Article3-Papa, The Philosopher

                Two weeks ago, the foundations of 3. bridge on Bosporus were laid by Abdullah Gül, Tayyip Erdoğan and other politicians. Abdullah Gül said that the name of the bridge would be Yavuz Sultan Selim, an Ottoman sultan who killed many Alevi Muslims. This decision caused many objections in society because giving the bridge such a name was thought to be an insult for Alevi Muslims. This is the latest thing that has made Alevi Muslims angry. For centuries, Alevi Muslims suffered from being Alevi; they got beaten, killed and forced to be Sunni. All these things happened because they are different from the rest of the society. Like Alevi Muslims; Jewish people in Germany, Kurd people in Turkland and many other people suffered only because they are different. Leo Buscaglia, an Italian writer, wrote “Papa, The Philosopher” to draw attention to the hardships of being different. He tells a memory of his which he experienced in junior high school. It was the first time he had encountered what being different means. After the incident, he went to home and locked himself in bathroom. His father calmed him down and told him that people like them always came across with such incidents and it would not be the last time for him. Buscaglia did not want to be Italian and wanted to be anything else but his father told him that there was nothing to be ashamed but a lot to be proud of being Italian. Buscaglia tells everything happened just as his father said; his Jewish, black and Mexican friends also experienced such insults and incidents. I agree with writer and his father because this is an international phenomenon; it happens everywhere in the world. In Turkland, Kurds, Alevi Muslims and other foreign people come across with such incidents. They experienced and will experience such incidents. Being different or minority is difficult for people. However, as Buscaglia’s father said everybody, every race or every religion has something to be proud of. I am proud of being a Turk and Muslim. There is something I do not agree with Buscaglia’s father. It is that he does not do anything toward the unpleasant event his son experienced. I would have done everything I could to take revenge. I would show them the superiority of my culture and make them be ashamed. As conclusion, I agree with the writer; different people always suffer.

Article2-I Surf, Therefore I Am

While I was trying to select the article, I had a lot of trouble. I read a lot of articles but could not decide which one to write on. I have chosen “The Meaning of a Word” by Gloria Naylor for article reflection. The article is very informative and enjoyable for me. I have chosen this article because it is one of the shortest articles in the pack and I thought I can write a better reflection for it. I, as a foreign language student, found it very relevant to my education because in the article, Naylor talks about words and how they get their strength. In the article, Gloria Naylor, who is a black person, mentions her early life and talks about the word “nigger”. She explains what kind of different meanings “nigger” had and how that word gained these meanings. In the article, Naylor says “words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power”. This is very critical for us, for the people dealing with language. She tells that her relatives used the word “nigger” neutrally, even in a positive way.  However; other people, especially white people, used “nigger” in order to humiliate the black people. She explains here that people give words their real meanings. Another example for this can be the word “ula”. In Black Sea region, people use it call other people like “ula Orhan” but if it is used toward a person from other regions, it can be taken as an insult. I completely agree with the writer in her statement.  

(Revised)Article1-The Meaning of a Word

While I was trying to select the article, I had a lot of trouble. I read a lot of articles but could not decide on which one write. I have chosen “The Meaning of a Word” by Gloria Naylor for article reflection. The article is very informative and enjoyable for me. I have chosen this article because it is one of the shortest articles in the pack and I thought I can write a better reflection for it. I, as a foreign language student, found it very relevant to my education because in the article, Naylor talks about words and how they get their strength. In the article, Gloria Naylor, who is a black person, mentions her early life and talks about the word “nigger”. She explains what kind of different meanings “nigger” had and how that word gained these meanings. In the article, Naylor says “words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power”. This is very critical for us, for the people dealing with language. She tells that her relatives used the word “nigger” neutrally, even in a positive way.  However; other people, especially white people, used “nigger” in order to humiliate the black people. She explains here that people give words their real meanings. Another example for this can be the word “ula”. In Black Sea region, people use it call other people like “ula Orhan” but if it is used toward a person from other regions, it can be taken as an insult. I completely agree with the writer in her statement.  

Free4-The Two Darkest Sides of World War 2(Zone 731 and the Holocaust)

                World War 1 was the most violent which had taken place up to this time. It started in 1914 and finished in 1918. In this war, nearly 39 million people died, got injured and lost. World’s many countries, from New Zealand to the USA, were involved in this war.  21 years after the end of this war started another war. It was called World War 2. Many countries from all over the world again were included in this war.  In this war, between nearly 50 and 70 million people lost their lives. The world witnessed many cruel things in this war. However, two of them are very important. They are unit 731 and the Holocaust. Unit 731 was a unit founded by Japanese commander Shirio Ishii in 1935. It is claimed that nearly 250,000 people were killed there by being used in cruel experiments.  It is claimed that experiments like “how long can a man stay in cold water, what is there in people’s internal organs, at how much distance of a bomb can a man survive” were conducted there. People were claimed to be boiled in hot water, cut alive and injected blood. These are some experiments done and many more cruelties took place there. The other big cruelty, the Holocaust, claimed nearly 6 million people’s lives. The people killed there were mostly Jewish. Some claim that people were killed in gas chambers, by being shot and in starvation. Josef Mengele, a German doctor, did many experiments on Jewish people there. Josef Mengele is claimed to cut people alive, inject colors to people’s eyes, conduct experiments on twins and try to create a pure German race. After the war, he escaped to South America. It is claimed that in the villages Mengele lived, there was an increase in the rate of twin birth and blue eyed people. These two infamies were the cruelest things of human history.  Actually, it is not surprising that such things happened in the world’s cruelest war. We hope no such things happen ever.

(Revised)Free3- The Prestige

The Prestige is a movie which  I think to be one of the best movies that has ever been made. It looks like a magic movie but I think it is about Nikola Tesla, one of the most important scientists of history. The movie develops around two magicians who are fighting with each other throughout the movie. Robert Angier, played by Hugh Jackman, is a young magician. Alfred Borden, played by Christian Bale, is also a young magician who caused the death of Robert Angier's wife during a show. After this terrible incident, the two magicians become enemies and fight with each other and try to prove he is the best. Throughout the movie they try to hurt each other in every possible way. At the end, Robert Angier finds out that Nikola Tesla can make a machine for him, which will make him unrivalled. He reaches Nikola Tesla and has him make the machine. Angier uses the machine and make a teleportation trick which fascinates everybody watching the show. Borden tries to find out his trick watching his numerous shows but cannot find anything. At last he decides to examine the stage better and goes under the stage, which prepares his execution for killing Robert Angier by suffocating him in a water tank. In the end of the movie, you get shocked because everything in the movie is planned so well that everything turns out to be different at the end. The film is so hard to understand that you may have to watch is several times to understand everything. It took me 4-5 times to understand. The movie tells us that obsessions can cause our end. It also tells us much about Nikola Tesla. It mentions his inventions, how far he was beyond his time and how much other people like Thomas Edison tried to stop him. The movie shows Nikola Tesla as a genius, which is exactly not wrong. As I said the movie is a masterpiece and it is in the list of top 250 movies list. I hope you can have the chance to watch it over and over. I am sure you will be surprised.

Free2-Turkland

Turkey is a bird which belongs to the diverse Galliformes. It is called meleagris galapova in Latin. It is a big bird with black feathers and a strange thing on its nose. Its native land is north America. It was brought and introduced to Europe by conquistadors. It's a commonly kept and eaten animal. It is especially eaten on Thanksgiving days and at christmas.Another Turkey is a country which is in Middle East. It was founded by M. Kemal ATATÜRK in 1923 after a lot of fierce wars with Europeans. It's a lovely country with hospitable people.Two completely different things have the same name. For most of Turkish children who learn English, learning that "hindi" means turkey and our country is "Turkey" in English is very surprising. The reason why these two different things have the same name dates back to Ottoman times. A bird looking like turkey was introduced to the English by Turkish merchants, and they called that bird also "turkey". After the exploration of north America, as meleagris galapova looked like the bird which was called turkey formerly, they called this new bird also "turkey".After the beginning of 20th century, the word "turkey" began to get some side meanings. As the bird turkey is not very intelligent and has stupid behaviours, most of these side meanings were insulting.  Some of these meaning are "stupid, fool, clumsy, a girl that is not virgin etc. There are much more disqusting meanings.If you wonder, you can visit urbandictionary.com. I, as a citizen of this country, am ashamed of this situation.
There is one solution to this problem. There is word which is both honorable and appropriate for English. It is "Turkland". It is the combination of the words "Turk" and "land". "Turk" is a really proud word for us and the word "land" is used in most of Indo-European languages in the names of countries such as England, Ireland, Scotland, Deutschland etc. I think saying "Welcome to Turkland" is much better than saying "Welcome to Turkey".There are many examples of countries and cities that have changed their names. For example, Persia made its name Iran in 50s-60s and Abyssinia made its name Ethyopia. There many more examples of this situation. I hope people will understand the severeness of the situation and start to use "Turkland" as the name of our country.

Free1-Village Institutes

About 15 years passed after the Independence War and another world war was about to break out. Turkland was in poverty. There was not plenty food for people but there were rapid developments in every field, one of which is education. As you can understand from the title, I am going to tell you about village institutes which were far beyond the time they served. Through the end of 40’s, ıt was recognized that there was a really big gap between cities and villages and in order to close the gap, something had to be done. For this aim, with a law, they made it possible for people who had done their military service as a sergeant to be teachers after a six month of education. These people were to teach villagers reading, writing and modern agriculture technics. Some years after this try, they recognized that it was not possible to continue villagers’ education with these teachers and they started to think about more radical solutions. Hasan Ali Yucel, who was minister of education that time and knew about Ismail Hakkı Tonguç’s ideas about education, made him inspector of ministry of education. This opened the way to village intuitions. These two brilliant educators made it possible for village intuitions to be opened with the law of 1940. With the law, 4 teacher training schools, which were opened earlier, were turned into village institutions. 17 other institution started to be built up with the law. The aim was to educate primary school graduate student to be teachers and they were going to serve compulsorily 20 years in their villages with a salary of 20 liras. These schools had field to make agriculture, cattle to rise and workshops to do carpentry and blacksmithing. Students did not only learn from books but also they learned from applied education. Besides this education of craft, each student had to play an instrument and read 20 of books from world literature which Hasan Ali Yucel made translated. There was also an advanced conception of democracy in these schools. Every Saturday, everybody in school, including headmaster and caretakers, gathered in yard and criticized the previous week. Students could criticize even the headmaster, which was an indicator of advanced democracy which does not exist today. As these unique schools had democracy and graduates of them taught villagers, some people like landowners and conservatives got disturbed and started to denigrate the schools saying there were undesirable acts between girls and boys and saying the schools spread communism. Through the end of CHP power, there had to be made some unwanted changes in these schools and after DP came to power, it turned these schools into regular teacher training schools. All the educators are agreed that world lost too much with the closing of village institutions, about which Milli Sef Ismet Inonu said: I have two big works: village institutions and multy party-regime. Most probably, Turkland would be a better country in all aspects if these schools were not closed.