Dear readers,
2023 had truly been an awful year. Lethal earthquakes in Turkey and Syria on February 6, killed more than 50,000 people. The presidential elections in May extended Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reign for another five years. The Turkish opposition imploded in the wake of their electoral defeat. Its far-right elements (Meral Akşener and her İYİ Parti) showed their true faces: hatred of Kurds, the peace process, immigrants, et al. And the so-called social democratic elements? Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and his replacement, a seemingly clueless Özgür Özel (a fitting choice as as the new leader of the Republican People’s Party) managed to embarrass themselves in the latter half of the year, more than they did by losing the election to Erdoğan when Turkey’s autocrat was at his weakest. Meanwhile numberless progressives, humanists and leftists will enter the new year behind bars, including Selahattin Demirtaş, Osman Kavala and Can Atalay.
Then, in October, came the attacks by Hamas and the Israeli response. Bloodshed after bloodshed. A seemingly endless cycle of terror, oppression, and violence.
I finished this awful year with a three hour radio broadcast on the BBC News Service’s Weekend programme. Alongside Noga Tarnopolski, a freelance reporter on Israel and the Palestinian territories, we were this week’s programme-length guests.
Julian Worricker, the Weekend’s host, and Albana Kasapi, the Weekend’s producer, are terrific journalists. This morning they brought to the world’s attention Combatants for Peace, a group of former Israeli soldiers and formerly imprisoned Palestinians who have developed a model for a nonviolent way forward. Two of their founders, Sulaiman Khatib, a former Palestinian prisoner and Avner Wishnitzer, a former Israeli elite soldier, spoke on the programme. You must listen to it.
Then there was the Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov reflecting on 2023 and looking ahead at 2024. Kurkov is among Ukraine's most renowned authors, and is often called a comic novelist. But his moving essay on Weekend was a reminder that the war in Ukraine has little chance of ending soon.
With the world’s eyes off the ball, leaders like Putin can destroy and conquer cities as they like. And that rule-based international liberal order? It seemingly has vanished.
The moral clarity that empowered people since the war in Ukraine began has been muddled with the new war in Gaza.
You can hear the programme in full in three parts from here, here, and here.
One of the few uplifting stories this morning concerned Big Ben Bongs and the BBC. This New Year’s Eve marks 100 years since Big Ben was first heard live on the radio. The daily tradition that quickly became synonymous with the BBC allowed us to ponder the power of radio. Thanks to Elon Musk, and his dramatic transformation of Twitter into a hellscape, 2023 has been the year of the radio and the newsletter, I think. BBC iPlayer. NPR One. Substack. Those were the three apps I’ve used the most in 2023. It’s a good thing that most of us have moved away from these media of surveillance capitalism. Reader and listener supported platforms will hopefully grow stronger in 2024.
I’ll be spending the new year talking about the paperback edition of my book, The Lion and the Nightingale, which is coming out in May, with additional material on the presidential election and its aftermath.
You can see the proofs of its cover here:
I was also happy to see one of my essays featured in a calendar this year—a first for me! The good people at Rest of World have produced a 2024 Photography Calendar, which you can buy for 25 bucks. October 2024 belongs to Sertaç Taşdelen (and an unnamed buddy of his) whose fortune-telling app, Faladdin, I covered for Rest of World in 2020.
Also new this week: an essay about the attacks on comedians in Turkey. In the Winter 2023 issue Index on Censorship, you’ll find my interview with Emre Günsal, a terrific standup who was imprisoned for his comedy. What’s the future for humour in Turkey as cops increasingly throw comedians into jails?
Finally, a flurry of publications linked to our Dial essay on Kawa Nemir’s Kurdish translation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, including Literary Hub and Poetry.org.
But the most interesting discussion took place on this fascinating blog, Language Hat. Run by Steve Dodson, a retired copyeditor from New York City, Language Hat is a bookworm’s dream. The comments section of their Kurdish Ulysses post had 94 entries when I last checked. There is a great debate about the value and meaning of translating Ulysses into other languages. Every entry is worth a read.
So this is it from Musée des Beaux Arts in 2023. You can find a full list of my work from the year here.
Here is hoping to a happier new year!
Until next time,
—Kaya