inciting military personnel to insubordination

I just stumbled across unsettling news about a weekly magazine I once worked for - to use the term loosely - as a college intern in Istanbul in the 80's. It was raided in April and has recently been forced to shut down. The arrests appear to be in retaliation for criticizing the involvement of military leadership in Turkey's domestic politics.

A reporter is being charged with "decreasing the respect for the army among the people" and "denigrating the state's armed forces," apparently because of comments related to journalist Hrant Dink's murder. According to Amnesty International, at the time of the arrests, Nokta and its writers were already under investigation on charges of “discouraging people from military service” and “inciting military personnel to insubordination” following an article published in late March.

I can still close my eyes and imagine myself back in the Nokta offices. In between tulip-shaped glasses of scalding-hot çay, I was always looking for something to to do, trying to keep busy. Rather than being given the sorts of work I had imagined I might before I set off for Turkiye - a supposedly sophisticated student journalist from developed/first world America - I discovered post-arrival I was decidedly behind my Turkish peers in understanding the complex interplay of national and international politics that was the focus of their work and passion. Even the electronic equipment and technology they used was more advanced than anything I had worked with. In contrast, my peers and I from the US may as well have been still laying out our hometown newspapers with leaded type and printing on a letterpress.

Just sitting and listening in on the conversations swirling around me added to my bits and pieces of broken Turkish (and significantly contributed to my awareness of the huge gaps in my education). Still, the language differences and my inability to absorb several thousand years of history in a few weeks were too much for me to be involved in any meaningful projects.

So, whenever possible, I went to bask and learn, listening to the women in the offices of Kadinci magazine. They never ceased to challege my stereotypes, not just of Turkish women, but of women anywhere. Occasionally, I still dream I am back in Istanbul. However, in my dreams, I can converse fluently in the language of Turkiye. More than that, I understand - the context of the conversations, the weight of what it means to be on the cusp of both East and West. It is always a disappointment to awake from those dreams.