ÖZEL HABER

Senabul Merendi, 2012 yılında savaştan kaçıp Türkiye’ye sığınan Halepli bir işadamının öğretmen kızıydı. Diğer Suriyelilere göre varlıklı bir aileden geliyordu, Türkiye’de de baba mesleği olan mermerciliğe devam etti. Ama çevresinde zor şartlarda yaşayan Suriyelilere kayıtsız kalamadı. Onlar için okullar kurmaya başladı. Hababam Sınıfı hikâyelerine benzeyen olaylar yaşadı. Bugün onun okullarından mezun olan 250 Suriyeli üniversitede okuyor, bazıları eğitimini tamamlayıp doktor, mühendis, öğretmen oldu.

Arrogantly flaunting its contempt for all international norms and world public opinion, the Israeli army has been engaged for more than a week in a latest round of savagery against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, in several cities Jewish right-wing mobs have been mindlessly attacking Israel’s own Arab citizens in a scary outbreak of what could escalate into local-level ethno-religious warfare.

The Israeli army keeps mercilessly shelling and bombing Gaza City and the entire Gaza Strip. What does it mean to live under it all the time? Look at the above picture of a Palestinian woman and her child who have taken refuge in a UN school. Do we really know what bombardment means?

Back to this matter of how the Turkish tribes, pouring in over Azerbaycan in the 11th century, might have come to talk admiringly among themselves of “ana+dolu,” a land full of mothers, giving rise to the word “Anadolu.”

From that evening table, the famous “sofra” of Kemalist lore and legend, a virtual hysteria rose and spread to the rest of the elite. Such spasms have marked many hyper-nationalist dictatorial cultures. The time, too, was auspicious: Fascism and Nazism were on the rise; Mussolini had already come to power in 1922, and Hitler was about to do so in 1933. Trolls flourished, and some unbelievable etymologies were concocted, all the way to Ancient Greek gods and goddesses.