March 7, 2010

And Now, The Plot is Proven...

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Something very important happened last Monday. A short statement from the Turkish General Staff noted that its investigators had gathered "evidence that might prove the existence of the document in question."

"The document in question" was quite a terrible one. It was a military plan to overthrow the AKP government and suppress the popular Islamic movement led by Fethullah Gülen, a retired preacher who lives in the U.S. One idea was to "find" weapons in the homes of people from the Gülen movement by planting them there first and thus portraying the peaceful community as a terrorist group.

Continue reading "And Now, The Plot is Proven..."

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:44 AM | Comments (1)

March 3, 2010

Confessions of A Recovering AKP Fan

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

The headline above was suggested to me yesterday by a Turkish friend from California. "That's what some people really expect to hear from you these days," she said on Skype. "Especially after [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan's latest attack on the media."

Well, my friend has a point. Erdoğan's recent call for media bosses to fire the columnists whose pieces "increase tension in the country" is really over the top. It is shockingly illiberal and utterly unacceptable. No columnist has to write pieces Erdoğan, or anybody else, will approve. The fact the prime minister dared to say something like that is not just tragic but also worrying.

Continue reading "Confessions of A Recovering AKP Fan"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:44 AM | Comments (4)

February 26, 2010

Why I Should Be Fired, Jailed and Beheaded

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

One of the great things about the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review is its lack of censorship. Hence, I can write in my columns what I believe, and, in return, readers can comment in the way they deem fit. Some can even bring in bold suggestions that I should be fired from the newspaper, then "jailed for life" and even "beheaded."

Continue reading "Why I Should Be Fired, Jailed and Beheaded"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2010

A Farewell to Rulers In Arms

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

For decades and decades, Turkey's powerful generals, even if they often remained behind the scenes, ruled the country. And every Turk knew that. They also knew that if the elected politicians make the generals angry, the latter would come down and teach them a damn good lesson.

Continue reading "A Farewell to Rulers In Arms"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2010

From Kemalist Oligarchy to Chaotic Polyarchy

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

By now, it is clear to all that an unarmed war is going on within the Turkish state. The latest episode in Erzincan, a city in the east, and its repercussions in Ankara, a city in turmoil, is telling enough.

Things began several months ago. First, Erzincan's chief prosecutor, İlhan Cihaner, started an investigation about a conservative Islamic community in town. Meanwhile, a prosecutor from the neighboring city of Erzurum, Osman Şanal, who had a special authority to investigate the Ergenekon case, suspected something different.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:18 PM | Comments (1)

February 16, 2010

Was Ottoman Shariah Better Than Republican Law?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Well, with a headline like the above, I know that I am on dangerous ground. Shariah, which roughly means Islamic law, is a toxic word for good reasons. Lots of horrific things are happening in our world by those who claim to implement this legal tradition. Shariah-imposing countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia are dictatorships that systematically violate human rights. The latter is especially hellish for its women.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:14 PM | Comments (0)

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.

Continue reading "Unraveling The Turkish Inferiority Complex"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:11 PM | Comments (2)

February 10, 2010

Will Turkish Laicite Save The World?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

An opinion piece published in these pages a few days ago was praising Turkey's self-styled secularism with generous words. This thing called laicite, originally an import from France, was, according to the argument, so great that now it was "becoming an asset for Turkey's relations with Europe." And the proof, the reasoning went, was that a few European countries were studying Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate in order to train their own state-supported imams.

Well, I have hardly heard an argument that is this objectionable. And let me tell you why.

Continue reading "Will Turkish Laicite Save The World?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:21 PM | Comments (2)

February 7, 2010

Could Islam Help Us Against Honor Killings?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Yet another horrible honor killing took place in the southeast, the least developed part of Turkey. A 16-year-old girl was buried alive by her relatives simply for befriending boys. Forensic experts found soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that the poor kid was conscious while being buried into the ground.

May God have mercy on her soul. And may her killers face punishment in this world and the next. What they did was cruel, monstrous and evil.

Continue reading "Could Islam Help Us Against Honor Killings?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:01 PM | Comments (1)

February 2, 2010

Why The Kemalists Hate Capitalism

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Do you think that Turkey would be better off if it achieves "economic independence"? Would we Turks be wealthier if, for example, we drive all foreign companies out and "nationalize" the whole economy?

I don't know how you would answer these questions, but some circles in Turkey certainly answer them very positively. These are often the Marxist-Leninists, and other shades and grades of the radical left, who believe that global capitalism is a monster that plunders the nations it breaks into.

Continue reading "Why The Kemalists Hate Capitalism"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:55 PM | Comments (2)

January 26, 2010

Kemalism Needs to Be Disarmed - and Privatized

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Turkey's latest national controversy over the alleged coup plan codenamed "Sledgehammer" will probably remain as just that: a controversy. The generals who seem responsible will probably not face any trial, for the military remains as an untouchable institution, especially after being saved last week by the Constitutional Court from civilian scrutiny. A bit like the ancient legal maxim, "The prince is above the law," Turkish laws place the generals above the justice system that we, the lesser mortals, are subject to.

Continue reading "Kemalism Needs to Be Disarmed - and Privatized"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2010

Does The Turkish Military Make Plans to Kill Turkish People?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Have you taken a look at the recent exposure about the amazing adventures of Turkey's Dr. Strangelovish generals? It is a must-see.

What I am referring to is the action plan called "Balyoz" (Sledgehammer) that the liberal daily Taraf published a few days ago. The extensive document, whose full name is the "Sledgehammer Security Operation Plan," was apparently drafted in 2003, a little after the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, came to power.

Continue reading "Does The Turkish Military Make Plans to Kill Turkish People?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:37 PM | Comments (1)

January 19, 2010

Toward a Liberal 'Political Islam'?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Political Islam, as you probably have noticed before, is a dirty term. It often refers to angry men who impose veils on women and ban anything that is fun. It even reminds us of the horrific reign of the Taliban, whose heaven on Earth in Afghanistan looked rather like hell for most of us.

There is a good reason for this notoriety of political Islam. Its main proponents, such as the Pakistani thinker Abul A'ala Mawdudi (1903-1979), defined it as the effort to create an "Islamic state," whose main mission would be the imposition of shariah, or Islamic law, within its most rigid and medieval interpretation.

Continue reading "Toward a Liberal 'Political Islam'?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2010

An Open Letter to Israelis (From a Concerned Turk)

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Dear friends,

I hope all is well in the Holy Land. Things are not too bad here in Turkey. Yet one thing that certainly does not look great is relations between our countries, which hit an ugly low this week.

In fact, since the beginning of your government's "Operation Cast Lead" in Gaza, which happened a year ago, a continual war of words has been going on between your leaders and ours.

Continue reading "An Open Letter to Israelis (From a Concerned Turk)"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:32 AM | Comments (9)

January 11, 2010

Ahmet Davutoğlu: Yet Another Crypto-Armenian?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Ahmet Davutoğlu, the former academic who has been mastering Turkish foreign policy since 2003, is a remarkable man. First as an adviser to the prime minister, and recently as foreign minister, he really transformed the way Ankara does business in the world. His strategies of "zero problems with neighbors," "pro-active engagement," or "multi-lateral foreign policy" made Turkey a much more influential actor in its region. You might like or dislike the results of this new paradigm, but it would be only fair to acknowledge the depth and creativity of its vision.

Continue reading "Ahmet Davutoğlu: Yet Another Crypto-Armenian?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)

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.

Continue reading "Why Muslim Culture Needs More Fun"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2009

Why The Turkish Caesar Crucified The Ecumenical Patriarch

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew recently said on American TV that he feels "crucified" in Turkey. And many Turks got upset with him.

His All Holiness is right, though, to complain about the Turkish Republic. The latter has kept the Halki Seminary, the only institution to train Orthodox priests in the country, closed since 1971. Even the title "ecumenical" is lashed out at by some Turkish authorities and their nationalist supporters. Every year, international reports on religious freedom point to such pressures on the Ecumenical Patriarchate with concern, and they are right to do so.

Continue reading "Why The Turkish Caesar Crucified The Ecumenical Patriarch"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 7:12 PM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2009

Why Is It So Easy To Insult Atatürk?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

If you want to see something truly amazing about Turkey these days, take a look at the recent "insulting Atatürk" case opened against Can Dündar.

Mr. Dündar is a renowned public intellectual. He writes a column for the daily Milliyet, an established center-left paper, and hosts a TV show on NTV, a centrist news channel. He is a secular democrat and is certainly among the admirers of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the godfather of Turkey's secularism.

Continue reading "Why Is It So Easy To Insult Atatürk?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:48 AM | Comments (4)

December 19, 2009

The Fundamental Design Flaw of The Turkish Republic

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

On May 1, 1920, Mustafa Kemal, who would soon be the founder of the Turkish Republic, delivered an important speech at the Parliament in Ankara.

"The people who have formed this supreme assembly are not just Turks," he said. "They are also Circassians, Kurds or Laz. They are all different components of Islam. They all respect each other, and each other's ethnic, social and geographic rights."

Continue reading "The Fundamental Design Flaw of The Turkish Republic"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:16 PM | Comments (3)

December 14, 2009

Will Turkey's Caste System Survive?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's Nobel laureate in literature, has an interesting passage in his cherished book, "Istanbul." He recalls his childhood days in the '50s, and tells how the urban upper class he grew up within looked down upon their practicing co-religionists. "The nation-state," he writes, "belonged more to us than to the religious poor."

Continue reading "Will Turkey's Caste System Survive?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:53 PM | Comments (15)

December 9, 2009

AKP Is Not Islamist, But Somewhat Muslimist

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan visited President Obama in the White House the other day. It was, apparently, a good meeting. Obama praised Turkey's efforts at home and abroad, and even said Ankara could be an "important partner" in resolving the growing crisis with Iran's nuclear program.

Yet we all know that Turkey's stance on Iran is actually a concern for many people in Washington. Erdoğan recently irritated them by declaring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as his "friend," and seeming to almost avocate Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Continue reading "AKP Is Not Islamist, But Somewhat Muslimist"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:30 AM | Comments (8)

November 25, 2009

Tearing Down the Ankara Wall (In Slow-Motion)

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Twenty years ago, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. It took just a few weeks to tear it into pieces. It took only a little more than that to disestablish the East German state apparatus. In January 1990, the infamous Stasi, "The Ministry for State Security," was stormed by people who demanded the destruction of their "personal files," and, ultimately, the end of communism.

Continue reading "Tearing Down the Ankara Wall (In Slow-Motion)"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:14 AM | Comments (0)

November 21, 2009

How the Turkish Military Conspires Against Turkish Society

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

As most tourists discover in just a few days, Turkey is an amazing country with great history, beautiful nature, and delicious food. But one needs to spend a little more time to discover that its powerful military is pretty amazing as well.

Continue reading "How the Turkish Military Conspires Against Turkish Society"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:14 AM | Comments (1)

November 18, 2009

How Turkey Massacred the Kurds of Dersim

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

After five months on book leave, it is nice to be back in the Daily News.

I hope all has been well for everybody since June. As for Turkey, many new events and debates seem to have unfolded, but the scene is pretty much the same. Once again, one of the taboos of our not-so-democratic Republic is being hotly debated. (This time it is the "Kurdish question.") Once again, our incumbent "Islamist" party, despite the reckless machismo of its leader, proves to be more liberal and reformist than its secularist opponents.

Continue reading "How Turkey Massacred the Kurds of Dersim"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:14 PM | Comments (8)

May 31, 2009

Fascism, Anti-Semitism and All Sorts of Turks

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a man full of surprises. He surprised the world four months ago in Davos by bashing Israeli President Shimon Peres for "killing children" in Gaza. The way he stormed the international forum came as a relief to most Middle Easterners, but raised eyebrows among many Westerners. Last week Erdoğan made another surprise move, defending the right of an Israeli company to invest in Turkey, and criticizing the history of his own country, and his own political tradition, for having a "fascist mindset." While this comment came as a relief to Turkey's liberals, it not only raised eyebrows, but also prompted heated protests among the country's more numerous nationalists.

Continue reading "Fascism, Anti-Semitism and All Sorts of Turks"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:00 PM | Comments (3)

May 17, 2009

Revisiting Kemalism's 'Western Orientation'

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

One of the narratives about Turkey that we hear very often these days is the "Western orientation" of its Kemalist revolution. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, we are told, Mustafa Kemal and his followers emerged as the saviors of the country by recreating it as a modern republic and turning its face to the West. This story is often followed by alarmist comments about the current destination of Turkey under its current government. The Kemalists are not in power anymore, we are warned, and the new non-Kemalist elite is changing its orientation from the West to the East.

Continue reading "Revisiting Kemalism's 'Western Orientation'"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:13 AM | Comments (4)

April 30, 2009

Turks and 'Meds Yeghern'

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Quite a few people in Turkey are upset with President Barack Obama these days for using the term "Meds Yeghern" to describe the tragedy that befell on Ottoman Armenians in 1915. The term means "Great Catastrophe" in the Armenian language and it refers to the "genocide" of 1915. Some Turkish commentators unhappily argue that although Obama did not directly use the "G" word, he said what amounts to that.

Continue reading "Turks and 'Meds Yeghern'"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:44 PM | Comments (9)

April 25, 2009

Why Do We Have a Children's Day, Really?

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Like every other April 23, last Thursday was Turkey's National Sovereignty and Children's Day. There were celebrations throughout the whole country to honor this national holiday. The one in Istanbul's Taksim Square was a bit ironic, though. There were thousands of children from various Istanbul schools who were in uniforms tailored for this special occasion. The uniforms were bright and eye-catching, but also as thin as T-shirts. And, unluckily, it was a very cold day. No wonder the teachers and the bureaucrats who overlooked them were wearing thick coats. "We are almost freezing," said a little girl to the cameras. "I wanna go home."

Continue reading "Why Do We Have a Children's Day, Really?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:52 AM | Comments (3)

April 23, 2009

Discrimination Alla Turca Militare

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Are you familiar with the strange notion in Turkey called "accreditation?"

I am not sure what the term means in other countries, but here it refers to the military's customary method to discriminate against certain segments of the media. The generals divide the newspapers and TV channels into two categories: the "accredited" and the "non-accredited." The latter are simply not allowed, let alone invited, to press conferences and other occasions of the military. Moreover, such media sources are literally banned from entering military zones. You simply cannot read or watch them in a military school or a barrack.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2009

From 'Turkish People' to 'People of Turkey'

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

It is always news in Turkey when generals speak. For when they speak, they always say important things. Not necessarily intelligent, but important.

The speech given last week by Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ was remarkable because it was intelligent, too. Although I strongly disagreed with some of the points he raised, which I will address in a minute, if you kindly keep reading, I was positively surprised by a groundbreaking remark he made. He, in a quite unconventional way, proposed the concept of "the people of Turkey," instead of "the Turkish people."

Continue reading "From 'Turkish People' to 'People of Turkey'"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:47 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2009

Turkish Libido Versus Halki Seminary

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

If you want to understand why the Halki Seminary, the main school of theology of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul, remains closed for decades despite international pressure, you might take a look at the writings of the 5th century theologian St. Augustine.

Continue reading "Turkish Libido Versus Halki Seminary"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:43 AM | Comments (3)

April 9, 2009

To Get Turkey Right, Hear What Obama Said

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

The trip to Turkey by President Barack Hussein Obama, as people loved to emphasize here, was a big success. Except for a few hundred "anti-imperialist," lefty protestors who hit the streets chanting, "Yankee go home," most Turks welcomed him calmly and some even fondly.

Some nationalists, including Nationalist Action Party, or MHP, leader Devlet Bahçeli, didn't like what he said about Turkish-Armenian relations -- or rather the lack thereof. But that's quite normal. The Armenian lobby in the United States, which is no fan of Turkey, didn't like the way he handled that issue either. The disapproval of extremists on both sides of a question is often the indicator of a fair position.

Continue reading "To Get Turkey Right, Hear What Obama Said"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:42 PM | Comments (5)

April 2, 2009

People Are Not Dumb, Election Results Say

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

During Turkey's "post-modern coup" of 1997, one of the powerful generals, Çevik Bir, said something remarkable. "What we are doing," he pompously argued, "is to do some fine-tuning to democracy." One of his colleagues, Gen. İsmail Hakkı Karadayı, is also reported to have explained the need for this military intervention in politics. "The problem," he said, "is that the people in this country are ignorant."

Continue reading "People Are Not Dumb, Election Results Say"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:25 PM | Comments (7)

March 31, 2009

Kurdish Nationalists Strike Back

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Sunday's local elections opened a whole new chapter in one of Turkey's most acute problem: The Kurdish question. The Democratic Society Party, or DTP, which openly champions Kurdish nationalism and has at times sympathized with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, won a clear victory in the southeastern region of the country.

Continue reading "Kurdish Nationalists Strike Back"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:18 PM | Comments (4)

March 28, 2009

The Fourth Reich That We Barely Avoided

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

In the heydays of Turkey's first "post-modern coup," the "Feb. 28 process" of 1997, the then chief-of-staff Gen. İsmail Hakkı Karadayı uttered a revealing sentence. "If necessary," he proudly said, "this process will go on for a thousand years."

Continue reading "The Fourth Reich That We Barely Avoided"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:37 PM | Comments (7)

March 26, 2009

Turkey's Killing Fields

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Have you been following the recent "excavations" in southeastern Turkey? They are horrifying.

Things started about 10 days ago, when the police unearthed a curious a piece of skull, burned clothing, a glove and various pieces of bone near BOTAŞ, the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Company. The research continued and soon 20 suspected human bones were discovered close to a village near Cizre.

Continue reading "Turkey's Killing Fields"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:42 PM | Comments (1)

March 25, 2009

Happy Nevruz To You, Too, Mr. Obama

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

I just listened to the remarks by U.S. President Barack Obama in celebration of Nevruz, the Middle Eastern holiday of spring. And I really liked what I heard.

Nevruz is celebrated by quite a few people in this part of the world, but it is first and foremost a Persian tradition. The Iranians, whose civilization is truly deep-rooted and well-established, started to celebrate this festival of the "New Day" at least 2,000 years ago and they have defined its meaning and content.



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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2009

The Curious Case of Mustafa Balbay

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

If you want to get a sense of what has been going on in the Turkish political scene lately, you should take a look at the case of Mustafa Balbay.

Balbay is the Ankara correspondent of daily Cumhuriyet, the beacon of Kemalist (i.e., secularist and nationalist) ideology. He was arrested 10 days ago, as a part of the Ergenekon trial. (Ergenekon, if that sounds like Chinese to you, is a covert network that allegedly organized bombings and shootings in order to provoke a military coup.)

Continue reading "The Curious Case of Mustafa Balbay"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:13 AM | Comments (9)

March 8, 2009

Darwin Year Is Not The Year of Atheism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

As you might have already known, the year 2009 is also the "Darwin Year." It is the bicentennial of the birthday of the great British naturalist, and sesquicentennial of publication of his famous book "The Origin of Species." Hence we hear a lot these days about evolution, its history and, most important of all, its meaning.

Continue reading "Darwin Year Is Not The Year of Atheism"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:35 PM | Comments (5)

February 28, 2009

Turkish Islam According To Adam Smith

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

We Turks hotly debate the role of religion in public life all the time. But our frame of reference hardly goes beyond a few clicheŽs that have been planted in our minds by the official ideology, education system, and other national narratives. That'™s why it would be a good idea to raise our heads a bit and look at other sources which bring different perspectives to the same question.

Continue reading "Turkish Islam According To Adam Smith"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:54 PM | Comments (4)

February 27, 2009

Speaking Kurdish In The Turkish Parliament

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

The leader of the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, Ahmet Türk, shocked the country the other day, by speaking Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament. At a session with his parliamentary group, he reminded that Feb. 21 is celebrated as "International Mother Tongue Day," and then uttered words in his own mother tongue.

Continue reading "Speaking Kurdish In The Turkish Parliament"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:13 PM | Comments (3)

February 22, 2009

Welcome To Kurdistan (Not 'North Iraq')

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The Abant Platform, which holds frequent conferences at which Turkish intellectuals convene to discuss timely issues, was in northern Iraq last week. I was among the nearly one hundred names that were supposed to fly from Istanbul to Arbil for this significant meeting, but a last minute change of plans destined me rather to Washington. Yet I have been carefully reading what Abant participants have been writing about their experience in Iraqi Kurdistan -- a country whose very name is a big bone of contention in Turkey.

Continue reading "Welcome To Kurdistan (Not 'North Iraq')"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:11 PM | Comments (3)

February 21, 2009

The Islamic Spider, The Conspiracy and Me

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

I really don't want to get personal in my columns, but my column neighbor Burak Bekdil sometimes gives me no choice. So, please pardon me for the he-said-I-said part of this article. The latter part, I hope, will give you some perspective of the deeper problem.

Continue reading "The Islamic Spider, The Conspiracy and Me"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:16 PM | Comments (13)

February 14, 2009

Anti-Semitism in Turkey: Myths and Facts (II)

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

During the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, three different solutions were devised by statesmen and intellectuals in order to save the sinking boat: Ottomanism, Islamism, and Turkism.

The first one was also the earliest, which started with the Reform Edict of 1839. It was a reaction to the winds of modern nationalism that started to influence the Christian nations of the empire such as the Greeks, Serbs, or Bulgarians. "If we emphasize the equality and civil rights of all our citizens," the Ottoman elite thought, "then we can keep them from revolting against us."

Continue reading "Anti-Semitism in Turkey: Myths and Facts (II)"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:15 AM | Comments (7)

February 8, 2009

From Ban On Kurdish To Kurdish TV

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

In 1982, a very bizarre punishment was given to a Turkish politician Serafettin Elci by "Turkish justice." He was sentenced to serve four years and seven months in prison for a single sentence that he uttered. His crime was not to insult Turkishness, the Turkish military, or even Ataturk. His only crime was to say, "there are Kurds in Turkey and I am a Kurd."

Continue reading "From Ban On Kurdish To Kurdish TV"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:11 PM | Comments (2)

February 5, 2009

Is Tayyip Erdoğan The New Nasser?

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Last Thursday night, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan suddenly became the focus of all the news channels in the country. The reason was that he had stormed the diplomatic scene at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos by accusing Israeli President Shimon Peres for "killing people," and reminding the biblical commandment, "Thou shall not kill."

Continue reading "Is Tayyip Erdoğan The New Nasser?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:47 PM | Comments (10)

February 2, 2009

The Political Language of Turkey

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Western policy makers or analysts, and especially American ones, need to keep something in mind about Turkey which they often fail to see: The political language of this country is different from theirs. Here, emotions play a bigger role and political leaders hardly do the deliberation on "wording" that is a crucial matter in their own political culture.

Continue reading "The Political Language of Turkey"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:24 PM | Comments (5)

January 29, 2009

So, is Turkey pro-Hamas now?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Israel's brutal attack on Gaza has not just left 1,330 dead bodies, including those of 437 children, but also a Turkey that is very bitter against the Jewish state. Turkish society deeply felt and shared the suffering of the Palestinians in the Strip and rallied against the bombs that hit them.

The last time I saw such a tense public sentiment was the early 1990s, when Bosnians were subjected to "ethnic cleansing" by Serbian nationalists. The situation in Gaza was more complex, to be sure, but it was perceived in Turkey as something similar to the slaughter of Muslims in the Balkans.

Continue reading "So, is Turkey pro-Hamas now?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:03 AM | Comments (14)

January 3, 2009

A New Mosque Styled For The New Millennium

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

Zeynep Fadillioglu is a Turkish designer known for creating some of the most stylish lounges and nightclubs in Istanbul. As a winner of the Andrew Martin International Designer of the Year award, her fame, and that of her husband, restaurateur Meto, has gone beyond Turkey.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:41 AM | Comments (2)

December 21, 2008

Is President Gül a Crypto-Armenian?

[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]

The bizarre question in the headline does not come from me. It comes from a member of the Turkish Parliament on the ticket of the main opposition People's Republican Party, or CHP. Mrs. Canan Aritman, who represents the "most progressive city" in Turkey, Izmir, actually not curiously inquired but passionately argued that President Gul was a secret Armenian. "Look at his ethnic origins from his mother side," she said to journalists three days ago. "And you will see why he supports the Armenians."

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:43 PM | Comments (1)

December 17, 2008

Now Ergenekon Makes Even More Sense

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

On May 17, 2006, a horrible incident took place in Ankara. A 29-year-old lawyer named Alparslan Arslan stormed into one of Turkey's legal strongholds, the Council of State, took his gun out and shot five senior judges.

One of them, Mustafa Özbilgin, died. The killer was caught by the police and everything suggested that he was an Islamist fanatic. He reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar!" (God is great) as he fired his weapon. When got caught, he said that he was "a soldier of Allah." He also said that he shot the judges because of their stance against the right to wear headscarves. He even left a copy of the Islamist daily Vakit in his car, a paper which had strongly bashed the Council of State.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2008

Why Turkish Cities Are Washed With Blood Every Bayram?

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

If you live in Istanbul, or any other major Turkish city, and have toured around a bit during the recent Kurban Bayramı, or the Feast of Sacrifice, you might have seen some carnage. For hundreds of thousands of sheep have been slaughtered in the four days of the religious holiday and some of this bloodshed took place right on the streets or near the highways. Many in the Turkish media criticized these "uncivilized scenes," and, they were right to do so. The practice of slaughtering animals in public space indeed looks, and is, uncivilized.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

December 8, 2008

Obama’s Turkish Partners

[Originally published in Newsweek]

For years Ankara's foreign policy was fixated on a few narrow topics—how to handle the Greeks, the Kurds and Armenians—and Turkish policymakers seemed unable to solve even these chronic problems, let alone the problems of others. But these days Turkey has tackled such regional concerns with a new gusto—making the first real headway on the Cyprus issue in decades, for instance—while playing a far larger role in global affairs. In May Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government mediated indirect peace talks between Syrian and Israeli officials in Istanbul. The talks are now ongoing, and further meetings have reportedly been scheduled.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:09 PM | Comments (1)

December 6, 2008

Oh My God, Is the CHP Questioning Kemalism?

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Deniz Baykal, the leader of the main opposition People’s Republican Party, or CHP, has been surprising us for a while. For years, he had slashed his sword for all the ultra-secularist causes you can imagine, including the ban on the Islamic headscarf in the "public square." But just a month ago, he made a surprising move by blessing the acceptance ceremony of a group of veiled women in his party. And, alas, these ladies were the most orthodox of all: they wore the all-black, all-covering chador. "We can’t push these people to the AKP’s ranks," he mind-bogglingly said. "They, too, deserve a place under the CHP roof."

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:30 AM | Comments (3)

November 27, 2008

Deluding The Americans about The Anti-Americans

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Soner Çağaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is also a prolific author, whose commentaries about Turkey appear quite frequently in prestigious newspapers and magazines. When you read them, you can’t help but sense what appears to be his strong political orientation against the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which has governed Turkey since 2002. The takeaway message, it seems, is that the AKP is perilously Islamist and is taking the country away from its secular principles. The second message is that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his authoritarian “single party” regime is the best thing that ever happened to the Turks.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:32 PM | Comments (5)

November 20, 2008

The Turkification of Turkey

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Turkey’s Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül made the headlines recently with his remarks on the history of the country’s nation-building process. "One of the great achievements of Atatürk... is the population exchange between Greece and Turkey," he said, speaking at the commemoration of the death of the country’s founder. "Could Turkey be the same national country had the Greek community still lived in the Aegean or Armenians lived in many parts of Turkey?"

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November 16, 2008

Why Atatürk Became a God

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

In recent years, the more moderate and reasonable Kemalists are asking themselves a curious question: How in the world has Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s founder, who devoted himself to fighting "dogmatism" become a dogma himself? How has such a bold champion of "science and reason" turned into the symbol of a rigid, irrational, insensible ideology that impedes the country’s progress, including its candidacy for the European Union?

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November 13, 2008

A Heretical Idea: Atatürk is No God

[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]

Since its release on the anniversary of the Turkish Republic, Oct. 29, Turkey’s pundits have been hotly debating “Mustafa,” a documentary by Can Dündar, columnist for daily Milliyet and popular voice of the moderate left. The Mustafa in question is Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s founder, the film intends to show his “human side,” often neglected or even hidden in modern Turkey.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:29 PM | Comments (11)

November 1, 2008

Footnotes To History From 'Turkey's Kissinger'

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

WASHINGTON – The U.S. capital is very cold these days, but its politics are as hot as they can be. In just 72 hours, the world’s only superpower will elect its new leader and the presence of this historic election is felt everywhere. Whether America will continue with Bush politics, in the mantle of McCain-Palin, or make a fresh start with Barack Obama, is the top question on almost everybody’s minds.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:47 PM | Comments (2)

October 26, 2008

The Greater Ergenekon That We Can't Touch (II)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

An interesting suspicion made headlines in Turkish media last July. Retired General Hilmi Özkök, who was chief of General Staff between 2002 and 2006, said in an interview that for a long time he did not eat or even drink anything that was prepared in his office. Rather he brought his food from home in a basket every single day.

But why would he do that? Some commentators inferred that Gen. Özkök might have been worried about poisoning. He soon denied this half-heartedly and said the problem was that the military’s canteen food was “too fatty.”

Continue reading "The Greater Ergenekon That We Can't Touch (II)"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:54 AM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2008

The Greater Ergenekon That We Can't Touch (I)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

“The trial of the century,”or at the very least this decade, started Monday in Istanbul. The alleged members of “Ergenekon,”an ultra-nationalist covert terror network that was trying to bring Turkey to the brink of a military coup, faced their judges for the first time. It won't be the last, for sure, and I bet the court will continue for at least a year. And most of us will be puzzled, and sometimes confused, about what is going on.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2008

Can Shariah Be Better Than Secular Law?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Have you been reading the series titled “"Letters from the old civilization,"” which the Turkish Daily News has been running in its opinion pages since last Monday? If not, I would recommend them. The writer, Markus Urek, is a member of the Assyrian community of Turkey, which is one of the oldest Christian denominations in the world. He is currently a Fulbright Scholar at the New School of New York, but he has apparently traveled to the Middle East recently to write those stories from Syria and Iraq.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:50 PM | Comments (1)

October 16, 2008

Torture As Usual — But A First-Time Apology

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

When the movie Midnight Express made headlines in 1978, many Turks were quite angry. The film presented Turkey's prisons as slices of hell and many people here denounced it as “"anti-Turkish propaganda."”

I was too young to understand such matters then. But I grew up a little and watched Midnight Express in the early 1990's, when it was, for the first time, shown on Turkish television. (Before that, it was banned.) And unlike most of my countrymen, I was not offended by its content.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:13 AM | Comments (8)

October 9, 2008

A Clear and Almost-Present Danger: Ethnic Conflict

BELFAST – When you stroll down the streets of this city, you see how painful and enduring an ethnic conflict can be. Despite the recent peace process, which brought an end to the decades-old war between Catholics and Protestants, the bitterness is still very much alive. There are “peace walls” in around 80 different spots of Belfast, which divide the neighbors who abhor each other simply for who each other are. In order to avoid the stones thrown off the walls, some houses are protected with barbed wires.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:29 AM | Comments (2)

September 30, 2008

A Mosque Reform On The Way?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Turkey's official religious institution, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, took a bold step two years ago by launching a project cleansing the Islamic tradition from misogyny. What the institution did was to employ a team of religious scholars to prepare a new collection of hadiths (the deeds and sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad), and remove the degrading remarks against women, which represent not the original message of Islam but the male-dominated culture of the past. With that project, the Directorate, which is called “Diyanet İşleri Başkanlğı" or simply “Diyanet” in Turkish, had shown that it was not just open-minded but also brave.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:55 PM | Comments (25)

September 25, 2008

Turkey Is Getting More Secular, Not Religious

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Mainstream Turkish media loves to be alarmist about the “creeping Islamization of Turkey.” Especially since the conservative AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power in 2002, fear mongering about the “shariah imposers” has become the main theme of the secularist press. Some fear that we will soon become another Iran. Others worry that we will turn into another Malaysia (which doesn't sound too bad, actually). Even the non-delusional secularists, which make up a tiny minority, are deeply concerned about the rise of Islam.

Continue reading "Turkey Is Getting More Secular, Not Religious"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:52 AM | Comments (29)

September 18, 2008

The Obstacles to Islamo-Liberalism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

BANGKOK – Instead of this, I was actually planning to write a column titled “One Night in Bangkok,” with some inspiration from that awesome song from the '80s. There is indeed a lot to speculate on in this mind-boggling city – from its infamous massage parlors, to exotic Buddhist temples, to super-size malls.

But, well, Turkey never lets me go away. Nor does my witty and articulate column neighbor Burak Bekdil. Yesterday, in these pages, he came up with a proposal/ultimatum to me, rejecting the term “Islamo-liberalism,” which I had used while referring to the AKP, and suggesting that we together test its existence. He gave me “one week” to respond.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:12 AM | Comments (23)

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)

September 11, 2008

AKP, Corruption and Exploitation of Religion

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Since last weekend Turkey is in the middle of a nasty war of words. It started on Saturday when Prime Minister Erdoğan, with an angry tone, accused Aydın Doğan, the owner of many media outlets in this country including the one you are reading now, for using his newspapers for “libel.” In return, Mr. Doğan said that there was no libel, and his papers such as Hürriyet, Milliyet or Vatan, were merely reporting the indictment of a court case in Germany. The case is against the conservative Turkish charity called “Deniz Feneri” (Light House), who allegedly collected money from Turkish workers for humanitarian causes, but used some of it funds some companies. And these companies, the story goes, are “close to Prime Minister Erdoğan.” Erdoğan, in return, says that the Doğan Media Group is reporting these allegations unfairly because it is biased against his government.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:54 PM | Comments (8)

September 7, 2008

‘İftar’ to The Left, Beer to The Right

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

If you want to get a glimpse of Turkey’s diversity by spending just an hour on the streets of Istanbul, do what I did the other day. Take a public boat (“vapur”) ride to Kadıköy, and when you get off, walk straight ahead to enter the “çarşı,” or marketplace. You will come across dozens of narrow streets that are full of all sorts of little shops and restaurants and which are toured by people from all walks of life. Young girls in miniskirts, maxi-skirts or headscarves are strolling nearby males that vary from thick-moustache-and-big-belly tough guys to backpacker expats. And while believers at iftar tables anxiously wait for the sunset in order to utter “In the name of God” and start to eat, others sip huge glasses of beer and roll dice.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:43 PM | Comments (10)

Yet Another Threat to The Turkish Republic: Postmodernism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Did you know that the Turkish military sees postmodernism as a “threat” that should be fought against?

We all learned that about a week ago when the new Commander of Land Forces, Gen. Işık Koşaner, made a speech which summarized all the enemies that the Turkish Armed Forces despise. These included the usual groups: “Separatists,” religious orders, and “unpatriotic” circles. But the latter included a new cadre of treacherous citizens: “the post-modernists.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:36 PM | Comments (8)

September 4, 2008

Usual Suspects Oppose Turkish-Armenian Rapprochement

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

I have been on vacation for a while and when I returned I found Turkey as busy as ever. I also noticed something interesting about the Turkish political scenery: It has managed to create an odd blend of a mind-boggling dynamism and a never-changing status quo. When you stop reading Turkish papers for two weeks, and then start looking at them again, you come across totally new topics and debates. But the positions taken on these issues by the political actors hardly change. You can almost always see the same people taking similar positions on a multitude of ever-shifting political issues.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:51 AM | Comments (1)

August 13, 2008

Is Turkey Abandoning the West?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Since 2002, the year the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, came to power in Turkey, alarming pieces have appeared once in a while in the American or Israeli media, asking whether the country is turning its face “to the East,” rather than to the West. The article by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post three days ago was not even asking that question. The title rather reflected certainty about what is going on: “Turkey's abandonment of the West.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:18 PM | Comments (5)

August 9, 2008

The Right to Pornography

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

A new hot debate started this week in the Turkish media with the draft law prepared by Edibe Sözen, a member of Parliament on the ticket of the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP. In order to “protect” the young from pornography and alcohol, Ms. Sözen’s proposal brings some measures that raised eyebrows in the secular camp: Minors below 18 will not be admitted alone in restaurants that serve alcohol after 10 p.m.. Even if they are with their parents, they won’t be allowed to stay there after midnight. Pornographic material will be sold in closed bags, and those who buy them will have to show their ID and give their citizenship number to the newsstand that sells them. And the newsstands will report these buyers to the local “youth and sports department.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:14 PM | Comments (2)

August 7, 2008

Is Turkey's Problem 'Unreformed Islam'?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The judicial coup attempt that Turkey has just barely survived was due to secularism. The “soft coup” of 1998, through which the military overthrew an elected government, was also tied to secularism. In other words, that “very foundation of the Turkish Republic,” as it is often referred, continues to be a bone — actually the bone — of contention in Turkish society.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)

August 2, 2008

The Verdict: Politically Good, Legally Awful

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Yes, Turkey has passed through an acute political crisis and it ended happily. We are outside of the dark tunnel now. The closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, was an “attempt for a judiciary coup d'etat,” as I have defined it from the very first day. But the attempt failed. As the chief judge of the Constitutional Court, Haşim Kılıç, announced the decision to not to close down the AKP last Wednesday, Turkish democracy survived.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)

July 31, 2008

Terrorism In The Turkish Mind

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Do you know who bombed the busiest street in Istanbul's Güngören district last Sunday night and killed innocent bystanders?

You probably don't have any answer. And neither do I.

Continue reading "Terrorism In The Turkish Mind"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:06 AM | Comments (2)

July 27, 2008

The Islamist Branch of Ergenekon?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The investigation into the shadowy group called Ergenekon has been perceived in the foreign press as yet another round in the war between Turkey's "“Islamists"” and “"secularists."” After the arrest of 24 alleged Ergenekonists, including two retired top generals, a headline simply read, "“Islamist government cracking down on secularists."” If you know nothing about Turkey, what you would infer from that sentence could be that a Taliban-like administration is attacking lighthearted liberals.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:58 AM | Comments (2)

July 24, 2008

Why The CIA Funds Me and Other Nonsense

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

If there is one thing that the Kemalists never lack, that is imagination. They can make up, and then believe in, all sorts of fantasy. Their pundits have recently created a vast range of conspiracy theories from the lunacy that “Islamist” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in fact a crypto Jew who serves the Elders of Zion to the more popular nonsense that the U.S. government aims at establishing a “moderate Islamic republic” in Turkey.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:45 AM | Comments (5)

July 20, 2008

Is Turkey A 'Mistaken Republic?'

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

You should meet Sevan Nişanyan. A Turkish citizen of Armenian decent, he studied philosophy at Yale, political science at Columbia, and now teaches Turkish language and history at Istanbul’s Bilgi University. In the past he has written several books about tourism in Turkey that were all well received by everyone who read them, but his recent title made him a public enemy in the eyes of Turkey's staunch Kemalists. Mr. Nişanyan, with all his boldness, argues that Kemalism is, in essence, what we commonly know as fascism.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:44 PM | Comments (8)

July 17, 2008

Turkey Meets 'Kemalist Terror'

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

On Monday, we heard at least a summary of the indictment in the Ergenekon case from Istanbul's chief prosecutor, Aykut Cengiz Engin. Among the many striking things he noted, one was very new to Turkey. He said that Ergenekon was a “terrorist organization” that “used the ideologies of Kemalism, Atatürkism.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:48 PM | Comments (1)

July 14, 2008

The Plot Against Turkey

The Ergenekon case is the latest salvo in the battle between the ruling AKP and the nationalist old guard.

Read the article in Newsweek, where it was originally published.

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:13 AM | Comments (1)

July 10, 2008

Good Cops Versus Bad Soldiers?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

In his piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day, Washington-based Turkish researcher Soner Çağaptay was talking about “Turkey versus Turkey.” The “two Turkeys” he was mentioning were the AKP (Justice and Development Party) folks and “secular Turks.” And if the former would “win” the political battle, Mr. Çağaptay was arguing, Turkey would become “less like secular, liberal-democratic Italy and more like authoritarian, semisecular Jordan.”

Continue reading "Good Cops Versus Bad Soldiers?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:44 AM | Comments (2)

July 7, 2008

The Amazing Adventures of The Ergenekon Mates

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Yesterday, fellow Turkish Daily News columnist Semih İdiz was arguing that the “inconsistent approach from Europe” on Turkey's legal matters was “turning Turks away from not just the EU, but the West as a whole.”

Well, I am a Turk, too, but I have no problem with Europe's approach to Turkey's legal matters. And I bet at the half of the country thinking like me.

Continue reading "The Amazing Adventures of The Ergenekon Mates"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:51 AM | Comments (1)

July 3, 2008

The Arrest of The Untouchables

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Something quite unprecedented happened in Turkey the other day. Early in the morning, a police force of about 6000 launched an operation to arrest 25 influential men, including two retired four-star generals. One of them, Hurşit Tolon, is said to have reminded the police, “I am a general!” Yet, apparently, this did not save him from being taken from Ankara to Istanbul to be questioned by the prosecutors who lead the famous and controversial “Ergenekon” case.

Continue reading "The Arrest of The Untouchables"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:24 AM | Comments (3)

July 1, 2008

Bomb The Kurds, Curb The Muslims, Save The Republic!

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Have you seen the news about how the Turkish military plans to restrain Turkish society? If you haven’t, here is the gist: bomb the Kurds, purge the conservative Muslims, manipulate the judiciary, and create a military-friendly media.

Continue reading "Bomb The Kurds, Curb The Muslims, Save The Republic!"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2008

The Atatürk Silhouette on The Holy Mountain

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The people of Damal, a district of the eastern city of Ardahan, couldn't have imagined that their modest and destitute town would attract droves of visitors and become the focus of the Turkish media. But that is exactly what happened in the past few years with the “"Atatürk miracle"” discovered on the face of the Karadağ heights. Apparently, the silhouette of Turkey's revered founder appears on the shadow that falls on these heights between June 15 and July 5. And thousands of Atatürk lovers, including military officers, bureaucrats and urban professionals, visit the region in order to observe this fascinating solstice.

Continue reading "The Atatürk Silhouette on The Holy Mountain"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:20 AM | Comments (7)

June 14, 2008

‘How Dare You Not Love Atatürk?!’

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The ultra-secular camp in Turkey has just found a new reason to bolster its campaign of fear. Two young ladies wearing the much-hated Islamic headscarf showed up on a TV program, and one of them declared, “I don’t like Atatürk.” The other even said she rather has sympathy for Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution. And hell broke loose.

Continue reading "‘How Dare You Not Love Atatürk?!’"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:26 PM | Comments (8)

June 12, 2008

Imam vs. Teacher: Who Really Won?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Şerif Mardin, arguably, is the most prominent social scientist that has come out of Turkey. His career posts include top universities such as Stanford, Princeton or John Hopkins. His books are pieces of first class scholarship. He has spent a long time in the United States teaching and doing research about the history of Turkish modernization, and is now professor at Istanbul's Sabancı University.

Continue reading "Imam vs. Teacher: Who Really Won?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:29 PM | Comments (2)

June 8, 2008

Introducing the Kemalist Revolutionary Tribunal

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Yesterday I received an email from a Turkish high school student named Sümeyye. She, who seemed to be around 16 years old, was sad and bitter. She wrote:

“With the decision of the Constitutional Court, I feel like a dead person. Next year, I am scheduled to enter the university exams, which I had been so excited about. My biggest dream was to go to university, and I had already started to work hard for it. But now I feel so desperate. I am now forced to make a choice between my belief and my dreams. And I am full of anger at those people who forced me to do so. I used to speak about tolerance and understanding, and quote Rumi and Yunus Emre, but I really don’t feel that way anymore. There is simply no justice or democracy in this country.”

Continue reading "Introducing the Kemalist Revolutionary Tribunal"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:00 PM | Comments (16)

June 5, 2008

Why Is The CHP Such a Disaster?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Most foreigners who follow Turkish politics are puzzled by the Republican People's Party (CHP). The party, led by Deniz Baykal, claims to be a social democratic one, and is a member of the Socialist International. It also places strong emphasis on concepts such as secularism, modernity and enlightenment — all the principles one needs, supposedly, to have a democratic and open-minded political movement. But there is an irony: The CHP is a far cry from that. It is, on the contrary, extremely illiberal, nationalist and xenophobic.

Continue reading "Why Is The CHP Such a Disaster?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:43 PM | Comments (1)

June 1, 2008

Yet Another Threat to The Turkish Republic: Pacifism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Are you familiar with Ms. Bülent Ersoy, the famous Turkish singer? Actually, once upon a time she was Mr. Ersoy, but she had a trans-gender operation in the early ‘80s and said goodbye to masculinity. Since then, she has gradually become one of the most popular divas of Turkey. I personally think that her music is hardly bearable, but millions of fellow Turks, apparently, disagree.

Continue reading "Yet Another Threat to The Turkish Republic: Pacifism"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:21 AM | Comments (2)

May 29, 2008

Some Muslims Are Too Conservative. So What?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

A few days ago the secularist side of Turkish media have fervently unearthed an article on the Web site of the Directorate of Religious Affairs. The piece includes quite ultra-conservative views in terms of gender relations: Dating is denounced as a form of adultery. Women are told to speak to men as modestly as possible and even refrain from putting on attractive perfumes. The two sexes are even suggested to not to come together in the absence of others.

Continue reading "Some Muslims Are Too Conservative. So What?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:21 AM | Comments (3)

May 24, 2008

From Isolationism to Peacemaking: Turkey Meets Mideast

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the interesting news of the past week was the launch of indirect peace negotiations between Israel and Syria – and mediated by Turkey. The two countries, who have been technically at war since 1967 and who haven’t talked to each other since 2000, have started to talk "in good faith and openly" – and in nowhere else but Istanbul. It was the Turkish government, especially Prime Minister Erdoğan and his top foreign policy advisor Professor Ali Davutoğlu, who made this happen thanks to a four-year-long diplomacy. Both the Israelis and the Syrians, and also the United States and EU, thanked Turkey for this initiative and praised its role as facilitator.

Continue reading "From Isolationism to Peacemaking: Turkey Meets Mideast"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:21 AM | Comments (1)

May 23, 2008

The Liberation of Turkey—From Heavy Smoke

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

I have never understood why people smoke cigarettes. I have tried about a little less than a dozen of them throughout my life, and each and every one was horrible. Therefore, even if they were magical health potions that heal the body and the mind, I would have a hard time using them. So it is completely beyond me why people pay to smoke those stinking white paper tubes, which only kills them slowly.

Continue reading "The Liberation of Turkey—From Heavy Smoke"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:19 PM | Comments (11)

May 17, 2008

Why Most 'Educated' Turks are Hopelessly Illiberal?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the great benefits of Turkey’s EU adventure is that it unveils some crucial yet often unnoticed facts about this country. Thanks to the accession process, Europeans are taking a closer look at Turkish society, and realizing who is really who in this very complex and often confusing nation. One particular discovery of Europeans has been that the secularist Turkish elite is not sharing some of their fundamental values, such as democracy and individual freedom. These European-looking Turks are also quite militarist and nationalist according to Western standards.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:18 AM | Comments (5)

May 10, 2008

The Kemalist Crusade Against 'Imperialism' (aka the EU)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

If someone had handed out a questionnaire these days among Turkey’s Kemalists asking them, “Who do you hate the most,” I bet two names would top the list: Olli Rehn and Joost Lagendijk. These gentlemen are the most-known faces of the European Union in Turkey and they are among the most vocal supporters of Turkish democracy. And, in the eyes of the guardians and apparatchiks of our semi-autocratic regime, democracy is a “counter-revolution” that should be avoided at all costs.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:09 PM | Comments (6)

May 8, 2008

Who Threatens Turkey's Jews?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

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.

Continue reading "Who Threatens Turkey's Jews?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:25 AM | Comments (2)

May 3, 2008

The 'Ankara-ization' of The Islamo-liberal AKP?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

On May 1, Istanbul was like a city ruled by martial law. Drones of policemen tried to “protect” Taksim Square from workers and left-wing groups who had been craving to “celebrate” Workers’ Day in this crucial spot, which had become the area of tragic deaths in 1977, in those heydays of Turkish communism and anti-communism. The tensions between the police and demonstrators turned into a street war conducted by tear gas, rubber bullets and pavement stones.

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May 1, 2008

A Righteous Judge Among The Unrighteous

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Once in a while, a righteous judge steps forward in Turkey and makes a speech that bravely defends democracy and freedom – which are heretical concepts for the majority of their colleagues.

Sami Selçuk, for example, who was then the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, had made a series of remarkable speeches at the turn of the century, in which he rigorously argued for a more democratic and liberal system. A similar vision was presented last week by Haşim Kılıç, the chief judge of the Constitutional Court, in his address given at the 46th anniversary of his institution. It was, as a Turkish Daily News columnist and pre-eminent diplomat, İlter Türkmen noted, a very “refreshing speech.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:06 PM | Comments (2)

April 26, 2008

The Trouble With The Theophobes

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the interesting and tell-tale controversies of the past week was the fuss over the recent remarks of Hakan Şükür, Turkey’s famous football star and a pious Muslim. In an interview with daily Zaman, he warned the supporters of his team, Galatasaray, and the other big one, Fenerbahçe, about the impending match between the two. In Turkey, football matches, especially such key derbies, often turn into orgies of violence. But that is very much against the morals of Islam, Şükür noted. And, he added, it would be especially bad to swear and attack fellow human beings during the “week of the holy birth,” that of Prophet Muhammad, in which this match will be played. He reportedly said:

Continue reading "The Trouble With The Theophobes"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:23 AM | Comments (18)

April 24, 2008

The Republic and Its Islamic Enemies

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

WASHINGTON - Every country has its own towering figures of intellect, and as a nation torn between several conflicting political philosophies, Turkey has quite many of them. There are prominent liberals, conservatives, socialist, or nationalists. Even the official ideology, i.e., Kemalism, has distinguished supporters, and quite a few of those figures would be as erudite and sophisticated as the eminent law professor, the 79-year-old Mümtaz Soysal.

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April 20, 2008

The American Plot to Overthrow The Turkish Republic

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Did you know that the U.S. government is a part of a big conspiracy to destroy Turkey's secular regime and, instead, establish a “moderate Islamic republic”? I have been totally unaware of that heinous plan, and I suspect that even the top officials of the US government itself have been as clueless as I am. But there are extremely smart people in the world, from whose eyes no trick escapes. They discover the hidden truths behind all stones, and they detect all the covert conspiracies that most mortals fail to see.

Continue reading "The American Plot to Overthrow The Turkish Republic"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:31 PM | Comments (7)

April 17, 2008

The Biggest Threat to Turkey is 'Independence'

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

First, congratulations to the head of the EU Commission, Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso and EU's Commissioner for enlargement, Mr. Olli Rehn, for the excellent job they have done by giving bold support for Turkish democracy. The vision that they presented in their recent trip to Ankara and Istanbul is the best hope that this country can really have: Continuing with EU reforms, strengthening democracy, and accepting “democratic secularism,” as opposed to the unabashedly authoritarian one that we have.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:57 PM | Comments (2)

April 12, 2008

Kurds, Turks, and the Tower of Babel

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the interesting episodes in Turkey’s past week was a quarrel between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Diyarbakır Bar President Sezgin Tanrıkulu. In a gathering of NGO’s and government officials, Mr. Tanrıkulu, an ethnic Kurd, asked from the prime minister “not only economic, but also political reforms” for Turkey’s southeast, including the right to “Kurdish education.” Erdoğan didn’t like the idea and, instead, replied with an argument: “Education in a mother tongue does not exist anywhere in the world!”

Continue reading "Kurds, Turks, and the Tower of Babel"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:01 PM | Comments (8)

April 10, 2008

Who Is an Islamist? Who Is a Muslim? And What About Me?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Political terms can be misleading, especially when used to serve ambitious agendas. For Senator Joseph McCarthy, for example, even a slight of touch of social democracy was “communism” in sheep's clothing. During his heyday in the U.S., it was very easy to de-legitimize a political actor by simply labeling him as “red.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:07 AM | Comments (9)

April 3, 2008

And The Show Trial Begins...

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Maximilien Robespierre was the architect of the Great Terror of the French Revolution, and the behind-the-scenes killer of Georges Danton, who was sentenced to death by a revolutionary tribunal in the year 1794. While accusing Danton with all the bizarre crimes, Robespierre had frankly put the logic behind such show trials. "When the Republic is at stake,” he proudly noted, “we can do anything."

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:31 AM | Comments (2)

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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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.

Continue reading "Secular Jihad—A Judicial Attack on Turkish Democracy"

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!

Continue reading "The Attempt For a Judiciary Coup D'état"

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.

Continue reading "'Islamization' of Turkey: Not What You Would Think"

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!”

Continue reading "The Heinous Attack on The Penis of Atatürk's Horse"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:47 AM | Comments (7)

February 23, 2008

The Greatest Turkish Story Ever Sold

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

A very informative piece appeared on these pages last week under the title “Decision to abolish headscarf ban hurts Turkey internationally.” Its writer, Dutch commentator Michael van der Galiën, nicely summarized how Europeans like him see this country. “We often think that the majority of Turks are overly religious,” he wrote, “but that they are kept in check by a modern elite.” He added that his fellow Europeans worry that “this elite cannot control these masses much longer,” and fear that “Islamists will take over and the European Union will have a massive problem.”

Continue reading "The Greatest Turkish Story Ever Sold"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:15 AM | Comments (4)

February 21, 2008

Has The AKP Unveiled Its 'Real Face'?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

A popular line in the Turkish media these days is that the incumbent AKP (Justice and Development Party) unveiled its “real face” by trying to set the veil free in universities. "We knew that these guys were Islamists," some commentators say, "and lo, they are trying to put the headscarf into the campus!"

But why in the world the AKP shouldn’t try to set the headscarf free? Were they supposed to make reforms that would benefit everybody but the conservative Muslims?

Continue reading "Has The AKP Unveiled Its 'Real Face'?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:31 AM | Comments (3)

February 15, 2008

The (Turkish) Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Intolerance

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Proverbs are sometimes a good way of getting a sense of a nation's culture. You can especially learn many things about Turkey by looking at it popular maxims. One of them is particularly important vis-à-vis the political mindset. It is short and beautifully simple: “If you give your hand,” it warns, “then you will lose your arm.”

Continue reading "The (Turkish) Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Intolerance"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:58 PM | Comments (5)

February 9, 2008

Celebrating Turkey's ‘Counter-Revolution' (aka Democracy)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

These days it has become a mantra among secularists that the lifting of the headscarf ban amounts to a "regime change." Even fellow TDN columnist Mr. Yusuf Kanlı, a most reasonable and articulate voice in that camp, was quite strong about this in his piece the other day. "Turkey is facing," he argued, "the most important counter-revolutionary attempt in the republican era."

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:52 AM | Comments (10)

February 7, 2008

A Politically Incorrect Q&A on The Headscarf

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

You must have noticed that allowing university students to wear headscarves on campus is a very controversial topic in Turkey. The proponents of the ban argue that it will be beginning of the end of the secular state. Some portray it as the victory of “dogma” over “reason.” I, instead, think that it is a step toward a more liberal and democratic Turkey. To explain why, I decided to present a little Q&A. Here we go...

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:13 AM | Comments (2)

February 3, 2008

How Atatürk's Church Became an Ultra-Nationalist Base

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Any quick history of Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, will surely include the institutions he created, from İş Bank to Ankara University to the ideology that bears his name. But who knew the story of the little church that he created until it found itself entangled in the alleged ultra-nationalist criminal gang called “Ergenekon”?

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:00 AM | Comments (10)

February 2, 2008

Nutty Professor Asks For Atheist Tyranny

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

I have long used the term “secular fundamentalism” to define the self-styled laïcité of the Turkish Republic. This authoritarian system imposes secularity, a worldview and lifestyle devoid of religion upon its citizens by using state powers. It is the mirror image of religious fundamentalism, which, conversely, imposes religion. In both models, the state has a self-declared ideology, and it tries to shape its citizens according to this dogma. It wants to recreate them in its own image.

In Turkey most secular fundamentalists would shy away from putting this so bluntly. But there are some brave figures who don't mince words.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:03 AM | Comments (5)

January 31, 2008

It Is About Freedom, Not Scarves

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Why in the world does a state care how students dress in its universities? Shouldn't the state respect its citizens' choices and mind its own business?

If you tend to agree with the tone in these rhetorical questions, then you are probably a believer in liberal democracy. But, of course, that is not the only political system in the modern world. There are also autocratic regimesthatimpose their official ideology on their citizens' lives, including dress code. Islamist autocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran are the most known current examples.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:21 AM | Comments (5)

January 26, 2008

The Turkish Leviathan Under Arrest?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The hottest news in Turkey these days is the arrest and questioning of the members of a covert ultra-nationalist cell called “"Ergenekon.”" Among the 33 members of this cell, there are notorious celebrities such as the retired general Veli Küçük, the shadowy name believed to be one of the masterminds of Turkey's “deep state,” and lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, who has sued many liberal intellectuals for “"insulting Turkishness."” According to their confessions leaked to the press, the group's aim was to stop the EU accession and liberalization process, and force a military coup to overthrow the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government, which they saw as non-nationalist and treacherous.

Continue reading "The Turkish Leviathan Under Arrest?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:36 PM | Comments (4)

January 24, 2008

The Empire Strikes Back (Via Juristocracy)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The bureaucratic oligarchy in Turkey experienced a massive defeat last summer, July 22, when the party that they despise was opted for by 47 percent of the Turkish voters. It was one of the milestones in Turkish democracy, by which people's power won over that of the authoritarian state. After that defeat, the Turkish military took a lesson and stopped making implicit threats about launching coup d'etats. And, at least for a few months, the non-military wing of the oligarchy — including its political arm, the CHP (People's Republican Party) — calmed down.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:18 AM | Comments (3)

January 19, 2008

The Trouble With Self-Hating Turks

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Yesterday's Turkish Daily News had an interesting interview with Marcus Graf, a German cultural scientist and curator. Speaking to our reporter Yasemin Sim Esmen, Graf noted a peculiar problem in the Turkish art community. “They have a problem with their identity,” he said about Turkish artists. “If they use the symbols and forms of Anatolia, they are called ‘orientalists,' ‘kitsch,' or even ‘fascists'.” The culture expert added that Turkish artists hesitate using “Islamic symbols, such as calligraphy,” because they fear being labeled as “religious.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:44 AM | Comments (2)

January 17, 2008

The Alevi Inquisition

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

For the uninitiated foreigner, it might be hard to get who the Alevis are. In a nutshell, they are an unorthodox religious group in Turkey whose folkloric faith seems to be a combination of Shiite Islam and pre-Islamic Turkish pagan myths. Recently the term “"liberalism"” has been often used to describe them. “"The Alevi denomination,"” argued journalist Devrim Sevimay in a recent Milliyet piece translated and published by the Turkish Daily News, "“is a distinct and liberal movement in Islam.”"

Continue reading "The Alevi Inquisition"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:46 AM | Comments (4)

January 12, 2008

The Turkish Blutfahne (Blood Flag)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Have you heard the news? A group of high school kids from Kırşehir, a central Anatolian city, sent a special Turkish flag to the commander in chief of the Turkish military, Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt. What made the flag special was the stuff it was made of. The red color in the background was not any ordinary paint. It was literally the blood of these students, which they had joyfully spilt to symbolize their devotion “to the homeland.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:28 AM | Comments (8)

January 10, 2008

Why Turkish Women Can't Drive

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

This might not be the most politically correct thing to say, but I cannot resist the temptation to proclaim the truth: Most Turkish women are horrible drivers. You will see what I mean if you spend a couple of years, or even months, in Turkish streets. If there is a car in front of you which is too slow, too undecided, and too paralyzed, there is 95 percent change that a lady will be sitting in its driver seat. Indeed, it is a truism among Turkish men that “women can't drive.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:02 AM | Comments (3)

January 5, 2008

Sexual Abuse alla Turca

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

This week some Turkish newspapers ran annoyed stories about a new billboard on German streets: "“Mach mich nicht an, Ali!,"” it read, which means, "Don't abuse me, Ali!"” The stylish blonde lady that stood beside this cold warning was evidently representative of many other Teutonic females who, apparently, had a problem with sexually abusive Turkish men.

Yet the Turkish media imagined a totally opposite — and cultural, not sexual — abuse behind this German poster. They thought this was a case of racist bigotry against Turks. One of our top selling newspapers ran the story with the headline, “"The latest crusade."” Another one defined the poster as a piece of “"anti-Turkey propaganda.”"

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:42 AM | Comments (16)

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)

December 27, 2007

Kemalist Science and Its Perpetual Motion Machine

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Cautionary note: The country, events and characters in this piece are all real. I am not kidding at all.

Is it possible to build a machine that will work forever without having any energy input? Many mechanics were fascinated by that idea during the Middle Ages, well into the 19th century. But at last, thanks to the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics, the zeal for such a "perpetual motion machine" died out. The scientific community decided that it was impossible to build such a marvelous device — at least in the universe we live in.

But wait a minute... Perhaps the scientists got it wrong. Maybe they did not employ the correct principles that would allow for the creation of a perpetual motion machine. They, particularly, did not take into account the most important guiding light that the Turkish nation has ever seen.

Continue reading "Kemalist Science and Its Perpetual Motion Machine"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:03 AM | Comments (9)

December 20, 2007

The Secularization of an Islamic Feast

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

It is often said that we owe our weekends to the Israelites. Before they started to refrain from work on the Sabbath some 3500 years ago, human societies did not have the tradition of a weekly resting day. Then came the 10 Commandments of Moses. “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God,” it decreed. “You shall not do any work.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:06 AM | Comments (2)

Why Turks Love Conspiracy Theories (II)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Are you on Facebook? I am. It is not just a good social networking Web site used to catch up with friends and classmates, but it is also a good source to feed my personal and amateurish "paranoia watch" project. The groups created on Facebook by its Turkish users give a sense of the psychology among some of them who are impressively Internet-savvy yet desperately out of touch with reality.

Continue reading "Why Turks Love Conspiracy Theories (II)"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:48 AM | Comments (8)

December 15, 2007

Why Turks Love Conspiracy Theories (I)

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Anybody who spends time in Turkey will notice that conspiracy theories are amazingly popular here. Many Turks believe that there are so many evil powers in the world, and in our own society that perpetually play tricks in order to weaken our country. Mapping out these imagined plots is a sort of national pastime.

Since a belief in conspiracies is deeply embedded in culture, politicians use them very often. Most political leaders, or pundits, blame “foreign powers” or “internal enemies” for our problems. Even whey they are caught by paparazzis during inappropriate meetings with their “secretaries,” they confidently accuse their rivals to have designed that “conspiracy.” It is always someone else who must be guilty.

Continue reading "Why Turks Love Conspiracy Theories (I)"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:16 PM | Comments (3)

December 13, 2007

Eastern Kemalists, Too, Do Not Understand Turkey

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

In last weekend's edition of the Turkish Daily News, fellow columnist Orhan Kemal Cengiz had a brilliant piece titled “Western Kemalists do not understand Turkey.” His main point was that “Western Kemalists,” who are “huge fans of Atatürk and the ‘revolution' he and his friends brought about in our country” fail to get Turkey right. They, for example, unquestioningly buy into the creation myth of Republican Turkey — that the pre-Republican (i.e., Ottoman) period was an age of “darkness.” By showing several examples, Mr. Cengiz argued otherwise. “After 80 years of the establishment of the Republic,” he wrote, “it is really difficult to say that, in terms of mentality, we are more advanced than the Ottomans.”

Continue reading "Eastern Kemalists, Too, Do Not Understand Turkey"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:13 AM | Comments (3)

December 6, 2007

Dawkins' 'Delusion' Should Be Free

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Richard Dawkins is probably the world's most famous atheist evangelist. In his numerous books, the Oxford zoologist argues that modern science, and in particular the Darwinian theory of evolution, has disproved God. He is a gifted writer, and his recent volume, The God Delusion, has become a global bestseller. Some call him “the Harry Potter of non-fiction.”

More recently Dr. Dawkins made the news in Turkey, too, yet not by his arguments. As the Turkish Daily News reported on Nov. 29, following a complaint by a Turkish reader that some passages in the The God Delusion were an assault on "sacred values," an Istanbul prosecutor has opened an official investigation on the book's Turkish version. Its publisher, Erol Karaaslan, is said be “questioned” soon.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:05 AM | Comments (6)

December 2, 2007

Secular Apartheid at Work

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

"Injustice anywhere," said Martin Luther King, "is a threat to justice everywhere." Therefore the world should learn and care about the story of Tevhide Kütük, the 17-year-old Turkish schoolgirl who just became the latest victim of Turkey's self-styled apartheid.

It all started several months ago in Kozan, a municipality in the southern city of Adana. The young and bright Tevhide, a student of the state-sponsored quasi-religious "Imam-Hatip" schools, heard about the essay contest that the Education Ministry launched to celebrate the annual Teacher's Day. She wrote a fine piece on the virtues of teaching, and submitted it to the organizing committee. Soon the jury decided that she was the best writer among all the other students in her hometown, and thus she deserved to win the award, which was a very modest present by all standards, but a very inspiring reward for a modest teenager.

Continue reading "Secular Apartheid at Work"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:17 PM | Comments (10)

November 24, 2007

Turkey's Veiled Democracy [A Must-Read Article]

This article, published in the November/December issue of The American Interest magazine, is available here online (but in full only for subcribers), and here in full as a PDF file.

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 7:16 PM | Comments (2)

November 17, 2007

The Scandal of The Kemalist Mind

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

I, unluckily, made a lot of people upset with my piece in last weekend's edition of the Turkish Daily News, “The gospel according to Atatürk.” A few dozen readers sent fuming emails, which rebuked me for daring to criticize the level of veneration shown in Turkey to its founder.

If you have been reading the “Letters to The Editor” section, you might have come across two of these reactions, which came from two Turkish readers living in the United States. The one from New Jersey noted that he was “shocked” by my piece, and added, “"someone should tell Akyol that he is dead wrong."” The other one, a lady, expressed “anguish” at me and my "“very naive look.”" I, she also argued, "“cannot be a Turk.”"

Continue reading "The Scandal of The Kemalist Mind"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:33 PM | Comments (5)

November 14, 2007

Turkey's European Front

[Originally published in The Wall Street Journal]

ISTANBUL — Last month, all eyes were on Turkey's struggle against the resurgent PKK. While a massive incursion into Kurdish Iraq to smoke out the terrorist "Kurdistan Workers Party" seems to be off the table for now, news came from another front Turks seem to have ignored for a while — Europe.

The European Commission's annual progress report last week on Turkey was mixed at best. It praises recent achievements, notably the resolution of "the political and constitutional crisis which followed the April presidential elections."

Continue reading "Turkey's European Front"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:33 PM | Comments (1)

November 12, 2007

The Gospel According to Atatürk

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

DUBLIN - A few weeks ago, while driving through one of the busiest spots in Istanbul, Şişli Square, I came across dozens of Atatürk flags hanging all over the place. They were, apparently, an official prelude to Nov. 10, the anniversary of the death of the country's founder. Yet the flags included not only the usual smiling look of the national leader, but also a message that I had never came across before. "“Sizi izliyorum,"” it read in Turkish, which means, “"I am watching you."”

Apparently the folks who had this brilliant idea have never heard of George Orwell and his classic novel “1984,” in which the Big Brother watches everybody in order to ensure the persistence of his totalitarian regime. And certainly, the state of affairs in Turkey is not as bad as that. Yet it seems no accident that the veneration of Atatürk has reached such absurd heights that its slogans started to resemble Orwellian archetypes.

Continue reading "The Gospel According to Atatürk"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:56 PM | Comments (4)

October 26, 2007

PKK is Using Al-Qaeda's Strategy

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Fouad Hussein is a radical Jordanian journalist who met Abu Musab Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda leaders as early as 1996. Later on he spent quite sometime with these people and even shared the same prison cell. In 2005, he produced what is probably the most definitive outline of al-Qaeda's master plan: A book titled “Al-Zarqawi: The Second Generation of al-Qaeda.” According to Hussein, before Sept. 11, ideologues within al-Qaeda believed that “the Islamic nation was in a state of hibernation” and some action was needed for the “awakening.” By striking America – “the head of the serpent” – al-Qaeda would cause the United States to “lose consciousness and act chaotically against those who attacked it.” The result would be the popularization of al-Qaeda. “This will entitle the party that hit the serpent,” they wrote, “to lead the Islamic nation.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2007

An Open Letter to the Armenian Diaspora

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Dear all,

A few days ago a new friend of mine who happens to be an American Armenian played some beautiful songs for me that come from the deepest roots of her ethnic tradition. While I enjoyed the numinous rhythms of that magnetic Armenian music, I realized how similar they were to the tunes of the Turkish classical music that I have grown up hearing. “Despite all the political warfare,” I said to myself, “alas, look how similar we are.” I actually have a similar feeling when I drive along the magnificent mosques and palaces of Istanbul, some of which were built by Armenian architects – men in fez who devoutly worshipped Christ and proudly served the Sultan.

Continue reading "An Open Letter to the Armenian Diaspora"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 6:02 PM | Comments (61)

October 8, 2007

The Islamic Case for a Secular State -III-

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

In June 1998, a very significant meeting took place at a hotel near Abant, which is a beautiful lake in the east of Istanbul. The participants included some of the most respected theologians and Islamic intellectuals in Turkey. For three days, the group of nearly 50 scholars discussed the concept of a secular state and its compatibility with Islam. At the end, they all agreed to sign a common declaration that drew some important conclusions

Continue reading "The Islamic Case for a Secular State -III-"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:14 AM | Comments (6)

October 5, 2007

The Protocols of the Elders of Turkey

[Originally published in The Washington Post]

Look in just about any bookstore in Turkey, and you'll see some strange bestsellers. The cover of "The Children of Moses," the first and most popular book in a series of four, shows the country's devoutly Muslim prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the middle of a six-pointed Star of David. Inside, you'll find a head-spinningly weird argument: that Erdogan and his conservative allies in Turkey's ruling pro-Islamic party are actually crypto-Jews with secret wicked ties to the conspiratorial forces of "global Zionism."

The books are hardly a fringe phenomenon. They're arrayed in chic bookstores along Istiklal Avenue, the funky pedestrian mall that's the heart of secular Istanbul. They're openly displayed alongside Orhan Pamuk novels at Ataturk International Airport. And they're even sold on tiny bookstands on the Princes' Islands, the vacation destinations in the Sea of Marmara that many well-off Turks view the way Manhattanites do the Hamptons. By the publishers' figures, they've sold about 520,000 copies since the books started rolling out this year -- a staggering figure for a nation of about 71 million people.

Continue reading "The Protocols of the Elders of Turkey"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:14 AM | Comments (5)

October 4, 2007

The Islamic Case for a Secular State -II-

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

There are some myths that many well-educated Turks believe to be true. One of them is the idea that the Ottoman Empire's modernization efforts were continuously resisted and crippled by religion. Italian scholar Rossella Bottoni summarizes the falsity of this cliché well in her article titled, “The Origins of Secularism in Turkey.” “According to received wisdom,” she notes:

“In the Ottoman Empire there was a Manichaean struggle between, on one side, the reformers who were Westernizers, liberals, secularizers and modern, and, on the other side, the opponents, especially the ulema (Islamic scholars), who were obscurantist, backward-looking and hooked on the most obsolete customs dictated by religion.”

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:23 AM | Comments (11)

October 3, 2007

Voices from the Capital of Sufism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

KONYA - In Turkey, there are cities that symbolize certain identities. Diyarbakır has made a global name for itself, for example, for being the capital of Kurdish politics. To its north lies Tunceli, which was bombed by the Turkish Armed Forces in 1938 in order to suppress a local rebellion, and has been the crucible of all kinds of radical left groups since then. And at the other end of the country, İzmir stands as the bastion of a secular and westernized lifestyle.

If one is looking for a city that would symbolize conservative Islam, though, none will be more definitive than the central Anatolian city of Konya.

Continue reading "Voices from the Capital of Sufism"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2007

The Islamic Case for a Secular State -I-

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One reason why Turkey's secularist elite is so obsessed with religious practice is their concern about the secularity of the state. If a society becomes more religious, they believe, then the secular system will be less secure. If more Turks follow God's orders in daily life, they ask themselves, why shouldn't they impose them on others using state power?

There is, to be frank, some justification for this worry. There are religious tyrannies in the Muslim world which impose their narrow interpretation of Islam to their citizens. Moreover, there have been groups and individuals in Turkey who talk about doing the same thing.

Continue reading "The Islamic Case for a Secular State -I-"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:15 PM | Comments (3)

September 20, 2007

Why Are We a Nation Obsessed with the Headscarf?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

To most outside observers the scene must be looking pretty bizarre: Thousands of otherwise reasonable men and women in this country, who make up much of the social elite, are having panic attacks in the face of the possibility that Turkish universities might tolerate their students wearing the Islamic headscarf. Virtually everyday, bureaucrats, pundits and even university rectors lash out against the proposed article in the proposed constitution to set the headscarf free. "This will be the end of the secular republic," they passionately claim, without realizing that a secular republic that doesn't respect the rights and liberties of its citizens is called a secular tyranny.

Continue reading "Why Are We a Nation Obsessed with the Headscarf?"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:02 AM | Comments (4)

September 15, 2007

And the Winner Is... Muezzin Isa Aydın

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

EDIRNE — The magnificent Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, in Turkey's northwestern end, has hosted millions of prayers since the late 16th century, when the great Ottoman architect Sinan built it. But last Sunday the splendid shrine hosted an usual event: an “ezan contest,” during which 10 competing muezzins (ezan-reciters) performed the Muslim call for prayer with all their artistic skills in order to win the financially modest but spiritually invaluable prize.

Continue reading "And the Winner Is... Muezzin Isa Aydın"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:48 AM | Comments (9)

September 9, 2007

Abdullah Gül, a Muslim Modernizer

[Originally published in The Washington Times]

The election of Abdullah Gul as Turkey's 11th president has attracted quite a lot of attention in the world, and there are good reasons for that. Although Turkey is a predominantly Muslim nation, its leaders, and especially presidents, once were people with secular, not Islamic, lifestyles. Yet Mr. Gul is a practicing Muslim, and his similarly devout wife, Hayrunnisa Gul, wears the Islamic headscarf. Hence some people wonder whether this God-fearing First Couple symbolizes a setback in Turkey's two-century-old quest for modernization.

Continue reading "Abdullah Gül, a Muslim Modernizer"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:10 AM | Comments (1)

September 6, 2007

An Open Letter to the Turkish Military

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Dear generals,

We Turks have been through quite a political turmoil in the past five months, which escalated especially with your famous “secularism warning” that appeared on your official Web site on the night of Apr. 27. Since then, Turkey had a very tense and nervous election campaign, held a very popular election, and elected a new president. The widespread hope is that we have come out of the crisis, have passed the political bottleneck, and are heading toward a more normal period. I very much share that optimism, but I also think that we have to reflect on what just happened in our country, and draw some lessons.

Continue reading "An Open Letter to the Turkish Military"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:21 AM | Comments (4)

August 30, 2007

A President of the People, for the People, by the People

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

On Aug. 28, 2007, the Turkish Parliament elected Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül as the country's 11th president. By doing so, Parliament not only chose the most eligible man for the top office, but it also proclaimed that Turkey is a democracy, and not a banana republic.

Let me explain what this means. Since the beginning of the Republic, which was announced in 1923, Turkey has been under the rule of a bureaucratic elite which thinks that it knows what is best for the nation, and that it has the right to dictate its goals to the people. While the bureaucratic elite – and their intellectual allies – deemed themselves “enlightened” and refined modernizers, they regarded the people as backward-minded and crude reactionaries. In the ‘30s, their authoritarian strategy was wittily summarized by the motto, “for the people, in spite of the people.”

Continue reading "A President of the People, for the People, by the People"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:37 AM | Comments (3)

August 16, 2007

It Is an Honor to be Boycotted by the CHP

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The expectations came true and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced its candidate for the presidency: Foreign minister Abdullah Gül, whose bid was blocked just three months ago by the “secularism memorandum” of the Turkish military and all the legal tricks which followed. The AKP did the right thing by taking that decision, simply because Mr. Gül deserves the presidency and his opponents don't deserve the luxury of freely interfering with the democratic system by using threats and blackmail.

Continue reading "It Is an Honor to be Boycotted by the CHP"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:09 AM | Comments (2)

August 11, 2007

Gül’s Presidency Will Fade Apartheid, Not Secularity

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Nowadays the big question in Turkey is whether Mr. Abdullah Gül, arguably the most successful foreign minister in the history of this country, will be the next president. Actually the same issue was a bone of contention in April, too, when Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan declared Mr. Gül as his candidate for the top post. Mr. Erdoğan's party, the AKP, had enough seats in Parliament to elect Mr. Gül, but the secular elders of Ankara got infuriated, simply because Mr. Gül is a practicing Muslim and his wife wears the headscarf. Hence they blocked the parliamentary process. Consequently Mr. Erdoğan called for early elections, and, alas, won them on July 22 with an astounding victory.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:04 AM | Comments (1)

August 2, 2007

A Post-Kemalist Constitution?.. Not a Bad Idea

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

We Turks love overblown political controversies and simply can't do without them. Right after the general elections, we have created a new one out of a comment made by Dr. Zafer Üskül, who used to be a prominent professor of law, and is now one of the newly elected MP's of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Overnight, Dr. Üskül became the new bête noire of Turkey's hardline secularists – for simply saying that Turkey should have a new liberal constitution in which “Atatürk's principles” should not be referred to.

Continue reading "A Post-Kemalist Constitution?.. Not a Bad Idea"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:09 AM | Comments (12)

July 26, 2007

The Victory and Its Aftermath

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News ]

In my latest article in the TDN, which was published a day before the general elections, I talked about Turkey's authoritarian secularists and made a prediction about their very near future. “My guess is that the election results will be a disappointment for them,” I wrote, “and a blessing for the rest of the country.”

The blessing indeed came with the astonishing victory of the Justice and Development Party, aka the AKP – a result which guaranteed that Turkey will continue on its path toward democratization, economic development and EU membership.

Continue reading "The Victory and Its Aftermath"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:05 AM | Comments (1)

June 28, 2007

Why Nationalism Works—and How Capitalism Might Help

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

I was taking a nap on Cem Uzan's “election bus” last Wednesday when the shiny vehicle was about to reach Trabzon, a city that has been on the news lately for its rampant nationalism. The loud music and chanting coming from the party convoy woke me up, and the first thing I noticed was a pickup truck which had several youngsters hanging out from its windows. While the boys were cheering for Mr. Uzan's “Genç Parti” (Young Party), I noticed something more interesting on the back of their van. “I would rather have an enemy like a lion,” a rusty plate read, “instead of a friend like a jackal.”

Continue reading "Why Nationalism Works—and How Capitalism Might Help"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:37 AM | Comments (2)

June 22, 2007

Cem Uzan's Case for Nuts—and Neo-Nationalism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

NEWS ANALYSIS - Who wouldn't prefer to pay just one Lira for gasoline instead of more than YTL two? Or which hazelnut producer wouldn't prefer to sell his product at a state-subsidized rate of eight Liras per kilogram, instead of market prices that don't give even half of that? While it is not hard to answer those questions, it was only Cem Uzan, leader of the up-and-coming Young Party (GP) who grasped its importance before anybody else, and, accordingly, laid out a very promising election strategy.

Continue reading "Cem Uzan's Case for Nuts—and Neo-Nationalism"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:28 PM | Comments (5)

June 5, 2007

US News and World Report Reports

The weekly news magazine, US News and World Report published a detailed and very well-writen story about Turkey’s current political debates titled “Continental Divide: Turkey Again Tests Whether Islam Can Coexist With Democracy”. The writer, Mr. Jay Tolson, mentions me in the piece as follows:

[Turkey’s] delicate issues will continue to include Islam and the question of how much religion is permissible in the public sphere. Mustafa Akyol, a bright young columnist for the English-language Turkish Daily News, makes a very convincing case for the moderate traditional religiosity that most AKP supporters embrace.

Continue reading "US News and World Report Reports"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:58 PM | Comments (1)

May 28, 2007

Speech at The Council on Foreign Relations

Last Friday (May 25, 2007) I delivered a speech at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The event, titled “Turkey’s Political Battle: Secularism vs. Democracy” was presided by CFR fellow Steven A. Cook, and was based on my assessment of the current debate in Turkey over secularism and “the Republic.” You can download and listen to the audio recording of my speech and the Q & A session here. And the full transcript of the meeting is also available here on the CFR website.

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:49 PM | Comments (12)

May 10, 2007

Reductio ad Sharium—A Popular Turkish Demagoguery

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The Latin term, Reductio ad absurdum (“reduction to the absurd”) refers to a method of proving the falsity of a premise by showing that its logical consequence is absurd. Inspired by this classical expression, modern political philosopher Leo Strauss coined a new term: Reductio ad Hitlerum. Strauss noted that political demagogues employ the “reduction to Hitler” method very often in order to silence their opponents. They just had to find an irrelevant similarity with the Nazis, and then “reduce” their opponents to this deeply and rightfully hated gang.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:24 PM | Comments (2)

May 5, 2007

The Latest Jewish Conspiracy: 'Moderate Islam' & AKP

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Did you know that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife are crypto-Jews who secretly collaborate with the Mossad? And that they are trying to cook-up “moderate Islam” and destroy Turkish secularism for the sake of serving the elders of Zion?

Well, I had no clue about that terrible conspiracy either, until I went into a major Istanbul bookstore last weekend and checked the bestsellers list. There were a few usual titles telling stories about how the beloved Secular Turkish Republic is targeted by internal and external plots — a highly popular and powerful paranoia in the country these days — but none of them were as informative as the one penned by a die-secularist named Ergün Poyraz.

“The Children of Moses” is the title of Mr. Poyraz's masterpiece, and in its subtitle, there are two unexpected names: “Tayyip and Emine.” On the book's cover, there is even a more stunning graphic message: a huge Star of David encircles the photos of Mr. and Mrs. Erdoğan.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:32 AM | Comments (16)

May 2, 2007

The Secularist Hype in Turkey Is a Fact-Free Paranoia

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Nowadays many people say that there is a division in Turkey between “Islamists” and “secularists.” But that's wrong. There is indeed a division, but the sides are rather different. On one side, there are Islamic conservatives (not “Islamists”) and secular liberals whose motto is “democracy.” On the other side, there are illiberal secularists whose motto is “the Republic.”

You can ask what the big difference between democracy and republic is. Both terms vaguely mean “rule by the people,” but in Turkey, there is more than what meets the uninitiated eye.

Continue reading "The Secularist Hype in Turkey Is a Fact-Free Paranoia"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:14 AM | Comments (5)

April 24, 2007

Abdullah Gül Is the Perfect Choice

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Let me say it loud and clear: The naming of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül as the AK Party’s candidate for president is a perfect decision. It is nearly certain that Mr. Gül will be Turkey’s next president, and I am pretty certain that he will be a good one.

There are many reasons. First, Mr. Gül is a very experienced and refined statesman. His career in academia, finance and politics is impeccable. Moreover, in the past four years, he directed Turkish foreign policy quite successfully and has earned respect and reputation in many foreign capitals — both in the West and the East.

Continue reading "Abdullah Gül Is the Perfect Choice"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:53 PM | Comments (4)

April 19, 2007

Enough with Christophobia

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

A handful of monsters walked into a Bible publisher in the Turkish city of Malatya the other day. They found three innocent people inside: Two Christian missionaries and a worker. They tied the hands and feet of their victims, tortured them, and then slit their throats. It was a yet another day of barbarism in the dark side of Turkish history.

This heinous crime, which the police is still investigating, is latest one in the horrible chain of attacks against the Christians in our country. And although it was perpetrated by a few young fanatics, there are many other “respectable” people that deserve to be blamed for. They, of course, did not (and would not) support this carnage, but they undoubtedly inspired the killers by continuously spreading a sick ideology: Christophobia, i.e., the fear of Christians and Christianity.

Continue reading "Enough with Christophobia"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:28 PM | Comments (13)

April 11, 2007

Yet Another Illiberal Step by Europe on 'Genocide'

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the interesting themes that conservative and libertarian U.S. intellectuals have been emphasizing in the recent years is the growing gap of freedom in Europe. According to these critics, in continental European countries such as Germany and France — the backbones of the EU — there is a strong tendency towards protecting the welfare state at the expense of individual freedoms.

Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute (a libertarian think tank in Michigan) even argued that there are signs of a “soft-despotism” mindset in the continent, which was apparent in the now-defunct European Constitution. “[The EU Constitution] does not limit itself — as any sound constitution should — to outlining the origins, divisions, and limitations of state-power,” Gregg noted. “Instead, its 511 pages embrace a plethora of subjects ranging from fishing, humanitarian-aid, space policy, sport, tourism, to financial assistance to the former East Germany.” This was a mindset, according to Gregg, which gave the EU officials the right to “meddle in almost anything.”

Continue reading "Yet Another Illiberal Step by Europe on 'Genocide'"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:15 PM | Comments (1)

March 31, 2007

Render Unto ‘Akdamar’ What Is Ahtamar’s

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the commonly used quotes from Jesus Christ is his words that put an equal share between the divine and temporal authorities. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,” he said according to the New Testament, “and unto God the things that are God's.” Some political theorists think that this particular phrase in the gospels opened the way for the separation of church and state in the West. The state, which we finance by our taxes and serve us in return with earthly goods and services, can have our material loyalty. But it has neither the power nor the right to interfere in our spiritual beliefs and practices. It should, in other words, simply respect the church, the synagogue or the mosque.

Continue reading "Render Unto ‘Akdamar’ What Is Ahtamar’s"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:13 AM | Comments (9)

March 28, 2007

American Neo-Conservatives and the AKP

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Since the beginning of the Iraqi War, the neo-conservatives, an ideological circle influential on the Bush Administration, has been the focus of global interest. They also became quite famous in Turkey and it has been very customary to read opinion pieces in the Turkish press about them. However, much of these comments were based on very little information. People knew that the neo-conservatives (or, the “neocons”) have championed the Iraqi War and continue to argue for an aggressive U.S. foreign policy. But beyond that, there are other facts that have gone unnoticed.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:45 PM | Comments (2)

March 17, 2007

Open Turkey and Its Enemies

[Originally published Turkish Daily News]

In his highly influential work, “The Open Society and Its Enemies” (1945), Sir Karl Popper made a historical overview of political thinkers who opposed the “open society” and instead preferred authoritarianism in various forms. From Plato to Marx, many influential theorists have argued for a political order in which the state and the elites “guide” the people and suppress their “wrong” ideas, beliefs and even identities. Yet such trials of social engineering created not the perfect societies they proposed, Popper noted, but rather brutal tyrannies.

Continue reading "Open Turkey and Its Enemies"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:07 PM | Comments (14)

February 15, 2007

After All, Who Remembers The Ottoman Muslims?

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

An oft-repeated quote from Adolf Hitler is the words he uttered to silence the internal resistance to his Final Solution. “But after all,” the Nazi leader asked, "Who remembers the Armenians?”

Of course, history proved Hitler wrong. His evil plan for exterminating the Jews – along with Slavs, Gypsies or the German disabled – could not ultimately triumph; moreover the world remembers his crimes with a justified abhorrence. And nowadays we are repeatedly told to prove him wrong once more by remembering the perished Armenians whom he assumed to be forgotten.

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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:29 PM | Comments (5)

January 30, 2007

The Hrant Dink Murder and Its Meaning

[Originally published in First Things website]

On January 19, 2007, a journalist named Hrant Dink was shot dead by a seventeen-year-old militant on one of Istanbul’s busiest avenues. In just thirty-two hours, the Turkish police caught the reckless killer, who confessed his crime quite proudly. “I shot the Armenian,” he said smugly, “because he had insulted Turkishness.”

Hrant Dink was a member of Turkey’s seventy-thousand-strong Armenian community. But he was not just any member. As the founder and editor of the weekly Agos, the bilingual Turkish/Armenian newspaper, he was certainly the most prominent Armenian public intellectual in the country. He was, like many Turkish democrats, critical of the authoritarian measures of the state, with a particular emphasis on the taboos about the Armenian tragedy of 1915. Mr. Dink, like many others, believed that the tragedy was indeed a planned genocide. (The Turkish view, on the other hand, is that hundreds of thousands Armenians did indeed perish in 1915, but so did many Turks and Kurds, and what happened should be defined as intercommunal violence, not as a campaign of extermination.)

Continue reading "The Hrant Dink Murder and Its Meaning"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:38 PM | Comments (3)

January 28, 2007

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Turkish Politics

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

As George Orwell articulated so masterfully in his classic, “1984,” political wisdom begins with discovering the real meanings of political terms.

The real meanings of such terms in Turkey are especially worth finding out — and particularly for the uninitiated foreigner. If you are one of them, I suggest you take note of the following list, which might be helpful in understanding what some Turkish politicians and pundits mean when they speak about this country's big issues.

Continue reading "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Turkish Politics"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:45 PM | Comments (3)

January 24, 2007

Meet the Monster: Turkish Fascism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Hrant Dink, a beacon of conscience and liberty, was shot dead on Jan. 19. Since that black Friday, many Turks have shown the virtue to condemn this heinous murder and cry out for the memory of this noble man. Yet some of our “opinion leaders” have also invented concealed plots against “the Turkish nation” behind this public killing. This is, they rushed to conclude, a maneuver by “foreign powers” and their intelligence services directed at putting Turkey in a difficult situation in the international scene.

But lo and behold! The Turkish police caught the killer and he turned out to be no agent of the CIA. Nor of Mossad, MI6, Mukhabarat, or some People's Army for The Liberation of The Turkish-Occupied Wherever. He is neither Armenian nor Kurdish. He is, as his family proudly noted, “of pure Turkish stock.” Moreover, as he himself proudly noted, he is a die-hard Turkish nationalist who killed Dink out of his zeal for the “Turkish blood.” It also turned out that the 17-year-old apparatchik was directed by his elder “brothers” in Trabzon who have an ugly history of nationalist violence. The city, after all, is the citadel of ultra-nationalism: Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro was also shot there a year ago by a 16-year-old militant, who had a profile very similar to his comrade who killed Dink.

Continue reading "Meet the Monster: Turkish Fascism"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:22 AM | Comments (8)

January 19, 2007

I Am Armenian Today

Turkey’s most prominent Armenian intellectual, Hrant Dink, was murdered today at the door of the community newspaper he edits, Agos. He was a man of courage and principle. He opposed not only the fascism of Turkey’s ultra-nationalist circles, but also the fanatic anti-Turkism of some members of the Armenian Diaspora. His dream was a Turkey in which Turks and non-Turks, Muslims and Christians, and all others could live in mutual respect and understanding. He was a true freedom fighter—who knew that pen is both mightier and much more humane than the sword.

Alas, there are others in this country, Turkey, who lack the humanity to understand that. One of them killed Hrant Dink today. I denounce this killer and his patrons with all my heart. And respect the memory of Hrant Dink with all my soul. May he rest in peace, and may his dreams come true.

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

December 30, 2006

Rejoice in Kurban Bayramı—It's An Abrahamic Feast

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

This Sunday is a special one for billions all over the world simply because it is the last day of good old 2006. At midnight, fireworks will glitter over cheerful crowds who will be singing, chanting and toasting for new hopes in the 2007th Gregorian year since the birth of Jesus Christ.

However, this Sunday also has a second meaning for the world's 1.2 billion Muslims, including over 70 million in Turkey. It is the first day of the four-day Feast of the Sacrifice, in which countless sheep and cattle will be slain in order to praise God and feed the poor. So if you see men with bloodied knives on the streets of Istanbul or Ankara, don't worry: They will be only observing a ritual that dates back 14 centuries, or — recalling the Judaic past — 4 millennia.

Continue reading "Rejoice in Kurban Bayramı—It's An Abrahamic Feast"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:32 PM | Comments (3)

December 19, 2006

Europe, Clash of Civilizations and the Turkish Plumber

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

There was a considerable article in yesterday's The Guardian. "Despite the chorus of pious hope," read its blunt title, "Turkey is not going to join the EU." Its writer, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, was making not an argument against Turkey's EU bid but simply an analysis of the prevailing attitude in the capitals of continental Europe. Despite the efforts of a handful of "soi-disant" leaders — such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair along with Finland's Prime Minister Erkki Tuomioja and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt — Turkey won't be in the EU "in any foreseeable future," according to Wheatcroft.

He might be right. To argue for or against this conclusion would fall into the category of prophecy, which is not what I intend to do here. However, it's worth taking a look into the reasons for this possible disconnect between Turks and Europeans.

Continue reading "Europe, Clash of Civilizations and the Turkish Plumber"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:32 AM | Comments (3)

December 15, 2006

Christmas Wars—Even In Turkey

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

A couple of decades ago, few Westerners could predict that Christmas would become a bone of contention in their societies. The birth of Christ, which marks the apex of human history according to Western tradition, was taken as granted as tidings of comfort and joy.

Things have changed, however, and now Christmas is losing its meaning in the West. This year nearly 99 percent of Christmas cards sold in Great Britain contain no religious message or imagery. And the Britons are no exception. Other Western nations have the tendency to see Dec. 25 not in terms of Christ and Mary but of vacation and "fun." Christmas, due to excessive secularization on one hand and political correctness on the other, is not so Christ-mass anymore.

Continue reading "Christmas Wars—Even In Turkey"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:34 AM | Comments (5)

December 12, 2006

Turkey Into EU? Yes, If You Think Big

[Originally published in Washington Post's Post Global]

Yes, Turkey should join the European Union. And for those who think globally, it is not hard to see why: Turkey's entry into the EU will be the testimony to the idea that West and Islam can live and even work together. It won't just transform Europe and Turkey; it will also create new hopes in the Middle East. "If Turkey did it," other Muslims will ask about modernization and democratization, "why not us."

It is true that Turkey must change to fully join the EU, as Mr. Konstandaras argues, but Turkey is already changing — towards liberalism, of course — thanks to the EU process itself. If the process is cut, Turkey will again change dramatically, but towards a direction none of us will be pleased with. The anti-EU forces in Turkey are also the enemies of freedom; the death of the EU process will bring about their triumph and thus the defeat of liberty.

Continue reading "Turkey Into EU? Yes, If You Think Big"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:46 PM | Comments (2)

December 10, 2006

Inside Pamuk's Room

[Orginally published in Turkish Daily News]

In his outstanding Nobel Lecture, titled "My Father's Suitcase," laureate Orhan Pamuk reminded us of "that lovely Turkish saying, to dig a well with a needle" to describe what writing is. It might not be the case for all writers, but the phrase is a perfect match for ones like Pamuk. He owes his success not only to his outstanding skills and creativity, but also to his hard work. Literary critic Yildiz Ecevit, who penned "The Orhan Pamuk Reader" (in Turkish), emphasizes that. "He can work for months without interruption in his room," Ecevit notes. "This has a great deal to do with his success."

Shutting one's self in a room to work diligently is a theme that appeared consistently in Pamuk's Nobel Lecture. He used the term "room" 18 times in his 6,000-word speech. He is known to read a lot — a whole lot. Most of his novels reflect the depth of the research he has done on the topic he is writing about. History, especially Ottoman history, is his area of expertise.

Continue reading "Inside Pamuk's Room"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 5, 2006

The Sultan Ahmet Moment & Thereafter

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Father Richard John Neuhaus, a prominent intellectual in American Catholicism, speaks of "the Regensburg moment" in his prestigious monthly magazine on religion and public life, First Things. According to Father Neuhaus, the Regensburg address that Pope Benedict XVI gave in September touched on crucial issues relating to faith, reason and, yes, Islam, which would be referred to as a milestone "five or 20 years from now."

This is probably true, but the Holy Father seems to be too prolific a figure to be remembered mainly for Regensburg. Only two months after that, with his recent trip to Turkey, he took yet another important step with his cordial dialogue with the Muslim authorities in this country and his highly symbolic prayer at the magnificent Sultan Ahmet Mosque. Five or 20 years from now, commentators might also speak about a "Sultan Ahmet moment."

Continue reading "The Sultan Ahmet Moment & Thereafter"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:05 PM | Comments (0)

December 4, 2006

Pope Won Hearts and Minds

[Originally published in The Washington Times]

Many commentators, Turks and non-Turks, were worried about the last week's visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Turkey. His comments about Islam at the now-famous Regensburg address had alienated Muslims all around the world and now he was to visit a predominantly Muslim nation led by a conservative government. Wasn't this dangerous and likely to make matters worse?

Well, it did not turn out that way. To the contrary, the visit has been remarkably constructive. Although the Holy Father came to Turkey mainly to meet the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, he has been able to build important bridges with Muslims.

Continue reading "Pope Won Hearts and Minds"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 1:51 PM | Comments (2)

Religious Freedom in Turkey: My Comments to VOA

In her news story, "Will Pope's Call for Greater Religious Freedom Be Heard in Secular Turkey?", Sonja Pace of the Voice of America refers to my comments about the limits of the freedom of Turkey's religious communities. Here is the full story, along with an audio file, and here is the part in which Mrs. Pace reported my views, quite accurately:

Continue reading "Religious Freedom in Turkey: My Comments to VOA"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:02 PM | Comments (1)

November 30, 2006

The Mitre Meets the Turban

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the crucial steps in Pope Benedict XVI's Turkey visit was his meeting with Dr. Ali Bardakoglu, the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey. This institution, a bit like the Church of England, is the state-sponsored official religious body in Turkey. And its head is the supreme Muslim religious authority for the nation.

Dr. Bardakoglu, who is known to be a liberal and progressive theologian, had also been one of the first critics of the pontiff's Regensburg speech, in which he implied that Islam was a religion of the sword. Dr. Bardakoglu had indeed criticized the pope quite straightforwardly, along with his condemnation of the violence that some Muslims had unleashed after the pontiff's controversial speech.

Continue reading "The Mitre Meets the Turban"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:50 PM | Comments (3)

November 27, 2006

Welcome to Islamdom, Your Holiness

[An open letter to Pope Benedict XVI, originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Your Holiness,

Lord willing, you will be starting your visit to Turkey today. Welcome to Islamdom. I hope you will have a safe, sound and fruitful expedition.

There are some among us who will be protesting your presence, but please be assured that they do not represent all Turks and that many others do not share their unwelcoming attitude. But you know that in every culture radicals tend to be more vocal.

It is not a secret that this unreceptive attitude among Turks — and among other predominantly Muslim nations — started mainly with your Regensburg address last September. Actually it was a very sophisticated critique on the modern schism between reason and faith that has created two distinct but related problems: reason without morals and faith without reason.

Continue reading "Welcome to Islamdom, Your Holiness"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2006

Turkish Students Defend 'Heretic' Professor

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

It is a cold Sunday morning in Istanbul and the streets of the normally hectic Sirkeci are quite silent. In front of the Great Post Office, though, there is action to see: A group of young liberal college students have the masks of a university professor named Atilla Yayla on their faces. Yayla's mouth is gagged but the group speaks out. "We are here to defend Dr. Yayla's freedom of speech," proclaims Soner Tunç, their spokesman, "because his only 'crime' is to think unconventionally."

Later on the liberal activists open a box, put a big roll of black gag in it, and mail it to Dr. Kadri Yamaç, the rector of the Gazi University. "We are sending him this," they explain, "so that he can use it in the future whenever he wants to censor the ideas of the scholars in his university by forcing them to shut up."

Continue reading "Turkish Students Defend 'Heretic' Professor"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:50 PM | Comments (1)

November 24, 2006

How Turks See the Pope—Part II

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Among those Turkish nationalists who do not welcome Pope Benedict XVI, the third category would be secular nationalists, who are in line with the anti-EU forces in Turkey's civil and military bureaucracy. They see the whole West as an imperialist enemy dying to carve Turkey into pieces by re-implementing the infamous Treaty of Sevres — a 1920 document that only a handful of non-Turkish historians but the whole Turkish nation remembers. For them Pope Benedict XVI is simply the religious face of "Western imperialism." His effort to consolidate Christianity is interpreted as the preparation for a new Crusade.

Continue reading "How Turks See the Pope—Part II"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

How Turks See the Pope—Part I

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The upcoming visit by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to Turkey is a matter of debate in the country as well as on the international scene. Why is the pope coming? What is his "real agenda"? Should we welcome him or not? These are the questions that Turkish intellectuals — and not-so-intellectuals — have recently been debating.

On one side, there are the usual suspects who suspect and abhor anything and anybody non-Turkish. Simply put, these are the Turkish nationalists. They don't like the pope and they believe that the German former cardinal must be coming here for yet another evil plan to undermine, carve out or even destroy the beloved motherland. That is, after all, what Westerners are for.

Continue reading "How Turks See the Pope—Part I"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

November 1, 2006

Islamocapitalism in Office: Turkey's AKP

In a Wall Street Journal piece titled "Turkish Tiger: Freedom thrives even under an "Islamist" government," Matthew Kaminski, the editorial page editor of the newspaper, evaluates the flourishing free market economy under Turkey's Muslim-minded government led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). That's really an interesting phenomenon. At a time when Turkey's die-hard secularist generals declare "global capitalism" as a major threat to the country, the country's devout Muslim politicians are embracing capitalism. AKP's leader and Turkey Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly calls foreigners — including Israeli Jews — to invest in the fast-growing Turkish economy. According to Mr. Kaminski,

To the question of whether Islam hinders development, Mr. Erdogan offers one answer: On the economy this "Islamist" government has stuck to the market playbook. The budget deficit is 1% of GDP, down from 16% in 2001; the debt-to-GDP ratio 60%, compared with 110% five years ago. Inflation is creeping up, to 10%, after hot money fled emerging markets early this summer and the lira fell 22% against the dollar at one point; but Turkey weathered that brief storm well. The Islamists have embarked on the most far-reaching privatization program in Turkish history, selling off telephone companies, petrochemical plants and steel makers and lowering barriers to foreign investment — with little opposition. A vestige of state control, dating back to Ottoman times, is its ownership of large tracts of land, but that, too, is on the agenda.

As mayor of Istanbul, Mr. Erdogan worked closely with and gained the trust of the city's business class. He was also, unusually for a Turkish politician, a businessman himself, having run a food-distribution franchise. He came into office "with a free-enterprise mindset," says Mr. Esgin, who's not otherwise complimentary. "This is the most economically liberal government Turkey has had."

So, if you think that Muslim countries are modernized by their secularists but held back by their faithful, think again. Islam, like any other major religion, works in mysterious ways.

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:21 AM | Comments (1)

March 29, 2006

Praise for Akyol's 'Rethinking The Kurdish Question'

A recent book by Mustafa Akyol, written and published in Turkish and titled K�rt Sorununu Yeniden D�s�nmek: Yanlis Giden Neydi? Bundan Sonra Nereye? (Rethinking The Kurdish Question: What Went Wrong? What Next?) is getting praises in the Turkish media. One of the country's prominent pundits, Mehmet Ali Birand, has written in The Turkish Daily News,

There have been many valuable books written in recent years on the Kurdish problem. Each one from a different perspective, these books examine events over the years, often offering solutions. There is one book in particular, however, that has just been published and which I recommend to anyone who wants to get a healthy, well-rounded view of the Kurdish problem. The book's title is "Rethinking the Kurdish Problem," and its author is Mustafa Akyol. Akyol presents the mistakes made in both official government policy and Kurdish ethnic politics with remarkable objectivity. His tone is not that of cold scientific fact but rather more of a sociologist, even a psychologist.

From the Ottoman period to the first years of the Turkish Republic up to modern days, Akyol delves into which people, what stances, which policies, even which international developments have affected the Kurdish situation. And not only this, he offers suggestions to go with his findings. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a healthy, well-rounded idea of what the Kurdish situation in Turkey is all about.

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:11 PM | Comments (2)

March 27, 2005

Turkey and Its Conspiracy Theories

[Orginally published in The Washington Times]

The anti-American fervor in Turkey has been of interest in the U.S. media recently. American officials and pundits express concern about the widespread resentment of America evident in the Turkish media and popular opinion as well as even some Turkish bureaucrats and politicians.

While they recognize a global controversy exists about the war in Iraq and that anti-Americanism among Turks is not unique, they also identify an odd fact especially pertinent to Turkey: the widespread acceptance of bizarre conspiracy theories about the United States.

Continue reading "Turkey and Its Conspiracy Theories"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2005

Hating America, Turkish Style - This Too Shall Pass

[Originally published in The Weekly Standard]

Longtime allies of the United States, the Turks have been sympathetic to American values for decades. Nevertheless, a new BBC World Service poll of 21 countries shows Turkey to be the least friendly to America, especially the current administration. Eighty-two percent of Turks said they found President Bush's reelection "negative for peace and security in the world."? While this sentiment doubtless reflects a global reaction to the war in Iraq, there are also distinctive local factors that explain the current wave of Turkish anti-American feeling.

Continue reading "Hating America, Turkish Style - This Too Shall Pass"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:21 PM | Comments (2)

March 4, 2005

God & Turkey - Church and State in Istanbul

[Orginally published in National Review Online]

"Christian missionaries infiltrating our country! Islam is slipping out of our hands!" These words represent the epitome of a very hot debate in Turkey in recent weeks. What made them more surprising than ever was that they belonged not to a conservative Muslim, but to Rahsan Ecevit — the influential wife of Bulent Ecevit, Turkey's former prime minister and long-time guru of left-wing, secularist ideology. Nobody had heard Mrs. Ecevit worrying about the future of Islam before; instead, she used to speak about the "threat" of it.

Continue reading "God & Turkey - Church and State in Istanbul"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:31 PM | Comments (3)

January 23, 2005

Bush Haters in Turkey - Conning Conservatives

[Originally published in The Washington Times]

In a column on The Washington Times' Web site, dated Dec. 28, 2004, UPI International Editor Claude Salhani describes a startling assertion by a Turkish commentator. "We perceive George W. Bush like Osama bin Laden," Beyza Bilgin, a theology professor at Ankara University, is quoted as declaring, "Both think they have a mission [from God]."

Since Mr. Bilgin used the pronoun "we," the comment appears to convey a common point of view among Turks. Yet, as a Turk I strongly disagree.

Continue reading "Bush Haters in Turkey - Conning Conservatives"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2004

Thanksgiving to Turkey - Europe Moves East, and Turkey Moves West

[Originally published in The Weekly Standard]

WITH LAST WEEK'S vote in Brussels, the admission of Turkey to the European Union has come one step nearer. Yet some still suspect that the accession of an overwhelmingly Muslim nation to the E.U. will signify an alarming new intrusion of Islam into a continent already uneasy about its Muslim minorities. Some fear—to put it more provocatively—that Turkish membership in the E.U. will turn out to be an Islamic Trojan horse.

Continue reading "Thanksgiving to Turkey - Europe Moves East, and Turkey Moves West"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:21 PM | Comments (0)

December 3, 2004

What's Right With Turkey [A Reply to Gamaliel Isaac]

[Originally published in FrontPage Magazine]

About a week ago, Frontpage Magazine posted an article by Gamaliel Isaac, entitled "Turkey's Dark Past." Mr. Isaac's piece was basically an attempt to rebut of one of my previous articles, "European Muslims and The Quest For the Soul of Islam." I have argued there that, among many other things, Turkey has had an Islamic heritage free of anti-Westernism and anti-Semitism and has now an atmosphere quite favorable to open society. Further, I suggested that the West should certainly support Turkey's entry into the European Union, noting that this would blur the "civilizational" boundaries and create a model for other Muslim nations.

Continue reading "What's Right With Turkey [A Reply to Gamaliel Isaac]"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:51 AM | Comments (1)