March 6, 2008
Israel Should Stop Harvesting Hatred—For Its Own Sake
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The mighty Tsahal, the Israeli military, recently carried an air attack over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The reason was the Qassam rockets that Hamas militants have been firing into the Jewish state for quite some time. After a week-long offensive, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs. At least 25 of them were civilians, including nine children and three women.
Then the Israelis decided to end their bombings. "This operation has run its course,” said the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon. “This is certainly deterrence.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:14 AM | Comments (13)
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)
December 8, 2007
Muslims Love Their Children, Too
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Music has not saved the world, as some pot smoking flower-powerists used to believe it would in the 1960s. Yet musicians have occasionally uttered words of wisdom that might have helped us calm our hypes. Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, better known by his stage name Sting, once gave one such message of restraint. In one of his greatest songs, “The Russians,” released very timely in 1985, Sting sang the following:
“In Europe and America,
There is a growing feeling of hysteria,
Conditioned to respond to all the threats,
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.
Mr. Khrushchev said we will bury you,
[But] I don't subscribe to this point of view,
It would be such an ignorant thing to do,
If the Russians love their children, too.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:32 PM | Comments (11)
July 7, 2007
Morocco's 'AKP' Is Moroccan, After All
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
EL ESCORIAL - The medieval monks who built the giant Monastery of El Escorial couldn't have imagined that their all-Catholic civitas dei would someday host hot debates on the future of political Islam. Yet that's exactly what happened here, in this little Spanish town located some 45 kilometers northwest of Madrid, this week. The “political Islam” in question was Turkey's incumbent AKP, the Justice and Development Party, and its namesake in Morocco, the Parti de la Justice et du Développement.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:46 PM | Comments (4)
Morocco's 'AKP' Is Moroccan, After All
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
EL ESCORIAL - The medieval monks who built the giant Monastery of El Escorial couldn't have imagined that their all-Catholic civitas dei would someday host hot debates on the future of political Islam. Yet that's exactly what happened here, in this little Spanish town located some 45 kilometers northwest of Madrid, this week. The “political Islam” in question was Turkey's incumbent AKP, the Justice and Development Party, and its namesake in Morocco, the Parti de la Justice et du Développement.
Continue reading "Morocco's 'AKP' Is Moroccan, After All"
Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:46 PM | Comments (4)
April 4, 2007
Thus Spoke the Zarathustrian Kurds
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Mehdi Zana, the former mayor of Diyarbakır and a prominent figure among Turkey's Kurdish nationalists, has made the news twice in the past weeks with his claims on Kurdish history. First, he argued that Kurds simply had a brighter record before Islam. Second, as we read in the weekly news magazine Aksiyon, he claimed that the authentic religion of the Kurds is Zoroastrianism. They later converted to Islam, according to Zana, “due to the fear of the sword,” and “as a big mistake.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:11 AM | Comments (6)
December 22, 2006
The Turkmen Theocracy Lost Its God
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Saparmurat Niyazov, or "His Excellency Turkmenbashi, President of Turkmenistan and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers" as his official title reads, was one of the few remaining icons of a 20th century political phenomenon: Cult of personality. As a man who grew up in a Soviet orphanage, and who built his political career in the Communist Party of the Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan, he was loyal to the heritage of his late comrades such as Stalin or Mao, who depicted themselves as secular gods.
"Turkmenbashi," i.e. "Head of Turkmens," had been running Turkmenistan since the fall of the Soviet Union. He continued with the Soviet style politics, and thus didn't allow any political opposition to flourish. During his 15-year reign, freedom of speech has been virtually non-existent. Any criticism of the leader has been considered treason and punishable by lengthy prison terms, imprisonment in mental institutions, or exile to camps in remote areas. Government informers have been closely monitoring the society to find out such enemies of the people, i.e. proponents of freedom.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:26 PM | Comments (4)
December 13, 2006
Holocaust Denial Won't Help Iran—or Palestine
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Iranian leaders apparently think that they are doing their nation a favor nowadays by hosting anti-Semitic ideologues such as David Duke, the leader of Ku Klux Klan, for a conference which challenges the truth of the Jewish Holocaust. Are they right?
First, one should recall what Holocaust denial, or as its proponents call it, "Holocaust Revisionism," is. It is a fringe movement that started in the 60's by the French historian Paul Rassinier's "The Drama Of The European Jews" and American historian David Hoggan's "The Myth of the Six Million." In the 70's a few other historians like Arthur Butz, David Irving and Robert Faurisson joined the line. In 1979 the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) was founded in California, which became, and still acts as, the headquarters of the "revisionist" movement.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:37 PM | Comments (4)
April 14, 2005
Put the Fear of God Back Into the Mideast Peace Process
[Originally published in The Forward and The Washington Times]
The historic visit to Israel earlier this month by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party, proves a Muslim who is serious about his religion can be friendly to Israel, and that those who predicted a decline in Turkish-Israeli relations following the rise of Erdogan's Islamic-inspired conservative party were wrong.
As another Muslim from Turkey, let me offer a personal story of my visit to Israel, especially to those who might still be, quite understandably, suspicious about the possibility of a real, committed amity between serious Muslims and the Jewish state.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:42 PM | Comments (3)
