New Turkish Football Champions

On Sunday Fenerbahçe won the Turkish League Championship. I really couldn't care less about the football teams ("soccer" for all y'all Americans out there), but as it's one of the three main rival Istanbul teams (along with Beşiktaş - who won the Turkish cup but didn't get crowned champion - and Galatasaray) it's impossible not to get caught up in the crazy all-day-all-night celebrations going on throughout the city. And yesterday in school many students and at least one teacher came dressed in Fenerbahçe garb. Not to mention the fact that the class bell was changed to the Fnerbahçe rally song. So whenever the song came on, supposedly signalling the start of a lesson, Fenerbahçe fans would dance and shout while non-Fenerbahçe fans would scream in apparent agony. And of course I had to break up an impending fight or two.

Can I say WTF? For those of you who don't know, these Istanbul team loyalties are diehard in a way Boston Red Sox fans only pretend to be when the Yankees are in town. So when the school deliberately chose to celebrate one team over the others, it broke the school into three factions (and the fourth silent group who just doesn't give a shit about football) and intentionally shoved two of those factions' faces into the dirt. Thank you, school, for encouraging this type of behavior in our students. Of course I don't mind supporting a team, but not in this disrespectful and confrontational way.