The Bridge to End All Bridges

The Turkish government announced plans yesterday to construct a third bridge across the Bosphorus.

Surprisingly, the bridge will be built close to the northern entrance of the strait.

I'm not going to criticize the government for faking for months as if the new bridge will be built in the middle of the strait. While property prices for the central strait region were skyrocketing, the businessmen and probably some government officials were having some excellent bargains in the north. Now they can sell back those properties for triple price.

Anyway I'm not going to critize them, because there are more important, ever-lasting faults of this project. First of all, it will kill off the last bits of Istanbul forests and wetlands, which are all in the north. With the words of the opposition party, these lands were the lungs and the water basin of Istanbul.

And the second problem is about the Islamist aesthetic. If they will build the bridge that they showed in the presentation of the Transportation Ministry, it will be a disaster. With its horrible moulding and Arabic (not Islamic, as classical Turkish architecture is also a part of Islamic heritage) decorations, the third bridge would be the kitschest structure in Istanbul, for sure.

Here it is: Here how it will be located: Here how the bridge and the new highway (yellow) will be connected to downtown Istanbul:

Mass Murdered European Democracy

I've reserved almost a week to write about the 1915 tragedy.

If only the question whether Turks had committed a genocide or not could just be a matter of history.

So that I could say, "Alright, some fanatic Armenians are lying to smear Turkey, maybe they have financial interests, maybe something else; but anyway they can do it 'cause it's free speech."

Unfortunately, it's not only a matter of history now. It's today's matter. The lies of the Armenian lobby affect our modern lives. Because of these fanatics, the people of Armenia are still living almost in the Middle Ages as Turkey doesn't open her borders, rightfully.

And these lies have negative effects on other areas as well. For instance, because of these lies, the democracy of Netherlands has been harmed.

The Dutch Labor Party has recently sent a letter to all of its members before the general elections on June 9th. The party administration ordered all the members to accept the Armenian allegations and call it a genocide. The Turkish politicians under the umbrella of this party are also being forced.

In this blog, I frequently point out what a flawed democracy Turkey has got. The governing party, AKP, is being accused to force its members to accept all opinions of the leadership. And what do they have in the Netherlands now?

When I look at how the Netherlands, Belgium and France restrict free speech when it's favorable for the establishment, I get convinced more and more that the European Union doesn't accept Turkey as a full member for false pretenses.

Maybe in 2020, as a Dutch or a French or an Armenian, you would be allowed to voice in Turkey whatever you want. You can do it even now.

But in the Netherlands, France or Armenia; you will be threatened by political repercussions, fines and even imprisonment... Again, it is like that even now.

So it may be another good time to discuss it: Maybe some EU countries should accede to Turkey in certain areas until 2020.

If they work hard, they can do it.

The Quote of the Week

In the memory of the victims of the Turkish Genocide that had been committed by the Armenian militia during the World War I:

"Many massacres were committed by the Armenians until our army arrived in Erzurum. 2,127 Muslim bodies were buried in Erzurum's center. These are entirely men. There are ax, bayonet and bullet wounds on the dead bodies. Lungs of the bodies were removed and sharp stakes were struck in the eyes. There are other bodies around the city."

-- Official telegram of the Third Royal Army Command, addressed to the Supreme Command, March 19, 1918; ATASE Archive of General Staff, Archive No: 4-36-71. D. 231. G.2. K. 2820. Dos.A-69, Fih. 3

The Train That Carried the Armenians

The photo above is one of the 'evidences' which the Armenian lobby uses to prove that the tragedy of 1915 was a genocide.

In fact, the very same photo is enough proof to show that it was not a genocide; but a massive, ill-fated deportation.

Why?

First of all, we should remember that the Ottoman administration had decided to remove the Armenian population from the east of the country, where they formed a nationalist/secessionist militia who doubtlessly collaborated with the invading Russian enemy. These forces were not only fighting against the Ottoman armies, but they were also organizing savage massacres and pillages in the Turkish villages.

This decision was made only after the casualties of the Ottoman army that was battling with the Armenian militia increased dramatically. With these trains, the Ottoman state was not sending the Armenians concentration camps or gas chambers. The whole Armenian population was about to be relocated in the south of the country, mainly in Syria.

And what do you see in the photo?

1) In 1915, the Ottoman administration obviously didn't have enough logistic resources to transfer even their own troops to the frontier, but they still managed to provide some trains for the Armenian emigration.

2) Check the photo again. You'll see several adult men, a boy and a girl, all seem healthy and content. What kind of genocide is this? Some Armenian fanatics keep lying that it was an organized massacre against a certain ethnicity, including their women and children. But the so-called photographic evidence shows us that even their adult men were just being transferred to another part of the country, away from the war.

Of course many Armenians had to walk, to ride horses or to use other means all through the way; hence they were exposed to the terror of local bandits of various ethnic groups. Hence, thousands had been robbed, harassed, injured and killed; resulting with one of the biggest tragedies of the last century.

However, as I've written before, it was not a genocide, but a war crime; because the state should have protected its civilian population while taking such war-time measures. The cause was justified, although the practice was shamefully clumsy.

But I repeat: At the end of the day, it was not a genocide. If we'll change the definition of genocide just to satisfy today's Armenians, then ie. the Russians should also be condemned for the genocide of the Meskhetian Turks. If you want to see a real genocide in its current meaning, then study the Holocaust or the Srebrenica. You'll see that they've got nothing to do with what had happened in 1915 and you'll be surprised by those fanatic Armenian lies.

No Genocide, But A War Crime

"As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly promised to refer to the almost century-old massacre of Armenians in Turkey as a genocide. But since becoming president, Obama has twice passed up opportunities to do so," the Washington Post has reported after the latest presidential statement on the tragedy of 1915.

Some say that the wording of Obama demonstrates the rising power of Turkey and the fall of Armenian diaspora, as well as the insignificance of Armenia. I don't think that it's totally accurate.

I believe that Obama is an honest guy. If he really believed that it was a genocide, he would tell it now. He doesn't do it, because he knows that his rhetoric in the past was just a method to woo Armenian American voters.

I won't be surprised if Obama calls it a genocide in 2011, right before his candidacy for a second term. It won't change a thing anyway. This word will remain as a piece of politics, not history.

The truth will always triumph in the long term: Simply, it was not a genocide. It was an irresponsible self-defence for the Ottoman Empire.

And it's still something that today's Turkey should apologize to, because many Ottoman officials have been committing a war crime by not taking enough steps to protect the deported Armenians all through the way, even though hundreds of them were clearly collaborating with an invading enemy who kept equipping them with weapons during World War I.

Institutionalized Hate

Today is the anniversary of the tragedy of 1915, when the Ottoman officials forced thousands of Armenians to emigrate from the east to the south of the Empire, arguing that they were collaborating with the invading Russian army, resulting with the death of many of them.

I believe that the discussion about the word of genocide is unnecessary. We should just remember the innocents who died because of a failure of their state. And we should look forward.

But how can you look forward with a partner who built her own national myth over this big tragedy that they misleadingly politicized? Can you see what happen in Armenia and in Turkey now?

In Turkey, there is a healthy, democratic debate about the issue. Whether you call it genocide or not, you're safe. Thousands of Turkish Armenians enjoy the same rights with ethnic Turks. Thousands of Armenian illegal immigrants work in Turkey without a reaction that we are seeing in Western Europe.

And what about Armenia? They keep educating their children to hate Turks. Their diaspora is the official apparatus of the institutionalized hate. "Turkey and Azerbaijan will always be our enemies," said 22 year-old graduate Grigor Kafalian, an Armenian born in Lebanon.

And in Yerevan, it's not safe for me to walk there again, as they burn Turkish flags and the pictures of the Turkish statesmen. Should Turkey change or should Armenians change? You choose.

Democratic Slaughter on Children's Day

Turkey, as the first country to celebrate Children's Day as a national holiday, was all happy today. And still tense...

That cheesy tradition has continued today as all state officials and high ranking bureaucrats were replaced temporarily. President, Prime Minister, ministers, MPs, provincial governors, etc, all turn over their positions to children.

The most interesting ceremony was held by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Hinting about how he regards democracy and the presidential system that he had suggested, Erdogan left his seat to a junior and told her the following words:

"Now you're the prime minister. You can hang or slaughter anybody you want."

The Turkish Knife and the Norwegian iPad

Following the difference between the Anatolian and the Persian mentality, here is the difference between the Scandinavian and the Turkish governance.

Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s Prime Minister, was forced to run the country by iPad this week after finding himself stranded in the midst of volcanic ash travel chaos:

Meanwhile, Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's Prime Minister, was revealing to a group of journalists this week that he was always carrying a pocketknife and a shoehorn. He even showed them live on TV:

Presidential Change

Today's headline of a Turkish newspaper, Birgun, is an interesting reminder. The story reports that Erdogan was strongly opposing the introduction of a presidential system in 1993. During a meeting of Refah Party, he uttered the following words:

"We need to respect the popular will, if our people demand a totalitarian regime. However, the emergence of the idea about a presidential system is just a pretension, an offer of the American imperialism."

That's the change we can believe in, you know.

Erdogan as the President of Turkey

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has opened a debate about switching to a presidential system in Turkey, instead of the current parliamentary republic.

Considering the fact that we already have a presidential system in disguise, why did Erdogan propose it right now?

Here are my observations:

1) Erdogan had always wanted to be the President of Turkey, even in the current parliamentary system. After huge public pressure, he couldn't do it and Abdullah Gul got through. It was a bitter regret for Erdogan.

2) Erdogan has already announced that he won't run for a parliamentary seat after the next elections. Now he tries to find a way to keep pulling the strings.

3) AKP has already dominated all sections of the Turkish state, but only after the water fills the tanker, the pressure starts to increase. Some cracks appear inside the AKP. Erdogan wanted to consolidate his power through a stronger presidency.

And the possible result?

Long live, Sultan Erdogan I!

A Cruel Question?

Does Eyjafjallajökull keep terrorizing the European airspace just to keep world leaders away from the funeral of Poland President Lech Kaczynski, because he had actually never deserved the greatest farewell ceremony of the history?

Apart from the poetic justice, the presence of a few dozen VIPs are not so important, as there will be around a million Poles in the funeral today to ensure that the soul of their populist president rests in peace, whether he was a perfect statesman or not...

The Difference Between Persian and Anatolian Mentality

Saadi of Shiraz: "Don't fly to the love, because your wings may burn."

Rumi of Konya: "What will you do with your wings, if you won't fly to the love?"

Yunus Emre: "Why should you care for your wings after you reach your love?"

Who Should Britain Vote For

Following the children bikini scandal, David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party and the favorite PM candidate of the upcoming elections in Britain, told BBC television he was "delighted" by the product withdrawal.

"Parents want to protect their children from the early commercialisation and sexualisation that can take place in our society and businesses have got to think of their responsibilities," he said.

So, according to Cameron, the early commercialisation and sexualisation in our society is bad. In fact, it's a matter of timing. Before picking the fruit, wild capitalism should always wait until it's ripe...

Vote for Cameron.

We can go on like this.

Afro-Turks Love Obama

While I'm writing this post, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meeting Barack Obama.

Erdogan is not the only person who carries a message from Turkey to the President of the United States of America.

The members of Anatolia Africans Solidarity Association have sent a sincere message to Obama, carrying placards which read "Afro-Turks Love You So Much."

Afro-Turks?

I didn't know that there was such an expression for our good old black minority in Turkey, but I definitely loved this term, which was apparently coined in the early noughties..

Do you remember the railroad station without trains? There you can find about the historical roots of at least some of these Afro-Turks whose forefathers lived in Sudan, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula...

And you should also know that the history of Afro-Turks is much more different than the traumatic history of Afro-Americans. Most of the the ancestors of Afro-Turks were not slaves. They had come to Turkey more than a hundred years ago as immigrant laborers. There has never been any negative policy against them, neither violence nor segregation. They didn't experience discrimination, especially in small, conservative towns and villages. Moreover, you always see them portrayed as goodhearted, favorable characters in Turkish literature and in Turkish cinema.

However, you can't see many Afro-Turks around anymore (around 5.000 in Anatolia), probably because they're ethnically assimilated in a much bigger white population, as interracial marriages are totally tolerated in the Turkish society.

Maybe their number in ethnic terms is not so great now; but in our cultural fabric, in our social blood, we have got something from them.

And aren't we all Afro-Turks anyway?..

In a chaotic society that we're estranged, more or less exploited for our labor, losing our individual identity in a huge crowd of uniformity that keeps electing an alienating, polarizing government...

Definitely, we're all Afro-Turks...

Will Erdogan Ever Challenge Obama?

Agence France Press has just published an interesting analysis of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's foreign policy. One quotation in the piece was even more interesting.

In the article, titled "Belligerent on all fronts, Turkish PM raises misgivings", Burak Akinci quotes Deniz Zeyrek, a foreign policy analyst at the liberal daily Radikal.

"Each time Washington has a disagreement with Israel -- like last time over the issue of settlements -- Erdogan rushes to criticise Israel," Zeyrek observes.

This observation is something that I've been suggesting on my Turkish column for more than a year and I believe that it is something that one should watch in Turkey's foreign policy. The analysis of the angle between Barack Obama and Tayyip Erdogan, who will meet in Washington tomorrow, is the key to look awry with success.

Is Erdogan simply a pariah of the US Administration? Or is he just another Turkish leader who is completely pragmatic in foreign policy, like Atatürk and Inönü, trying to gain a balanced advantage when national interests of other countries conflict?

What's the correct angle to look, if you want to see the real picture?

Erdogan Thinks It Might Be Sabotage

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, regarding the plane crash which killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, said, "We hope it is an accident. I would like to express my condolences."

Although his words were largely ignored by the international media, Erdogan was the only world leader who referred to a conspiracy theory about this tragic incident. Such a theory is almost completely refuted in 24 hours, following the preliminary results of the investigation which already assured even the most hardcore Polish nationalist that it was indeed an accident.

But why did Erdogan utter these words right after the incident? Considering the fact that he is quite pro-Russian -as can be understood from the rest of his words, which continue with positive remarks about Moscow-, why did he need to voice his doubts anyway?

If you ask me, the answer is clear: Erdogan is a Turk, like me. Conspiracy theories -and conspiracies- are not just a part of his discourse. They are a part of his socio-psychological DNA.

A couple of weeks ago, I've met Claire Berlinski. She is probably the first non-Turk who cleverly discovered and brilliantly exposed our emerging cultural code of conspiracies and lies. Claire knows the question, but -like me- she still tries to find the answer:

What is the social function of this new cultural phenomenon in Turkey? Why do we tend to create and believe in conspiracy theories more and more everyday? Why do we waste our socio-political energy which should actually be invested in the real agenda?

Erdogan's Crucial Visit

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will leave for Washington tomorrow.

The talks that he will conduct on the sidelines of the nuclear security summit will be crucial. Erdogan will meet US President Barack Obama and he will be forced to make key decisions about various international issues, including Iran and Armenia.

Domestically, Erdogan has been in power since 2002, but I believe that the upcoming Washington visit will be the first international test that he won't be able to dodge the bullet. Whatever decision he will take, I believe that it will be decisive about the future of his party, his country and even the whole world.

I recommend you to watch this visit closely.

A Provocative Illusion

When I was going through the Associated Press photographs today, I stumbled upon an image. At first, I thought that it belonged to the Kaaba, under construction; but then I realized that it was actually a photo of the latest development of Ground Zero with a missing Kaaba at the center.

I condemn my own mind for this mistakable illusion that may offend both Muslims and Americans, but isn't New York still the global economic Mecca of the world anyway?

The Quote of the Week

After it is revealed that a bunch of trigger-happy American soldiers murdered those Iraqi journalists in cold blood...

"One has only to read through a few of the official briefings and descriptions that were given of Operation Igloo White to see that the image being pushed is that of a clean, efficient machine functioning like a large, electronic chess set. Such nasty considerations as pain, civilian casualties, blood and death (foreign or American) were deleted." --Paul Dickinson, The Electronic Battlefield, 1976

The Cigarette Nazi

A few days after I wrote about Tayyip Erdogan and Angela Merkel as cigarettes, we witnessed another tragicomedy in Turkey.

Erdogan and Merkel was in Ciragan Palace on Wednesday. After the meeting, two young women approached the leaders to take a photo. Erdogan noticed the cigarette in the hand of one of the women. He asked her to give him that cigarette. She did. Then, under the horrified gaze of Chancellor Merkel, Erdogan broke the cigarette to pieces and gave it back.

I don't smoke and I support the smoke-free public places campaign in Turkey, which was one of the few good initiatives that Erdogan has ever created. However, I can also see that his cigarette-breaking represents something deeper than that. In that cigarette, in that forceful hand and in the surprised eyes of Merkel, there is something that we should all be afraid of.

Why?

Because we know that 'totalitarianism is a form of government in which all societal resources are monopolized by the state -or one leader- in an effort to penetrate and control all aspects of public and private life...'

In this respect, I reiterate that I don't smoke, but I'd still like to echo the words that I had read in a humour magazine a few months ago:

"Mr. Prime Minister, don't touch my cigarette!"

PS: For those who may not know that show, the headline is a reference to the Soup Nazi.