Turkish Coffee Briefings

Kader Sevinç, the Brussels representative of Turkey's main opposition party CHP, has recently unveiled an exciting project: Turkish Coffee Briefings, a roundtable debate club on international issues in Brussels. Check out the attractive summary:

According to the Turkish tradition, it is customary for the host to serve Turkish coffee to guests as soon as they arrive, as a gesture of hospitality. As parties start sipping their coffee from traditional demitasse cups, they also engage in a short pep talk to “melt the ice” which spurs on the main conversation. Therefore a cup of Turkish coffee is an important part of daily social and business life in Turkey as stated in the following proverb: “A cup of coffee will not be forgotten for 40 years”...

The intent of the Turkish Coffee Briefings is to carry that tradition over to our roundtable discussions in Brussels. Since the Turkish coffee is inherent in the social customs in showing respect to each other, intrinsic in interpersonal relations of people as the icebreaker and it is an expression of hospitality, we want to apply the same principles to our intellectual debates.

At the Turkish Coffee Briefings we will host the participants to discuss a topic by exchanging ideas from different perspectives and creating an intellectual framework of debate in an entertaining and enjoyable manner, while we are savoring our freshly brewed coffee and Turkish delights of different flavors. These roundtable sessions are devoted to promoting debates concerning selected topics in relation to the European social, economic and political agenda. The sessions are introduced by guest speakers, followed by the views of the participants.

Turkish coffee and international relations are two soft spots of me, so I'm impatient to participate in one of these briefings the next time I come around Brussels. I congratulate Kader and thank her for giving such a name and context to her initiative.

Waiting for an Istanbul Blizzard

Snow is falling on Istanbul tonight and more snowfall is on the way, according to State Meteorology Bureau forecasts.

While we're bracing for the blizzard, the cats of Hagia Sophia are warming themselves not in the hands of U.S. President Barack Obama, but this time in some other place inside the former church/former mosque/contemporary museum.

As can be seen from these photos that I've taken, Hagia Sophia cats chose the spotlights in front of the splendid mihrab to get warmer, posing like golden statues from the pharaoh tombs of the Ancient Egypt. This is how an Istanbul blizzard creates a multi-layered symbolism of various cultures and religions:

As Anti-Turkish Policies of France Continue, What Would Hollande Do?

As expected, French senators approved the bill to make it illegal to deny the tragic events of 1915 was "genocide". If President Nicolas Sarkozy confirms (it is almost certain as it was a bill sponsored by Sarkozy himself to get the Armenian votes in the upcoming elections), those found guilty of denying the "Armenian genocide" would be sentenced to one year in jail and fined 45,000 euros.

Followers of this blog know very well that I am not a fan of Sarkozy, but my dislike doesn't shadow my judgment about him: He is a scapegoat now. When I saw that a populist newspaper in Turkey has called him "Satan Sarkozy" in its headline today, I was more than convinced that he didn't deserve to be turned into such a bogeyman.

After all, the French Senate is controlled by Socialists and their leader François Hollande also supported the bill. Although I'm closer to Hollande's discourse and practice, the fact that he is giving an example of Sarkozien hypocrisy now may fatally damage the bilateral relations between Turkey and France during his upcoming presidency, especially if this bill is not abolished by the Constitutional Court.

The saddest part of what happens in France now is that such policies of anti-Turkism is not exclusive to the Sarkozy administration, as it has become a historical pattern long ago.

When France made a secret agreement with its allies to use Ottoman Armenians as a tool to dismember the Ottoman Empire, and supported one of its ally, Russia, to kill and expel 550,000 Muslims from the modern day Armenia in 1910s, these policies were in action.

When France invaded southeastern Turkey and used legionnaire divisions consisted of Ottoman Armenians to realize the plan in 1920s, these policies were in action.

When France unsuccessfully tried to snatch the Turkish province of Alexandretta in 1930s, these policies were in action.

When France, allied with the Nazis, tried to kill 15,000 Turkish Jews, which were eventually rescued by Turkey in 1940s, these policies were in action.

When the French socialist government made a secret agreement with Armenian terrorists, in which the government would allow ASALA to use France as a base of operations in exchange for refraining from launching attacks on French soil in 1970s, these policies were in action.

When ASALA was dissolved and its infrastructure started to be used by the PKK militants, as France shifted its "humanitarian support" towards the Kurdish cause in 1980s and 1990s, these policies were in action.

Considering this historiography, I hope that when he will be elected, Hollande will change to break the vicious cycle. I wish that he stopped being a hostage of the rich Armenian nationalists in France, who are just hate-merchants. I expect him to read the hard evidence of history, instead of listening to the one-sided propaganda.

Here I suggest him a beginning... The National Archives of the United Kingdom released some files under the 30-year rule last week. Hürriyet's London correspondent went there to take a look at them. Some of the British Foreign Ministry cables, all from 1981, are about the "Armenian terrorism", which Hollande should take a lesson about. The cables show how the French-speaking Armenians in Switzerland started to assassinate Turkish diplomats. The Swiss government were initially quite tolerant to such crimes, although Britain was diplomatically criticizing them. The Swiss started to penalize the Armenian terrorism harshly, only after those terrorists started to attack Swiss interests, too!

Armenian Terrorism in Switzerland, According to Britain

France's Crime Against Democracy

French senators are about to vote a bill to make it illegal to deny the tragic events of 1915 was genocide. If the French bill passes, those found guilty of denying the "Armenian genocide" would be sentenced to one year in jail and fined 45,000 euros.

But is the vote really important?

After all, many people in France accept that this is an electioneering attempt by Nicolas Sarkozy and the law is doomed to be revoked by the Constitutional Court. Robert Badinter, a former judge in the French Constitutional Court, as well as Thierry Fragnoli, an influential judge, and respected historians like Pierre Nora and scores of MPs and experts are all against this bill.

In democratic countries, parliaments don't write history and then restrict freedom of speech according to this precise version of history. If Sarkozy opts to do it for a few thousand Armenian votes, it means that he is ready to turn France into anything but a democracy. Fortunately, France still has an independent judiciary, unlike Turkey, and it won't surrender to Sarkozy in the end. If it does, then the French state would be committing a crime against democracy.

So, I really believe that the vote is not important in the big picture. What really important is the institutionalization of anti-Turkism, not only in Sarkozy's France, but on a larger scale.

Take the insistent efforts of the mass media to present a one-sided portrait of the 1915 events, which is painted by the nationalist Armenian diaspora.

As Fatih Çekirge, the editor-in-chief of Hürriyet's online edition, has pointed out today, a massive protest march in Paris is almost completely ignored by international news agencies. Almost 40,000 Turks from all over Europe had flocked in front of the French Senate on Saturday, but only AP posted a full story, although it was accompanied by dull photos.

Luckily, the world is not depended to the old gatekeepers now. The Turkish march was a trending topic on Twitter for the whole Saturday, for instance.

This is why I am optimistic, whatever the French Senate does.

In contrary to what the Armenian diaspora wants, we will have a more democratic debate, hearing the arguments of both sides.

It is not the 1920s anymore, when British "historians" were producing fake propaganda material against the Ottoman enemy to use the Ottoman Armenians as a leverage, preceding many more attempts of forgeries by Armenians.

Nor it is the 1970s, when Armenian terrorists were killing Turkish diplomats all over the world under French protection and nobody was aware, thanks to the hypocrisy of the Western European mass media.

Their lobby can't buy out freedom of speech anymore.

Neither now, nor in 2015.

In Turkey, an Organized Crime Can Only Be Committed Against the Government

Recently, in Turkey...

• Almost one hundred journalists, including globally famous ones like Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık, were arrested. Although, the indictment made it clear that most of them were being prosecuted solely because of their professional activities (the books or stories that they've written or drafted), they are being accused of being the members of a "criminal organization" that tried to topple the government.

• Retired general Ilker Başbuğ, the former head of Turkey's armed forces, was arrested. The prosecution accused him of being the leader of a "criminal organization," which also tried to overthrow the government. Başbuğ was leading a military force with over 500.000 personnel until his retirement.

• Aziz Yıldırım, the president of Turkey’s reigning football champions Fenerbahçe, was arrested in a dubious probe on match-fixing. The alleged crime defines him as the leader of a "criminal organization." Yıldırım was known as one of the leading defense contractors in Turkey, working with NATO, too. He is still widely supported by millions of Fenerbahçe fans.
• There are scores of university students behind the prison bars, who were arrested while protesting the government for various reasons, such as yelling out for free education. Many of them are indicted for being members of criminal organizations and even terrorist ones.

* * *

Today, in Turkey...

A court in Istanbul has sentenced a man to life in prison for masterminding the killing of Hrant Dink, a leading Armenian-Turkish journalist, but cleared all 19 suspects in the five-year-old case, concluded that whole crime was a simple ultra-nationalist killing, unrelated to any kind of "criminal organization." "This ruling means a tradition was left untouched. The state tradition of political murders," unsatisfied Dink family announced today.

So, we have the whole picture now:

• Hrant Dink is in a cemetery.

• Nedim Şener, who has written a book about the intelligence failures before and after the Dink murder, is in a prison.

• And there are no criminal organizations in Turkey, except the ones that critical journalists, retired generals, football club presidents and dissident students have established to topple the government!

...I hope none of those pseudo-intellectuals in Turkey, who call themselves liberals and have been supporting the AKP government as a promising democratic force since 2002, would be regarded as the friends of Dink anymore.

Because the latest verdict -as well as the big picture in today's Turkey as a prospective police state- is their product, too...

Two Deaths That Separate Turks and Greeks

It was Friday the 13th and two important people died yesterday, as sad news echoed both in Turkey and Greece:

The first one was former Fenerbahçe footballer Lefter Küçükandonyadis, also known as “the Professor." Born in Istanbul in 1925 to a fisherman of Greek descent and a Turkish mother, Lefter was my idol, whom I could watch only from Betamax video tapes and imitated his moves in the street games that I played in my childhood. The legend that he created was one of reasons that made Fenerbahçe my favorite team, as he was so much loved. When some Turkish nationalists rioted in Istanbul after the British agitation in 1955 against Greeks to gain an upper-hand in Cyprus, scores of reasonable Turks (and not only Fenerbahçe fans) had flocked to Büyükada, where Lefter was living, to protect him and his property from the anti-Greek mob.

Lefter's death should have devastated everyone both in Turkey and Greece.

The second one was Rauf Denktaş, the founding president of the Turkish Cypriot state and "the courageous leader that guided his community out of those terrible years when Greek Cypriots were trying to annihilate Turkish presence from the island" decades ago. I must acknowledge Denktaş' success in this paramilitary defence and even though I had opposed his pro-partition stance decades after, during the Annan referandum, he is proven right also politically, as a two-state solution seems like the only way in Cyprus now.

An overwhelming majority of Turks mourn Denktaş' death today, while I presume that most Greeks were not that unhappy.

As these two titans are falling, their deaths that divide Turks and Greeks are defining the distinct nature of football and politics; two games that people play and two games that play with people.

One of the last words of Lefter was a support message for the current chairman of Fenerbahçe, who was arrested during a controversial investigation on match-fixing, which some see as another instance of political persecution by the Turkish government.

On the other hand, one of the last words of Denktaş was in the Greek language. "Tell them (the Greek Cypriot government) that Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is an independent state," he told his wife just before falling into a coma yesterday.

While a footballer unites two nations in sorrow, a politician -as another giant figure in history- still manages to divide them once again with his death. It is not his fault, though. It is just life and what kind of roles it casts us...

I am sure as hell that both of these extraordinary individuals are having great time together while travelling to the Heaven now, speaking maybe in Turkish, maybe in Greek. Does it really matter?

Who Did Photoshop President Gül's Photo?

Two days after a curious photograph of President Abdullah Gül was tweeted by himself, Habertürk newspaper unraveled the mystery yesterday. Or maybe they deepened it...

Although the newspaper used a misleading headline in the story, the content of the article was enough to reveal that the shot was photoshopped. OK, Gül was really there on the lakeside in Bolu, but as there was an eyesore bench in one of the photos, his preferred pose was digitally moved to another shot of the same scene from a better angle, newspaper sources in Ankara explained.

Not all the questions are answered, though. After all, Gül had tweeted earlier in the same day that he was at home because the weather in Istanbul was bad and he would be sharing his latest photographs. So, who did photoshop that shot in such an amateurish way? Presidential photographers or Gül himself or somebody else?

I don't think that it's something so embarrassing. I hope that Gül explains it in full and satisfy our curiosity.