BALANCE

Article with Footnotes

A fortnight ago Turkish prosecutors indicted 86 secular Turks on terrorism charges for their alleged involvement in plots to topple the governing conservative populist Justice and Development Party ( known as the AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan. Though lips across the ideological spectrum were for the most part restrained and tightly buttoned, Aykut Cengiz Engin, a chief prosecutor has stated that the suspects, believed to include at least one former general and an opposition politician, were charged either with belonging to a terrorist organisation, or of attempting to instigate a military coup.
It appears that after some years of relative quietude these two stalwart adversaries have reawakened their longstanding animus, as the onetime radicals turned Islamist democrats and the Kemalist establishment once again starts to claw at one another, duking it out over who’ll ultimately exercise control over the levers of power defining the oft precarious terrain of Turkish politics. The Kemalists not only have a virtually unchallenged stranglehold on the judiciary, but also have close to a monopoly on violence by means of their porous boundaries and symbiotic relationship with the armed forces. If the history of modern Turkey is anything to go by, there have been four military coups since 1960, then the present game of tit-for-tat is unlikely to end civilly, with an exchange of respectful handshakes and boisterous pats on the back. Turkish politicians of all persuasions have come to know well that the military is far from shy about issuing threats, or flexing it muscle if and when deemed necessary.

Though the days of flooding the streets of Ankara and Istanbul with tanks and armed soldiers are of the past, Turkey's military establishment penetrates most if not all the key institutions of the Turkish republic. Steven A. Cook, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations contends that:

Ever since

The overriding conclusion amongst key analysts in the foreign policy establishment is that what we are witnessing is a struggle, not between the Kemalist vanguard who have been bequeathed the role of safeguarding and buttressing the tradition of Turkish secularism AND a quietly creeping Islamic albeit passive revolution (a la the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci) fostered and cultivated by the ruling AKP party and various other ‘subterranean’ elements hell-bent on subverting the state to theological dogma, but rather a struggle between liberal democracy and authoritarianism with a military hue. And what many in west may find counterintuitive, given the never-ending parade of hyperbole and tabloid sensationalism regarding the foreboding and forever looming ‘Islamic threat’, is that it’s the staunch secularists of a Kemalist bent that are guilty of contempt and a risible attitude toward democracy, democratic institutions and minority rights. The latter’s frosty attitude toward the

On both poles of the ideological spectrum there’s a fairly robust consensus that the Islamist AKP has done more than any previous government to propel

“The AKP government has doubled the country’s per capita income, significantly improved its democratic record, and begun accession negotiations with the EU – even the most zealous secularists would struggle to find an Islamist agenda behind all this…Thus, the AKP’s landslide victory in July – it won 47 per cent of the vote [in 2007], compared with 34 percent in 2002, when it first came to power – was less a victory for Islam over secularism than a victory for the new democratic, pro-market, and globally integrated Turkey over the old authoritarian, statist, and introverted one.”[2]

That it’s in the AKP’s interest to push for liberalization so as to enervate the iron-grip of the military establishment is a point of which be must remain cognizant, but it nevertheless fails to detract from the gains made by the AKP in working toward a more liberal polity. The AKP’s pragmatism, pro-Western and pro-globalization attitude is not something that can be ignored or easily sidestepped, and it’s in this respect that they have been blasted by both the far-right and far-left. Many problems undoubtedly remain, but the key is that the current momentum shouldn’t be permitted to stall and aimlessly meander so as to finally taper off into oblivion.

Taspinar also forcefully contends that in the advent of the AKP’s proscription and marginalization, the party’s constituency may well turn to more radical means in order to make their voices heard and articulate their societal grievances. Despite the marked softening of these former Islamists cum media-savvy politicians, there’s no guarantee against the tide once again turning in favor of the latter trend, amongst both Turks and Kurds. Though there is little need to worry about the old-guard of the AKP who appear to have decisively mellowed with little desire to give up the power and privilege to which they are now accustomed. The worry resides with those young men and women who have come to eke out a dejected, disillusioned and disenfranchised existence on the edge of

The four main issues which perform the role of tacitly understood redlines between the Turkish government and the military establishment are:

1. An intolerant brand of Turkish secularism (laiklik) and any publicly visible challenge to its hegemony.

Governments and individuals who have dared broach these issues with even a modicum of seriousness have paid a heavy price, since the top brass, have willingly intervened without hesitation to valorize what it perceives as the Kemalist legacy . Even Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s greatest living novelist and 2006 Nobel Laureate was slammed with a barrage of nationalistic vituperation and litigation for adducing the Armenian genocide and was consequently charged with ‘insulting Turkishness’; an obscure law which has allowed hyper-nationalist lawyers to file lawsuits against anyone who questions or contests the official Kemalist narrative and imprimatur. Historical accuracy is mere quibbling in this regard and finds a paucity of support amongst the Kemalist constituency. The case against Pamuk was eventually dropped at the behest of the highest echelons of government because of the reams of bad western press rained down upon

Many see

Ataturk’s modus operandi was of a different era and germinated in response to what he saw as an imminent crisis and dissolution of the Ottoman state and society, which if not confronted head-on might well have spelt the demise of the Turkish nation as he knew it. In an effort to combat the decline of the once awe-inspiring Ottoman Empire and paradoxically stave off western interference and intrusion in Turkish affairs he sought to emulate and even outdo the west, and to that end adapted the republican laws and codes of conduct he’d witnessed in France and other western nations, as he saw fit and tailored them to his own country’s specificity. He Latinized the alphabet, purged the Turkish language of Persian and Arabic words in order to construct a ‘purer’ and more ‘authentic’ Turkish, forbade the fez and veil, lampooned the religious establishment under the umbrella of state-control, and finally instituted a secular legal code.

As far as he was concerned such measures needed to be unilaterally enforced from above and divorced from the protracted and tedious rumination and deliberation characteristic, as he saw it, of the parliamentarian mould. Hence a great many allude to the man’s penchant for authoritarianism, disdain for the rule of law and therefore Ataturk’s complicity in stressing the will of the military over the will of the people. These same critics intimate that authoritarianism was tossed aside at the expense of democracy and liberalism. Defenders of this aspect of the Kemalist legacy claim that

These same defenders point to the example of

Despite Mohammad Reza’s putatively modernizing reforms the clergy reacted on one-level to the Shah’s ever-tightening grip on power and his growing disdain for democratic institutions. On another level, the clergy reacted to the steadily encroaching threat posed by the state to their traditional sphere of influence and financial earnings. Despite violent suppression by the Shah’s military and intelligence services, the clergy maintained relative autonomy and independence of action and were thereby able to mobilize supporters en masse against the Pahlavi regime. This of course culminated in the Iranian revolution’s rapid transformation into a full-blown Islamo-clerical revolt and overthrow of the status quo ante. It is this scenario which the Kemalist establishment avers it’s trying to forestall today.

Though at one time this may have perhaps been a legitimate concern, it’s become clear that the Kemalists continue to use the politics of fear and hyperbole as a fig-leaf to ensure they will never be forced to relinquish the reins of power to which they have grown used to wielding wherever and whenever they feel their traditional supremacy threatened. One example of the rhetoric customarily fulminated from out of the rightwing establishment is the branding of politicians of a religious persuasion and religious leaders of a liberal persuasion such as Fethullah Gulen who whole-heartedly endorse the coexistence of faith and scientific discovery, back the Kemalist tradition urging the separation of state and religion and extol the importance of faith as a matter of private concern as opposed to politico-legal institutionalization, as the Turkish Khomeini incarnate.[4]ch slander unfortunately comprises a significant part of Turkish high politics where the back and forth of polemic and counter-polemic has left an electorate lukewarm and wearily apathetic.

The underbelly of the Kemalist legacy of course is that it suppresses all subaltern and marginalized voices: it’s fundamentally univocal, as opposed to plurivocal. One either accepts the dominant or rather domineering paradigm encumbered by ethnicity, language and to a lesser extent religion or one is ostracized from political life in toto. As Cihan Tugal, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Berkeley has argued, the modern Turkish state was birthed and established on this very basis, and balefully manifested itself in the form of religious homogenization, an aggressive brand of assimilationist nationalism and ethnic cleansing.[5]

The AKP’s initial overtures to Turkish Kurds and the overwhelming majority of Kurd’s renunciation of violence in favor of inter-cultural dialogue, debate and discussion marks a step forward rather than a leap. A dangerous political cynicism continues to obdurately reveal itself amongst the military elite and top brass, perhaps best evinced by the Semdinli incident in which Turkish intelligence forces allegedly planted explosives in Semdinli deep in southeastern Turkey, in a bid to spark ethnic unrest by blaming Kurdish separatists and strengthen the military’s hand against both Kurdish militants and the civilian government whose credibility could be sapped due to being ‘soft on matters of national security’.[6]

© Sadegh Kabeer

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

Jamshid

Yes, I was salivating for the Shah's downfall. I am glad he was overthrown. I have never hidden my disdain for monarchy.

Yes, I am insignificant. It is other people in this site who have the illusion that they are actually leading a revolution against IRI (I do not mean you, though) from the comfort of their secure homes in the West.

Ultimately, we are responsible for what we do. Why is it that we cannot be tempted or fooled for somethings, but can be for others? 

Mammad

A Much more balanced article

A Much more balanced article on Turkey:(please do not censor)

//www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory...

Mammad

Perhaps you didn't understand my account correctly. I was merely a foot soldier who was deceived by the Mammads of the world. I have openly admitted to this in the past.

You may have been in the US during the revolution, but still I am certain that you were salivating for the fall of the shah's regime.

Also, always try to remember that when I say "you", I don't mean just "Mammad", as you alone are too insignificant to be relevant in anything. Instead, with "you", I mean your failed ideology and views that were/are shared by the same leaders who brought us a failed revolution.

Try to remember this so I don't have to repeat it again.

Thanks Jaleho for your kind

Thanks Jaleho for your kind comments, greatly appreciated...you also make some excellent points yourself...from you past posts I can tell that we're on the same page regarding many issues...

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

Unlike their pro-secular

Unlike their pro-secular rivals, Islamists have been able to reinvent themselves to appeal to a growing base of voters. Nobody has done this more successfully than Mr Erdogan with the AKP.

An Islamic cleric by training, Mr Erdogan became Istanbul’s mayor when Welfare won a municipal election in 1994. He was booted out in 1997, and jailed briefly a year later for reciting a nationalist poem in public that was deemed to incite “religious hatred”.

The caliph of Istanbul
Islam has been intertwined with Turkishness ever since the Ottoman Sultan adopted the title of “Caliph”, or spiritual leader, of the world’s Muslims almost six centuries ago. When Ataturk abolished the caliphate in 1924 and launched his secular revolution, he did not efface piety; he drove it underground. Turkey’s brand of secularism is not about separating religion from the state, as in France. It is about subordinating religion to the state. This is done through the diyanet, the state-run body that appoints imams to Turkey’s 77,000 mosques and tells them what to preach, even sometimes writing their sermons.

In the early days of Ataturk’s republic, the façade of modernity was propped up by zealous Kemalists, who fanned out on civilising missions across Anatolia. They would drink wine and dance the Charleston at officers’ clubs in places like Kars. “My grandmother, she told me about the balls, the beautiful dresses. Kars was such a modern place then,” sighs Arzu Orhankazi, a feminist activist. In truth, life outside the cities continued much as before: deeply traditional and desperately poor.

A big reason why Anatolia seemed less Islamist in the old days is because it was home to a large and vibrant community of Christians. But this demographic balance was brutally overturned by the mass killings and expulsions of Armenians and Greeks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Take Tokat, a leafy northern Anatolian town where Armenians made up nearly a third of the population before 1915. The only trace that remains of a once thriving Armenian community is a derelict cemetery overgrown with weeds and desecrated by treasure-hunting locals.

Much of this history is overlooked by the secular elite. Pressed for evidence of creeping Islamisation under the AKP, they point to the growing number of women who wear the headscarf, which is proscribed as a symbol of Islamic militancy in state-run institutions and schools. Mr Erdogan’s attempt to lift the ban for universities, which was later overturned by the constitutional court, is a big part of Mr Yalcinkaya’s case against him and the AKP.

Much of this history is overlooked by the secular elite. Pressed for evidence of creeping Islamisation under the AKP, they point to the growing number of women who wear the headscarf, which is proscribed as a symbol of Islamic militancy in state-run institutions and schools. Mr Erdogan’s attempt to lift the ban for universities, which was later overturned by the constitutional court, is a big part of Mr Yalcinkaya’s case against him and the AKP.

Yet surveys suggest that, except for a small group of militant pro-secularists, most Turks do not oppose Islamic headgear, least of all in universities. Its proliferation probably has little to do with Islamist fervour, but is linked to the influx of rural Anatolians into towns and cities. The exodus from the countryside accelerated under Turgut Ozal, a former prime minister who liberalised the economy in the early 1980s. For conservative families, covering their daughters’ heads became a way of protecting them in a new and alien world.

Once urbanisation is complete the headscarf will begin to fade, says Faruk Birtek, a sociologist at Istanbul’s Bogazici University. Bogazici was always refreshingly unbothered by students with headscarves. But the rules were tightened in the 1990s. And around the time the constitutional court in June overturned the new AKP law to let women with headscarves attend university, Bogazici’s liberal female director was squeezed out.

Like many, Summeye Kavuncu, a sociology student at Bogazici, has been caught in the net. She complains that her stomach “gets all knotty each time I go to university. I no longer know whether to keep my scarf on or to take it off. The secularists look upon us as cockroaches, backward creatures who blot their landscape.” Few would guess that Ms Kavuncu belongs to a band of pious activists who dare to speak up for gays and transvestites.

Social and class snobbery may partly drive the secularists’ contempt for their pious peers. But it is ignorance that drives their fear. Bridging these worlds can be tricky, “because Islam is not like other religions, it’s a 24-hour lifestyle,” comments Yilmaz Ensaroglu, an Islamic intellectual. “Devout Muslims pray five times a day.”

Wine, women and schools
The biggest fault-lines in Turkey’s sharpening secular/religious divide concern alcohol, women and education. When Welfare rose to power in the 1990s, one of its first acts was to ban booze in restaurants run by municipalities under its control. Party officials argued that pious citizens had the right to affordable leisure space that did not offend their values. Some AKP mayors have pushed this line further. They want to exile drinkers to “red zones” outside their cities. A newly prosperous class of devout Muslims is creating its own gated communities, and a growing number of hotels boast segregated beaches and no liquor. A survey shows that the number of such retreats has quadrupled under the AKP. Taha Erdem, a respected pollster, says the number of women wearing the turban, the least revealing headscarf of all, has quadrupled too.

All this is feeding secularist paranoia about creeping Islam. Are these fears justified? In the big cities conservative Anatolians are expanding their living space. But this is not at the secularists’ expense. Life for urban middle-class Turks, and certainly for the rich, continues much as before. It is in rural backwaters that freewheeling Turks fall prey to what Serif Mardin, a respected sociologist, calls “neighbourhood pressure”. For instance, Tarsus, a sleepy eastern Mediterranean town (and birthplace of St Paul), made headlines recently when two teenage girls were attacked by syringe-wielding assailants who sprayed their legs with an acid-like substance because their skirts were “too short”.

Habits in the workplace are changing too. Female school teachers have been reprimanded for wearing short-sleeved blouses. During the Ramadan fast last year the governor’s office in Kars stopped serving tea for a while. Secular Turks contend that Islam will inevitably wrest more space from their lives and must be reined in now. With no credible opposition in sight, many look to the army as secularism’s last defender.

So do many of Turkey’s estimated 15m Alevis, who practise an idiosyncratic form of Islam: they do not pray in mosques, they are not teetotal and their women do not cover their heads. The government has not kept its promise formally to recognise Alevi houses of worship, called cemevler. Nor has it heeded Alevi demands for their children to be exempted from compulsory religious-education classes that are dominated by Sunni Islam. “There is a systematic campaign to brainwash us, to make us Sunnis,” complains Muharrem Erkan, an Alevi activist in Tokat.

The battle for Turkey’s soul is being waged most fiercely in the country’s schools. Egitim-Sen, a leftist teachers’ union, charges that Islam has been permeating textbooks under the AKP. Darwin’s theory of evolution is being whittled away and creationism is seeping in. Islamist fraternities, or tarikat, continue to ensnare students by offering free accommodation. The quid pro quo is that they fast and pray, and girls cover their heads.

Yet the biggest boost to religious education came from the army itself, after it seized power for the third time in 1980. Communism was the enemy at the time, so the generals encouraged Islam as an antidote. Religious teaching became mandatory. Islamic clerical-training schools, known as imam hatip, mushroomed.

Another example of how army meddling goes awry is Hizbullah, Turkey’s deadliest home-grown Islamic terrorist outfit. Hizbullah (no relation to its Lebanese namesake) is alleged to have been encouraged by rogue security forces in the late 1980s to fight separatist PKK rebels in the Kurdish south-east. The group spiralled out of control until police raids in 2001 knocked it out of action. But not entirely. Former Hizbullah militants are said to have regrouped in cells linked to al-Qaeda, and took part in the 2003 bombings of Jewish and British targets in Istanbul.

Banning the AKP could strengthen the hand of such extremists, who share the fierce secularists’ belief that Islam and democracy cannot co-exist. If instead the AKP stayed in power, that would bring Islamists closer to the mainstream. “Six years in government has tempered even the most radical AKP members,” comments Mr Ensaroglu. True enough. AKP members of parliament wear Zegna suits and happily shake women’s hands; their wives get nose jobs and watch football matches; their children are more likely to study English than the Koran.

Had Mr Erdogan made an effort to reach out to secular Turks, “we might not be where we are today,” concedes a senior AKP official. He missed several chances. The first came last autumn when the AKP was trying to patch together a new constitution to replace the one written by the generals in the 1980s. Mr Erdogan never bothered to consult his secular opponents. He ignored them again when passing his law to let girls wear headscarves at universities. Critics say that his big election win turned his head. “Erdogan accepts no advice and no criticism,” whispers an AKP deputy. “He’s become a tyrant.”

Maybe he has. But that does not mean he deserves to be barred from politics, and his party banned.

//www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory...

Jamshid

Yeah right. In fact, that the Revolution happened at all was my fault, even though I was in the US at that time, and you in Iran participated in it according to yourself!!

Control your impulses.

Mammad

What a fantastic article!!

Thank you Sadegh for a comprehensive and realistic description of the present state of affairs in Turkey. Can you publish it somewhere so a larger group of people could read it? We need this badly since there are two prevalent types of "analysis" regarding Turkey in the US:

At best we have the INSIPID wishful thoughts of Steven Kinzer who tries to goad the "lovable and unique generals in Turkey who are so different from the ugly Latin America military dictators for example," to come to reality with the modern times and let go of their fascistic Kemalism. Peacefully and sweet. It doesn't take a short few years after his sweetly written books to be discredited by REALITY, yet he remains DA MAN somehow!!

And at worst, we have the Zionist ugliness represented by the types of Rubin, whom people like Zion and other Zionists of the site copy from. These people have a profound disregard for the wishes of an overwhelming majority of Turkish people, yet they talk with an arrogant holier-than-thou attitude for example about Kurds and women! They feel threatened that Israeli-Turkish relations, the type they used to rely on when Shah was in power, would get in danger. Based on that fear, they allow themselves to arrogantly dictate how a nation of 75 million SHOULD ACT as they see fit, not as majority of Turkish people have decided and voted for.  I don't understand how even some sour grape Turkish nationalist can go so low to tolerate this latter tone about their own country.

Israeli sympathizers whose point of views about Turkey is the most widespread in the US media, talk about Hamas not as a valid representative of Palestinians despite a popular vote, and they are ARROGANT enough to think that they can repeat that asinine attitude to 75 million Turks! For them, democracy is valid only if you get an Israeli-lackey in power in any middle eastern country. Otherwise, if the place is small like Palestine or Lebanon, try to disregard the democratic outcome by force. If the country is too big, like Iran or like something they'd prefer in Turkey, then the argument would be:

"Democracy is not always good. See, even Hitler was elected democratically! So, Iranians should be saved from themselves, and Turks should be saved by the great military dictators." In short, you should always consult the necons and Zionists (who eat every ones ears on Israeli democracy) when the will of people must be respected and when it is trash.

Jaleh

well done asdf you have

well done asdf you have uncovered THE PROTOCOL OF THE ELDERS OF PEACEFUL TURKISH MUSLIMS WHO RESPECT DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM.

Sweet Mammali

Darling Mammad: What is it that I do believe in?? Do tell the me beloved professor. Please put me in the picture.. I'm dying to read your scholarly analysis.

I must admit though, your fatal incapacity to understand another person's perspective unless it's an identical copy of your own ideology is starting to become very endearing to me...

Mammad

My comment is worth responding indeed. You just don't have an answer to your role in the demise of Iran.

The Turks are lucky that they don't have a soft "king", as we did in Iran.

Good for them.

asdf

Although by insulting you show your true colour  (and this has been typical of you, whenever you really do not have much meaningful things to say), but just so that the readers see the accuracy of what I said about the no-bid contracts, I invite the interested readers to check the following three sites out of thousands:

1. From Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, and the model of "fair and balanced" reporting:

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,384903,00.html

2. From International Herald Tribune, where I have published several articles myself:

www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/17/Iraq-Oil-Deals.php

3. And from a site run by my "ilk":

thinkprogress.org/2008/06/30/after-denying-involvement-in-iraqs-no-bid-oil-contracts-us-revealed-to-be-integral-to-deals/ 

This last one, even without clicking, tells you what the story is; just look at the title of the article in the hyperlink.

When I Google searched with those key words that I had indicated in my previous comment, I got 38,000 hits!!

You seem to think that I was upset that you called my thinking lethal. Absolutely not. It is actually a badge of honour. As I said, if my line of thoughs is not lethal to yours, I would start worrying. I make no claim that my thinking is superior to yours. I just do not want to think like you, because of what you seem to believe.

I do agree with you regarding one thing: Condoleezza Rice has been a disaster, although not for the reasons you listed.

Mammad

BTW, We owe the Islamists

BTW, We owe the Islamists rise to power on the coatail of democracy to Ms. Condi. She is an utter failure. Her so-called transformational diplomacy helped Hamas come to power in Gaza. Her crackpot theories about democracy promotion helped lead the US into an unnecessary, horribly costly war in Iraq. Her counsel on Afghanistan was all wrong.Failure is too diplomatic. Rice is a disaster.

Mammali Khan jan: Given the

Mammali Khan jan: Given the Islamist/leftist track record (empeirically verifiable historical data) how do you expect me not to characterize your ilk anything but lethal??

If I did not consider your mindset anything but noxious I would dumber than George Bush; and that's an underestatement. An Innocuous Islamist/leftist is an oxymoron, as you exquisitely continue to illustrate on this site.

Here is one link that debunks our hackademia's feeble attempt at misinformation.

** Warning: This is strictly for the non-ideologue readers:

Chinese and Japanese Best-Placed for Oil Contracts in Iraq

"The Iraqi government has still not concluded a single contract.

Monday, the Iraqi oil minister officially invited 35 oil companies to make their offers for development of the oil fields of the country that holds the third-largest proven reserves in the world, estimated at 117 billion barrels. According to intelligence gathered by Le Temps, Shell will obtain the Kirkuk field in the north and the Buzurgan field in Missan Province. BP is likely to be assigned the Rumaila field. On Tuesday, at the Global Oil Congress in Madrid, Total's boss, Christophe de Margerie, stated that his company was on the verge of signing contracts. The French major could obtain the Nahr Amer and Majnoon fields. It also counts on developing part of the West Qurna field along with Chevron-Texaco and Lukoil would get another part of that same field.

The Western press talks primarily about Western oil companies, although it's the Chinese and the Japanese that are the best-placed in the race for contracts. (See Le Temps of June 23, 2008). CNPC, which holds the sole valid contract concluded in 1997 under Saddam Hussein, and Japex are ready to get to work. Their contracts are still "baking." Officials at the two Asian majors are waiting until Iraq has a legal foundation - the new oil law is still blocked in Parliament - to go into action. But the two companies are already looking for derricks to install on the existing Ahdab and Gharraf fields - which have not yet ever been exploited. Author of a report on Iraqi oil for IHS Petroconsultants, Mohamed Zine, emphasizes that "Beijing and Tokyo don't negotiate contracts only; they're ready to grant vast loans for construction and improvement of Iraq's infrastructure." Another great advantage: Japex and CNPC are likely to obtain long-term contracts allowing them to take a share of production. The Western majors will have to settle for technical assistance contracts with a maximum two-year duration that don't require Parliament's endorsement, but that do allow them to deal with the most urgent matters first: to restore threatened oil fields."

//www.truthout.org/article/chinese-and-japane...

asdf

Who cares whether you respond or not, or whether you take me and people like me seriously or not.

The point is, you make erroneous assertions, half-truths, and all in haste. I respond. The rest is up to the reader. I am still waiting to see whether you can expose my "lie" about no-bid contracts.

Yes, for once we agree. My thinking is, in fact, lethal to your thinking and those of people like you. It is supposed to be. I expect nothing else. I worry if it is not.

Mammad

aaa, Zion

Zion: Thanks for attempting an explanation, but your Nazism reference was misleading and inappropriate. The AKP, its tactics, goals, and track record is nothing like Nazism and nothing like IRI Islamism. Read their platform for yourself. You will find that, among other things it states that, "Everyone who believes in democracy, respects human rights and freedoms, adopts
pluralistic values, possesses ethical and human
emotions, is attached to the market economy, has
a place under the roof of this Party."

Thus far the AKP has lived up to its commitment to pluralism, political secularism, and economic honesty. This is empirically, observably true. Allegations about AKP attempts to subvert the government represent a very ugly kind of conspiracy theorizing that borders on bigotry. There is no evidence, from its leaders or cadres, of a desire to impose an Iranian-style theocracy.

In fact, my dream is for Iran to become a real democracy where I can vote for a party like the AKP in free, fair and regular elections.

Our own revolution failed to deliver freedom and pluralism, not because of Muslim democrats like Bazargan, but in spite of their best efforts, at risk to their own lives, to confront theocracy.

"From Indonesia to Turkey,

"From Indonesia to Turkey, Islamic parties win electoral elections, and remain loyal to the democratic process that brings them to power, as any political party that believes in democracy would do."

Eat your heart out, Islam hater!

ROFL!!!

This confirms why I don't bother taking you seriously and write to you in haste... I'm very selective about the fights/debates I Pick, in general.

I was actually going to post a few links to debunk your Islamists/leftist-colored assertion on this site but you're not worth it. You're an ideologue of the most lethal kind.

No Islamists/Leftist ideologue should be trusted by any secular and democratic entity...

Hopefully, the "Kamalistfascist" are exactly what Turkey needs; otherwise, they will have the same fate as Iran and Iranians. I think the secular Turks are on to to the Islamists and have thoroughly studied Khomeini's taqiyas...

Answer

Thanks for the question.

I can't define Zionism, and I don't try to. I can only talk about people I know who call themselves Zionists.

Some are apolitical, and their affinity for the Holy Land is a purely spiritual one. Others express their Zionism by making aliyah (immigrating) and contributing to Israeli society.

Some believe in a two state solution, others do not. Some, like the settler types and their supporters, are explicitly xenophobic, desiring to supplant the Arabs who live in the West Bank, Gaza, and even Israel proper. Others are implicitly racist, believing that state agencies like the Jewish Agency for Israel or the JNF should favor Jews over Arabs. Finally, some Zionists are not Jews at all, but Christians for whom the creation of a Jewish state (and its subsequent conversion to Christianity) is a question of eschatology.

As you can see, there is plenty of diversity among those who identify as Zionists...and the same goes for Muslims.

Khomeini railed against nationalism, but most Iranian Muslims would probably disagree with him. Like me, they take their inspiration from the Quranic verse claiming we were created "into nations and tribes, that you may know one another." Yes I feel an affinity for people who pray like me, but I also feel close to my Iranian "tribe" (and my American one).

Iranian Muslims share many characteristics with those in other countries. But Iranian Islam is also unique, blending Zoroastrianism, Sunnism, Shi'ism, Mu'tazilism and the existentialism of figures like Mulla Sadra and the Platonism of Farabi. Rumi, Hafez, Sa'di, and even Ferdowsi and Khayyam (including modernists like Abdolkarim Soroush) all play a part in the shaping the worldview of a thoughtful Iranian Muslim.

Finally, I can ultimately only speak for myself, as Iranian Muslims are a diverse community of many millions.

Let's see: From the LA Times

From the Los Angeles Times, Saturday July 26, 2008, p. 3, NOT from the propaganda department led by the Islamic leftist Mammad:

"Right wing plotters targeted prominent figures for assassination, including Orban Pamuk [the 2006] Nobel Prize-winning author, and planned to attack NATO installations in Tuerkey...."

"The 2500-page document laying out details of the alleged unltranationalists plot was released by prosecutors Friday, and an Istanbul court agreed to take up the case and scheduled hearings to begin Oct. 20."

"The group, which dubbed itself "Ergenekon," a mytical site associated with the birth of Turkic people, plotted to launch 'bloody attacks amied at creating chaos, anarchy, terrorism, and instability,' with the ultimate aim of bringing down the government..."

As I said in a previous comment (for which I was immediately attacked hastily, as I always am), this group is nothing but secular-fascist, or secu-fascist as I dubbed them in a 2007 article.

The ruling Islamic Party won a landslide electoral victory a few years ago, and began rebuilding the economy and improving human rights in Turkey, in order to gain Turkey's membership in the European Union.

Then, last year, it put up Abdullah Gol, the Foreign Minister at that time, as its candidate for President. Since Gol's wife wears a "roosari" (and a beautiful one at that) as her Islamic hejab (but is otherwise a highly educated and modern woman), the opposition protested, and blocked Gol's election.

Fine. The Government did what any democratic government would do: It dissolved the parliament and called for new elections. If people were opposed to what the AKP was doing, they would have defeated it.

Instead, they re-elected AKP with another overwhelming electoral victory.

So, all these absurd statements by Zionist Zion and Fred, as well as Islam haters who are uttering nonsense about AKP simply because it is a moderate, modern, forward-looking Islamic party that wants Turkey to become a member of EU, are just that: non-sense and absurd.

From Indonesia to Turkey, Islamic parties win electoral elections, and remain loyal to the democratic process that brings them to power, as any political party that believes in democracy would do.

Eat your heart out, Islam haters.

Mammad

Dear Iranian Muslim??? How

Dear Iranian Muslim??? How old are you??? You must be very young...not to know how an entire nation was deceived by the Islamists who promised all sorts of pluralism and freedom but what their real agenda was to establish an Islamic Ummah in the region...

Nope

There are nuts who even call Bin Laden as Zionist. Such tactics prove absolutely nothing. Also, I did not say Erdogan is a Nazi. I mentioned the Nazis because they are one example of an ideological movement using the same tactics to gain power by deception. The Islamists that form AKP have used economic ills to gain power in a secular democracy and they are trying all sorts of tactics to undermine the secular nature of the system and to impose their ideology. They are the ones who have accused their critics of conspiracy and have shamelessly arrested them on typical bogus charges.
Hopefully thy will fail and Turkey will fully regain her secular health.

Iranian Muslim?? Isn't that

Iranian Muslim?? Isn't that an oxymoron??? Muslims don't have nationalities; they belong to the ummah.

What is your definition of Zionism, " Iranian muslim"??

To Zion:

I couldn't help but draw the following conclusions from your comment.

It seems you despise the AKP, not because you've seen real evidence of their dictatorial aspirations (there is none), but simply because it's a party whose members are practicing Muslims and social conservatives.

By dismissing the evolution of the AKP as "cosmetic surgery", you make me think your suspicion of this party is not based on its actions but on its identity. It seems there is little the AKP could ever do or say that would allay this suspicion, when every positive change is interpreted as an attempt at deception.

You claimed the AKP sought to "abuse the democratic secular system, use economic ills to trick people, come to power, accuse everyone else of plotting against you...Nazis played the same game."

The AKP has used the secular system to improve the economy, Turkey's Human Rights record, and the status of religious and ethnic minorities. If anything, it is the secular establishemnt that is undemocratic, and seems to "accuse everyone else of plotting" to overthrow it.

You then compare the AKP, a moderate, socially conservative, pro-capitalist party to Nazi's and Algeria's FLN.

I engage many serious, thoughtful Zionists in my daily life. I am disappointed, because I thought you were one of them. Yet no Zionist, and no self-respecting Jew would ever be so cavalier in throwing around an accusation of Nazism. It demeans the memory of the Holocaust and trivializes real Nazism. Don't do it again.

That Erdogan, who was given an award by the ADL can be at once accused of being a closet Nazi and by Turkish anti-semites of being a closet Jew says more about his opponents than it does about him.

Sadegh, You have written an

Sadegh,

You have written an excellent article with incisive and original analysis. I think you should consider publishing this widely. One is constantly bombarded with the simplistic description of AKP and Erdogan as islamists with a deceptive soft appearance and the Kemalists as the defenders of democracy and secularism. Rarely does one see the perspective you bring forth, and I thank you for doing that with beautiful prose and grace.

KF

Typical Plot

What is going on in Turkey by the Islamists with cosmetic surgery is a typical plot by all wanna be ideological dictators. Abuse the democratic secular system, use economic ills to trick people, come to power, accuse everyone else of plotting against you, find and excuse arrest them and gradually abolish all democratic institutions. Nazis played the same game.
Islamists tried it once in Algeria but didn`t succeed. Hopefully the powerful secular forces and the national army will prevent them one more time.

"The author wants women to

"The author wants women to be stoned to death; legalized pedophilia (according to sharia); polygamy; women viewd as half human being like slaves in the antebellum south; torturing, killing an maiming dissidents and minorities in the name of religion of peace, Islam; pouring the national wealth into the coffers of the clergy and those who are subsidized by clergies to shore up loyalty and allegiance to the clergey, and so on..."

Where does the author say any of the above? He calls for pluralism, democracy and liberalism and you accuse him of this? Look at his sources. He relies on Foreign Affairs a bastion of the mainstream foreign policy establishment and liberal-minded professors. Sadegh don't waste your time with this site or with these Nazis any longer - your efforts would be far more appreciate elsewhere. It's a disgrace that this libel is even published by the admins of this site. Asdf you make me sick.

The write-up is painting a

The write-up is painting a progressive picture of the Islamist AKP that is pure fabrication and outright falsity. For the Islamist/Anti-Semites and their likeminded lefty allies who defend the AKP may not be realizing they are in total sync with the Turkish policies of their nemesis the grand “neocon” himself. If it was not for the direct intervention of the big B during the constitutional crises over the election of the Islamist president the Turkish army was all but resigned to implement that which the constitution mandates. Twisting facts and dolling up an ugly bride might fool some but for Iranians who have been hoodwinked by the same kind of used jalopy salesmanship into marrying the Islamist witch

Bingo! The write up calls for tyrannical Islamic supremacy and establishment of Islamic Ummah, period.

The author wants women to be stoned to death; legalized pedophilia (according to sharia); polygamy; women viewd as half human being like slaves in the antebellum south; torturing, killing an maiming dissidents and minorities in the name of religion of peace, Islam; pouring the national wealth into the coffers of the clergy and those who are subsidized by clergies to shore up loyalty and allegiance to the clergey, and so on...

This is what this author advocates by writing this pseudo-intellectual claptrap.

Thankfully, The trukish people have studied the consequences of establishing an Islamic Republic and will defend their secular society unlike those Iranians who were duped by khomeini.

Choghok

Let me ask you, if I may, are you from Mashhad or Khorasan?

First of all, as I said, it is totally up to people to decide what they want to do. The division is up to them. It is also based on their KNOWLEDGE.

Secondly, once again, fascism has a definition and some basic elements. We cannot arbitrarily call this or that fascism, simply because we do not like it. Recognizing people according to their knowledge is not only not a fascistic thing, it is in fact very progressive. Since when putting people in different categories according to their KNOWLEDGE has been an element of fascism?

Third, Islam and Ghoran have the same "problem" as all other religions. They can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways, depending on who interprets them. So, if this is a weakness, it is one for all religions.

Fourth, true, Muslims of the Indian subcontinent wanted to form their own nation, but only after WW II, after decades of suffering under the Hindues. When India was going to gain independence from Britain, Hindues were killing Muslims, forcing them from their homes. I believe you should read the history of this, before rejecting what I said. 

Mammad

Islam and Facism

Some comments about what Mammad is saying about Islam and Facism:

1. The notion that Islam divide people into knowledgable and not knowledgable in itself is facist or racism. Since Islam is a religion and not science it can not tell if people are knowledgable or not. It can tell if they are believers or not and that is it.

2. Hindu Facists did not move people out of India. Muslims actively sougt to establish Pakistan since Jinnah (first Paki PM) felt they were discriminated agains and wanted a country just for Muslims.

3. The thing you say about IRI does not practice is in itself shows the weakness of Islam. Just where do we see this religion being practices correctly? In the history pages? And if you are going to come up with theory that westerners are to be blamed then I would sa "haah". I do not beleive in a god that is overthrown so easily.

/Bidar bash ke ma bekhabim

Resident "secular"

First of all, I am honoured to be called Muslim/Islamic. I have never hidden what I believe in, and I am, in fact, absolutely proud of my religion.

Secondly, let me give you a sample scientific definition for fascism. This is from the website of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis:

"Fascism is a social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedom."

Now, Islam does not even recognize the notion of nation or state, let alone its supremacy. It only recognizes the Islamic WORLD. In this Islamic World, however, there are more than 70 sects. and groups, a lot of them at odd with each other. Moreover, any two people can start a mosque independent of whoever rules. These already violate the main pillars of a fascist state. 

Shi'ism goes even farther by dividing all the people into three groups: Those who are not knowlegeable enough about Islam that should emulate an expert (ayatollah); those who are expert enough to be emulated, and, most importantly, those who are knowlegeable enough to decide everything for themselves (including yours truly).

No one appoints an ayatollah. No one forces anybody to follow anybody, and everybody is free to decide for himself/herself whether he/she is knowlegeable enough to decide for himself/herself. None of this can be fitted within a fascist state.

Now, it is, of course, true that some groups (like the IRI reactionary right) do many things that resemble fascism, but what they do have nothing to do with the true teachings of Islam itself. 

On the other hand, the Turkish secu-fascists put the Turkish state and Kemalism above everything else. They believe so much in the notion of the all important Turkish State that they even deny that there are Kurds in Turkey, only "mountain Turks." And who is the Guardian of this all important State? The military, the same military that since 1960 has staged four coups, all with the support of the U.S. 

Yes, sir/madame, it is totally scientific to call the Turkish group the secu-fascists, and totally scientific to ridicule the idea of Islamo-fascism. One should not simply rechew whatever the neocons and their Israeli allies say.

Any question resident secular?

Mammad