Dert Ortağı

Someone to confide in

The Turkish name Dert Ortağı describes someone with whom you can share your worries. It is the original title of the magazine feature and is retained here.

On work visits in the west of the Netherlands, Emin Özel met Ayhan Sucu, publisher and editor-in-chief of Ekin Dergisi, a Turkish-language monthly based in Rotterdam. Özel came up with the idea of publishing his own columns alongside discussions from the EminAbi.com forum. He organised the collaboration, wrote as EminAbi and selected the forum contributions. The magazine published ten issues a year, with a two-month summer break.

The magazine was distributed free of charge throughout the Netherlands at meeting places of the Turkish community, including mosques, coffee houses and community centres. Home delivery was also available upon payment of postage: initially €1.95 and later €2.50 per issue.

Around the same time, Özel explored bringing the format to television with Demet TV, a local broadcaster in The Hague. The programme never went ahead. Read more about TürkTel and Demet TV in the history of EminAbi.com.

The opening column invited readers to share their worries with EminAbi and with one another. It was intended to offer a listening ear to those who had no other confidant, or who found it easier and more discreet to speak in this way. Dert Ortağı also expressed the idea of a community whose members could become confidants for one another.

For some visitors at the time, discussing sensitive subjects openly was difficult. Within close-knit social circles, the disclosure of personal information could lead to gossip, rejection or serious consequences for someone’s life. Fear of being judged could prevent people from seeking support. Against that background, a place where they could share their worries in a way they found more comfortable and discreet took on particular significance.

Founder Emin Özel recalls regularly receiving feedback at the time describing this approach as innovative and helpful. Those responses are part of the history of Dert Ortağı and of the social significance the platform could have for both website visitors and readers of Ekin Dergisi.

From September 2002 through the June 2005 issue, Emin Özel’s columns appeared alongside conversations selected from the EminAbi.com forum in Ekin Dergisi. The articles below offer an English route into that collection, with links to the Turkish scans.