Another Year

Another year has passed and time continues its grueling and painful march forward. Time to look back and see what was accomplished and what was not. I have managed to return to blogging on a more regular basis, but still not to the level I was three years ago. The impact of two years as a Headmaster of a small school are still being felt; plus, in a new position (Director of EdTech) at a new school (Cheongna Dalton School), I'm engaged in building an entire department from scratch. It involves continually defining and redefining the position according to the needs of the faculty and the other administrators. Also, I have my own ideas of what the department must accomplish and some of those ideas are left over from working in a department of five people at a much larger school. There is plenty of work to do, but only so much of me available; however, I feel like I have managed to balance the work/life tight rope much better than I did as a Headmaster, which is a major victory. The job of Headmaster was all encompassing and I threw myself in to it with reckless abandon. It was heartfelt and sincere, but not wise. As much as I love education as a profession, school as an organization, students and faculty as humans, there needs to be a balance maintained at all times. There were too many crises throughout the two years; too much turmoil. I will admit that some of the problems were of my own creation, but many were events out of my hands; the will of fate. Little could be done other than find a way to solve the problem and move forward as best as possible with when best was never enough for some people. Being back in Korea is wonderful. The speed of the Internet alone is enough to continuously bring a smile to my face. But beyond that the food, the seasons, the people, the efficiency, and the safety of the place are all lovely. I lived in Korea twice before 1997-98 and 2007-14; twice I left, but I don't see myself leaving again. This is home; this is where I belong. I'm more comfortable and happy in Korea than I ever was in the US. And although we have a home in Turkey, this last visit was eye opening in many ways. I still enjoy the village of Boz Koy, but Turkey in general no longer pulls me. The people are desperate; the mood is ugly; and the violence worsening daily. We were in Izmir when the most recent terror attack occurred and it was a terrible feeling. A feeling I really don't care to have again. Hopefully 2017 will be a better year, but the start has not be promising.

Understanding the Turkish Protests part 2

Many of the protestors are young 30 and 20 somethings tired of the three major political parties -- AKP, CHP, and MPH. AKP, as many know by now, holds the current majority in the parliament and is an Islamic, conservative party. CHP is an older party that can be thought of as the guardians of the ideals of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic. MHP is generally thought to be an ultra-nationalist party. The latter two parties are not very popular among younger professional Turks, in fact, all three of the parties aren't really speaking to this group of voters. They were content when AKP originally got into the parliament because in those days, AKP was focusing on liberalizing the political life to include conservatives and economic development. But after the most recent election, PM Tayyip Erdogan began a campaign of restricting various freedoms; in addition, he took the winning of 50% of the voting public to mean that he could rule as he sees fit without compromise or question.

The Gezi Park and Taksim Square protestors were violently ejected from those areas by police. Out of that actions and the threats of more police force from the PM, the protest took an interesting twist in the form of the "Standing Man" (or duran adam). One protestor decide to simply stand and stare at a Turkish flag with the image of Ataturk on it in Taksim Square and the #duranadam movement was born. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-protesters-civil-disobedience-act-in-taksim-ends-in-custody.aspx?pageID=238&nID=48999&NewsCatID=339#.UcBAwxvc7qM.facebook

Now you can search on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for #duranadam and find photos of people simply standing in protest of the actions and words of the PM Tayyip Erdogan. Hopefully standing will not be declared illegal in the coming days, but there is a draft law in the works to limit social media, the current main source of reliable news.

Understanding the Turkish Protests

I've been spending the last several days wondering exactly how I could help the cause of freedom in Turkey. I've been posting and re-posting items on Facebook and Twitter and in doing so driving my friends and followers crazy. And then today while wandering through the Wednesday bazaar in Karsiyaka, it came to me -- many foreigners probably aren't understanding much of what they see due to the humor that Turkish protestors are working into the protest. This post will try to clear the muddy waters of humor that exist within the protest.

First, what is with the penguins?
During the opening days of the protests, most Turkish news channels would not report on what was happening. This is for a couple of reasons, but the main one is that the journalists are afraid and they should be. Turkey has become the number one country for jailed journalist in the world. Yes, number one! After winning the last election with a large voting block (50%), the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) started rounding up journalists that spoke out against them and put them in jail or prison. The one channel that did report what was happening with the protests was just today (June 12th) given a penalty for doing what the news is supposed to do -- report the truth. So the penguins? Yes, a special feature about penguins was being played while the first wave of police violence took place in Gezi Park. The penguins are now a feature of the protests and a comment about the protests. It generally stands for ignoring something that is clearly happening.

Second, what is chapulling? Who or what is a chapuller?
The PM Tayyip Erdogan called the protestors drunks and looters on the fourth day of the protests, up until then he didn't even acknowledge that protests were occurring. The word for to loot in Turkish is Capulmak (the c actually has a little hook on the bottom, something not available on my English keyboard, but the hook makes the C a ch sound). In Turkish you can add a suffix to a word to make it the person who does that job or action - capulcu: a looter. Many Turks realized that capul doesn't mean anything in English, so they converted the word to make it easier for foreigners -- chapul and chapuller were born. This has become a symbol of the protestors and they often jokingly refer to themselves as chapullers. If you ask someone what they were doing last night, they may answer, "I was chapulling." Meaning, I was looting. This particular comment from the PM really got under the skin of people because there was no looting going on in Gezi Park, nor in Taksim Square, nor in any other location where the protestors have been. Chapulling has come to mean "looting" but it really means "protesting." Therefore a chapuller is a "looter" or actually a "Protestor." Turks like to throw the words of their enemies back at them and the PM has fallen victim to this every time the word capulmak is used.

Third, what is #occupygezi?
The hash tag on Twitter and Instagram most often used to share information is #occupygezi. There are several others, but this one seems to have the largest following.