Slowly-by-Slowly

Today is my Dad’s birthday – he has been gone for three years – but I still  miss him.  Recently, I learned of a Turkish idiom that is used to express deep sadness.  Really, the Turks have an idiom for everything.

As the tears streamed down my face, Perihan Hanim, the fairy Godmother puppet came up and said “Karadeniz’de gemileri batmak.”  I knew it was something about the Black (Kara) Sea (deniz), but not much more.

Yehuda Rebbe, the sage elder puppet filled me in.  He said “If you owned a ship and it sank you would probably feel really sad about your loss. Turkish has an idiom that draws on this metaphor to express deep sadness. The expression is “Karadeniz’de gemileri batmak” which literally translates as to have one’s ships sunk in the Black Sea. It is generally used in questions, for example: ‘Çok üzgün görünüyorsun. Ne oldu? Karadeniz’de gemilerin mi battı?'”

For those of you who knew him, I think you might agree that my Dad would appreciate the boat metaphor! And now on to celebrating his life in a more positive manner!

Image by Ebert at dashburst.com

Turks are truly mad for Twitter. According to the New Yorker’s review of data from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “fourteen per cent of Turkey’s eighty million people use Twitter—a relatively high figure for a country where only forty-five per cent of the population uses the Internet.”

Well, lately, the Karagöz puppets have been assisting me in learning Turkish again – this time through the sharing of idioms.  I keep telling them that idioms are the last thing to be learned, that sentences should come first, but those puppets are really stubborn.

In any case, this week, Karagöz started cackling in earnest, telling me that the Turkish saying (below) might remind one of the famous microblogging service that was, once again, banned at the request of Tayyip himself.

Karagöz explains “This idiom is for when someone might think that due to their power or status they can make everyone do what they want but sooner or later they will have to find out that not everyone will bend to their will.”

“The phrase for this in Turkish is “Her kuşun eti yenmez.”

It literally translates as “Not every bird’s meat is edible.”

In a metaphorical sense it means “Not every bird is a game”

Here is an example: Herkesi kolayca kandırıp istediğini yaptıracağını sanmasın. Her kuşun etin yenmez öğrensin.

Last year, Turkey lifted its ban on Twitter – releasing it from the list of only two countries in the world to block Twitter entirely. (The other is China.)  Pundits suggest that recent moves on the part of the government may suggest future such bans … meanwhile, in response to the idiom, I am sure that the Twitter bird is NOT edible!

Other recent Twitter news from Hurriyet Daily News on 1/14/15:

Turkish authorities have warned that all websites publishing alleged records related to Syrian-bound trucks belonging to the Turkish intelligence agency that were stopped by a prosecutor last year will be blocked, presaging a possible new ban on Twitter and Facebook. The two largest social media networks, however, quickly complied and removed the content Jan. 14.

On Jan. 2, 2014, two Syria-bound trucks belonging to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) were stopped by a prosecutor who sought to have the gendarmerie search the vehicles. The following month, a Turkish court issued a ban on the publication of news related to the incident.

A number of documents on the search were leaked online yesterday. The signed proceedings related to the search initially leaked through Twitter, allegedly show that arms belonging to MİT were found in the trucks. Speculation has been rife that the arms were destined for jihadists in Syria.

On Jan. 14, Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) recalled a March 2014 government decree that banned the coverage of the issue, referring to Law No. 6112.

According to an article in the law, Turkey’s prime minister or a cabinet minister has the authority to impose a gag order on the media “in cases obviously required by national security or when public order is very likely to be broken.”

Turkish officials, now equipped with the authority to block websites even without a court ruling, warned Jan. 14 that the gag order would be strictly imposed on the Internet. Several websites, including Facebook and Twitter, quickly withheld the sanctioned content on Jan. 14, dodging the possible Turkish ban.

“There are several court decisions against the websites that published the signed proceedings,” a Turkish official told daily Hürriyet, stressing that the “procedure is ongoing.”

Turkey blocked access to Twitter, hours after then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to close down the social media platform on March 20, 2014.

YouTube was banned in Turkey on March 27, hours after a top-secret government meeting on Syria was leaked allegedly depicting government officials discussing a possible false-flag operation on Turkey in an effort to drag Turkey into Syria’s war.

The Constitutional Court unblocked Twitter on April 2, 2014, and YouTube on May 29, 2014, citing freedom of expression, but the rulings drew the ire of the government.

January/14/2015