Erdoğan, the Best Spin Doctor Ever?

Three days ago, Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan underwent a medical operation.

We, as the Turkish media, learned about it only yesterday.

And today, it is reported that the surgery was actually a serious one, as a part of Erdoğan's colon was removed with laparoscopy.

So...

We are getting updated about the health conditions of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez regularly, but not Erdoğan's.

Why?

Well, first of all, there are a lot of good journalists who are still arrested! I had written about Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık before. As he will complete 1000 days behind prison bars tomorrow, I should also mention Mustafa Balbay, who was recently elected as an MP for main opposition CHP. Ergün Poyraz, an author whom I can't describe as a journalist because of his very shoddy work, was arrested in July 2007 and still imprisoned without conviction!

Secondly, Erdoğan is one of the greatest politicians in recent history.

Yes, I really believe that he is better in shaping the public opinion than the modern masters like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, because he doesn't use a spin doctor. He is one of the best himself!

* * *

Erdoğan may not have announced the medical procedure three days ago, because changing the news agenda wouldn't be in his favor then. He had just started to stage "the Dersim apology" spectacle and it was going just as he planned.

For those who may not know, a decentralizing, feudal rebellion by some Alevi Kurdish tribes was suppressed by the Turkish government near Dersim in 1930s. Tens of thousands of Alevi Kurds were killed and thousands more forced into exile. The young Republic considered the rebellion as a deadly counter-revolutionary movement and crushed it violently. It was the interwar period when fascism was on the rise in the world, so the international public remained mostly silent.

Although I certainly believe that the Dersim massacre was an ethnocide that Turkey should have officially apologized long time ago, I'm also not fool enough to fall for Erdoğan's trick here.

Firstly, it is remarkable that Erdoğan has suddenly raised the issue. He came out of nowhere to put the blame on the CHP, even though the predecessors of Erdoğan's party (like Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes) were also in charge of state affairs during the one party rule of the Dersim decade.

This is why today's main opposition CHP, which is a lot different than 1930s ruling CHP, has just called on the government to release all documents from state archives that relate to the Dersim tragedy, a move that Erdoğan's government rejected in 2002.

When CHP, which is being led by an Alevi Kurd (Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu) now, began its counter-attack about Dersim, Erdoğan announced the medical operation, assuring that he was fine and just discharged from the hospital!

* * *

All in all, Erdoğan's apology is empty words, but it doesn't mean that it is not functional. The greatest magicians divert the attention of the audience to do the trick. Erdoğan keeps doing it all the time. If he suddenly raises an issue, one should look elsewhere.

Let's remember:

When Erdoğan announced that Turkish warships may start to escort Gaza flotillas, the Turkish government had silently accepted the NATO demand to establish a radar base in eastern Turkey. When the public was busy talking about Erdoğan's latest blow against Israel, the Israeli government was actually happy to have a NATO radar against Iran.

When Erdoğan slammed Germany to help the PKK, it was recently revealed that his government was carrying out secret negotiations with the terrorists. Turks are emotional and proud, especially when it comes to foreign intervention in life-and-death situations like the PKK terrorism, so almost everybody forgot about the negotiations and criticized Germany.

Erdoğan's Dersim apology should also be considered as one of his masterful political tactics. It was just a cheap cloak to hide the potentially unpopular bill which would allow certain young men to buy their way out of military service. For Erdoğan's low-income voter base, the latest bill could be considered unpatriotic. At the same time, the revenue that would be created with the bill could help the government to finance a significant portion of the huge budget deficit. This is why Erdoğan, who was talking bitterly in a nationalist tone against such bills just a year ago, did the trick again.

Tens of thousands of people who can pay 12,000 euro to legally dodge the draft still care about the upcoming bill, of course. However, the vast majority of the public is talking about Dersim now. And when Erdoğan will start using the additional income from the legal draft-dodgers to finance his new populist policies before the upcoming local elections, the same low-income voting base will surely be delighted.

Some international observers who may now naively presume that Turkey is beginning to face the dark chapters in its history should be ready to be disappointed, because Erdoğan's apology is not the beginning of anything but more of classical AKP politics.

* * *

So, Erdoğan sees that he was once again successful in reshaping the public opinion, reaching both of his goals of undermining the main opposition and changing the news agenda without losing anything. Then why should he have diverted the ongoing public debate when it was still in favor of him, because he just had a medical operation? Such news can wait...

After all, whenever we need it, our prime minister is giving us all the information himself, isn't he?

And why should we need journalists, anyway? To point out to such spins?

Nonsense.

Jail them all.

Hail to the spin doctor.

Assad is Almost Gone, But What About King Abdullah?

In an unprecedented move against a fellow Arab nation, the Arab League approved economic sanctions on Syria to pressure Damascus to end its deadly suppression of an 8-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad. Turkey will follow the Arab League and announce its own sanctions tomorrow.

Even some leading opposition figures in Syria tend to underestimate the possible effects of the latest sanctions, calling them a "symbolic" step. I disagree with this conclusion. As Syrian economy is already struggling, if it would be further hit by similar steps from Turkey, I think that it would soon collapse (I'd even suggest the Arab League can even topple the Turkish government if it takes the same steps against Ankara today, considering the fact that the Turkish economy is at the mercy of the Gulf capital now).

The latest sanctions may mean that Assad's ouster can be realized without any military intervention by other states, which is good not only for the Syrian democrats, but the whole region, as well as Turkey. Although I despise the neo-interventionist tactics for regime change, I believe that the Arab League did the right thing at the right time.

So... if we're getting rid of a dictator like Assad, maybe it's time for the Arab League to move on even further:

Why don't we get rid of other oppressive, Middle-Ages-minded regimes like the one in Saudi Arabia?

Oh, of course, as the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has been propagating during recent days, the Saudi king and princes are "wise men", right? This should be why the United States opts for a quite diplomacy to drive the Saudi government towards the right way, while it is using a bit more "noisy" diplomacy for the Syrian government.

But what about when the Saudi royalty runs out of oil and money, key assets that Syria lacks, that make them shopaholics for American weapons?

Will King Abdullah be better off than Assad in the scales of history?

And will the writings of opinion leaders like Ignatius be erased from our memories then?

Will we also forget who were walking hand in hand just a short while ago?

All Turkish Coffee Addicts in London, Unite!

Following my defense of Turkish coffee against Steve Jobs, I'm happy to learn that a Turkish coffee franchise has opened its first store abroad.

Kahve Dünyası (The Coffee World), has announced that it will serve a cup of Turkish coffee to each customer for free until New Year Day in its new store in London.

The same franchise owns a store in our office building, too, although I don't have time to visit it frequently. Neither they pay me for this blog post, even a free cup of coffee (doh!)...

All in all, I'm happy to promote Turkish coffee here, although I'm a bit perplexed at the same time.

Will franchising Turkish coffee be good for the future of this local taste or is the globalization of such products inevitably cause their standardization and even corruption?

You gotta taste the Turkish coffee in London to decide...

And don't forget: In the long run, we are all standardized.

Imprisoning Journalists In Christmas Turkey

I first met Nedim Şener when he accepted the International Press Institute's (IPI) World Press Freedom Hero award last year in Vienna City Hall.

While I was still doing my obligatory military service in Cyprus on March, Şener was being arrested at his home in Istanbul.

With the first opportunity after I was back in Istanbul, I visited him at the Silivri Prison. Kadri Gürsel, a Milliyet columnist and another board member of the IPI's Turkish division, has written about this visit recently. Şener is accused of involvement in a plot to topple the government, but we had full confidence in him. In the end, the indictment also showed that he was on trial just because of his journalism which angered many power-holders.

I met Şener today, once again, this time in Istanbul's 16th High Criminal Court at the largest courthouse of Europe. After 265 days of detention, having lost almost 30 kilograms (66 pounds) -mostly not because of the bad treatment in prison, but psychological stress- this was the first time he faced a judge.

Meanwhile, the judges were facing an army of journalists: Not only the ones that they start to put on trial, but also the ones who came here to support their colleagues. There were scores of journalists in and -because of the limited space- outside of the courtroom. There were also lots of foreign observers and colleagues.

I watched the first trial with two MEPs by my side: Sajjad Karim, the first British Muslim elected to the European Parliament, and Barbara Matera from Italy. They were here as an ad hoc EP committee specially formed for this trial. The photo is badly blurred, but I still wrote a story for tomorrow's Hürriyet:

While chatting during a break, Mr. Karim reminded me that Turkey's President Abdullah Gül was being hosted by Queen Elizabeth II today. When speaking to Ms. Matera later on, I pointed out to the irony in the fact that these two MEPs were belonged to the Conservatives, like the AKP government which many criticized because of this trial nowadays.

When I visited the European Parliament in Brussels in 2009, I wanted to meet two MEPs for a couple of interviews: Ms. Matera and Christian Engström. I was lucky enough to find Mr. Engström in his office, but Ms. Matera was abroad then. After two years, I didn't go to Ms. Matera this time, but she arrived in the chair next to mine.

Journalist luck?

Not exactly. Neither Mr. Karim nor Ms. Matera was authorized to speak about the essentials of the case. They were just following it to prepare a report for the European Parliament. So I couldn't hear their opinion in full.

However, I liked Ms. Matera's assertiveness, especially when she was outraged as she realized that her adviser was left outside by the police, because the courtroom was already full. "Is this democratic? Is this legal?" I heard her shouting angrily.

"Welcome to Turkey, Ms. Matera" I whispered myself. I hope that they realized before writing their reports that we have been a multi-party democracy since 1950s, but we are neither the United States, nor North Korea. For decades, it was the military that threatened the democratization. Now, it is the civilian government, which kept hiding its fatally anti-democratic practices with seemingly democratic, but actually populist policies.

In this country, we jail scores of journalists, but treat them with the EU standards in our prisons.

We let anyone, whether a citizen or a foreigner, in our modern courtrooms, but the organization seems rather chaotic or even dictatorial sometimes.

We are a semi-democracy or a semi-autocracy.

What concerns us more is the trend: We're going towards a full-scale autocracy, if not a dictatorship, with the increasing number of trials like the one that we participated in today.

The result of today's session?

Some of the defendants petitioned for a recusation, refusing the chief judge who was photographed in the past at an iftar dinner with the police officials who helped in writing the indictment. The prosecutor who wrote the indictment was also photographed at the same dinner.

The defendants insisted that the chief judge must retreat himself as it was clear that he couldn't try the cause, on account of his supposed partiality. In any democracy with a sound legal system, a judge retreats himself after such an accusation, even if he is really not linked to the police or the prosecution anyway. As this is Turkey, the judge refused to retreat and forwarded the recusation to a higher court.

It means that Nedim Şener and other journalists, including other prominent ones like Ahmet Şık, will remain behind prison bars at least for another month without trial. We may expect that the attention of the media and foreign observers will diminish then, which may also mean that the imprisoned journalists will be tried by the same judges next year.

When I was leaving the courtroom, Ms. Matera was speaking to a defense attorney in shock. "The next trial will be held on December 26th. It's the day after Christmas! How will the Western observers and journalists visit Turkey again on that day?! Could they choose the date with ill intentions?" she asked.

"No, I'm sure nobody thought about the Christmas," the attorney assured her, "This is Turkey."

US Media Beat the Drums of War, Again

For a journalist, it is really disturbing to follow the mainstream U.S. media nowadays. You shouldn't do it without questioning the motives.

The followers of this blog would know that I dislike the Iranian regime. However, reading these exclusive reports from the Washington Post and the Associated Press is still disturbing.

The Washington Post wants us to believe that the Obama administration has found the Iranian WMDs in Libya! If they keep searching, I'm sure that they can find Saddam Hussein's WMDs in Libya, too. Of course, if they'd like to white-wash Bush's occupation of Iraq...

Meanwhile, the Associated Press defends that there is a suspicious activity at an Iranian site that Western spy agencies suspected of secret work on nuclear weapons. Suspiciously, American officials is now suspecting that Tehran is trying to cover its tracks by removing any evidence of nuclear research and development, so international inspectors may not find anything there if they're allowed to visit the site soon!

It seems that these two media outlets have become the Pravda of the military-industrial complex of the corporate America...

Guys, you may be profiting from war-mongering, but I wouldn't do what you're doing now even if they give me billions of dollars.

Simply, you are a shame for journalism.

...Maybe I have become more of a peace activist, after finishing my obligatory military service recently...

Schengen Macht Frei

I was in Israel for some interviews and now I am back.

Kader Sevinç, CHP's representative for the European Union, drew my attention to a song by Sarp Yeletaysi.

The main message of this protest song is: “Schengen is the name of the discriminatory and ill-designed visa regime of the European Union."

Indeed, when it's applied against Turks, Schengen visa regime is the perfect example how the EU leaders apply enslavement and discrimination while they suggest that they are for emancipation and equality.

Thanks to such democratic activism of young Turks like Sarp, I believe that the EU will be forced to end the current travesty soon.

Please listen to Sarp's song here and check the lyrics:

One – The applicant must submit documents in person

Two – The documents should be presented in this order – Jawohl Führer

Three – 2 Biometric passport-sized pictures newly taken

Four – Passport not more than – 10 years old – and valid for – at least – at least 6 months

Five – One x Schengen visa application form

Six – Copy of – hotel – reservation

Seven – Details of your flight itenary

Eight – Make sure to bring your civil registry

Nine – Travel Health Insurance

Ten – Birth certificate or national identity card

Elf – Employment Verification

Twelfe – Verification of time off during length of stay….stay…stay…stay…stay…stay…stay…

CHORUS

Schengen macht frei

If you don’t die

In the embassy

From frustration

Schengen macht frei

Grenzen aus Stahl

21st century

Democracy

Thirteen – List of authorized signatories –

Fourteen – Tax Registration Certificate of employer

Fifteen – Chamber of Commerce Registration not older than 6 months

Sixteen – Proof of income, recent payroll

Seventeen – Bank Statements – House deeds – Rental Contract – Title of Property

Eighteen – And Finally – Pay the processing fee – 60 Euros which is non – non-refundable

Wait-wait-wait-wait-in line-in line-just to get in-get in-to Clastrofobize

Cold faces-faces-behind the thick glass-thick glass-take your papers-papers-like you are a convict in their eyes

Questions-stupid questions-You’ll have to answer-answer-You ‘re a refugee-Alien-Illegal Immigrant

Approved or denied you wished you never applied-to go through this hell-in the name of Schengen Macht Frei

CHORUS

GUITAR SOLO

CHORUS

OUTRO (Instrumental)

When It's Heartbreaking to be Proven Right

I'm not a cock of the walk. In fact, I don't like to boast, saying that I was proven right, especially when the results are so heartbreaking.

But there is such a pattern here recently, considering the previous assessments in this blog and the latest developments in Turkey and the world.

So I can't stop myself to remind:

ANTI-TURKISH TERROR IS GERMANY'S PROBLEM

* Since 2008, I have been warning that the deadly attacks against Turks in Germany pointed out a new trend in far-right violence. When I criticized the German politicians who tried to cover-up the racist crimes, several commentators accused me of over-reacting and even sensalionalism. However, it is revealed this week that a Neo-Nazi terror organizations killed eight Turks in seven years and I was proven right. Even Angela Merkel has admitted the "new" problem today.

BDP IS THE POLITICAL WING OF PKK

* Since its foundation in 2008, I've been suggesting that BDP, the Kurdish-led political party, cannot be a part of the solution, as it failed to break its connections to PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the U.S. A PKK militant armed with a bomb hijacked a Turkish ferry with more than 20 passengers this weekend and Turkish commandos killed him after a successful operation. Sebahat Tuncel (below), a BDP parliamentarian, participated in the funeral of the PKK militant today and criticized the Turkish security officials to shot him dead, as if the the of such a terrorist would be different in -let's say- the U.S. or France or Russia. Doesn't her irrational sympathy show me that I was right about BDP?

AKP IS PRIVITIZING THE DISASTERS, TOO

* Since 2006 when I started this blog, I've been critizing the AKP government in Turkey, which I defined as a neoliberal Islamist force. I lashed out at its neoliberal practices, more frequently than the Islamist ones. The latest earthquake in Van and its aftermath proved my case: 40 people, including two of my colleagues, died during an aftershock, because they were staying inside damaged buildings as AKP's governor had told that they were safe. Meanwhile, pro-government construction companies were already out in the field to redevelop the disaster area with luscious profits. So we learned why AKP doesn't prepare for the looming earthquake in Istanbul: Because they privatized the disasters, too! They may even be longing for the opportunity to rebuild the whole city as they wish -by the hand of their own companies!

ERGENEKON IS CREATING A NEW DEEP STATE FOR AUTOCRACY

* Since 2008, I've been writing that the Ergenekon case was once a promising investigation which may help to democratize the country, but it ended up as a weapon of the government with increasingly autocratic tendencies to keep a tight rein on the political opposition and the free media, as well as to create its own deep state. When they arrested Nedim Şener, a Press Freedom Hero, I was already proven right on the first point. Then, National Intelligence Organization (MIT) official Kaşif Kozinoğlu (below), who was arrested in March and scheduled to appear before court on Nov. 22, died after an "heart attack" in prison last night, proving my second point. The prison officials didn't send him to a hospital until a full hour passed! But what would this "dark" agent, who was in charge of overseas intelligence operations and in conflict with the new MIT chief Hakan Fidan, tell the court?

I sincerely wish that I was wrong on all of my analyses and conclusions, but unfortunately it sems that I was not.

What Else Are You Hiding From Us, Associated Press?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a liar" in a private conversation with U.S. President Obama.

If there were no Internet, we wouldn't know about it, though.

The French website Arret sur Images reported the story, which was eventually confirmed by various sources.

We also learned that "several French-speaking journalists, including one from The Associated Press, overheard the comments but did not initially report them because Sarkozy's office had asked the journalists not to turn on the headsets until the press conference began, and the comments were deemed private under French media traditions."

Can you believe this?

What kind of journalists are these?

Do they really think that they have the right as "information gatekeepers" to censor news stories as such?

And what did they hide from us in the past?

This is the way that governments shape the public opinion: By accrediting the "journalists" who would care for their "traditions."

This is the way that they manufacture consent.

And it is great to know that it is slowly ending as we're moving into the New Media Age where journalism is coming back at the service of the people, instead of certain circles and "traditions," thanks to the Internet.

Raping a Juvenile vs. Raping Journalism

Turkey debates a court ruling about a rape case.

A Turkish appeals court reduced prison sentences for 26 men convicted of having sex with a 13-year-old girl, because the victim had given "consent".

I admit that those men deserve a harsher sentence and the case underlines some problems in Turkish law, but I don't agree with the public stance of the AKP government (again).

Murat Yetkin, the editor in chief of Hürriyet Daily News, has explained yesterday that the Turkish Penal Code was changed in 2004 as part of EU harmonization reforms. Under the new Turkish Penal Code’s article 103, the same man could be sentenced to at least 22.5 years each. However, the crime was committed before the reform, so the old law was used in accordance with a universal principal in law. This is what the difference would have been if the poor girl had been raped after the EU reforms.

So, the current laws are already modernized; it was the timing of the crime which was horribly unfortunate for the victim. Then why do AKP officials keep emphasizing that the case shows why they need to reform the judiciary urgently?

It seems that the administration, both President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, is using the case as an opportunity to further enthrall the judiciary to the executive power. (It is kind of ironic that AKP has been in power since 2002. And already, the judiciary is almost totally dominated by the executive branch of the government, which is in violation with separation of powers.)

If AKP is really sincere about a judiciary reform, then it should start by reforming laws that have not been reformed recently, even after pressure by the EU.

Example?

The laws that restrict freedom of speech, putting scores of journalists behind bars, including IPI's World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Şener...

AKP may be silent about these laws, as these laws are being used by the police and some prosecutors to suppress critical voices.

Simply, you can violate juveniles or journalists and get away with it in today's Turkey.

Sinan the Architect, According to Lorick

Two Turkish scholars discovered the second depiction of Sinan, the greatest Ottoman architect, Atlas magazine reported in its latest issue. I scanned the drawing on the magazine page, as shown above (you can click to picture to enlarge).

It was not known in the past that the old man with a turban in the panoramic Istanbul drawing of Melchior Lorck was actually Sinan. Lorck had visited Istanbul in the 16th century and completed his Galata and Pera panorama in 1559. The work was not published until early 1900s. Now it is in Leiden University.

Turkish scholars believe that the old man is Sinan, because his hands were drawn disproportionally big. It is a feature used by the artists of the time to highlight important persons in the paintings.

Moreover, a closer look revealed that there was a compass, hanging down the turban of the old man. We know that Sinan used the compass as a metaphor for his life and works in his diaries. We also know that it was possible for artisans to carry a compass as their trademark in their turbans only by the permission of the Sultan.

Overall, the evidence is convincing and this should be Sinan, according to Lorick, in 1559.

Turkish Minister Broke the Internets!

Turkey's Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım, whose ministerial responsibilities the Internet infrastructure, too, spoke about the Internets at a recent conference...

...and hilarity ensued.

He said:

"They have something that they call cloud computing, whatsoever. Now... Everybody puts something there... Then... Somebody takes something, if he needs it, whatever. That's how I understand this system. It may be something different, though. It seems that it is not something systematic. It is all hustle and bustle. Then anybody can take what he needs. This is information technology. If you think too much about it, you may go crazy. You should use it, take advantage of it, but don't think too much about it. Otherwise, you're in trouble. You shouldn't question its reason."

Here is the video of this "mystic" speech:

I was aware that Turkey was not being governed by tech-savvy politicians and bureaucrats.

However, I should admit that I was still not expecting that we were in such a deep trouble about it.

Maybe some of them will look into computer classes.

Yildirim's words perfectly shows why we failed in recent centuries: Because our culture transformed in a way to condemn or at least worry about innovation.

You can easily fight this mentality when only individuals are the problem. However, the situation is worse in Turkey, as the long-term presence of such individuals as influential policy-makers made it a systemic problem in politics and state institutions as well.

Take another example:

SGK, Turkey's state institution for social security, has recently announced that its online system would be stopped on October 30th for a full hour at midnight.

Why?

Because they completely turned off their computer servers to set the system clock back to adjust to the summertime switch!