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March 30, 2008
The Undivine Rights of Kemalists
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
For centuries the divine rights of kings was the justification for autocracy. Absolutist monarchs ruled their subjects with an authority they allegedly received from God. It took some time for those subjects to realize that this was simply an illusory rationalization of arbitrary political power. When the latter realized that no king has blue blood in his veins and divine blessing on his shoulders, they started to favor democracy. It was time for people's power to replace that of the monarchs.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:05 AM | Comments (2)
March 27, 2008
The Religious Way to The Open Society
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
NEW YORK – Peter Berger, one of the world’s leading authorities on sociology of religion, put in a nutshell what all secularists, and especially Turkey’s fuming ones, should get. “Modernization does not necessarily secularize societies,” the Boston University professor noted, “it rather pluralizes them.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:13 PM | Comments (2)
March 26, 2008
Secular Jihad—A Judicial Attack on Turkish Democracy
[Originally published in Wall Street Journal]
Who would you expect to be zealous enemies of "moderate Islam"? Islamic fundamentalists? You bet. From Osama bin Laden & Co. to less violent but equally fanatic groups, Islamist militants abhor their co-religionists who reject tyranny and violence in the name of God. But they are not alone. In this part of the world, there is another group that holds a totally opposite worldview but shares a similar hatred of moderate Islam: Turkey's secular fundamentalists.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:48 PM | Comments (7)
March 22, 2008
The ‘Crimes’ of Tayyip Erdoğan
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The latest assault on the elected representatives of the Turkish people, as you might have noted, has come in the form of a judiciary coup d'état attempt. Turkey's chief prosecutor filed a case against the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP). He wants to close the party down, and ban 71 of its top members, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, from politics.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:30 PM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2008
Introducing the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ankara
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Turkey is often called a democracy, but that is a gross mistake. In fact, it is only a quasi-democracy. In democracies, sovereignty rests with the people. In Turkey it is shared between the people and the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ankara (SSRA). The latter lets the people make decisions on trivial issues, but never allows them to mingle with more important ones. When the representatives of the people take steps to make Turkey a real democracy, the SSRA first resists, then warns, then attacks.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:58 PM | Comments (8)
March 16, 2008
The Attempt For a Judiciary Coup D'état
[To be published in Turkish Daily News]
I have been telling you that these people are crazy. And now they proved it beyond any doubt.
You must have heard what I am speaking about. Turkey’s chief prosecutor has just filed a case against the incumbent AKP (Justice and Development Party). He asks for the closure of the party and the banning of Prime Minister Erdoğan and his 70 top colleagues from politics. A political party which has just gained the votes of the 47 percent of the Turkish people is now under threat. Even President Abdullah Gül is on the list of the would-be banned politicians. Unbelievable but true!
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:55 PM | Comments (8)
March 15, 2008
'Islamization' of Turkey: Not What You Would Think
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
One of the popular themes of the recent years is whether Turkey is being “Islamized.” People ask, and fear, about the change in Turkish society under the incumbency of the conservative AKP (Justice and Development Party) government. The suspicion ranges from extravagant conspiracy theories about the “hidden Taliban-like face of the AKP” to the more reasonable concerns about the rise of moral conservatism in public life. Fellow TDN Mehmet Ali Birand, with whom I agree on many matters, touched upon the latter issue in his successive pieces about “the gradual Islamization of our daily lives.” I bet many readers have found his observations compelling.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:56 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2008
The Heinous Attack on The Penis of Atatürk's Horse
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
You really shouldn’t miss this. Last week, the head of the CHP (People’s Republican Party) in the city of Denizli, Mr. Ali Kavak, unveiled yet another heinous attack on our secular Republic and its founder. He, with all seriousness, posed in front of cameras with a photo of the statue of M. Kemal Atatürk that rests at the center of his city. “As you see,” he said, “the penis of the horse that Atatürk sits on has been broken.” Then he moved on to disclose the wicked plan behind this blasphemy: “We think that the AKP (Justice and Development Party) cadres have broken the penis,” he asserted, “the mindset which covers our women’s heads with scarves is now attacking artworks!”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:47 AM | Comments (7)
March 12, 2008
Debate in NYC: 'Is Islam Compatible With Capitalism?'
Mustafa Akyol & David Kelley, PhD
Moderator: Bob Bowdon
Co-Sponsors: International Policy Network, The Smith Family Foundation
Some say that Islam is not compatible with capitalism and that this is part of a wider “clash of civilizations.” But is Islam really incompatible with the key features of capitalism: free markets, investment and trade, the profit motive and pursuit of self-interest? Does it inherently promote collectivisim at the expense of individualism? Is it not open to the values of science, invention, innovation, and progress? Or is it quite compatible with the spirit of individualism, including individual rights, the rule of law, discovery and scientific progress? The answers to these questions will in large part determine whether Muslims can ultimately live peaceably with non-Muslims. So we are delighted to host a discussion of these issues between two learned experts, Mustafa Akyol (Opinion Editor and Columnist, Turkish Daily News, Istanbul) and David Kelley (Founder and Senior Fellow, The Atlas Society, Washington DC)
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 6:30 P.M. Prompt (Free and open to the public)
Donnell Public Library 20 West 53rd Street (Between 5th and 6th avenue), New York
Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:15 AM | Comments (0)
March 6, 2008
Israel Should Stop Harvesting Hatred—For Its Own Sake
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The mighty Tsahal, the Israeli military, recently carried an air attack over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The reason was the Qassam rockets that Hamas militants have been firing into the Jewish state for quite some time. After a week-long offensive, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs. At least 25 of them were civilians, including nine children and three women.
Then the Israelis decided to end their bombings. "This operation has run its course,” said the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon. “This is certainly deterrence.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:14 AM | Comments (13)
March 1, 2008
Welcome to Islamic Reformation 101
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
This week Turkey made international headlines not only with its military's land operation in northern Iraq or its never-ending tug of war over the headscarf. There was also the scholarly and tedious work carried out by a group of theologians in Ankara, supported by the Diyanet (Turkey's official religious body), to revise the “hadiths” – the words and deeds of Prophet Mohammed. “Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts,” read the BBC's headline. “Turkey strives,” the Guardian observed, “for 21st century form of Islam.” According to the Financial Times, this was “Turkey's fresh look at Prophet.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:13 AM | Comments (8)
