Tarkan's Strips and Stripes

Posted by Hatice Soylu from Istanbul, Turkey and Kaya Turan from Rochester, UK

Tarkan posted two shares on social media yesterday and today. One was a Throwback Thursday post, the other was a video today to commemorate this year's 80th anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's death.

For his #tbt, the singer posted a picture from a 2008 photo shoot for the 2CD remix release of his Metamorfoz album.

Taken by photographer Koray Kasap, Tarkan had stripped down to juxtapose his dressing up for the original release of his 2007 award-winning album Metamorfoz.

Eighty Years of Commemoration

Turkey is commemorating the 80th anniversary of the death of the founder of the modern Republic of Turkey on 10 November, with ceremonies across the country.

The country comes to a halt, sirens blare and cars honk their horns for two minutes of mourning at the exact time of his death, 9.05 am, every year on this day.

Tarkan joined this tradition by sharing a video slide of Atatürk's photos to his 1998 duet with classical Turkish music's doyenne Müzeyyen Senar - "Benzemez Kimse Sana" (There Is None Like You) on social media today.

It provided Tarkan with the opportunity to also remember close friend Senar, who passed away in 2015. She was popularly known as the "Diva of the Republic" and Atatürk was cited as one of her many admirers.

As is customary, flags fly at half-mast across the country, while thousands of people from all walks of life flock to the Anıtkabir, Atatürk’s mausoleum in the capital Ankara, where an official ceremony is held with the attendance of senior political and military figures.

When Atatürk became president, he strived to transform the former Ottoman Empire into a modern, democratic and secular country, with many critics of today's Turkey seeing it openly slip further and further away from those ideals.

Turkey is seen to be part of a global shift to authoritarianism, and the country's critics say it is sliding further away from Atatürk's historical efforts to democratize the country.

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