It has been some of the strangest few days of my life. From hearing F16 jets flyby at night and explosions shaking the ground whilst hiding out in friends houses after hearing of a coup; knowing there are tanks streets below as you struggle to comprehend what is going on. Friends joining lines and lines of people at ATM machines, spaghetti running out at the markets as no one truly knows how long they are going to be trapped inside.
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Thankfully, we are now not trapped; the initial chaos from Friday night is over. Instead of analysing the situation that ensued afterwards and what is going on now (as it isn't that clear); I would just like to say that it is very easy to see how a country that is relatively stable can disintegrate into a situation of potential war, complete terror and instability overnight.

This region of the world has been played at for decades, perhaps even centuries. We are indeed pieces on a chess board. Worldwide economic and social domination by a few very rich and greedy people is the reason why thousands of children die of starvation everyday, why approx 1 billion learn to live on less than 1 dollar a day, why some countries are completely sold to foreign corporations etc. etc. etc.

I'm tired of asking questions such as;
Why the f* are there permanent security council members ? 
Why does one family (Rothschild) own nearly all central banks worldwide?
Why do we have to work to make money to pay our electricity and water bills and buy food when these things would be very simply provided if resource distribution was in place. 
etc. etc. etc.

I feel I am living as a hypocrite myself. We always discuss of conscious consumption. Yes, I am better than I used to be at being careful regarding what and how I consume but I truly feel that there needs to be some sort of radical dissent in terms of this. This chaos and extremism ensuing across the region, Europe and the world is not just going to simply disappear. It will get worst if we do not act. And if it is indeed the economy that makes the world go round. That is where we must hit the hardest. How exactly, I'm not entirely sure.

(Edit/Addition: Oh, and to fight extremism we must indeed remember that there are chilrden being brain-washed into believing extremist views. We can fight that by equally making as compelling counter articles/videos. These people (if not already taken away and being trained on the ground) are influenced by their solitary lonely lives, the bullshit environment they are in and mostly by what they are reading and watching on the internet). We must tell young vulnerable children and young people: THERE IS another way.)

Technology, hacking, whistle-blowing- this has lead to more transparency but has also caused a lot of trouble at other times. We must be smart. Cyber-security and cyber warfare is one of the greatest threats that face the planet at the moment in terms of keeping 'the system' alive and well.

The reason we are governed, the reason we value money is only because we allow ourselves to be government, because we 'trust' money and put value onto it ourselves. We in our lives our doing as much as we can I can see that. There is too much information, overwhelming misinformation, our brains are trying to compute all of this as well as our emotions of what is going on the world constantly. It is too much to take.

We then, of course need to to calm and relax, meditate, laugh with friends, make art, music, love. Cook. Feel alive. There are different ways of radical dissent - truly living and believing in the way you believe as a form of resistance. Living 'off grid'. Choosing to live alternatively, sharing, free-cycling, networking, truly seeing the beautiful different colours of the people and the world we live in.

A lot of us (including myself) feel paralyzed about 'what exactly to do'. We don't trust political systems, we choose systems that are not necessarily hierarchical to be a part of ; the vast consciousness of the internet is a part of this . We share, we are in power, we can reach billions at a click. What we also need is focus and discipline. We cannot do everything. Which is why we collaborate and we focus. We do indeed need to be brave. Bravery and stupidity also can be a very thin line when people wait outside your house ready to beat you up.

I'm babbling but I need to . The point is, friends, it is time for some more radical thought and action. (When I say radical I do not mean let's go and wreck the place). I mean - time to be smart with our emotions, thoughts, our environment, our awareness, time to shake off the hopelessness, time to embrace that we are together, time to accept the horror that surrounds us, time to see we must do all we can to stop this. Time to learn to protect ourselves online, physically, mentally. Time to be prepared for everything; to be 'safer' rather than 'sorry'.

We have to keep doing what we have been doing; sharing info etc. We need to 'think globally, act locally', we need to make this fight not against something or another- we must fight for 'humanity' ; for all beings on this planet. If we continue to find this in ourselves, that is the most important step. The rest comes naturally.

Let's not let these assholes rule the planet. At some point, 'whatever it takes' will be what we are saying to one another.
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Enough is enough.

Peace and Love.

This morning I came across a video on Facebook called 'What are we teaching our children?'. It was a pretty heartbreaking study that looks into the preconceived ideas and prejudices children have against people with different skin colour.  The study takes place in America but I feel is definitely a reflection of our 'global society'. 

In the video children are asked if they prefer a  black or white skin coloured doll and why. In addition children are asked what colour skin they would prefer to have as well as which children are 'dumb' or 'smart' etc. I won't say any more, you can watch that video here.

Just a quick browse on YouTube and you can find many studies on the same topic. Here is another video for e.g. (also linked to the above study) that shows also how clueless children are regarding WHY they have such prejudices. The question does really come to 'What are we teaching our children?'

It made me think of a very important experiment that I watched a few years back conducted by Jane Elliott, a former school teacher and anti-racism activist. 

Commonly known as the 'blue eye / brown eye experiment' , 'The Eye of The Storm' is ''A wake up call for all ages [that] teaches about prejudices using a dramatic framework  [which] provides an examination of the realities of discrimination as experienced by actual students in [her] classroom of [third graders]. Elliott [demonstrates] how quickly children can succumb to discriminatory behaviour.  The video chronicles her, now famous, exercise where she divides her class based upon the colour of their eyes and bestows upon one group privileges and on the other group impediments.'' (Source: www.janeelliott.com) 

What's interesting is the follow up of the experiment that came 15 years later, 'A Class Divided' that explores what the children ''in Jane Elliott's daring classroom exercise learned about discrimination and how it still affects them today. Ms. Elliott meets with some of her former students to analyse the exercise in pejudice and its impact on their lives'' (Source: www.janeelliott.com).

I strongly recommend everyone to watch the above two documentaries and read about Jane Elliott's experiments. 
Prejudice is truly killing us. Enough is enough!

TED Talks  (Ideas Woth Spreading is the motto) are always inspiring. I've been watching them on and off for the last 7-8 years now. Covering material from almost any topic you can think of you can tune in for 10 minute bite sized videos or watch hour long talks and interactive performances that are always interesting and sometimes just completely fascinating. 

The Blog also has some interesting material. So, I recently stumbled upon a blog post '100 Websites You should Know and Use' which gives websites for business, literature, audiovisual material, experimental websites etc. It has also been recently updated as well. You should definitely check it out!

Welcome to my new website! Take a look around... =)

This photo is from a journey from Datça, south of Turkey back home to Ankara. Datça is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to and since I was very young I've spent a lot of time travelling so I feel as this photo captures that feeling of belonging to more than one place at the same time.