Our politics is very masculine, very aggressive, and it's very polarizing. And the pace of this development has increased in recent years. Erdogan is, in my eyes, the most polarizing politician in recent Turkish political history.

Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful!

Turkey has a very young, dynamic, curious population. In Europe, Facebook and Twitter are mostly about sharing daily experiences while for Turkish people, social networks are political platforms.

After the Ankara bombings on October 10, people were asked to hold a minute of silence, but many refused. Our society can't even unite in grief to honor the victims. We've lost our empathy. That's maybe the worst.

Feminists are now being vilified in politics, erdogan used to speak more embracingly, saying he was the leader of everyone, whether they voted for him or not. He sounds as if he puts a distance between himself and half the nation.

The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness.

One thing that has helped me personally in the past was to stop interfering with the people around me and getting frustrated when I couldn’t change them. Instead of intrusion and passivity, may I suggest submission? Some people make the mistake of confusing “submission” with “weakness”, whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe, including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend.