tear gas in the classroom
in the middle of teaching my intermediate students to the many ways we make predictions in english i was once again interrupted by a protest walking down the main pedestrian street on which my school sits. this happens every weekend and always consists of a small group of protesters outnumbered by riot police 10 to 1. so i though nothing of it (even though it was monday). but the students always like to look out of the 5th story window and check it out (they are easily distracted). so as the chants grew louder, and the protest closer, i asked for an interpretation. "murder america!"; "down with israel!"; "we don't want to be israeli soldiers!" now i am interested. i look out the window and see a line of about 75 riot police squared off with a group of about 100 protestors. we try to continue the lesson, making predictions about what is going to happen outside our window. the protest builds over the next hour and our lesson finishes early so that the students can get out of the building before things get out of hand. that left three foreign teachers wondering what to do. we watched from the window to gauge the situation and watched the protest grow and intensify. then the surge, and the tear gas, and the police beatings, and the scattering protestors. the tear gas clouded the scene and filled the classroom so we decided to sit on the fire escape, drink bourbon, and let it clear. now i am wondering how bad it is going to get?
posted by admorriso at 16:51
2 Comments:
I am curious if this really suprised you that much. After all, there is so many anti-American protests going on in the world. I know it must feel different when it is happening right in front of you but it is an obvious fact that anti-Americanism is growing through out the world(and I believe that part of it is like a fashionable trend that people follow.) . I think people will grow this hatred as long as things stay the same way and in that sense things will get worse. But I don't believe that your daily life in Istanbul will be effected. Or maybe I'm doing wishful thinking, hoping that people are fair enough not to blame the expats for U.S politics.(especially the ones who don't even support it)
i wasnt terribly surprised, but that is the first protest on istiklal (and there are so many) i have seen break out in violence. that surprised me. i too hope that istanbullus will distinguish between american politics and americans, but in a situation like that i doubt it. i think for the most part you are right, the people i have talked to give me an earful about bush and american politics and then tell me that they do actually like americans. lets both hope it stays that way.
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