Kamil Pasha

From a news article by Goksel Bozkurt :

The [Constitutional Court trial to close the AKP has] ushered in a period of turmoil within the party, with some formerly vocal senior members slowly withdrawing to the background while others are making their presence felt in anticipation of future prizes.

The closure case was filed based on statements and acts by party leaders, which were perceived as making the AKP a focal point of anti-secular activities. The trial may end up with the closure of the ruling party that holds a parliamentary majority and the banning of many senior members. Even with the closure, the number of AKP deputies in Parliament will give the subsequent party enough seats to form a government.

Whether it is shut down or not, the AKP will continue, even if under a different name and under different leadership… If Erdogan is banned from politics for five years, he will call early elections … and try to control things from behind the scenes. This would not be a first in Turkish politics…

[Insiders are debating] about who will gain or lose by the court’s decision.

For the full article, including speculation about who is on the way out and who is on the way up, click here.

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New laws regarding alcohol licensing and sales go into effect today that place confusing restrictions on the sale of alcohol and impose extremely high fines. The government says it is necessary to regulate small, illegal operations (someone setting a table behind their shop and serving alcohol). Others see this as one more effort by the Islam-inflected government to constrict alcohol consumption, in line with the already enormous taxes on wine and other liquor. Turkey’s cities are noted for their fish restaurants with outdoor tables that traditionally serve wine and raki along with mezze appetizers and fish, a legacy of the Ottoman Greek meyhane culture.

Click here for article voicing suspicions.

Click here for positive article from pro-government paper.

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A recent survey found that women working as public employees in Turkey face a variety of serious problems, ranging from low wages to sexual harassment. 3.4 percent of single women, 1.9 percent of married women and 10.0 percent of widowed women complained about violence and sexual harassment in the workplace. The much higher percentage of widowed women reporting problems reflects widespread cultural attitudes about divorced and widowed women who are seen to be without male protection and control, and therefore 1) available; and thus 2) a threat to other women’s husbands. This is true even for middle class women, who sometimes have problems finding or keeping an apartment, often lose their married friends, and are approached and harassed in their neighborhood and workplaces. The low divorce rate in Turkey is due in part to the great costs of divorce for women, the loss of social support and protection, and financial difficulties, especially if they have children.
for the survey results, click here

Parliament is discussing a package of employment reforms, such as subsidizing insurance of new employees. Legislation also requires that nursing room and daycare centers be established by any company employing more than 150 female workers, but without specifying where or what quality of facilities. Women’s groups have said the new employment package does not offer much to increase the female labor participation rate in Turkey, where participation in the labor force by women is one of the lowest among all the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, at 22.3 percent.

They argue that the Labor Law needs improvements not only to increase rates of female employment but also to improve women’s working conditions and salaries. In Turkey, women earn approximately 46 percent of salaries paid to men. Female-dominated sectors like domestic services and agriculture should be included in the labor laws. Gender-based discrimination during recruitment also should be addressed.
click here for article

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Some of the results of a 2007 study on middle-class identity in Turkey by Dr. Hakan Yilmaz of Bosphorus University: (JW: I find it particularly intriguing that the headscarf is not seen as a symbol of piety, but of good character, as I have long argued that the meaning of “covering” to those who practice it has changed radically over the past two decades.):

According to the research, 58.3 percent of Turks see themselves as “middle class” and 24.8 percent of themselves as “slightly below middle class.”

47.7 percent believe that the rich worked consistently and hard for their wealth. 55.3 percent believe the poor are this way because they do not work hard enough.

43.9 percent of Turks classify themselves being “post-right wing political,” supporting democracy and the values of the West.

62.7 percent of respondents describe themselves as modern conservatives.

While 44.9 percent say “secularism must continue to be implemented without change”; 12.3 percent say they have a new interpretation for secularism.

Public support for Turkey’s European Union membership was 57.4 percent; with 58.9 percent saying they would be sympathetic to the reforms carried out in accordance with the membership process.

73 percent of modern conservatives say that wearing a headscarf is not a sign of being pious but being of good character.

For full article on survey results, click here.

Tags: Culture, Headscarf Debate, Politics, Religion // 1 Comment »

From Ihsan Dagi’s column:

Anti-Westernism used to be a distinguishing feature of the Islamic political identity. Now it is the mark of the Kemalist-secularist stance. The renewed demand of the West, particularly the EU, for democracy and the rule of law has highlighted sharp differences between the vision of a Turkey Europeanized as a natural outcome of the EU integration process and the Turkey visualized by Kemalist-secularist circles. They seem irreconcilable. The challenge of the West for the Kemalists is clear: In the EU integration process it is impossible to preserve the old order. The West and the continuing Westernization that comes with the EU accession process, therefore, pose an existential threat to the Jacobin bureaucratic-civilian elite, which adheres to a notion of a homogenized nation and the practices of authoritarian state.

But it was the Kemalists who used to be fans of the West and Westernization. … Yet what the Kemalists understood by Westernization was merely a cultural adoption of the Western life style for a certain purpose. … The West and the process of Westernization, however, gained new dimensions in time, especially after 1999, when Turkey declared itself a candidate country for the EU. … Westernization in the EU context meant transfer of power from the state elite to the people…Westernization, now defined by EU membership, has acquired a civil and democratizing content against the authoritarian tendencies of the Kemalist elite. (for full text, click here)

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Excerpt from article by Saban Kardas:

What is the identity of the AK Party, then? The party promoted “conservative democracy” as a catchphrase during its first years in government… Seeing the AK Party as a center-right actor captures very well the populist and catch-all nature of the party in terms of its access to diverse electoral groups.…The AK Party’s management of the governance problem since the beginning of the judicial interference in politics, however, increasingly shattered intellectual support for the party….

…The AK Party is riding an increasingly bumpy road, and is alienated in its struggle for survival every passing day. The intensity of the current political crisis and the deliberate attempts of the neo-nationalist forces to make the country ungovernable are to a large extent forcing the party to commit these mistakes. However, this situation also is a result of acts of omission as well as commission on the AK Party’s part, which undermine the effectiveness of its survival strategy. The alienation is an act of commission to the extent that the AK Party overreacted to any criticism of its policies and did not tolerate dissent. It also is an act of omission to the extent that it has failed to address the imbalance between its electoral support base and the identity of the AK Party’s leadership and party organization. It could not make inroads into wider sectors of society and open its leadership and core cadres to political actors from outside its own closed circle. Nor could it develop an effective public relations mechanism to communicate its position on controversial issues to society….

Irrespective of the decision of the Constitutional Court, the AK Party will remain the main force capable of inducing a transformation of the Turkish domestic scene. In a dinner with journalists, Prime Minister Erdo?an underlined the party’s determination to maintain the AK Party’s mission in Turkish political life, even if the party is closed down. Yet, the mission and identity of the AK Party are becoming increasingly blurred. As it fights to survive the current crisis, the AK Party will also have to take stock of its past mistakes and engage in soul searching. There is no reason to reduce the center-right position either to “wild capitalism” or to chauvinistic and authoritarianism conservatism. It also has a vibrant reformist and liberal stream, which the AK Party could draw on. Only then it will come out of this crisis by crystallizing its identity and consolidating its place in Turkish politics.

for full text, click here

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Photo by Jenny White

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I just tried to access a charming safari video on YouTube that was mentioned in The New York Times (”Battle at Kruger“), but discovered that instead of YouTube, the site brought up the by now familiar red sign announcing that the site has been banned by a Turkish court order. Not a particular video, but the entire site. Checking around the (rest of) the web, I learned that the ban, like previous bans, was in response to a video that the court believed insulted Turkishness, specifically Ataturk.

So YouTube is now banned in Turkey, where viewers would have been appalled anyway and would probably never have looked at the offending video. BUT Turkey can’t ban YouTube on the rest of the planet, and now the court can be sure that EVERYONE ELSE will be watching that offending video! It also puts Turkey’s name in the same sentence as China and Iran.

I attach below comments from Techdirt, a technology blog, about Turkey’s YouTube ban. It’s instructive also to read the comments, which are not flattering to Turkey, but also make it clear that people (including some Turkish respondents) don’t understand where the ban is coming from. YouTube wasn’t banned by Islamists, but by nationalist secularists.

A quote from the blog:

It would appear that Turkish officials don’t seem to understand quite how the internet works these days — despite having received quite a few lessons already. After all, this is the country that has banned YouTube for a sophomoric video making fun of the country’s founder. It’s the type of silly video no one would pay attention to… until Turkey decided to block access to all of YouTube because of it. Then, of course, this silly little video that no one cared about was seen everywhere. Eventually Turkey lifted the ban, but having learned nothing put the ban back in place not just once, but two more times. Each time, it provided much more attention to the silly pointless videos. Apparently, that message has not gotten through to Turkish authorities who have now banned the multimedia hosting site Slide as well. Again, they didn’t bother to inform Slide or even ask the company to take down the offending content. They just banned the entire site over some content that very few people had probably seen.

For the full Techdirt.com blog commentary and comments, click here.

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In his column, Mustafa Akyol reports on his interview with one of Turkey’s most respected industrialists, Ishak Alaton, and discusses the extent and history of anti-Semitism within the secular and Islamic communities in Turkey. (for full article, click here)

An excerpt:

Ishak Alaton is one of the most prominent names in Turkey’s tiny Jewish community. He, as the boss of the well-established Alarko Holding, is not just a very successful businessman, but also a man of intellect who comments on social and political problems. As a self-defined social democrat, Mr. Alaton believes in social responsibility – not as a public relations strategy, but as a value in itself.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Alaton sent a letter to Eyüp Can, the editor-in-chief of Turkey’s up-and-coming business daily, Referans. On April 22, Mr. Can published the letter in his column. In it, the 81-year-old business guru was rightfully complaining about “this paranoia, this xenophobia, this enmity toward non-Muslims, this anti-Semitism” which pervades Turkey.

Mr. Alaton was specifically referring to two examples: Israeli businessman Sammy Ofer, a zillionaire, wanted to invest in Turkey, but he was repelled by “the bureaucracy and the media which worked hand in hand against him… for simply that he was Jewish.” And, decades ago, an oil-rich Armenian businessman, Mr. Gülbenkyan, had tried to set up a museum in Istanbul, but was “forced back with sticks in hand by the ‘patriots’ in Ankara.” …

After his letter in Referans, Mr. Alaton soon gave an interview to journalist Nagehan Alçi from daily Aksam. When asked about the origins of anti-Semitism in Turkey, Mr. Alaton went right back to the days of Atatürk and said this:

“I met Atatürk. We saw him when we were kids. There was no such discrimination at his time. At, least there was no such thing in his mind. But some of the people around Atatürk had a fierce reaction against us, i.e., the ‘others.’ That’s why special instructions were sent to governors in order to make our lives difficult. This, over time, turned in to a state policy.”

Tags: Culture, Nationalism, Rights // 2 Comments »

Turkish Daily News, May 8, 2008:

Three members of the European Parliament sent a letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday welcoming the decision to task Parliament’s Human Rights Commission to look into abuses taking place in the ongoing demolition of Istanbul’s traditional Roma neighborhood known as Sulukule. Underlining the lack of understanding on the part of the Istanbul Municipality, which continues with the systematic destruction of houses without fair procedure and adequate compensation, the letter said the municipality did not include the local Roma in the decision-making process for Sulukule’s housing plans. The destruction of Sulukule (one of the oldest Roma communities in Europe) is a loss for the Roma as well as for Turkey which hosts so many treasures from the past, it said. The parliamentarians called for a common solution to this international problem, which will bring together the interests of both sides.

The urban transformation project in Sulukule envisions relocating thousands of Roma from the neighborhood along Istanbul’s Golden Horn where they have lived since Byzantine times.

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