That's a sad, remarkable, yet I take it unremarkable tale. When I lived in Kayseri 2009-11, the many young people I knew were very optimistic about their futures, and Turkey's future, some to the point of grandiosity about a neo-Ottoman empire. I as an American was a kind of refugee from the Great Recession in the US, and the Turks were flattered that a "wealthy" or formerly wealthy American would choose to live in Turkey. I found the people so warm and friendly. I take it Turkey has been sapped by too many refugees as well as internal divisions, a very difficult economy and the devastating earthquake in the South.
I just finished reading Ece Temelkuran's Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy, which was written in the wake of the Gezi Park protests. Something happened in 2016, whether it was the protests or the coup-attempt, that changed the tenor of this country. I wasn't here, and I don't pretend to understand it. People like you and me who visit Turkey are amazed by the people and the potential of this country. It's disappointing, to say the least.
It is apparently an ongoing trauma. My Turkish mentor teacher was imprisoned for five-and-a-half years on flimsy charges because the private school he taught at was loosely
That's a sad, remarkable, yet I take it unremarkable tale. When I lived in Kayseri 2009-11, the many young people I knew were very optimistic about their futures, and Turkey's future, some to the point of grandiosity about a neo-Ottoman empire. I as an American was a kind of refugee from the Great Recession in the US, and the Turks were flattered that a "wealthy" or formerly wealthy American would choose to live in Turkey. I found the people so warm and friendly. I take it Turkey has been sapped by too many refugees as well as internal divisions, a very difficult economy and the devastating earthquake in the South.
I just finished reading Ece Temelkuran's Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy, which was written in the wake of the Gezi Park protests. Something happened in 2016, whether it was the protests or the coup-attempt, that changed the tenor of this country. I wasn't here, and I don't pretend to understand it. People like you and me who visit Turkey are amazed by the people and the potential of this country. It's disappointing, to say the least.
It is apparently an ongoing trauma. My Turkish mentor teacher was imprisoned for five-and-a-half years on flimsy charges because the private school he taught at was loosely