People generally don't know anything about it, but London is highly famous for its free lectures, events, social meetings and entertainment. As a human being who is deeply interested in politics, art, history and culture, I do follow organizations very deeply when the topic especially comes to Turkey related meetings. A good variety of Turkish institution in London hold conferences, panels and prestigious universities like London School of Economics give an opportunity to get free lectures about Turkey and Turkish history. I prepared a list of organizations hosting this kind of meetings which is very valuable for the people who are curious about Turkey and its politics.
SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) – Seminars on Turkey
SOAS is a very well-known institution even in Turkey. Seminars are convened by Professor Benjamin Fortna, who is particularly interested in the years of Sultan Abdulhamid the Second during Ottoman Empire. The seminars usually hold in Room 116, SOAS, Fridays 12.00-2.00 pm. If you want to see latest seminars and upcoming events please see the link: http://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/turkey/
LSE (London School of Economics) -- Seminar Series on Contemporary Turkey
The Chair in Contemporary Turkish Studies at LSE organizes seminars on current affairs of Turkey. Professor Sevket Pamuk, who is responsible for the chair, is much respected academician in both Europe and Turkey. There are three different events in 2013 about Gender Equality in Turkey, Kurdish Question and Sex-Segregation in Turkish Academic Careers. For more information, please see the link: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/research/ContemporaryTurkishStudies/TurkishEvents.aspx
CTS (Centre for Turkey Studies)
The Centre is little bit controversial because of its founder and current director İbrahim Doğuş. Mr. Doğuş had links with the PKK which is recognized as a terrorist organization by EU and USA. Somehow Doğuş fired or resigned its mission in Kurdish Centre in London and found CTS. Apart from the debates about Doğuş, he is a friend of Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour Leader Ed Miliband. Doğuş periodically invited important journalists and scholars from Turkey to hold conferences and meetings on Turkish foreign policy and current affairs. Latest guest of the meeting at House of Commons was Tuna Beklevic, adviser of Turkish Minister of European Union and Chief Negotiator. You can check the centre’s website out from this link:
http://ceftus.org/category/events/
LCSS (London Centre for Social Studies)
LCSS is a semi academic organization especially helps people who study masters or PHD in UK’s universities. They are very serious about their panels and conferences that sometimes you need to apply with your research proposal and presentation to speak in the meetings. Generally all of the events are public meetings and you can use their every service for free. For more information, click: http://www.socialstudies.org.uk/events
NOS (Network of Students)
NOS is Turkish a student organization which was established in 2007. According to the website, they “have more than 40 undergraduates and postgraduates volunteering “. They are in touch with 6000 students and more than 2000 students are active members of their network. Generally NOS holds conferences on interesting issues, they’re more concerned about European identity and Turkish role in the EU. Latest forthcoming event is “The Issue of Multiculturalism in Europe.” Mahinur Ozdemir, headscarved MP in the Belgian Parliament, is going to talk about the on-going problems in Europe related with "Multicultural Society".
http://www.networkofstudents.org/
25 Ocak 2013 Cuma
12 Aralık 2012 Çarşamba
Social media winners: Small websites!
Bigger news companies invested money in order to be effective in social media. Every major newspaper, blog and TV news channel have own Twitter and Facebook team. The New York Times proudly gives twitter addresses of its reporters and editors in its national section. CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have special feed for the breaking news. Day by day, more journalists open new Twitter and Facebook accounts and try to reach wider audience. But statistics shows that using social media doesn't get every time good feedback and increasing audiences.
According to the data from The ninth edition of Pew Research’s State of the News Media 2012 report, “News sites now get 9% of their traffic from social media, up about 57% in two years. “ But real beneficiary of the social media is not the major news sources. Yes, the winner is small ones.
Last September a study on news websites working within Chicago was published. Study was conducted Northwestern professor Rich Gordon and paid for by The Chicago Community Trust. Prof. Gordon and his team examined all the links between 301 news websites for two-week period and obtained analytics data about referral sources for about 100 of those sites. The study showed that the social media traffic is particularly important for smaller sites. It is pointed out that small size of sites gets 48.1% visits from Facebook, medium size of them attracts 25.6% visits and large ones get in 14.5% visits.
The other interesting information about social media sites is regarding advertising and other type of revenues. Pew Research warned that, “ Social media – particularly Facebook, with its huge audience and domineering lead – have become a partner no news organization can afford to ignore.”
Dependency to the social media is increasing and citizen journalism became primary source of online journalism. I can give an example about my own experience. When super storm has been happening, I was looking at the Instagram photos. I currently live in London, and only sources from New York and Eastern part of the USA were news agencies and twitter feeds. But I’m considering myself as a social media addict and figured out a new way of editing. I have entered #Newyork and #Sandy hashtags on my Instagram account and found various photos from flooded areas. I wasted my whole night to find these pictures and retweet them from USASABAH’s official Twitter account. I was very good at this job because I could obtain and republish very good photos even before Time and the other major news sources. USASABAH is rather small news website, and we have gained more than five hundred followers in a night. And the number of followers topped over two thousand. (Due to disagreement between Twitter and Instagram, It can’t be reach those photos on Twitter anymore. )
I’m wondering, whether Twitter will have some problems with the major news sources such as Wall Street Journal and the MSNBC about their services on this site. Especially when you think about Guy Adams’ Twitter suspension and recent censorship policy, there might be some problem in the future at least between Twitter and local journalists.
5 Aralık 2012 Çarşamba
Marx in Soho
Did you know that long bearded, serious and really clever communist Marx wrote his masterpiece, Das Capital in a two-room flat in London’s Soho? Yes, the gay hub of the city was a real home for Marx. But sure, he didn’t live his best moments in this place…
When I came to London, I found it very boring and not impressing. I was accustomed to general view of London by watching British TV shows, reading British novels and newspapers and learning about British political system in undergrad education. I’m now aware that I made a big mistake as I try to judge this city just by its looking. Because, a city can be only meaningful through learning its late residents, briefly its living history. More you read about an important person for this city, more you can feel its soul. Marx, apart from his reputation as a great mind, lived very hard life and found rather more comfort in London. Reading Marx’s history makes you understand better this city’s central role in the 19th century. Marx had to come to this city it is because France, Belgium and his home country Prussia didn’t want to host him. But London was welcoming every political refugee from every part of the world without real hardships. He sailed to Britain on 27 August 1849 and remained there until his death in 1883. He definitely impressed by the social classes and technical achievements of Britain. But he found his theoretical way by reading every economy book in British Museum and British Library.
A few months after his arrival in London, Karl Marx noticed a working model of an electric railway engine in the window of a Regent Street shop. (Yes! Regent Street: bars, cafes, and Marx… It is still interesting to see all kind of entertainment over there and feeling Marx’s soul. He was on this street, the thing is going to make me happy for a while.) Then he said, “The problem is solved- the consequences are indefinable… In the wake of the economic revolution the political must necessarily follow, for the latter is only expression of the former” Yeah, the consequences… He tried to study every day without getting bored and losing his attention. He had no money for his large family, and had to find a way out of his financial problem. His home was really a bad one, and starving made things very hard for the family. The Marxes’ youngest son, Guido, died suddenly from a fit of convulsions in November 1850; their one-year old daughter Franziska died at Easter 1852 after a severe attack of bronchitis. Another son died of consumption in March 1855. According to the witnesses, during the funeral of the son “Marx stepped forward as the coffin was lowered into the earth and convinced most of the mourners that he intended to hurl himself in after it.”
Marx wrote in February 1852, to his best friend Friedrich Engels, “for the past eight to ten days I have been feeding the family solely on bread and potatoes, but whether I shall be able to get hold of any today is doubtful... “ He wrote again to Engels in April 1858, “I don’t suppose anyone has ever written about “money” when so short of the stuff”
Yeah, I have to accept, I’m fascinated by reading tragedy of Marx, it is because this tragedy happened in these streets, in this city. I can even imagine Marx’s behaviors when he going to library and sleeping on the couch in the afternoons.
I read all of these things from a very good book, Marx’s Das Kapital by Francis Wheen. I bought it for nearly 3 pounds from Watersones. Begin to love this city now!
PS: Leftist history professor, Howard Zinn has a play, same name in the title. I have known the title before but assumed that he was trying to put Soho's cultural environment and Marx's materialistic point of view in a pot. (Latest academical fashion trying to put irrelevant things all together to impress people) I have never heard of Marx has lived in Soho before. I love Zinn because I had the chance reading his great book, A People's History of the United States.
When I came to London, I found it very boring and not impressing. I was accustomed to general view of London by watching British TV shows, reading British novels and newspapers and learning about British political system in undergrad education. I’m now aware that I made a big mistake as I try to judge this city just by its looking. Because, a city can be only meaningful through learning its late residents, briefly its living history. More you read about an important person for this city, more you can feel its soul. Marx, apart from his reputation as a great mind, lived very hard life and found rather more comfort in London. Reading Marx’s history makes you understand better this city’s central role in the 19th century. Marx had to come to this city it is because France, Belgium and his home country Prussia didn’t want to host him. But London was welcoming every political refugee from every part of the world without real hardships. He sailed to Britain on 27 August 1849 and remained there until his death in 1883. He definitely impressed by the social classes and technical achievements of Britain. But he found his theoretical way by reading every economy book in British Museum and British Library.
A few months after his arrival in London, Karl Marx noticed a working model of an electric railway engine in the window of a Regent Street shop. (Yes! Regent Street: bars, cafes, and Marx… It is still interesting to see all kind of entertainment over there and feeling Marx’s soul. He was on this street, the thing is going to make me happy for a while.) Then he said, “The problem is solved- the consequences are indefinable… In the wake of the economic revolution the political must necessarily follow, for the latter is only expression of the former” Yeah, the consequences… He tried to study every day without getting bored and losing his attention. He had no money for his large family, and had to find a way out of his financial problem. His home was really a bad one, and starving made things very hard for the family. The Marxes’ youngest son, Guido, died suddenly from a fit of convulsions in November 1850; their one-year old daughter Franziska died at Easter 1852 after a severe attack of bronchitis. Another son died of consumption in March 1855. According to the witnesses, during the funeral of the son “Marx stepped forward as the coffin was lowered into the earth and convinced most of the mourners that he intended to hurl himself in after it.”
Marx wrote in February 1852, to his best friend Friedrich Engels, “for the past eight to ten days I have been feeding the family solely on bread and potatoes, but whether I shall be able to get hold of any today is doubtful... “ He wrote again to Engels in April 1858, “I don’t suppose anyone has ever written about “money” when so short of the stuff”
Yeah, I have to accept, I’m fascinated by reading tragedy of Marx, it is because this tragedy happened in these streets, in this city. I can even imagine Marx’s behaviors when he going to library and sleeping on the couch in the afternoons.
I read all of these things from a very good book, Marx’s Das Kapital by Francis Wheen. I bought it for nearly 3 pounds from Watersones. Begin to love this city now!
PS: Leftist history professor, Howard Zinn has a play, same name in the title. I have known the title before but assumed that he was trying to put Soho's cultural environment and Marx's materialistic point of view in a pot. (Latest academical fashion trying to put irrelevant things all together to impress people) I have never heard of Marx has lived in Soho before. I love Zinn because I had the chance reading his great book, A People's History of the United States.
21 Kasım 2012 Çarşamba
Feature, Is there a Turkish one?
Today, let's talk about journalism.
The feature, the final form of investigative journalism does not work in Turkey. Last week, we learned the characteristics of a feature, how we should write or which criterion we are going to use for feature writing, during a course in Kingston University. I realized again, the form of feature does not exist in Turkey. Yes we have “exclusive news” but no feature writing at all. Very reason behind of the this problem is that the managers of the media companies don’t want to invest money in newspapers and give more time to the journalists for investigations.
Main stream Turkish newspapers generally prefer shorter stories, of course with less sources and less information, because they believe that their target group might get bored while reading long paragraphs and quotes from different people.
To western media, It is a necessity to use some part of the newspapers as feature to expose social issues, human stories or deeply complicated problems. They make their readers loving longer stories with colourful language and responsible journalism.
Circulation numbers in Turkey go down because actually we’re not doing our jobs properly.
Newspapers generally take news stories from national agencies and if necessary translate them from foreign news sources. Editorial desk doesn’t trust their colleagues to get true and consistent articles-sometimes they are right, small portion of journalists even were not graduated from the university, they learned the profession by experience. Thus, advertisement sections in the pages are very large and we don’t have space to publish examples of investigative journalism, rest of the space is using by the editors catching up daily boring stories like a complete page for PM Erdogan’s already broadly broadcasted speech.
So as a Turkish journalist at least I try to understand what are the best ways to make responsible and qualified journalism in Istanbul. Turkey is getting bigger; political and economic power of the country grows but Turkish newspapers and media fall behind this momentum.
The feature, the final form of investigative journalism does not work in Turkey. Last week, we learned the characteristics of a feature, how we should write or which criterion we are going to use for feature writing, during a course in Kingston University. I realized again, the form of feature does not exist in Turkey. Yes we have “exclusive news” but no feature writing at all. Very reason behind of the this problem is that the managers of the media companies don’t want to invest money in newspapers and give more time to the journalists for investigations.
Main stream Turkish newspapers generally prefer shorter stories, of course with less sources and less information, because they believe that their target group might get bored while reading long paragraphs and quotes from different people.
To western media, It is a necessity to use some part of the newspapers as feature to expose social issues, human stories or deeply complicated problems. They make their readers loving longer stories with colourful language and responsible journalism.
Circulation numbers in Turkey go down because actually we’re not doing our jobs properly.
Newspapers generally take news stories from national agencies and if necessary translate them from foreign news sources. Editorial desk doesn’t trust their colleagues to get true and consistent articles-sometimes they are right, small portion of journalists even were not graduated from the university, they learned the profession by experience. Thus, advertisement sections in the pages are very large and we don’t have space to publish examples of investigative journalism, rest of the space is using by the editors catching up daily boring stories like a complete page for PM Erdogan’s already broadly broadcasted speech.
So as a Turkish journalist at least I try to understand what are the best ways to make responsible and qualified journalism in Istanbul. Turkey is getting bigger; political and economic power of the country grows but Turkish newspapers and media fall behind this momentum.
Türkiye'de feature var mı?
Bugün biraz gazetecilik hakkında konuşalım.
Feature, soruşturmacı gazeteciliğin nihai hali, Türkiye'de yürümüyor. Geçen hafta Kingston Üniversitesi'ndeki derste bir feature'ın sahip olması gereken kriterleri, feature'ın nasıl yazılacağını öğrendik. Bu vesileyle tekrar feature'ın Türkiye'de olmadığı gerçeğinin farkına vardım. Evet, "özel haberler"imiz var fakat hiç feature'ımız yok. Bunun arkasındaki en temel neden medya şirketlerinin yöneticilerinin gazetelere para yatırmak istememesi ve gazetecilere soruşturma için zaman vermemesi.
Ana akım Türk gazeteleri genel olarak kısa hikayeler tercih ediyorlar, elbette daha az kaynaklar ve daha bilgi ile birlikte, çünkü hedef kitlelerinin farklı kişilerden uzun paragraflar ve alıntılar okurken sıkılacağını düşünüyorlar.
Türkiye'de tirajlar düşüyor çünkü işimizi düzgün yapmıyoruz.
Gazeteler genellikle hikayelerini ulusal ajanslardan, gerekliyse yabancı ajanslardan alıp çeviriyorlar. Gazete yazı işleri gerçek ve tutarlı haber getirmeleri için meslektaşlarına güvenmiyor-bazı zamanlar haklılar, gazetecilerin küçük bir bölümü üniversiteden mezun bile değil, mesleği tecrübeyle öğrendiler. Bununla birlikte gazetelerin reklam alanları çok büyük ve soruşturmacı gazetecilik için yer yok, geri kalan boş yerleri de Başbakan Erdoğan'ın zaten her yerde yayınlanmış konuşmasına tam sayfa ayırmak gibi günlük sıkıcı hikayeleri yakalamak için kullanıyoruz.
Türk bir gazeteci olarak en azından İstanbul'da sorumlu ve kaliteli bir gazeteciliğin nasıl yapılabileceğini anlamaya çalışıyorum. Türkiye, büyüyor, ülkenin ekonomik ve politik gücü artıyor fakat Türk medyası bu hızın arkasına düşüyor...
Türk bir gazeteci olarak en azından İstanbul'da sorumlu ve kaliteli bir gazeteciliğin nasıl yapılabileceğini anlamaya çalışıyorum. Türkiye, büyüyor, ülkenin ekonomik ve politik gücü artıyor fakat Türk medyası bu hızın arkasına düşüyor...
26 Ekim 2012 Cuma
Osmanlı işi tavan mutlu etti
Araplar ve diğer Müslüman ülkeler bayramın bugün başladığını düşünüyor.
Türk alimleri önemli dini günleri ay takvimine dayanan astronomi bilimini kullanarak hesaplıyor. Fakat Arap alimleri hala ayın şekline bakarak dini günlerin tarihini belirlemek konusunda ısrarcı.
Camii çıkışında bazı kimselerin baklava sattığını gördüm. Baklava İstanbul’da camii çıkışlarında bedava dağıtılırken burada parayla satın alınıyor. Kelimenin tam anlamıyla bir kültürel yozlaşma.
Ana kapının önünde, çiseleyen yağmurun altında bayramlaştık ve benim için yeni bir ev olan TURKYAR’a (Türk Öğrencileri Yardımlaşma Derneği)’ne gittik. Hepimiz için bir kahvaltı hazırladık ve birlikte tadını çıkardık. (Ne yazık ki bulaşıkları yıkamak bana düştü)
Güne Regent Street’e yaptığım küçük bir geziyle devam ettim. Londra’nın Savile Row’u ile Regent Street arasında ilginç ve tarihi bir Starbucks bulunuyor. Yeni elden geçirilmiş bu Starbcuks’ın maun ağacından el işçiliği bir tavanı var. Tavanın 1903 yılında Şam’daki bir kahvehaneye ya da Türk hamamına ait olduğu tahmin ediliyor.
Starbucks daha once halı dükkanı olarak kullanılmış ve açık bir şekilde tavanın ortasında tuğra görülüyor. (Bu zamanda Şam bir Osmanlı şehriydi ve Sultan’ın cömertlik ve gücünü sembolize eden bu imzayı görmek oldukça normaldi. Tarihe bakılırsa imza 2. Abdülhamid’in olmalı)
Aslında buraya arkadaşım Şhane ve ben Bond Street’in uzun ara sokaklarında kaybolduktan sonra geldik. Sonunda buraya girmeye ve biraz dinlenmeye karar verdik. Atalarımızın Londra’daki izlerini görmek beni mutlu etti çünkü geçmişte güzel sanat eserleri yarattık ve bu tavan gibilerini taşımayı başardık.
Günün sonunda Oxford Circus’tan bazı fotoğraflar çektim çünkü bir binanın her tarafında havalı Noel süslemeleri vardı. Binanın adını hatırlamıyorum ama güzeldi.
Ottoman hand carved ceiling made my day!
Yesterday was the beginning of Eid Al-Adha (Kurban Bayramı in Turkish or The day of Sacrifice), so we went to a well known Turkish mosque early in the morning in to make a special prayer for the feast.Aziziye Mosque, which was built in Turkish neighbourhood, Stoke Newington, was filled by only the Turkish Muslims because the directorate of religious affairs in Turkey fell apart from rest of the world. Arabs and the other Muslim countries think that the feast starts today.
Turkish scholars began to calculate the significant religious day by using astronomical science based on lunar calendar. But the Arab scholars still insist on using their eyes to make sure the date of the religious days by looking at shape of the moon.
(Some of the readers could ask what the feast day is, actually It was answered by Ottoman History Podcast very briefly; Eid Al-Adha or Kurban Bayramı is a feast day for Muslims involving the sacrifice of an animal such as a sheep or cow as part of commemoration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Ismail. But sacrifice can also be performed as a general blessing for a momentous event for example when buying a car or a new apartment, or after surviving an accident, or opening a new shop. According to Mircea Eliade sacrifice symbolizes renovation of time with replication of the myth of Creation, a transformation of the profane space and time into the sacred, a hierophany wherein the religious mind can connect its temporality with an eternal mode of existence.)
I continued the day with a small journey to Regent Street. In between London’s Savile Row and Regent Street, there is an interesting Starbucks, historic one. Newly renovated this Starbucks has a wonderful mahogany hand-carved ceiling that came from a Damascus bath house or coffee house in 1903.
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The building used as a carpet store in the past, and clearly in the middle of the ceiling there is the sultan’s signature. (In that time, Damascus was a city of the Ottoman Empire and it was very normal to see sultan’s signature on the buildings, symbolizes his power and genorisity. I assume signature belongs to Abdulhamid II, one of the most powerful Sultans in the Ottoman history)
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I came here by coincidence, because my friend Shane and I lost in the long corridors of the Bond Street. So finally we decided to get in there and take a rest. I’m glad to see the footprints of my ancestors in London. It makes me happy because we’ve created beautiful artworks in the past, and was able to spread out them like this ceiling.
At the end of the day, I took some pictures from Bond Street, just because there were classy Christmas decorations all over the building. I don’t remember the name of the building but it was nice.
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