Bahar Şenliği!!!

 Here's the main stage in the stadium. Yeah, almost all the photos I took are blurry.

Spring Fest is a magical time once a year when every Turkish university host open air concerts for five days. Clubs from the school raise money and invite famous Turkish singers to play huge amazing concerts in the stadium. During the day there are local bands, student club tables, and food stands all around the fest area and people generally just hang out listen to music and drink. Its the Turkish equivalent to Spring Break in the US... except instead of giving students time off they make this huge party on campus and classes are still in session. The best part is the WHOLE university is involved and everyone attends the big concerts at night.

At METU the first night of Spring Fest is basically a ritual of remembering METU's radical past and its role in the 1970 and 1982 coups. METU in the 60's and 70's was a bastion of Marxism and radical liberalism. As previously posted, a student in the 70's painted DEVRIM (REVOLUTION) on the huge stadium and it eventually became part of METU's identity. To honor the radial METU past and to inspire people to continue questioning all forms of authority, students from the Student Revolutionary Marxist club light candles in the shape of DEVRIM on the stadium grass before the first concert begins. A friend told me this was because the first spring fest held at METU was led by the Marxist club who raised the money themselves to have the festival for 10 days. After the Revolutionary Marxist club lights the candles they run into the audience and wave huge banners of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and young Turkish revolutionaries who were killed in the military coups. Then they sing songs of solidarity while throwing their fists in the air. Its gets really emotional. Pretty crazy, but totally awesome. People set off lanterns with candles in them and its a whole sea of lights and students. Then the concert begins and everyone just dances and dances.

(I didn't have my camera that night so this is from http://imageshack.us/f/27/devrim.jpg/)

From the second day: A ton of people.

And us too.

The whole weekend was wonderful and really showed me how awesomely radical METU is. One student club stand had life size pictures of President Erdogan, the minister of finance and another Turkish political figure and people walking by could pay to throw eggs at them. Jake, Kamila, and I participated in the LGBT parade that walked to the school's registar's office yelling at them to recognize the LGBT club and saying that they would not do their military service (military service is mandatory for all Turkish men, but if you are gay you can avoid this by giving the government photos of you having sex with other men and then consenting to an exam where military doctors 'check' to see if your anus has been penetrated... yeah pretty horrible). In the end a friend, Köray, climbed up the side of the stage with the LGBT flag. So great. Basically I love METU now.

That's Köray holding up the "Here Comes the Prostitute" sign. This is in front of the registar's office.

 The fest was really really awesome and something the US should totally do. I mean, I free concert on campus by famous singers where everyone is happy and celebrating their school? Pretty wonderful and a lot of fun.

My dearest Getma friends.