http://www.thewhitepath.com/ The writings of Mustafa Akyol -- on Turkey, Islam, modernity and more en Copyright 2010 Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:44:19 +0200 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/03/and_now_the_plot_is_proven.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/03/and_now_the_plot_is_proven.php Fundamentalism (Secular) Unveiling Turkey Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:44:19 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/03/confessions_of_a_recovering_akp_fan.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/03/confessions_of_a_recovering_akp_fan.php Unveiling Turkey Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:44:00 +0200 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."]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/why_i_should_be_fired_jailed_and_beheaded.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/why_i_should_be_fired_jailed_and_beheaded.php Fundamentalism (Secular) Unveiling Turkey Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:40:13 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/a_farewell_to_rulers_in_arms.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/a_farewell_to_rulers_in_arms.php Unveiling Turkey Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:37:06 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/from_kemalist_oligarchy_to_chaotic_polyarchy.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/from_kemalist_oligarchy_to_chaotic_polyarchy.php Fundamentalism (Secular) Unveiling Turkey Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:18:52 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/was_ottoman_shariah_better_than_republican_law.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/was_ottoman_shariah_better_than_republican_law.php Islam & Muslims Rethinking The East Unveiling Turkey Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:14:49 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/unraveling_the_turkish_inferiority_complex.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/unraveling_the_turkish_inferiority_complex.php Rethinking The West Unveiling Turkey Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:11:30 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/will_turkish_laicite_save_the_world.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/will_turkish_laicite_save_the_world.php Fundamentalism (Secular) Unveiling Turkey Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:21:02 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/could_islam_help_us_against_honor_killings.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/could_islam_help_us_against_honor_killings.php Faith Matters Islam & Muslims Rethinking The East Unveiling Turkey Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:01:07 +0200 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. ]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/why_the_kemalists_hate_capitalism.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/02/why_the_kemalists_hate_capitalism.php Unveiling Turkey Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:55:51 +0200 Hurriyet Daily News] One of the popular themes in our popular culture is that peculiar feeing called love, and the way it sometimes torments people. Love stories with unhappy endings are quite common, and the heartbreaks they cause are quite bitter. No wonder so much music has been devoted to this trouble. "Love hurts," a famous song warns, "love scars."]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/the_shariah_of_love.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/the_shariah_of_love.php Faith Matters Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:06:53 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/kemalism_needs_to_be_disarmed_-_and_privatized.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/kemalism_needs_to_be_disarmed_-_and_privatized.php Fundamentalism (Secular) Unveiling Turkey Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:11:26 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/does_the_turkish_military_make_plans_to_kill_turkish_people.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/does_the_turkish_military_make_plans_to_kill_turkish_people.php Fundamentalism (Secular) Unveiling Turkey Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:37:40 +0200 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. ]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/toward_a_liberal_political_islam.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/toward_a_liberal_political_islam.php Faith Matters Fundamentalism (Islamic) Fundamentalism (Secular) Islam & Muslims Unveiling Turkey Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:33:00 +0200 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.]]> http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/an_open_letter_to_israelis_from_a_concerned_turk.php http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/01/an_open_letter_to_israelis_from_a_concerned_turk.php Islam & Muslims Unveiling Turkey Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:32:40 +0200