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Turkey is Typing….

Deborah Ann Dilley · 18:14

It has been a quiet week in the Turkish blogosphere, some of my favorite bloggers such as Turkish Torque and Talk Turkey have been silent. Mavi Boncuk and Erkan's Field Diary, however, have been as active as ever.

The trial of Orhan Pamuk, Turkish Novelist, for speaking out against the Republic of Turkey, has drawn a lot of attention from the rest of the world. Erkan's Field Diary gives us some brief impressions of the Orhan Pamuk situation, and even has pictures of the riot police outside the courthouse holding his trial.

Mavi Boncuk posts a set of links of various recipes that his blog has featured since the blog's beginning, and also advertises his own food blog, Tastes of Mavi Boncuk.

There is a new podcast episode of Kevin and Fatma Take On the World, this time including Fatma! The Mp3 blog, Unomundo has been focusing on hip hop music for this week.

Socioeconomics had some random thoughts about the King Kong movie. Ignore Me If You Can writes about a movie she has recently seen called Havoc. She also writes about the commericalism of Christmas and New Years in Istanbul, a subject she also touches upon on Metroblogging:Istanbul. Phanja from The Need to Know announces that she will be taking a “holiday Break”.

Yogurtland has a post about making wedding invitations and favors, and a recipe for Strained Yogurt Cake, which I actually used for one of my final projects this semester, to which I would like to add my thanks!

New find for this week, a Turkish blog in English, called Ne Var, New York?, it's title is a play off of the term “Ne Var, Ne Yok” (literally What is there, what isn't there) which is the Turkish slang equilvent of “what's up?”.
Also found this week was the blog Queen of Flub, she is a Turkish American MIT student, who like many of us University students are in the last phases of our finals. Mert Ulas, a Turkish University student in the US normally translates his Turkish posts into English, however he has been busy with the end of the semester, however the picture on his last Turkish post says it all.

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From the Jordanian Blogosphere

Roba Al Assi · 13:37

Some interesting and controversial social topics are being discussed in the Jordanian blogosphere this week.

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech is not a given commodity in the Arab world, but are there winds of change? Naseem Tarawneh reports about the plans to start a “Freedom Square” in Amman to allow citizens to speak freely but he remains skeptical; “Amman is a city of circles so a square is a very irregular shape to introduce into the Socio-political climate indeed… Is this all just a ploy, another illusion of political freedom?”

Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

Haitham Sabbah, meanwhile, tackles a very controversial and sensitive topic in a new light- Palestinians and Israelis, and thus beginning a long debate about the issue. Haitham's conclusion; “I decided to look forward, learn, act and teach my kids how to build bridges, not how to destroy them.”

Hala of Café Lulu, on the other hand, says, “How do you build a country when your borders are under such heavy restriction, when you are never secure in the integrity and sanctity of your airspace, and thereby land?”

Gender Equality and Capital Punishment

Promises describes her state of amazement at hearing a close friend refer to women as the “root of all evil”. In a post, she wonders “Do you really think that women are the cause of all ills of the society? Are we as females to blame for what's happening to the world?” This question likewise results in an interesting debate, with mentions of the original sin, the absoluteness in that this is a male dominant world, and honor killings.

‘Human Rights Watch' has called on Jordan to abolish the death penalty. Natasha of Mental Mayhem expresses her feelings on the topic, “As someone who strongly opposes capital punishment, I'm really hopeful that Jordan will be amongst the first nations in the Arab World to abolish this practice.” Issam Smeir of Shifaa agrees, “So what did the world gain yesterday of taking another life away and what is really the logical sense behind the death penalty?”

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