Unguided Blog

Free, my a55! I almost forgot that our beautiful government has been blocking YouTube for more than two months. I was reading a friend’s blog (Hi, SFO), and he linked to a YouTube video of Tito Puento interpreting Dave Brubeck’s famous classic “Take Five”. Naturally I clicked it. And I waited, waited, refreshed, and waited some more. Nope, nothing’s happening. After a few more tries, I almost gave up, thinking the site was down. Then it occurred to me that those beautiful people in the government of ours, the chimpanzees, sorry champions of democracy, who were closer to God (well, they are closer than me, for sure) denied access to YouTube so that no harm would come to 70 million citizens of this country.

I remember the days of military regime. Good old days! Even those, the top brass I mean, were kind enough to let you know what was allowed and what was not. Even censorship must have rules and principles, don’t you think so? They could have smoothly redirected me to a page, telling how censor was good for me and my children, how it was done for the benefit of the many, of the bright days ahead, a secure place in the heavens, etc, etc. No? Is it not my right as a voting and tax paying citizen to know that a site is blocked? Don’t I have a right to know? What happened to the rule of accountability and transparency in government? I am disappointed. I really am.

As a law abiding citizen, of course I did not access YouTube, directly I mean. I watched the video and wanted to share with you. The embedding code was problematic, though. It was not XHTML 1.0 strict but a quick search yielded positive results and after changing the code slightly, the video has taken its place in my non-democratic blog where I am the sole benevolent dictator. Hope you like it.

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Back in the days when the Internet was young and the fastest connection 56 kbps (I almost wrote 14, because I continued to use it long after 56k modems had been available), virtual travelers used to surf in cyberspace. Surfing! A new sport that your board was your computer and packets of data your wind. The world of the electron![1]

Numerous vibrant communities cropped up everywhere. From ASCII art to bulletin boards, from Usenet to various scenes and text files, it was a never-ending expedition full of surprises. You usually started from somewhere and ended up at a completely different place at the end of your journey. It was different from today.

Nowadays, people usually stick to a site, I think using the term portal will not be wrong here, and the content, whatever that is, is pushed to users. It is as if you are an (it is correct, it is not an on) island in the middle of nowhere and everyday a cargo aircraft dumps a load of web sites, videos, music etc, on you, all tailored to your preselected preferences for you to consume. The exact opposite of surfing.

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Fanaticism has two attack vectors: credibility and plausibility; in order for you to be its enemy, either of the two must be met. If it does not take you seriously (credibility), regardless of what you do or say, it will not be bothered. If your argument is preposterous or hard to believe, whether it is true or not, it will tolerate whatever you say. But, if you are credible and have a plausible argument, and by plausible I mean some might believe what you claim, you become the target.

I read way too many articles about why democracy does not prevail in the Middle East. On a scale of absurdity to illusion, most of them missed the mark, albeit they were written by bright analysts. My answer, however, is simple:
lack of targets.

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Possibly the sole organisation for people who have different (with respect to our very normal society) sexual preferences like gays, lesbians etc, has been shutdown by the court on the grounds of:

• protection of the family as an institution
• violation of Civil Code stating no immoral organisation can be founded
• failure to mention the meaning of “lambda” in Turkish in the official name of the organisation.

Honestly, I do not know what to say but “gloomy days ahead!” or something similar, but since we started, let us analyse our exponentially improving democracy in Turkey a little bit in the light of this court decision.

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