Newstime24.org

The death of well-known Turkish movie and television series director Yücel Çakmaklı, known as Turkey’s “national director” since he led the Turkish National Cinema movement in the 1970s, is being mourned by his friends, colleagues and those who were touched by his work.

Yucel Cakmakli

Stating that his cinema career began thanks to Çakmaklı, who died on Monday at the age of 72, director Mesut Uçakan said he first met Çakmaklı at a cinema club in 1973 and that the late director had a profound impact on him. “It is impossible to forget his friendship. I imagine the pain of losing him will grow worse,” he said.
Uçakan also highlighted that in order to understand Çakmaklı, one needs to look at the situation of cinema when he began working as a director. “In a twisted effort to resemble the cinema of the West, the Turkish cinema industry grew distant from its own values, its national and religious values. There was even a sense of mocking the religion — Islam — and beliefs by creating imam characters with round trimmed beards and whirling eyes who wear black cassocks. Read more…

İlber Ortaylı

Topkapı Palace was the sultan’s residence for more than 400 years and public visits were extremely restricted. Today, the whole complex is a museum and welcomes more than 2 million visitors each year. It is also now host to the office of the museum director, İlber Ortaylı.

Topkapı Palace, which Ortaylı has been in charge of since 2004, houses a great collection of private objects belonging to the sultans. “This palace is beauty without luxury, the symbol of a powerful military establishment.” Ortaylı said.

The museum enjoys the largest Muslim collection of sacred relics, brought to Istanbul after the conquest of Mamluk’s Egypt in 1517. The mantle of the Prophet, his hair and footprint along with the rod of Abraham and the swords of the first three caliphs are among the collection. But still they are perhaps not enough to strike the incredible mass of tourists that flood into the museum everyday. “It is sufficient to take a look at the superficiality with which the tourists visit the museum to understand things are not moving in the righteous direction,” Ortaylı said. Read more…

Saudi mufti calls swine flu deaths 'martyrdom'

Saudi mufti calls swine flu deaths ‘martyrdom’

The legal adviser in the Saudi ministry of justice has reassured Muslims that whoever dies of swine flu will get the reward of a ‘martyr’.

In an interview with the Okaz daily, Sheikh Muhsin al-Ubaikan said the spread of swine flu as a pandemic is tantamount to plague.

The senior Saudi legal scholar referred to what he said was a saying by the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) that can be explained to mean that plague victims are martyrs. Read more…

There is a war between rich and poor

There is a war between rich and poor

As Leonard Cohen sang live to a lucky few Wednesday, a few unlucky fans battled to hear the Canadian crooner from beyond the walls of the concert hall and became living proof of the singer’s own words: “There is a war between the rich and poor.”

It was a group of fans that Leonard Cohen was not able to see: The free riders who could not afford the high ticket prices but still did not want to miss the Canadian artist’s first performance in Turkey. Read more…

Turkish Museum

Many visitors to İstanbul manage to make it to the Archeological Museums to gasp in wonder at the beautiful Alexander Sarcophagus and the recent finds from the Marmaray excavations that uncovered the city’s medieval port and an incredible cache of 35 wooden boats complete with their cargoes.

Others manage to squeeze in a trip to the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts to admire the room-sized Uşak carpets and the reminders of a nomadic way of life now gone the way of the camel trains, or to the Rahmi Koç Museum, which is crammed full with reminders of past modes of transport. The Pera Museum does well at attracting visitors in part because of its popular temporary exhibitions as does the Sabancı Museum, up the Bosporus in Emirgan. A few brave souls also venture as far as Büyükdere on the Bosporus to visit the Sadberk Hanım Museum and its fine archeological and ethnographical collections.

Read more…

Erol Evgin

Imagine a room full of people of all ages.

A quick look around makes it clear that there are people from at least five different generations in attendance.

Kids clapping their tiny hands to the rhythm of the music bouncing off the walls; the slightly older crowd singing along with a man standing right in the middle of the room.

That is the kind of atmosphere that a few people gathered at the Harbiye open-air theater got to experience. Standing in the center of the stage was Erol Evgin, an icon of Turkish pop music, celebrating the 40th anniversary of his career as a singer-songwriter. The older crowd finds him charismatic, the younger crowd thinks he is sweet. Among the few lucky listeners were Eyüp Can, news coordinator of Hürriyet, an award-winning writer of Turkish descent and the best-selling female author in Turkey and Zeki Alasya, a famous Turkish Actor and old friend of Erol Evgin. Read more…