Hello everyone and welcome back to my weekly post on my blog, where we talk about Art and Culture. On this week posts I wanted to hint at the actual situation that Turkey and its citizens are leaving right now. Being a spectator of these events that are occurring, brought a lot of things to my mind, but one of the things that impacted me the most is the use of the flag.

It's been happening to me since I got here that I compare everything to how it would be back home (bad for my experience, I know) but comparing to the situation in my country also makes me realize how different countries can be and how quickly can things change and escalate. In Spain in the only protests you see the Spanish flags, is on the conservative ones, the ones related to old fashioned, racist, misogynist and homophobic parties. That made the rest of Spaniards hate a symbol as big as its own flag. You would see people on the streets with bracelets with the Spain flag on it, and you immediately know what kind of person it is, posh, outdated and rich people, and it’s really a shame, because I feel that we have the right to be represent as that flag too, but they took it form us (or we decided to give it to them). This feeling, on me evolved into a kind of “hate” towards my own country. I don’t know exactly where I stand yet there, but it’s complicated.

Seeing people here in Izmir, fighting for their rights, together, no matter what, united and protected under the same flag, makes me think that people should learn, a country flag should not be related to any party, it should be related to its people.