Room 613 Student Blogs - 2005/2006

Dear Amy,
Hello. How are you? In my last letter I didn’t explain to you exactly how much my life has changed. Our dictator (he called himself a president), Kemal Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal), has died, and my parents are glad. They hated the rules he set. He made all men abandon their fez wearing tradition, and he made all women uncover their faces. He wanted us Turks to be modern. My parents say that giving up these traditions showed that you had abandoned the Muslim religion. I do want to be modern, but that would mean giving up tradition. I don’t like how he came in and changed all of our customs. I do like that he gave women the right to vote. Our capital is now Ankara, which doesn’t really matter to me. We do have a new alphabet though, and now, everything is written in the Roman alphabet! That really affected me, because I had to learn a new alphabet. I’m adapting though. There are elections, but only one political party. That’s okay, but not if there is only one person to vote for (I don’t know if that would ever happen)! Anyway, I don’t know when we’re going to get a new president (or dictator). I hope that our Muslim tradition will be restored. My parents will be happy if that happens.
Write soon,
Omyia