Toxic

In Turkey, elementary school pupils kept in school gardens and attend the pledge ceremony every morning. It’s a 5 minutes ceremony to start the day. More than 40 years old nationalist practice. “I’m a Turk, I’m righteous, I’m hard working… bla bla bla let my existence be bestowed upon the Turkish existence”. Hard core nationalist text, a practice from the 80s climate. We all have attended these ceremonies during the elementary school. And obviously there isn’t any place for that kind of ceremonies in 2021’s world. It should be removed and Turkish government exactly did that. Government has proposed a new law to stop this practice couple of years ago, it went to court, court rejected it but higher court backed this decision again last week. As you can imagine it has sparked an argument and lots of people were discussing this topic on Twitter whole week. Even some of Erdogan’s supporters were not happy about that. Welcome to Turkish politics. We have that kind of shitty discussions each and every day. Personally I support this decision. The pledge practice must be removed though I also know that this government doesn’t do anything which doesn’t have any hidden agenda behind. But that’s another topic.

Anyhow, yesterday after the work, I was on Twitter and scrolling as usual. I saw couple of tweets from young folks. They were discussing this topic and some of them said something like “I got traumatized because of the pledge”. This seemed super absurd to me, and it took the matter off the level that should be discussed. Yes the pledge practice should be removed. But I don’t believe someone got traumatized because of that, If they were born and raised in Turkey. We are the people who have experienced many coups, coup attempts, economic crises, bombings, terror, poverty etc. in Turkey. We have thousands of problems that can create trauma but the pledge practice is not one of them. I don’t believe that a pupil can get traumatized because he or she attended these ceremonies in the elementary school. And I sent a tweet about that. But I didn’t quote the “I got traumatized because of the pledge” tweet because I didn’t want to spark an argument with person who wrote that. I just wanted to say something about what I think and sent this tweet without mentioning any context.

özgür ÖZTÜRK 
@ozgurozlurknet • 2h 
Çocukken andımızı okuduğu için travma yaşayan filan varmış. Bunlar 
neden Oluyor biliyorsunuz değil mi? Bir, gerektiği zaman ana baba 
dayağı yememişsiniz, ananız babanız kıyamamis size. İki, yalancıya 
birşey yapmıyorlar artık.

“There are people who claim that they got traumatized because of the pledge. Do you know why this happens? First: you have not been beaten by your mother and dad when needed, Second: on these days nothing happens when you lie.”  It basically means that “you have raised without getting discipline from your parents, you raised very soft and so you think that small things like pledge can traumatize you. Because you don’t know what a real trauma is”.  In Turkish we use that kind of idioms and slangs a lot and I’ll come that later.

People started to send me mentions and wrote things like “no, you are wrong. people can get traumatized because of the pledge”. “a Kurdish pupil can get traumatized by repeating  -let my existence be bestowed upon the Turkish existence- sentence everyday”. Some others supported what I said. Some wrote silly things etc. I started to discuss with different people. They said something, I answered. I tried to explain why I think that people can’t get traumatized. I wrote couple of things why I think like that, they explained why I’m wrong etc. Classical Twitter discussions. It happens everyday. I learned why I could be wrong. I tried to explain why they could be wrong. Nothing special, we were not fighting, you know. It’s sparked an argument and I understood that I can be wrong. Explained couple of viewpoints and after that I deleted the tweet. Because I didn’t want to discuss this topic anymore. I didn’t want to spend time on answering and explaining myself. It was just a small thought and I understood that it could be wrong. People can get traumatized etc.  So far no problem.

But after that, I got couple of dms from different people. They all were warning me about a tweet sent by @rakyll.  It seems that Jaana took the screenshot of my tweet and send a mention to someone and wrote “he is suggesting everyone who is criticizing reading the pledge deserve domestic violence as kid” and my employer Microsoft should take action.

Jaana Dogan FflY @rakyll • 4h 
He's suggesting everyone who is criticizing reading the 
pledge deserve domestic violence as kid. 
Env. 
qocukken andlrnrzl okuduöu iGin travma yapyan filan 
varm$. Bunlar neden oluyor biliyorsunuz deéil mi? Bir, 
gerektiåi zaman ana baba dayaöl yememi+iniz, anaruz 
babaruz klyamamis size. iki, yalanclya bir9ey yapmlyorlar 
Turkish by 
There were some people who were traumatized for 
Jaana Dogan @rakyll • 4h 
I hope someone from Microsoft takes action.

I didn’t know who is Jaana before. I thought that she is someone who doesn’t speak Turkish, saw my tweet, used Google translate and misunderstood what I wrote. I wrote an idiom and Jaana, as a non-native speaker, took it literal and didn’t understand.  I saw a mention from Emir Ercan Ayar but at first I couldn’t see the actual tweet above because Jaana has blocked me. And I wrote these:

Emir Ercan Ayar 
@eercanayar 
Replying to @rakyll and @zippy1981 
@rakyll seriously NO. These are all local Turkish 
OH NO. 
sayings. It's kind of joking about harsh childhood 
environment in 80s-90s of Turkey. @ozgurozturknet is joking 
because we were all in. I invite you to re-think, you're judging 
someone just by translating sth very local. 
9:22 PM • Mar 15, 2021 • Twitter for iPhone 
3 
Likes 
Ozgür OZTURK 
@ozgurozturknet • 13h 
Replying to @eercanayar @rakyll and @zippy1981 
I dunno what's going on here but probably a big misunderstanding has happened 
Ozgür OZTURK 
@ozgurozturknet • 13h 
Jaana blocked me and I didn't saw what she wrote before 
Now I saw it via incognito mode. It's a lost in translation situation. I neither said 
something like that nor meant it Jaana.

As I said I thought it’s a lost in translation situation and I wanted to explain her the real meaning of this Turkish idiom. It couldn’t be translated like that. But a few minutes later I understood that I was naive. Someone sent me a dm and said that Jaana is a native speaker of Turkish. I got shocked. Because if the person is native speaker of Turkish, he or she must be able to understand the meaning of this idiom. I got confused.

You know, idioms can lost their meanings when translated to other languages. Please try to translate “put a sock in it” literally, word by word to your native language. It will lost its meaning. Noone is suggesting you to put a sock into somewhere. It means “shut up”. Or when people say “you beat me to the punch” they don’t mean there’s a violence ongoing. “To beat someone to the punch” means to do something, say something or achieve something before someone else is able to do. As I said before, we have that kind of idioms a lot in Turkish. For example, let’s say someone asks you for money to borrow and you ask back “how much do you need?”. And he or she replied back fifty thousand dollars. You use this idiom: “ya dayak yemedin ya da sayı saymayı bilmiyorsun”, “either you haven’t got beaten ever before or you don’t know how to count”. It basically means that it’s a huge amount of money and you don’t realize how huge it is. Not something like, you have to be beaten because you don’t know how to count :). Or, in Turkey, military service is a compulsory service for men and every healthy men should complete their military obligation when they are 20. If a young man acts irresponsibly, people would say “sen bu kafayla gidersen askerde çok dayak yersin-if you continue like that you will be beaten a lot during the military service”. As you can understand, this means “be responsible, life is hard, take it serious because it’ll get harder”. Nobody is saying that young men should be beaten during the military service. And last but not least, when people say “sen çocukluğunda dayak yememişsin o yüzden böyle davranıyorsun – you haven’t been beaten by your parents in the childhood that’s why you act like that” doesn’t mean you have to be beaten by your parents. It means that you are not a disciplined person and act inappropriately. You act like a spoiled child. It is AN IDIOM and I think everybody knows what an idiom is. But it seems I’m wrong.

I wanted to understand how can someone translate what I wrote to “he’s suggesting everyone who is criticizing reading the pledge deserve domestic violence as kid”. There are 2 logical explanations of this.  Either this person really didn’t understand, it’s a misunderstanding issue or this person intentionally lies. To understand which is wrong I wanted to ask that to Jaana. As I said she blocked my account and can’t see what I write so I switched to my other twitter account and send this:

ayti.tech • 49m 
"m Ozgur. I had to switch to my other twitter account because you blocked me. 
First thought that wrote this because you misunderstt»d the Google 
translated context. But learned a few min ago that you're a native speaker of 
Turkish It makes the situation more challenging it means that it's not 
iust a misunderstanding of the literal translation - even literal translation didn't 
indicate that I'm suggesting violance but anyhow- 
It seems you make this intentionally and I dont know why. The thing that I wrote is 
very simple (if ytRire saying I'm traumatized because reading the pledge, either 
you're lying or your parents diddt beat you during your childhood you're sassy 
and dont know what a real tramua is). We use that kind of idioms in Turkish a lot. 
Non•litetal and correct translation is this. 
1 can be wrong ok, maybe people get traumatized by reading the you 
need to agree with me All the things that said can be wrong. Eut how dare you 
say that I'm suggesting everyone who is reading the pledge deserve 
domestic violence as kid? I didn't even imply that. let alone did say it. This is either 
a realty big misunderstanding or yoVre Mng and manipulating I dorit know why

She decided to educate me, switched to Turkish “I don’t know why” and sent this mention:

“I’m saying this, If I’m not Turkish, I would listen this bullshit. I know how much disrespect is tolerated and how normal violence is. Repeating these erroneous behaviors is a huge problem for a person of your level and position. “

Jaana Dogan @rakyll • 17m 
Arkadaşa sunu diyorum: Turk olmasam bu sacmaliklari 
dinlerdim. Saygisizligin ne kadar tolere edilip, şiddetin ne 
kadar normalleşmiş oldugunu biliyorum konuştun dilde. Bu 
hatalı davranislari tekrar etmek senin seviyende ve 
pozisyonundaki bir insan için cok buyuk bir problem. 
ayti.tech @aytitech • 1 Im 
Sana sadece tek birşey sormak istiyorum. Sen benim 
"andımızın kaldırılmasını isteyenlerin çocukluklarında şiddet 
görmeleri gerektiğini' söylediğimi iddia ediyorsun? Doğru 
mu?

Repeating? Normalizing the violence? I don’t know why but she accused me of normalizing the violence. I really don’t understand how can a person think that I’m normalizing the violence based on this context. Really don’t understand. There must be a misunderstanding or this person is really malicious. I still wanted to be positive and replied:

“I want to ask only one thing to you? You claimed that – Ozgur is suggesting everyone who is criticizing reading the pledge deserve domestic violence as kid- Is this true?”

I really wanted to understand if Jaana really claims that or not. Because It’s a big lie as you can see from the tweet even with literal translation. I really don’t have any problem with counter arguments against what I wrote. And as I said that I can be wrong and I also wrote this to Jaana too. My view could be problematic, the pledge practice can create trauma etc. I’m all ok with that and respect others’ views and be very happy to learn. I really want to learn why I’m wrong and ready to discuss this. But claiming that “I am suggesting everyone who is criticizing reading the pledge deserve domestic violence as kid” is another level. Because IT’S A BIG LIE.

She replied again:

“Man says beaten by parents so that’s the reason why he is sassy.” Is this normal? Getting beaten is normal? Don’t be silly.”

Jaana Dogan @rakyll • 1 Om 
Adam annesinden babasindan dayak yememiş de burnu 
havalarda diyor, Bunun neresi normal? Dayak yemek normal 
bir durum mu? Sacmalamayin ya. 
ayti.tech 
M.td 
@aytitech 
Replyjng to @rakyll @PartRobot and @zippyl 981 
Ya bak o kısma geleceğim ve cevaplayacagim 
ama lütfen benim sorduğumu cevaplar mısın? 
Ben, "andımızın kaldırılmasını isteyenlerin 
çocukluklarında şiddet görmeleri gerekir” 
dedim mi demedim mi?

Obviously we were not talking about the same thing. I wanted to repeat my question and wrote this:

“Look; I will come to this beating situation and explain this but could you please answer my question. Did I say -I am suggesting everyone who is criticizing reading the pledge deserve domestic violence as kid- or not?”

She replied:

“Look, you’re still bullshiting and you think you’re dealing with a child. The thing that you wrote normalize the beating and wrong. Apologize like a man and go”

Jaana Dogan @rakyll • 5m 
Replying to @aytitech @PartRobot and @zippyl 981 
Bak hala sacmaliyorsun ve coluk cocukla ugrastigini 
saniyorsun. Yazdigin şey dayak atmayi normalleştiren bir şey 
ve yanlis. Adam gibi ozur dile ve git.

Last but not least she wrote that:

“because of your bullshits, people think that we are barbarians. Could there be such a way of speaking? Man should be embarrassed to write the following under his profile”

Jaana Dogan 
@rakyll 15h 
Replying to @rakyll @aytitech and 2 others 
Bu tarz sacmaliklariniz yuzunden insanlar bizi barbar saniyorlar. Boyle bir 
konuşma tarzi olabilir mi ya? Adam cidden utanir sunlari kendi profili altina 
yazmaya.

She thinks that the guys like me is the reason why other people think we are barbarians. (I don’t know who are these WE but I assume that she probably meant Turkish people) She blocked my second twitter account after that.

🤦‍♂️ I don’t know what to say. She probably has a prototype of villain in her mind and matched me with that. Actually I don’t care that kind of things. I can send silly tweets, people write me back other silly things. If I think I’m wrong I say this. I ignore if I don’t think I have to explain. I apologize if I figured out its bad. Etc. Etc. Two tweets, couple of likes and that’s all. I didn’t write something that long to explain why i said something, do something etc. before. Now I did this because I saw that other people started to judge me by believing a lie. This is really toxic. She is slandering me by lies.

I don’t want to come to a conclusion. Just wanted to write what has happened and that’s all for now.

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