Erkan's field diary

Prof. Yayla triggers yet another Kemalism debate...

It is a cold Sunday morning in Istanbul and the streets of the normally hectic Sirkeci are quite silent. In front of the Great Post Office, though, there is action to see: A group of young liberal college students have the masks of a university professor named Atilla Yayla on their faces. Yayla's mouth is gagged but the group speaks out. "We are here to defend Dr. Yayla's freedom of speech," proclaims Soner Tunç, their spokesman, "because his only 'crime' is to think unconventionally." Via the White Path

Prof. Atilla Yayla's speech related to Atatürk caused uproar and he was immediately fired from his teaching job. Sabah newspaper here provides who says what in the Kemalism debateinstigated by Prof. Yayla's speech... (the link is in Turkish...)

Prof. İsen also writes about the issue under the title: political adolescence...

Communist Manifesto in Hollywood Cartoons:)

anticonsumer says:
Displaying a broad range of Golden Age H Displaying a broad range of Golden Age Hollywood animation, Manifestoon is a homage to the latent subversiveness of cartoons. Though U.S. cartoons are usually thought of as conveyors of capitalist ideologies of consumerism and individualism, Drew observes: "Somehow as an avid childhood fan of cartoons, these ideas were secondary to a more important lesson—that of the 'trickster' nature of many characters as they mocked, outwitted and defeated their more powerful adversaries.....

Posted by erkan at November 27, 2006 02:25 AM | TrackBack
Posted to Field notes