is a difficult thing for me to write, but it's a question I have to sit with. Just how valid is every voice at the table? When do you nullify your chance to sit and converse with everyone else with an equal say? I don't think this is just about Islam either--let me be clear. I think there are dangerous elements of these beliefs in other religions too.

That said, I've had students from Saudi Arabia who told me about men and women getting publicly stoned for adultery. They told me about men who were discovered to be gay who were thrown off tall buildings to their death as punishment. I'm here in "secular" Turkey now, where we experience one of the least radical forms of Islam, and I still have students from "liberal" Istanbul who tell me that Jews are awful, greedy people; I have students who will get ostracized for being friends with gays (they think it's a sickness here, and parents will disown their child if they're gay in many parts of the country). As far as women go, many women wear head scarves here (a very complex topic I don't want to go into here), and until recently, women had to get written permission from their husbands to get a job. One of my good friends, an American, constantly gets sexually harassed, even in Istanbul, just because she has pale blonde hair and blue eyes. Is this culture, or religion? Where do we draw the line?

Of course, I feel awful about saying any of these things because Turkish people can also be some of the most kind, most hospitable, and most friendly people I have ever met. I am so grateful for my colleagues and my students and I haven't experienced any of this negativity. But at the same time, I'm not blonde, I'm not gay, I'm not a Jew...I'm a Western woman, bound by different rules. 

I know that I have to be careful to project my Western worldview everything, to think that what I believe is best. And generalizations are very dangerous and I know there are many different expressions of Islam around the world. It also makes me nervous to feel intolerant of a religion, because they are intolerant of others--I know this may seem hypocritical.

But still, how do we address these radical, socially intolerant beliefs? It's one of the most important questions I think we need to struggle with during this day and age, and I think that the way we answer these questions will define us as a culture (because I don't think this is just an American question at all), and as a world.

You can see reviews of Ali's book on the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, or buy it on Amazon (where there are a bunch more reviews) by clicking on their names.

Christmas in Turkey!

Fielding and I had a Christmas/birthday party here in Isparta, Turkey last night...it was so special. I had my cheesy Frank Sinatra and Elvis Christmas music playing (those of you who know me well are certainly familiar with my Christmas addiction). Anyway, it was a real hit--they liked the sugar cookies, the decorations, the American-style food, and it helped Fielding and I both feel like we weren't quite so far away from home.

Enjoy the pics...sorry about the food pics--I feel like I am a bit obsessed with them these days. :)

The Sky was so beautiful today...

Need I say more?