The Republic Day on the Bosphorus

On Thursday night, I was wandering the shores of the Bosphorus. It was the 86th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. There was a fireworks show in the choreography with a special composition by Fahir Atakoglu.

I'm sure there are much better records, but here is the first 10 minutes of the show through my camera: 29 Ekim 2009 Cumhuriyet Bayrami - The best bloopers are a click away

Surprise Candidate for EU Presidency: Plavsic

European leaders are in Brussels today to discuss possible candidates for a future president of the European Union.

Most likely contenders are former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.

As both of these names have strong opponents, it seems that Sweden comes up with a surprise candidate as a common denominator: Biljana Plavsic, former Bosnian Serb president!

When asked why a convicted war criminal has chosen to lead the EU, "Why not," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt replied. "Yes, Plavsic was the the only woman convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Yes, she hated Muslims and she had honestly confessed it in the past. But she got punished, she had spent two-thirds of her 11-year sentence in a Swedish prison and now she is free. The 79-years-old Iron Lady has got huge experience to succeed at the top post of the EU! "

I applaud the Swedish decision about Plavsic, who was defined by Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic as "a fanatic" and "an extremist." Because Swedes shows that the Plavsic Case is the perfect manifestation of the Western/Northern European justice.

After being one of the leading figures of the genocide in Bosnia, posing while kissing the Serb warlord Arkan, stepping over the body of a dead Muslim civilian, Plavsic was in trouble in 1992 and the world was sure that she would be punished by the law one day.

However, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) disappointed everybody by striking "a deal" with her, letting her escape with just 11 years behind bars. And now the Swedish government has completed the circle with her early release. As Zeljko Komsic, the President of Bosnia, said: "The Swedish government wanted to do it, it was not forced to do it."

On Monday, Plavsic flew to Serbia, her motherland, with a private jet which is owned by the Bosnian Serb government. So basically the Muslim and Croat families of Plavsic victims in Bosnia paid for her comfortable flight with their taxes.

And once again we see that it was paying well to commit a crime of humanity in the middle of Europe in the end of of the 20th century. Plavsic, one of the butchers of Srebrenica, was right when saying that ethnic cleansing was "a perfectly natural phenomenon and the world would soon or late forget everything" after what she had done to the "genetically deformed Muslims."

* * *

As the "rehabilitation" process of this female Mengele is completed, the Swedish position has been justified. Why shouldn't we have Plavsic as the President of Europe? She symbols everything that the EU -as we know it- presents:

400 armed Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica who didn't prevent the massacre in the UN-protected "safe area"...

German and French governments who distributed condoms to the Bosnian Muslim women during the genocide, instead of intervening to protect the civilians...

And the EU as a whole, which is ready now to ease the visa restrictions for the Serbs, while keeping to punish Bosnia, referring to its political instability that is actually the direct consequence of the genocide...

If the anachronistic hegemony of the Western Europe keeps hijacking Our Europe, organizing the death of the art of living...

Then, yes to Plavsic, the President of the EU!

Erdogan Visits Tehran

"Friendly towards a religious theocratic Iran, covetous and increasingly resentful of a secular but maddeningly dismissive Europe: it seems the perfect summary of Turkey's east-west dichotomy." -The Guardian, October 26th, 2009.

And another scene that I personally feel ashamed...

The Junkie Pasha of the Ottomans

Last Thursday was the 408th anniversary of the legendary Siege of Nagykanizsa, including an Austrian army with ten times more soldiers than the ones in the Ottoman fortress in Hungary that the Habsburg was trying to capture. And the Ottoman fortress was commanded by a hashish-addict Turkish general, who was actually a military genius!

The Ottoman-Habsburg Wars of 1526-1791, one of the biggest political/military struggles of European history which I am personally interested in, was at its height in the year 1601. A Habsburg-led coalition besieged the Ottoman fortress in Nagykanizsa, western Hungary.

The siege began in September 9. Habsburg had 100.000 troops (although some give the figure of 130.000) and 47 cannons. Inside the fortress, Ottomans had just 9.000 troops and 100 cannons, which were smaller in caliber comparing to the Habsburg weaponry.

Considering the numbers, it was basically impossible to defend the fortress, but the Ottoman Empire was lucky to have a confident, almost crazy general in charge of this frontier fort: Tiryaki (Hashish-addict) Hasan Pasha.

Hasan Pasha, who refused to surrender even in these impossible conditions, was a master of deceit, whom Sun Tzu would surely be proud of.

For winning the battle against the ten times bigger army of crusaders, what did this old Turkish commander do?

1) As the Habsburg forces initiated the siege, Hasan Pasha didn't initially fire his cannons and he didn't send his cavalry out of the fortress soon. So the enemy set up their military encampment inside the Ottoman artillery range. Moreover, they thought that Turks didn't have any cavalry, so they didn't take any precautions.

2) Hasan Pasha was writing letters to the Ottoman grand-vizier, asking for urgent help. After a few days, he was assured that nobody would come here to help him. Anyway, he wrote letters, addressing to himself. As if the Grand Vizier was saying that a big Ottoman army was on the way to the fortress. Hasan Pasha made sure that the enemies will seize these fake letters.

3) Fooled by two royal letters to Hasan Pasha, Habsburg troops were panicked. A third letter even made them to seriously evaluate the lifting of the siege. It also boosted the morale of the Ottoman troops.

4) At nights, Ottoman commandos were going out of the fortress, organising surprise attacks in the Habsburg encampment. When they capture Habsburg soldiers, they were ordered not to kill but kidnap them alive.

5) Days passed by and the resources inside the fortress were diminishing. However, Hasan Pasha was feeding the captured enemies with the best honey and milk. Then he was slyly letting them escape. These runaways were telling the Habsburg commanders in awe that Turks don't have any food shortage.

6) Hasan Pasha wasn't even closing the fortress gates. Habsburg commanders were sure that the fortress had got plenty of defenders inside. This should be why they were so confident. Lots of food, lots of soldiers...

7) Habsburg army kept firing their cannons, making huge holes on the walls of the fortress. Hasan Pasha's men were quickly filling them with a thin layer of stones first and then pillows and bed sets!

8) After 84 days, Hasan Pasha was anxiously watching the enemy behind the perished walls of his fortress. The next day, he decided that the enemy was now so demoralized that he could beat them with 1/10 of their soldiers.

9) In November 18, the counter-attack began. Firstly, Hasan Pasha fired his last 100 cannonballs at the same time. Habsburg army knew that this was the way that the Ottoman army saluted its recently arriving grand-vizier and the reinforcements.

10) There were no reinforcements, but Hasan Pasha was sure of his psychological warfare tactics. The next move was ordering the Army Band to play the Attack March. Finally, when the first wave of janissaries and -surprisingly- cavalries were rushing out of the fortress with their spine-chilling war-cries, the Habsburg troops were already dispersing in a flurry and dread.

Following the incredible victory in Hungary, Sultan Mehmed III promoted Tiryaki Hasan Pasha to the rank of Vizier. After being humbled by the laudatory letter from the sultan, Hasan Pasha was literally crying.

Somebody asked why. This hashish-addict, but still pious general explained in a way that shows that he was not just a genius military commander, but also a political visionary, predicting the ill-fate of the Ottoman Empire, which was at its peak at that time:

"All I did was a small contribution to the Empire. I didn't deserve such praises from the Sultan. Suleyman the Magnificent didn't use such words even when he appointed Ibrahim Pasha as his vicegerent. Piyale Pasha, as the son-in-law of Selim the Grim, won bigger victories in the Mediterranean but he was not promoted to vizierdom. The Caliphate of the Islamic World starts to send official letters to praise the commanders of insignificant fortresses like Nagykanizsa, awarding such humble services. And vizierdom is given to old people like me now. What can be more tragic for the Empire? Why shouldn't I cry?"

Tiryaki Hasan Pasha has been in charge of Hungarian provinces for 10 years until his death. Sultan Mehmed III died in 1603. After the reigns of four more sultans, namely Ahmed I, Osman II, Murad IV and Mehmed IV, the growth period of the Ottoman Empire ended in 1683, as it was foreseen by the hashish-addict general.

History as Fantasy

As a steampunk fan, I adore the caricature map of Europe 1914 in Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld and Keith Thompson.

...with Ottoman Empire, one of the Clanker Powers, as a "teetering automaton, collapsing under the weight of a paranoid and ungainly spying network that gazes at Europe through many lenses and spy glasses..."

Priceless.

Click the picture to enlarge.

Russia's Historical Role in Caucasia

One of the better explanations about the background of the tragedies of 1915, including the mass deportation of the Ottoman Armenians, was published yesterday by Forbes. Confirming Soner Cagaptay's judgment on the Russian role in Caucasia, this time Melik Kaylan tells about it by referring to history:

"Here you enter into difficult terrain. Because you can easily slip into an alternate viewpoint, one that goes something like this: Turks and Armenians lived in peace until Czarist Russia began to move southward down the Caucasus, purging Muslims downward into Turkish territory--throughout the 19th century. All those fiery Daghestanis, Chechens, Abkhaz, Kurds. Many ended up in Ottoman lands, some say half a million. At one point, Russia actually occupied a whole swath of Turkey, including the provincial capital of Kars, for several decades until World War I ended. The Russians did their conquering explicitly as a Christian Crusade, claiming the complicity of all Eastern Christians (including Armenians) in that part of Turkey, an area seething with displaced Caucasus Muslims and Muslim Kurds. In short, if you are curious about a proximate cause for catastrophic bloodshed, look no further than Russkie provocation--a plausible scenario considering their conduct right up to the present in Georgia--of stirring one ethnicity against another for imperial ends."

The Quote of the Week

"Christianity robbed us of the harvest of the culture of the ancient world, it later went on to rob us of the harvest of the culture of Islam. The wonderful Moorish cultural world of Spain, more closely related to us at bottom, speaking directly to our senses and taste, than Greece and Rome, was trampled down. Why? Because it was noble, because it owed its origins to manly instincts, because it said Yes to life even in the rare and exquisite treasures of Moorish life!.. Later on, the Crusaders fought against something they would have done better to lie down in the dust before - a culture compared with which even our nineteenth century may well think itself very impoverished and very 'late.'" -- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, Section 60

PS: Besides the Moorish caravanserais of Spain, where are all the Ottoman mosques of Greece? What chance did our Europe miss?

Russia's Dark Intentions

Why does Moscow support the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia, even though it is clear that such a development will have negative impacts on Kremlin's energy policy interests in Trans-Caucasia?

I asked this question to Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Hurriyet has published his answer a few days ago. Here is a summary of it:

"Russia wants to sustain its monopoly on the Middle Asian energy reserves by stopping alternative natural gas and oil pipelines which would connect the region to the West. Preventing the construction of any additions to the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline is a key part of this strategy and Georgian war was a byproduct of it. At the same time, Kremlin seems supporting the Armenia-Turkey dialogue. Why? There is no contradiction here, because Russia is sure that Armenia will never abandon Moscow (because of its economic dependency). Meanwhile it sees that this process escalates the tension between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Russia knows that if Baku steps away from Ankara, it will come closer to Moscow. And if Russia can take two Caucasian states (Armenia and Azerbaijan) to its side, the third one, Georgia, will be left completely isolated."

Recent flag crisis between Ankara and Baku shows that Russian tactic is successful for now, isn't it?

Reap What You Sow

The same people who have been praising AKP until a few weeks ago are condemning it to death now and it is just funny, even for an AKP critic like me.

Israel and the Jews are an example here and there are two aspects of the issue: Governments and individuals.

I can totally understand the furor of the Israeli government after the latest decisions of Ankara. Israel, which has always been very positive about AKP, is a sovereign country and it can comfortably change its stance according to new political conditions, when it sees a national interest.

Even under these circumstances, most of the Israeli politicians try to stay consistent. Israeli Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer is one of them. I had an interview with him two years ago and then he was praising AKP passionately. He still managed to remain calm this week, even though he probably changed his mind about AKP.

However, I can't understand the reactions of the Jewish intelligentsia, as it is made of eminent individuals with a social responsibility to be consistent. Their job should be easier as they are not the representatives of any state, but this is not true for the Jewish diaspora, it seems.

Take Efraim Inbar, an Israeli academic. I had an interview with him last year. He kept talking about how successful AKP is, what a great transformation they manage in Turkey, etc. Then, I've read his article with astonishment in Jerusalem Post two weeks ago. "Turkey under the AKP is increasingly succumbing to Islamic impulses; relegating its political and cultural links to the West to a secondary priority," he claims now.

Sorry but what Islamic impulse? Did you start feeling that impulse now, after seven years? Did you forget that you've been mocking those few Turks who warned everyone that this government was made of closet fanatics. They've been telling you that AKP might have a secret Islamist agenda. You just laughed in the end and AKP got some of its international credibility thanks to the overwhelming support of the Jewish diaspora.

So people like Inbar should stop whining now. They should at least be as consistent as other Jewish people like Ben-Eliezer. I, as a Muslim Turk, am sad about the current situation in my country now, but I am also happy because I was standing in the right place from the beginning, successfully foreseeing that the light at the end of the tunnel was a goddamn train...

Friday Prayer in Sarajevo

Four days ago, I was wandering around Sarajevo and I stumbled upon the Turkish Foreign Minister!

For Friday prayer, I went to Gazi Husrev Bey Mosque. This beautiful temple, which was built in 1531 by the grandson of an Ottoman sultan, was jammed with people. "It seems that Bosnians get more religious nowadays," I thought.

In a short while, I remembered what a Turkish diplomat had told me two days before. As if he stalks me, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu would be coming in a couple of days! He would be holding talks with the political parties in Bosnia to strike a deal for a new constitution. The current situation is a deadlock, because of the stubbornness of all sides, but especially Bosnian Serbs.

So I managed to make my way to the front row in the mosque. I've got such a talent that I can rudely shoulder my way through pious crowds. I had managed to do it even through thousands of Christians in the Church of Nativity on the Christmas Eve of 2005. Shame on me.

Back in the Sarajevo mosque, I prayed a few meters away from the imam and Davutoglu who was right behind him. After the prayer, I followed the Turkish delegation to the hotel. There was no strict protocol or a tight security. I stay close to the minister until I find an opportunity to ask some questions.

Finally, the delegation left the hotel and went to a cevapcici restaurant for lunch. The minister and the Turkish ambassador sat down at their tables and I introduced myself to them. After hearing the word Hurriyet, Davutoglu bemoaned jokingly: "Alas!"

Then he explained me briefly why he made this surprise visit: "We just want to support Bosnia." I asked if this is a symbolic visit. "No, no," he said, "It is far beyond it." The ambassador explained that "this is a serious effort with some concrete steps."

As I reported for Hurriyet from Sarajevo, Davutoglu is a finished gentleman, an exemplary Muslim Turk and a respected academic. However, his tenure as a Foreign Minister has already been stained by the cheap Islamo-populists of AKP.

How can Davutoglu apply his theory of Strategic Depth alongside the shallowness of his Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan? How long can he keep trying to build bridges everywhere in the former Ottoman territories, while Erdogan is busy with laying down dynamites on most of them?

Turkey is not getting stronger in the global politics with its new foreign policy. All the imaginary successes, i.e the protocols with Armenia, are just short-term results of the pressure from the United States.

And when Turkey behaves really autonomously, we see long-term fiascoes like the latest crisis with Israel. I don't suggest that we should always defend Israel even when it commits war crimes, but I say that our current foreign policy is inconsistent and irrational.

Erdogan and Davutoglu were believing that they can push Israel towards a solution with Palestine and Syria by escalating the tension a little bit. No, it won't happen. As we've seen yesterday, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that Turkey is not a honest broker anymore. And now Syria says that they won't accept anyone other than Turkey as a mediator in the indirect talks with Israel. So apart from being a Middle East peacemaker, Turkey effectively ended the dialogue between Damascus and Tel Aviv, because of her wrong decisions.

Since Kemal Ataturk, nobody has actually managed to form a perfect balance in Turkey's foreign policy, but now Ankara has lost it completely. It seems that even Davutoglu can't recover it under the current government.

The Marathon of Life

Istanbul Eurasia Marathon, the world’s only intercontinental marathon, was held yesterday. The sports competition was dominated by the Ethiopian athletes again, but the real entertainment was the fun run for the public.

"All events started on the Asian side of Istanbul and ended on the European side, passing many of the city’s most beautiful sights. The finish line for the marathon and the 15 kilometer race was at the Hippodrome, one of the oldest sporting arenas in the world, decorated with many historical monuments including the 3500-year-old Egyptian Obelisk of Theodosius," Hurriyet reported.

Unfortunately, the highlight of the public marathon was a tragic event. An amateur participant, who was 43 years old, jumped off the Bosphorus Bridge, as the crowd around him screamed in panic. It is said that this man, who was in depression because of his credit card debts, ran in the beginning of the race normally and then left his jacket as well as his umbrella in the middle of the bridge before his suicide.

It was obviously a planned suicide as the victim has been waiting for this day probably for months. The Bosphorus Bridge, which was built in 1973, was closed to pedestrians since 1977, because of the great number of suicide attempts. It seems that a truly Istanbulian death drive is still alive.

A Diplomatic Coup

I keep disliking the AKP government in general, but it doesn't mean that I oppose anything that they do.

The historic signing of the protocols to normalize relations with Armenia is a big success for AKP's foreign policy.

With my Turkish articles in recent weeks, I've been criticizing AKP for being unnecessarily pro-US in its foreign policy choices, but this time Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu scored a hat-trick.

Look at the photo above:

After the last-minute crisis, all delegations -including the American one with Hillary Clinton, had to wait for three hours to open the deadlock. And finally, after the US pressure, Armenians and Turks agreed to sign.

In the beginning of the signing ceremony, both foreign ministers seemed unhappy, even angry at each other. However, only a few seconds past and Davutoglu remembered that it was just a specter. So he put that sly smile on his face, his Armenian counterpart couldn't do it. That was enough to give the Turkish minister a psychological upper hand.

I'm not sure if the borders will be opened soon, because Turkey wants Armenia to end its occupation in Azeri territories in Karabagh. And for Armenia, it is almost impossible even in the face of a stronger Western pressure.

On the other hand, the Turkish government still gets what it wants. First of all, its international credibility has risen. And more importantly, it managed to separate the Armenian diaspora from the government and the people of Armenia.

It is crucial because the world can now see that the Armenian diaspora, which is being fueled by racial hatred against Turks, is just an obstacle for peace and stability, as they keep making a living thanks to a genocide industry that they have created out of an imaginary history.

The only problem was the venue of the signing ceremony. Switzerland is a country where freedom of speech is restricted. I've been doing it there and nobody had arrested me, but you may be penalized in Switzerland if you just tell that Turks have never committed a genocide against Armenians.

Still, Davutoglu's success was a diplomatic coup and it shows that AKP has indeed got some respected figures. Just ignore Erdogan and Gul...

PS: Only after a couple of months, I'm going back to Sarajevo, which I love passionately. Off for three days...

A Portrait of the Racist as a Public Servant

Thio Sarrazin (above), the newly-appointed board member of the German Central Bank, told the following words to a magazine last week:

"Turks are conquering Germany…with a strong birth rate. I would be happy if it were a question of eastern European Jews whose intelligence is 15 percent greater than the German population. I do not want groups within the population that do not accept the duty of integration, and on top of that it costs a lot more money. A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, the number of whom has grown owing to poor policies, have no productive function aside from selling fruit and vegetables. That is also true for part of the German underclass."

Even after the well-deserved reaction to these obviously racist (and factually incorrect) remarks, Sarrazin is neither fired or resigned as of today. He is still in the corps of public servants in Germany.

* * *

I generally don't post anything to give more detailed answers to reader comments here, but Hans and DelmonteMan, two non-Turkish followers of this blog, have encouraged me to do so.

Both of these friends have a tendency to equate widespread Western European racism/xenophobia with minor examples in Turkey. "They are the National Front of Turkey," had said DelmonteMan about MHP, which has nothing to do with racism of any kind, even though I don't like their right-wing populism.

It's up to the readers of this blog to make a brief research on the history of Turkey and see themselves that racism is a foreign subject for the Turkish culture. Turkey, too, probably has some idiots like Sarrazin, but they are so few that we never see them around and they can never climb the ladder up to the highest levels of the society. In Germany, France and their peripheries, unfortunately the situation is not the same.

To highlight it, Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, has condemned Sarrazin today with the following words:

"I believe that Sarrazin has honored Göring, Goebbels and Hitler with his words and thoughts. He is on the same line of thought with these people. His statement is ugly, provocative and anti-Muslim. The terminology that he uses, including the word 'underclass', was belonged to the Nazis during the Second World War. The far-rightist NPD will surely start using these words for their cause. And it is sad to see that Sarrazin's words are appreciated by many intellectuals."

For DelmonteMan, this should be Reductio ad Hitlerum, so it is completely nonsense, forget it. And Hans would probably say that he had heard even worse racist words from the Turkish authorities without giving one convincing example.

Still, Sarrazin's words are there and they are not the biggest tragedy. The biggest tragedy lies in the heart of the German society. What is even more alarming than these words is the popular trends. The website of Bild has conducted a poll and found out that more than 70 percent of its visitors support Sarrazin. Turks consisted of three percent of Germany's population.

In these circumstances, I just try to understand the alienation and even the fear of Turks in Germany, especially after last year when almost 100 Turkish houses were targeted by arsonists. Whether DelmonteMan and Hans approve it or not, their fear is justified because the current conditions are very much like the ones in Germany of early 1930s. At that time, the German economy was as bad as today and Jews, the Turks of the time, were chosen as the scapegoat.

Today, Angela Merkel, who has recently won another general election, started to form her government with a new coalition partner, the centre-rightist FDP. And their first point of agreement is interesting: "The German Constitution will be amended to include a new article that will state that the official language of Germany is German."

It is worrying in Germany especially now, as the government funds for the Turkish-language theaters and radio stations are canceled, a school which forbid their students to speak Turkish (their mother tongues) even during recess is AWARDED by the government and human rights activists claim that the integration policy of Berlin is actually a forced-assimilation in the most evil form.

* * *

At the same time, Merkel keeps defending that Turkey should be given by the EU a privileged partnership and not a full-membership.

Considering how she has boosted the racist emotions in the country, maybe she should start another debate now:

"Can Germany remain as a member of EU or should it be given a privileged partnership instead, possibly with the French government, her xenophobic comrade?"

Joking apart, Turkey really seems more EU-fit nowadays. At least, Ankara doesn't try to shut up its citizens who prefer to speak their mother tongues. There are government-funded Kurdish televisions, radios, etc. Even REMOVING the Constitutional article about the official language, which is currently Turkish, is being debated.

But does anyone in the EU really care about this comparison?

I was in Brussels last week to participate in a journalism program by the European Commission. On September 29th, there was a round-table meeting with Mr Wenceslas de Lobkowicz (above), the Adviser of Civil Society for the Directorate-General of the European Commission.

After his presentation, I told Lobkowicz that Turks perceive that double-standards are being applied by the EU for Ankara's membership.

Latest instance was Bulgaria's accession process. The EU is still monitoring Bulgaria even though it is already a member. And Brussels doesn't hide the reality: Bulgaria was accepted as a member without fulfilling the criteria.

"What do you think about such double-standards and their effects on the civil society in candidate countries," I asked Lobkowicz.

After Lobkowicz claimed that "there are no double-standards or whatsoever in the EU," a Croatian colleague took the floor. He asked something like the following question:

"I agree with my Turkish friend. There is definitely a double-standard in the EU. For instance, when a neo-Nazi party in Croatia gets a few hundred more votes, the Commission starts warning that it is a serious obstacle for Croatia's EU bid. But when even a worse pattern is seen is Germany and Austria, which have been the main sources of Nazism, nobody complains about it in the EU. Don't you see any problem here?"

Before the Croatian journalist, who was awarded by the EU this year, has finished his words, Lobkowicz started to thump the table, shouting, "I am not a German but I can never allow anyone to use the word 'Nazi' in the same sentence with 'Germany.' If I hear another negative statement about any member state anymore, I will leave this meeting."

Everybody, especially the organizers who were threatened by this Commission official, were shocked. After calming down a little bit, Lobkowicz uttered: "Maybe you're surprised, but that's what I think and that's what my position is."

"No, no, I'm not surprised at all. In contrary, that was what I precisely expected. You're just a living proof of the double-standard that we're talking about," the Croatian journalist explained.

The crowd, which consisted of journalists from candidate and possible candidate countries, applauded and Lobkowicz left the room. After this meeting, anybody in the EU lobbies whom I ask the same question admitted honestly that there is a double-standard going on especially against Turkey.

But why did this EU official behave in this weird way even when having a chat with us off-the-record? Does he really sympathize with the German neo-Nazis or is he just another Eurocrat who feels obliged to kiss his bosses' -ummmmmm- hand all the time, in a way that we call in Turkey "more royalist than the king himself."

I'm not going to psychoanalyze him, but I know one thing: Lobkowicz may not be a racist himself, but the attitude that he shared with many people in the EU produces more and more people like Sarrazin in the member states. More NPDs, more Le Pen's, more Geert Wilders'...

To cope with this alarming problem, Brussels should be more honest in itself, especially towards its current members. Kicking out certain public servants in the EU can be a good start, but the permanent solution against the historical problem of racism in Western Europe would be the full membership of Turkey. This is why the negotiation process is an opportunity of positive transformation not only for Turkey, but also for the EU.

Yes to the Turkish Eiffel Tower

Starting from tonight, the Eiffel Tower will be in red-and-white for five days to celebrate the Season of Turkey in France.

This nice gesture is a sign of historical friendship between two countries, emphasizing the fact that not all the French people are prejudiced and hostile against Turks.

Though, Jean-Marie Le Pen's racist/populist National Front has unsurprisingly started a campaign with a sauce of hate speech, simply defending that "the Eiffel Tower is French and it will remain so." (The Armenian diaspora in France has another hate campaign with the same motive)

After naming themselves as the defender of the French colors, Le Pen et al show that they are as stupid as anyone can be by accusing not only Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, but also his accomplice Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France.

For them, it may be a reasonable political tactic to try to grab a slice from the xenophobe voting base of Sarkozy, but this one still sounds idiotic. Socialist Delanoë and conservative Sarkozy fighting together for promoting Turkish culture? Come on!

Yes, Sarkozy couldn't keep his promise to stop the EU membership negotiations with Turkey, but it's not that he doesn't want it. It's because he just can't do it. On the other hand, he still does everything against Turkey, especially by blocking several negotiation chapters alone, even though the rest of the EU is almost in a consensus to move on.

All in all, the Eiffel Tower gesture is yet another visionary and non-populist opening by M. Delanoë who is as progressive as Sarkozy can never dream of. I am not sure if Delanoë would be the President of France in 2012, but I'm glad to see that he still can contribute to the long-term interests of his country and the world as a mayor.

And Sarkozy? Like Le Pen, he just can't realize that France doesn't lose anything by projecting red and white colors on the Eiffel Tower for five days... After all, you can add the blue in the next day and have your flag back again, including the tones of ours as well.

A Landmark Greenhouse

The restoration of the historic Ishakpaşa Palace, located in Doğubeyazıt in Eastern Turkey, has finally been completed and the palace is now open to the public.

In its is absolute desolation and fabulous beauty, this is one of my favorite Turkish landmarks... Or it WAS in the past.

For 48 years, nobody could finish the restoration. After the palace appeared on the back of the new 100 TL banknotes, the AKP government allocated millions of dollars worth additional funds. Good news? I don't think so.

Instead of an architect whose expertise is about historical restoration, a building contractor is hired by the government. The guy was a simple businessman, but he should have been as openly religious as the AKP authorities would like to see, so that was enough qualification.

The contractor has restored the palace by replacing the firm, ancient stones with brand-new ones. Moreover, to protect the building from the rain, he built the ugliest roof possible. Anything, anything he did there was just kitsch.

So here is how AKP works and here is another example of the Islamist aesthetics... A building which looks like a greenhouse and not what it actually is underneath: A 315-years-old, beautifully fortified palace with lots of architectural features, like the best sewage system of its time...

Back from Brussels

"The best part of Ankara is the return to Istanbul," Turkish poet Yahya Kemal had once said.

Well, that's what I exactly feel after returning to Istanbul from Brussels.

Not that I hate Brussels... In fact, I like it quite a bit.

Brussels is enjoyable with its Grand Place and the Manneken Pis; its European quarter and the Atomium; its cosmopolitanism and its various beers...

However, Istanbul, in its completeness, is a hard nut for any city to compete with. I still didn't visit anywhere that I can prefer it to Istanbul to live in, but I keep trying.