You look so beautiful when you’re angry, working class

In the summer of 2011, I arrived at Lisbon to continue my studies. It was the financial crisis. Portugal was on fire. Geração à Rasca and the Rossio encampments had happened already. I got on board with stuff like Plataforma 15 de Outubro; then the general strikes and the youth support group to the strikes, Artigo 74; all of which got intertwined with Que Se Lixe a Troika.

I remember the euphoria. 

I mean, I remember my own euphoria. I had just started learning Portuguese and I had almost no idea of Portuguese history (neither classical nor modern history); so I had no understanding of how others would be receiving it. 

I saw a lot of internationalism, I saw a lot of joy, I saw a lot anger.

In the middle of all of this, 2013 happened in Türkiye. It was the Gezi Uprising that changed the course of the country for good. It changed the left (the leading figure who came out of this process, Selahattin Demirtas, is still in jail today), it changed the government coalition (there was a coup attempt by one of the factions within the government alliance, which was then declared a terrorist group), it changed an entire generation. I went to Istanbul after the second week, and stayed for more than a week.

In both cases, I arrived a bit late to the party, one can say.

In Portugal, I was barely organized. In Türkiye, I wasn’t organized at all.

I remember my euphoria and fascination. I remember seeing classmates from primary school for the first time since years, helping out with the medical team in the Gezi park. I remember calling my own parents in Izmir and telling them “You will now leave the house, go to the square, and will stay there. Okay?” Simple words, no negotiation. I remember my father answering that they were out of town, and me answering that in that case they will have to rush more. I remember my favorite summer jacket soaked in water with teargas that the water cannons sprayed on us. I remember hiding in a barbershop at 3 am, running away from the police. My memories are all personal, or at most with friends. I remember escaping detention, when we crossed a police line pretending to be a tourist returning home. I remember my friends complaining about “losing the Class Struggle in one week”, they meant the boardgame they left in the park when the police attacked.

I remember my euphoria and fascination. I didn’t get hurt or arrested in Istanbul. But there was a plot twist. I returned to Lisbon, there was a general strike, with a demonstration ending at the parliament. Some 400-500 people marched on, went to parts of the city I have never seen (I had seen them), entered what I considered to be a highway (it wasn’t), and took the exit to the 25 April bridge, at which point the police kettled us. (This was more than an hour of marching and chanting.) I was one of 226 people arrested in the middle of the road. The police in Lisbon doesn’t have infrastructure for mass arrests, so they kept us in a backstreet for some six hours. The case was later archived by the prosecutor.

The “square movements” of 2010s, from Tahrir to New York, from Madrid to Istanbul, from Syria to Brazil, marked a generation. They changed us, and they changed our countries. For a relatively long window of time, we were one. Our movements had different starting points and different contexts, so they had different courses and radically different end points.

I had registered my take-aways in an essay in 2014, The Mayonnaise Effect: Global Inspiration from Gezi, in ROAR Magazine.

From 2022 onward, I felt another wave coming. Its initial steps came from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, Kenya, and Serbia. In 2025, the Gen Z mobilizations became undeniable. In Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Morocco, Peru, East Timor, the United States and Madagascar, millions came to the streets, faced the military, and insisted (and sometimes toppled governments). Somehow, the spirit of the times didn’t seem to reach where I was (still in Lisbon). It was confusing.

Then came the second half of 2026, and Europe finally woke up. Albania, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal are up. I am in Portugal. So I am also up.

I feel the euphoria.

I am also forty years old now. I see some of the people from the 2010s round in the encampment in Lisbon, they are few. They put themselves in a “supporting” role, which they call solidarity. That language is foreign to me. I am fascinated. I am trying to carry on the lessons, concretely, in praxis. In 2010s, Portugal had done quite well in comparison to the rest of the experiments. I feel like that’s also the case now.

The people I am organizing with are not of my generation (well, mostly). The people I am fighting with are not of my generation. I have a large affinity group where I am the oldest person. I am fascinated by them.

I can relate to the euphoria and to the fascination. But I am also feeling a bit rusty.

But something has changed. I am organized.

My emotions are therefore completely different. I am vivacious. I am fascinated, agitated, inspired. I am also calm, strategic, grounded. I can be all of these things because I can rely on a bunch of comrades who take up tasks and who make sure that I remain useful.

I can see how, if I were not organized, this whole thing could look like a second edition of the same thing of years ago, how I could get nostalgic (and therefore irrelevant for praxis). I am grateful that I am having this experience with a completely different perspective, with a completely different contribution to the process. I am grateful to everyone who showed up. I am also grateful to specific individuals who are with me in this.

There is one wall writing that was in Istanbul in 2013, which keeps popping up in my head. “You look so beautiful when you’re angry, working class.”

We look so beautiful when we’re angry.

 

 

I turned 40 years old.

Kafka died at the age of 39. I outlived him. So did Gregor Samsa's insect.

It's a bit intimidating to have lived four decades. I mean, in comparison to

- Chekhov, who died at the age of 44,

- Van Gogh, who died at the age of 37, 

- Caravaggio, who died at the age of 38,

- Orhan Veli, who died at the age of 36.

I feel late.

Fidel was 33 years old at the Cuban revolution. Che was 31 at that time, then 38 when he desisted of the revolutionary struggle in Congo, and finally 39 years old when murdered in Bolivia. 

I feel lost.

At the age of 40, Nazim Hikmet was in prison for already for four years and would remain there for another eight years. 

Oguz Atay wrote Tutunamayanlar at the age of 37.

But there might still be hope. 

Lenin was 47 years old at the Bolshevik revolution.

Marx was 30 when the Communist Manifesto was published, but finished the first volume of The Capital at the age of 49.

Charles Chaplin did The Modern Times at the age of 47, the same age that Orson Welles did The Trial.

In any case, having lived - and having lived well - for forty years, is an achievement to celebrate.

 

 

I visited the Lisbon metro.

And you also should.

From my very first days here, I have been always amazed by the unique character that each metro station had, with tiles, sculptures, murals, writings and paintings. Finally this year I insisted on this desire and made a guided tour inside the stations.

At the time of this writing, there are four lines: Blue, Green, Yellow, Red. It is supposed to change with the inauguration of six new stations, which will also make one of the lines into a circular line. Before any of these changes, there was this beautiful website done by Metropolitano de Lisboa, called Art Tour. It's possible that they discontinue it, but basically it's an interactive self-guided tour divided into four parts (corresponding to the four lines).

We did four separate days of visits to the metro (I bought a daily pass each time), so we took a few months to finish this project. Each tour took us three to four hours (without any rush and with some breaks).

Due to the person that I am, obviously I made a list and personal ranking system, keeping track of how much I liked each station. I am not going to bore you with it, but let me give you a sense of what you should pay attention to.

 To start with, if you like urban immersion and if you already walked in the older neighborhoods a bit, then you must definitely visit the metro with some intention and attention. It really gives you a good sense of the city's soul.

But if you don't want to give it that much effort, then you can still do two things. One, you can visit a few key stations (see below). Two, you can be aware of your surroundings while using the metro and take a few minutes longer inside some of the key stations (see below).

 

* 

 

Here is how I would do it if you want to appreciate the metro and do it justice.

  

0) I am assuming you are not doing the Art Tour for some reason. (You should!) 

  

1) Go through the Green Line (Cais de Sodré >>> Campo Grande) and then take the Yellow Line (Campo Grande >>> Rato), getting off at each station and having a quick walk.

This tour will give you a taste of the first stations (with Maria Keil's artistic struggles during the dictatorship), as well as some of the extensions. It will be your baseline for everything else.

N.B. If the circular line is open, then do the whole thing. 

It should take you one day. (If you are running out of time, skip Baixa-Chiado, Arroios, Alameda, Areeiro, Roma, Campo Pequeno and Picoas.)

  

2) Visit the following stations with special care.

Each could be treated as a museum. Particularly in Lisbon where worthy museums are a rarity, these stations are definitely top sights to see.

Lumiar (Yellow Line): Clean and smooth from a distance but filled with details when you look closely, the artwork by António Moutinho, Marta Lima and Susete Rebelo is mesmerizing.

 

 

Parque (Blue Line): From the very first metro line inaugurated in 1959, it has some of Maria Keil's work. It passed through major renovations in 1994, when Françoise Schein and Frederica Matta transformed the station into a dense museum. It has the Universal Declaration of Human Rights meshed up with small icons from the colonial history and surrounded by humanist quotes. It's perhaps the only decent historical narrative you might find in official spaces, doing justice to the contradictions.

 

São Sebastião I (Blue Line): This is where to see the full capacities of Maria Keil. She did the first art work in 1959, went over it in 1977 (after the Carnation Revolution, that is), and then did the extension to the Red Line. This station is basically a tile museum. 

Chelas (Red Line): This was inaugurated in 1998 for the Expo, so it belongs to a different category of considerations. Here and perhaps for the only time, the architecture and the art work are fully integrated. In all other stations, the station is built and the art work comes after. In this case, the architecture of Ana Nascimento directly communicates with the tile work of Jorge Martins. It's simply stunning. 

 

A proper visit to each would take perhaps 30 minutes.

The stations do not communicate with each other, so you can visit them separately based on your life and calendar.

 

3) Now if you have more time and/or if you want to have mindful travel experience, here is a list of very pretty stations.

 

 

Cidade Universitária is a permanent exhibition by Vieira da Silva, no further words necessary.

Saldanha I (Yellow Line) is a wonderful painting-on-tile exhibition by Luís Filipe de Abreu.

Cais do Sodré has Alice's rabbit overwhelming you and himself.

Martim Moniz has an eclectic mixture of imperial past and multicultural present.

Bela Vista is almost in our top picks for the tiles by Querubim Lapa.

Oriente gives you an international painting exhibition launched for Expo 98.

Aeroporto introduces you to all the important figures from the Portuguese intelligentsia, successfully telling a story of national culture without relying on emperors and colonialism. While there, say hi to José Saramago from me, hiding at a not-so-used exit.

 

These are also very full stations. So do give yourself around 30 minutes to visit each. 

 

4) For the rest of the stations, just pay attention to (1) the entrances and stairs have tiles, each station is unique; (2) stop at the atrium and look around, there might be some art work deserving your attention; and (3) walk along the platform while waiting for the train and check what you might find.

Nothing very complicated, just watch your environment. It might maybe add 5 minutes to your existence in the station, but it will add to your day a substantial amount of beauty.

* 

Establishing this personal intimate connection with Lisbon, the city where I lived the most in my life, is a major achievement for me. So take this long post as my celebration.

I speak Spanish.

My theory is that, overall, Spanish and Portuguese are the same language (which is a corollary of my theorem that in Europe there are only five languages: Western European stuff, Eastern European stuff, Basque language, Hungarian and Finnish). Same alphabet, same reading direction, same language structure (subject, verb, object), thousands of shared words, etc.

So I have been dismissive of Spanish as a language distinct from Portuguese. But naturally that's just the elitist me talking, because that's not how anything works in real life.

In the last couple of years, I spent a bit longer time interacting with people from Latin America. Many of them are folks for whom Spanish is already a foreign language (on top of a few native languages), so Latin languages do not look natural at all to them.

The point is that I understand Spanish using my Portuguese but the Portunhol that I used to speak is not necessarily comprehensible for Spanish-speakers.

I decided to learn Spanish.

But I don't have time for classes and also hate self-learning. And I surely hated all language apps: they don't have any philosophy of pedagogy, rather they are driven by user engagement so they are more gamified and less useful.

Then I met Language Transfer.

It's a website. There is also an application. In any case, there is nothing app-like about it. 

It consists of 10-minute classes which are just audio files that you need to listen.

Besides the teacher, the classes are assisted by a student who is learning the language at that moment. Whenever there is a question, you are expected to pause the audio and do those exercises before the student. So each class takes maybe 15 minutes.

A complete Spanish course takes 90 classes. They also have Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic and Japanese. (In these, the language of instruction is English. There is also an English course for Spanish-speakers.)

The underlying pedagogical philosophy is that we learn by getting used to things. (This is not only about language. It's about everything)  Language Transfer has the Thinking Method and a blog, but Victor Wooten's talk convinced me better:

 

 

If we agree with this, then there is a natural conclusion: The fastest and most solid learning method is by associating new information into existing information. That's why the base language matters and that's why the word "transfer" is important.

Language Transfer starts off with the same hypothesis as my theory above: If you speak English, then you have immediate access to a big chunk of Spanish. By consolidating it and by learning how to transfer (what to transfer, what not to transfer, what changes to implement while transferring), you can learn the language very quickly.

Another conclusion: What matters is to get the right intuition on the language you are learning. Therefore, one, vocabulary is not covered in the lectures, because that's just memorizing and not part of the learning process; and two, grammar rules only matter in as much as they reveal patterns in the language.

All of this further has implications on the curriculum: They discard entirely the linear order of learning one verb and all its conjugations, as well as the chunky sessions of memorizing names of kitchenware. Instead, they teach whatever is necessary to get the intuition right. The rest we will learn only in practice anyway (and will forget as we stop practicing, like I did with German).

To summarize, I am a big fan of Language Transfer.

I just finished the Spanish classes. We covered all tenses and conjugations. (We covered maybe a total of 50 words in total in order to do this.) This, in 90 classes of 15 minutes each.

So here is my celebration that I can now confidently say that I am fluent enough to survive sophisticated conversations in Spanish. 

 

Bip bip vın vın

Sardinya adasına gittim. Bunda bir ilginçlik yok. Adada ilginçlik çok. (Gramsci orada doğmuş mesela.) Ama benim gitmiş olmamda bir ilginçlik yok, zaten bir konferans bahanesiyle gittim. Gitmişken partnerimle on günlük bir de tatil yaptık.

Çok da süper planımız vardı. Araba kiralayacağız. Hani artık ben de sürebiliyorum ya, bir o bir ben süreceğiz, koylardan koylara gideceğiz.

Her şey hazır. Kalacak yer rezervasyonlarını yapmışız, gün gün planlarımızı yazmışız, benim de konferansım bitmiş Cagliari'ye dönmüşüm Partnerimi bekliyorum. O da işte havaalanında uçağının kalkmasını bekliyor. Öyle goy goy yazışıyoruz. Ben planlarımızı detaylandırıyorum falan.

Sonra bir anda "Noooooooooo" yazdı. İngilizce yazışıyoruz da ondan öyle yazdı, yoksa "Yooooooo" veya "Aaaaaaaaa" veya "Haaassssss" gibi bir şey yazardı herhalde. 

Evde bırakmış sürücü ehliyetini.

Ben dedim "Takma kafana, hallederiz." Neyi hallediyorsak...

Neyse işte iki kapılı küçük bir araba kiraladık. Ben tabii az çok nerelere gidileceğini biliyorum, ama oralara nasıl gidileceğini araştırmış değilim. Koyduk harita uygulamasına, git diyor gidiyoruz. 

Cagliari'den çıktık öğleden sonra, ilk durağımıza vardık, asayiş berkemal. Uyuduk uyandık. Koylar bizi bekler. Ama işte o günden itibaren şöyle bir şey oldu. Şuraya gidelim diyorum haritaya, iyi tamam diyor, mesafe 40 kilometredir diyor, yolculuk süresi yaklaşık bir saat diyor. Nasıl oluyorsa...

Sonra işte şöyle maki manzaralı bir yerlere gittik.

 

 

Manzara güzel tabii, ama bakabilirsen. 

 Efendim, yollar şöyleymiş.

 

Bunlar, tabii ki çift yönlü, yolun ortasında çizgi çekmeyi hak edemeyecek kadar dar yollar. Üstüme iyilik sağlık. Biz koylardan koylara dediydik, bunun anlamının virajlardan virajlara olduğunu anlamadıydım. Bir de bu virajlar tabii dağlık yer olduğu içindir. Yani fotoğraflarda görünmeyen yokuşları inişleri de sen getir gözünün önüne. 

Oysa hayatında kaç kere Kaş, Kalkan taraflarına gitmiş bir insanın bu duruma uyanması lazımdı çoktan. Partnerime mi güvenmişim neyse, hiç hesap etmemişim.

İşte böylece, iki aylık ehliyetimle, on gün boyunca, her gün en az iki saat, toplam 1100 kilometre araba kullandım birdenbire. Hem de kiralık araba, yani çizdirmek çarpmak lüksüm de olmadan. 

Bu da beklenmedik yeni bir zafer oluverdi listeme. Kutlamasını da terk edilmiş madenlere bakarak ve akvaryum gibi Akdeniz'de yüzerek kutladık. Bir zafer olunca kendimle ve seninle paylaşmaya söz vermiştim sene başında; işte iki tane de fotoğraf koyayım: