Yaşamdan mı yanasınız seçme hakkından mı?

Kadın hareketinin tarih boyunca yoluna taş bırakan kürtaj, sonunda bizde de bir tartışma konusu olarak gündeme düştü. Kadını ve kadın vücudunu kontrol altına almak isteyen kürtaj karşıtı bakış açısı tüm ciddiyetiyle bir erkek söylemi olmaya devam ederken, kürtaj hakkını savunanlar yaratıcılıktan ödün vermiyor. Sinema ve TV ise bu önemli kadın deneyimini es geçmeyi tercih ediyor
Karmaşık Batılılaşma yolculuğumuzda geçtiğimiz hafta ilginç bir ilerleme kaydettik. Batı’nın iki yüzyıldır hararetinden bir şey kaybetmeyen kürtaj tartışması bizim topraklarda da kendine sıcak bir alan buluverdi. Köşeleri bir türlü birleşmeyen din-devlet-kadın hakları üçgeninin bu önemli savaş alanı, en son cephesini Başbakan’ın sözleriyle Türkiye’de açtı.

Yaşamdan mı yanasınız, seçme özgürlüğünden mi derken ciddi bir savaş alanı var ortada: Kadın vücudu. Tüm ahlaki, dini, felsefi, yasal ve biyolojik tartışmaların ortasında atlanan asıl gerçek ise işin güvenlik ve sağlık boyutu, bir de sağlığa ulaşım hakkı.

Her yıl dünyada ortalama 200 bin kadın kürtaj sırasında ölüyor. Bu ölümlerin yüzde 99’u ise düzgün koşullarda çok rahat önlenebilecek ölümler. Kürtajın yasal olduğu ülkelerle yasaklandığı ülkelerdeki kürtaj oranı aşağı yukarı aynı. Yani, kürtajı yasaklamak ya da toplumsal olarak cinayet olduğunu beyan etmek, genelevleri kapayarak seks alışverişini önlemek kadar gerçekçi ve insani bir yaklaşım.

Belki de en mantıklısı, kürtaj tartışmalarını kadın hareketinin, kadının özgürleşmesinin turnusol testi olarak kabul etmek. Tarih boyunca ne zaman kadınlar haklarını sahiplenmeye biraz daha yakınlaşıyor, kürtaj da o zaman yeniden masaya yatırılıyor. Seçme-seçilme hakkı, kadın emeğinin eşitlenmesi, üreten kadının yalnız başına var olma özgürlüğü bir adım ilerlediğinde, dikkatleri başka bir tarafa çekmek için kürtaj yeniden gündeme geliyor.

Yazının devamı için tıklayın (Akşam Pazar)

Research center opens with a look at Anatolia

Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations makes its official opening with a photography exhibition of the late chronicler of Anatolia, Josephine Powell. The center aims to focus on the Anatolia
Josephine Powell was one of the most prominent documenters of Turkey’s recent history and its transformation after the establishment of the republic in early 20th century. Having visited Turkey for the first time in 1955 to photograph Byzantine mosaics, she became a regular traveler in Turkey, photographically and academically documenting nomadic life. She was both a collector of Anatolian artifacts like flat-woven textiles, kilims and sacks, as well as a photographer of ethnography.

Until her death in 2007, Powell documented Anatolia and its diverse ways of life in a collection of 30,000 photographs. Three months before her death, she left the entire collection to the Vehbi Koç Foundation. The photos have been digitized and cataloged by Koç University’s Suna Kıraç Foundation.

Now, a selection of these photographs, taken over a span of two decades, is ready for art and culture aficionados as part of an opening exhibition.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)

Angrier, more aggressive Madonna rocks Istanbul

Three decades into her career, with her second visit to Istanbul after a twenty year absence, Madonna once again showed an awe-struck audience of 50,000 the very definition of a good show. In fact, the best show anyone could hope to see.


Madonna performed in Istanbul June 7 on the third stop in her latest MDNA tour. The show was vintage Madonna, edgy Madonna, a re-invented Madonna, and an all-too-familiar in-your-face Madonna. Singing perhaps a little too much from her new album MDNA for the casual fans’ taste, the Queen of Pop nonetheless managed to impress with a two-hour extravaganza of singing, dancing, acrobatics, visual effects and costumes.

With nine concert tours undertaken throughout her career, the MDNA Tour is the darkest Madonna has ever done. This was a concert of war, anger and aggression. But against whom it was directed is a bit muddled. There were guns, a shooting rampage on Madonna’s part against her male dancers, a choreographed dance of eye-flinching torture, prison violence and blood, lots of blood splattered across giant screens. Madonna definitely had some issues to work out. She was angry at ex-husbands, ex-lovers, the male authority figures, high school bullies, the church, and a pop star who is 28 year her younger.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News) 

YouTube joins activist world with Human Rights Channel

As we have seen in the last two years with the Arab Spring, social media can be the ultimate tool in the fight for equality, rights and justice. In line with this, YouTube, together with two partners, has launched the Human Rights Channel, a platform for citizens around the globe to upload their videos on human rights violations. No videos, however, have yet been uploaded from Turkey


Did you know that you can now watch human rights violations and under-reported human rights stories all around the world on a single channel? Maybe not a TV channel, but perhaps a more powerful, impartial and global source of videos. YouTube’s very own Human Rights Channel opened in late May with the slogan, “Film it. Share it. Change it.”

With a single click, you can now watch the gruesome footage of a raid by Syrian security forces on Aleppo University’s dormitories that claimed four lives and its aftermath, or recent rallies in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, a man publicly whipped as punishment in Iran, or cousins burning themselves to protest Chinese rule in Tibet.

The channel asks people around the world to upload videos “to shed light on and contextualize under-reported stories, to record otherwise undocumented abuses, and to amplify previously unheard voices.” The all-too-important hashtag is #video4change.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)
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