February 12, 2010
Unraveling The Turkish Inferiority Complex
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
LONDON - Every time I come to this magnificent city, I admire the way the British honor their past. This time, I was impressed even more, for I had a chance to spend a whole morning in the House of Lords, at which a conference about Turkey's emerging role in the world was held. While walking in the corridors of the splendid building, I could not count the number of statues of former statesmen that I saw. But I could well feel how tradition keeps the British proud and dignified.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:11 PM | Comments (2)
January 6, 2010
Should Muslims 'Slay The Mockers of Islam'?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Alas, it happened again. An extremist Muslim attacked a Westerner to punish him for "mocking Islam." This time, the victim was the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose controversial caricature of the Prophet Mohammed had sparked a worldwide storm five years ago. A 28-year-old man of Somali origin broke into the cartoonist's home last Friday, wielding an axe and a knife. "We will get our revenge," he reportedly yelled, before being shot by the police and taken under custody.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:30 PM | Comments (4)
December 31, 2009
Why Muslim Culture Needs More Fun
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
It happens toward every year's end. The more Westernized part of Turkish society warms up for New Year's Eve. Decorations are put up, parties are organized, and restaurants advertise eat-and-dance-all-night-long programs. Santa Clauses and pine trees show up in upscale malls. The Turks who embrace these Christmas symbols often have no idea about Christ. They just like the lifestyle of the wealthy, happy and joyful people they see in Hollywood movies.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:32 PM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2009
From the Archives: A Governing Sharia
Yet another belated post: My book review of Islam and The Secular State by Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im. It was published in the December 2008 issue of First Things, a monthly theology magazine.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:04 PM | Comments (0)
December 8, 2009
Are Minarets 'Our Bayonets?'
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
The recent Swiss ban on minarets has the bad potential of being a watershed event in terms of Western-Muslim relations. Therefore, there is a lot to say about it.
First, the ban is clearly a violation of religious freedom. It would be a violation of religious freedom, too, if crosses were banned from church roofs or Magen Davids from those of synagogues. That's why the whole affair is simply a "disgrace," as a recent New York Times editorial aptly defined it.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:58 AM | Comments (6)
December 2, 2009
Aryan Supremacy Reigns Supreme in Switzerland
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
You must have heard that the open-minded people of Switzerland took to the polls last weekend to ban minarets - in a country where there are only four of them. These days, the global news is full of stories and commentaries about this apparently democratic, yet shockingly illiberal decision. But if you really want to understand the undercurrents that led the majority of the Swiss society to this unbelievable point, I would suggest watching a 1940 film, "Der Ewige Jude."
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:30 AM | Comments (12)
April 12, 2009
Not At War With US, Either
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]
The boldest headline that President Obama's visit to Turkey gave the world media was a simple reaffirmation. "The U.S is not and will never be," he said, "at war with Islam."
For many Muslims, it was good to hear this because they had really started to suspect that there was a "war on Islam" launched by the American government. In fact, no significant U.S. official had ever said anything close to that. Some of the policies of the Bush administration, from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to "rendition" created doubts and fears. Moreover, some Republican pundits and ideologues, which people perceived as the real mind of the Bush team, engaged in fear mongering about Islam. All these, at the very least, left a bad taste in the mouths of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:24 PM | Comments (12)
January 24, 2009
Terrorism In The Name of Judaism
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
If you don't already know him, let me introduce you to former Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu, an 80-year-old man of faith. In May 2007, he wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to give him some religious advice on what to do with the Palestinians. As reported in the Jerusalem Post on May 30, 2007, the retired chief rabbi was furious about the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and held the whole population in the Strip responsible. "An entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals," he argued.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:23 AM | Comments (15)
January 22, 2009
Barack Obama and The American Gospel
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
I was among the billion people who watched the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama. And like most of those people, I was moved and filled with hope for a better world.
For me, one of the striking points in the inauguration ceremony was that it started with a prayer by pastor Rev. Rick Warren, and ended with a benediction by pastor Rev. Joseph E. Lowery. During the whole ceremony, repeatedly, God was praised, His blessing was asked, and His Scriptures were evoked.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:13 AM | Comments (5)
January 17, 2009
When Both Sides See The Other As Evil
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Since Israel started its brutal onslaught in Gaza, I have been receiving dozens of emails everyday about the nature of the conflict and the parties involved. Most of these fall into two distinct narratives that are 180 degrees opposite.
My Muslim friends are telling me that Israel is "the real terrorist," that its goal is to annihilate or enslave the Palestinian people, and it is responsible for not just the current bloodshed but also the 60-year-old tragedy in the Holy Land. My American or Israeli friends, on the other hand, are telling me the exact opposite. The problem is Arabs, they say, who never accepted Israel's right to exist. Hamas, for them, is responsible for the carnage in Gaza. Israel, they argue, is only defending itself against this fanatic group.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:13 AM | Comments (6)
January 15, 2009
Time For Hamas to Consider Peace
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
I have great sympathy for the Palestinian people. They are my co-religionists with whom I share a common history and culture. Every now and then I recall with nostalgia that the Ottoman Sultans, living in my home city, Istanbul, used to rule Palestine for centuries in a way that made it possible for its people live in peace and security. And I feel deeply sad about what happened to them after we Turks were forced to leave the Holy Land during World War I.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:01 AM | Comments (10)
January 10, 2009
The Morality of 'Collateral Damage'
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
As of yesterday, the Israeli military had killed 770 people in the Gaza Strip, about 200 of them children. Millions around the world are appalled at this ruthless bloodshed. But Israeli spokespersons routinely show up on television, and pleasantly tell us that they don't have the slightest responsibility in all this carnage. They are doing everything they can do avoid this "collateral damage," they say, including warning civilians to run away from their homes before launching an onslaught of bombing. And, based on that, pro-Israeli commentators, such as Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, coldly tell us that Israel is absolutely the "moral side" in his conflict.
Really?
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:40 PM | Comments (3)
January 8, 2009
Can You Finish Terrorists by Killing Them--and Their Kids?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Sometimes an article by one man summarizes the mindset of millions. The piece titled "Bam Stirs Fear in Israel," written by Ralph Peters and published in the New York Post on January 1, was like that. Fearing that "Bam" (i.e, Obama) could "stab Israel in the back" (i.e., tell her to stop the bloodbath in Gaza), Mr. Peters was trying to persuade his readers why it was crucial that the Israeli military kept on bombing the Gaza Strip - a deadly operation which has killed more than 150 women and children up to this point.
"Fighting terrorists effectively means going in on the ground, and sooner is better than later," argued Mr. Peters. "You can't impress fanatics into surrendering. You have to kill them. Nothing else works."
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:38 AM | Comments (10)
November 7, 2008
The Obama Nations
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]
WASHINGTON - In his recent book, “The Obama Nation,” conservative pundit Jerome Robert Corsi was criticizing the growing popularity of the then Democratic presidential candidate. If he wants to keep on, he might now consider writing a sequel: “The Obama Nations.” For now not just millions of Americans, but also billions of foreigners are inspired by the hope that the African-American president-elect spreads.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:48 PM | Comments (2)
November 5, 2008
The Right Man at The Right Time
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]
WASHINGTON – On the very last night of his tireless, 21-month-long campaign for the presidency, Senator Barack Obama, who is now appropriately termed “President-elect,” spoke to a huge crowd in Manassas, Virginia. In a vast open field, he found almost 100,000 people who had been waiting for hours to hear his voice. And I was among them.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:32 PM | Comments (0)
November 3, 2008
The Campaign of Change and Hope
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]
VIRGINIA - The young African-American lady at the national headquarters of the Democratic Party in Washington DC is like a commander in chief. As groups of young and dedicated supporters of Barack Obama line up in front of her booth, she gives them orders to follow. “You need to go all the way to Richmond,” she says to a group of five, “Barack needs you there.”
This is one of the hundreds of spots throughout the United States at which Obama supporters are organized for “canvassing,” i.e., door to door lobbying for the presidential elections. Other presidential candidates, including Obama’s rival John McCain, have used canvassing too, but many political commentators agree that the Obama campaign has been the most efficient one in American political history in rallying and organizing so many people on such a big scale.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:42 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2008
Rejoice! Rejoice! Obama is Coming!
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
WASHINGTON - It has been a little more than an hour since I turned on the TV in my hotel room, but I have come across Barack Obama almost a dozen times. American channels are full of ads that are in favor of, or against, the Democratic presidential candidate. The ones that his party put out talk about his vision for America and how great it will be. The ads given by his rival, John McCain, counter by saying he is inexperienced and will get confused in the first crisis he faces.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:55 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2008
Will Non-Muslims Go to Heaven, Too?
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
WARSAW – I was walking heedlessly in the Old Quarter of the Polish capital last Sunday until I saw a group of joyful singers on the street. Then I stopped and stared. They were about a dozen young Poles who were singing and clapping in the middle of a busy street and in the midst of a bitter cold. Soon, I realized that their art was very much related to their faith. As evangelical Catholics — a category which I just learnt that exits — they were praising God and calling on other people to do the same.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:04 PM | Comments (17)
Good Morning Capitalist Vietnam
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
HO CHI MINH CITY - Some of the most striking images of the ’70s were from the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese forces. After a bloody war that lasted for two decades, the Vietcong had finally captured this capital city of U.S.-supported South Vietnam in April 1975. While the Americans were hastily evacuating their personnel, the gates of the Presidential Palace, which used to host the pro-U.S. leaders of the south, were crushed by tanks of the People’s Army of Vietnam. It was a victorious day for communism — and a tragic one for capitalism.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2008
Let's Get Over With This Crusade-Phobia
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The most tragic-comic news story of this week came from the central Anatolian town of Kayseri. A film crew was shooting a documentary about the medieval past of the town, and they decided to use the city's ancient castle as a stage. But when they put a Crusader's banner, a white plate with a red cross, on the walls, all hell broke loose. Dozens of Kayserians gathered under the castle to protest against the irritating banner. This is Turkey, one man yelled angrily, and we want only the Turkish flag.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:47 PM | Comments (1)
September 13, 2008
The Protocols of The Learned Elders of Globalization
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
BRUSSELS -Turkey's Kemalo-nationalists, who think that globalization is a heinous conspiracy against the Turkish nation-state, would be absolutely horrified if they were here these days: The capital of Europe is hosting a global event which not only asserts the inevitable progress of globalization, but also celebrates the rise of "inter-dependence." For those Turks who are obsessed with their country's "full independence" and "untouched sovereignty," this, I am sure, will sound like the voice of evil. Yet it is simply the echo of reality.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:50 PM | Comments (1)
May 15, 2008
God Save The Queen, Indeed
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The first time I went abroad, I was 16, and my destination was Britain. My parents had sent me to spend a summer in London, so that I could improve my English and “see the world.” Staying at a warm family house in Richmond, and touring the whole city almost everyday, I had cultivated a beginner's admiration for Her Majesty's country. Actually, at first sight, there were few oddities. I could never understand, for example, why their washbasins had two separate taps, through which you either freeze or burn. But the plus side was dominant.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:13 AM | Comments (3)
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)
December 29, 2007
Reflections On The Devolution In France
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Chou En-Lai, the late prime minister of communist China, was once asked what he thought about the French Revolution. He declined to comment, and explained, “It's too early to tell.”
That was in the early 1960s. Perhaps today it is a little bit less early to comment on whether the French Revolution really was a good idea. That seminal event – which inspired not just the French but also many other revolutionaries in many countries all around the world, including Turkey – has borne some notable fruits by which we might judge their political roots.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:39 AM | Comments (9)
September 28, 2007
Cartoons of Muhammad and Clash of Civilizations
[Originally published in in Swedish in the Göteborg-Posten, and Turkish Daily News ]
As if we haven't had enough troubles with the Danish cartoon crisis of 2005, yet another one erupted recently in Sweden. Artist Lars Vilks pictured a cartoon showing Prophet Muhammad's head on the body of a dog, and the daily Nerikes Allehanda published it Aug. 19. Not too surprisingly, many Muslims found the depiction highly insulting. Demonstrators took the streets in Pakistan and burnt a Swedish flag. Egypt, Pakistan and Iran made diplomatic protests. And just recently, Al Qaeda in Iraq offered a $100,000 reward for anyone who kills Vilks.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:01 PM | Comments (1)
March 25, 2007
'300': Orientalism (and Fascist Aesthetics) for Beginners
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
This week I went to see the new chic movie, "300," which tells the story of the ancient Spartans' last stand against an invading Persian army. Yet what I have found in the film was, besides all the spectacular photography, a crude Orientalism and a thinly veiled fascism.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:02 AM | Comments (29)
November 28, 2006
Intelligent Design in Turkey: Up-and-coming
A Reuters news story titled " Creation vs. Darwin takes Muslim twist in Turkey " has also noted the advance of ID in this country. It reads:
"Intelligent Design (ID), a more recent argument about life's origins that is championed by U.S. Christian groups, may also be making the leap across the Atlantic. ID says some organisms are too complex to have evolved without some superior cause, but avoids calling that cause God because that would ban it from U.S. science textbooks.[Mustafa] Akyol, a Muslim believer who says Darwinism is incompatible with his faith, has been waging an uphill struggle to popularize ID here. But most Turks show no interest because they see no need to avoid naming God. His lonely campaign got an unexpected boost last month when Education Minister Huseyin Celik hinted on television that he might want to see it added to Turkish textbooks."If it's wrong to say Darwin's theory should not be in the books because it is in line with atheist propaganda, we can't disregard intelligent design because it coincides with beliefs of monotheistic religions about creation," he told CNN Turk."
Yes, ID is making progress in Turkey — and this is only the beginning!
Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 1, 2004
Show Us More of The Other America
[Originally published in The American Enterprise magazine, also available in PDF]
"Why do you hate us?" Since the horrendous events of 9/11, Americans have been posing that question to Muslims across the globe. The first answer from someone like me, who is repulsed by terrorists who kill in the name of Islam, is that most of us do not hate you. Yet it must be acknowledged that radical Muslim rage is real in many countries.
This rage is often irrational and ill founded. There is, however, one crucial source of anti-Americanism that is built on a genuine threat. Many Muslims are put off by the moral decline that seems to have pervaded American culture during the second half of the twentieth century. They worry that it will be exported to their own children and societies.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:25 AM | Comments (3)
September 14, 2004
Why Muslims Should Support Intelligent Design
[Originally published in Islam Online]
I have traveled a lot around the US and the UK, lecturing to Muslim audiences. One common trait I have noticed is the concern Muslims feel for the future of their children. Several conferences I attended had topics such as "Saving Our Families" or "How To Raise Our Children As Good Muslims." The reason for this concern is obvious: These Muslim families are living in a highly secularized society that has cultural traits that are destructive to traditional values. The profane culture of MTV, pornography, consumerism and hedonism — what political scientist Benjamin Barber calls the "The McWorld" — is at odds with Muslim values.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:41 PM | Comments (3)
