Category: Culture/Art

THE WORLD HAS LOST A TITAN: PROF. TALAT SAIT HALMAN

A TRIBUTE BY THE LIGHT MILLENNIUM TO PROFESSOR TALAT SAIT HALMAN
(7 July 1931 – 5 December 2014):

A TRUE GLOBAL MONUMENT FOR THE CULTURE OF PEACE –
THE WORLD HAS LOST A TITAN: PROF. TALAT SAIT HALMAN

Professor Talat Sait Halman with Defne Halman, presenting Rumi event
at New York Turkish Center in 2004.

“For those who truly love God and his ways
All the people of the world are brothers.
We regard no one’s religion as contrary to ours,
True love is born when all faiths are united as a whole.
True faith is in the head, not in the headgear.”

Professor Talat Sait Halman was considered a true global monument for the culture of peace that when he past away on December 5, 2014; the world lost a titan. Despite our sadness, we would like to celebrate his remarkable life with a tribute to Prof. Talat Halman.

Prof. Halman* was the principal scholar and translator of Yunus Emre’s (Yunus Emre was a 13th century Turkish poet and Sufi mystic – 1241-1320 /or 1321) work. He published the first English language book on Yunus Emre, “The Humanist Poetry of Yunus Emre,” in 1971. This work was followed by “Yunus Emre and His Mystical Poetry,” in 1981, and ” Yunus Emre: Selected Poems,” in 1990. In Turkey, he published a critical book on Yunus Emre in 2003. Prof. Halman published over 100 books and hundreds of articles in Turkish and English and gave hundreds of lectures in the United States, Turkey, and many other countries. Prof. Talat Halman served as the first Minister of Culture of the Turkish Republic as well as the Ambassador for Cultural Affairs and Turkey’s Deputy Permanent Representative at the United Nations in New York (1980-1982). Further, Prof. Halman was an elected Member of UNESCO’s Executive Board (1991 – 1995). Until his departure, Prof. Halman was President of the UNICEF Turkish National Committee. For decades, he was on the faculty of Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Penn and New York University. Since 1998, he had served as the Chairman of the Department of Turkish Literature at Bilkent; a private university in Turkey. Honors include Columbia University’s “Thornton Wilder Prize” for lifetime achievement as translator, an honorary doctorate from the Bosphorus University, a Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities, the UNESCO Medal, and “Knight Grand Cross, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire”.

One of the best things that has ever happened to The Light Millennium (LM) during its 15 years of online presence (as well as its presence as a public benefit organization) was being able to present three, open to the public, events featuring Prof. Halman. Each event became a significant landmark for the organization. Following The LM’s very first and highly successful event with Prof. Halman at the Turkish Center in 2004 in New York City titled, “Rumi: Soaring to Ecstasy,” the organization received several requests to turn it into a U.S. Tour. At about the same time, a few other requests were received from India and other parts of the world and although there were potential collaborators, the availability and travel schedule conflicted with that of Prof. Halman’s. Therefore, we had to focus on Prof. Halman’s availability whenever he visited New York to which he was always open and ready to provide us with his knowledge, wisdom and vision. The LM believes that the event on Rumi in 2004 led the way for the 2007 International Rumi Year, which was declared by UNESCO and is celebrated internationally. Based on that event, The LMTV produced a program in 2007 celebrating Rumi’s 800th birthday, which also led to the public event “Two Universal Men: Rumi & Clarke’s” at CUNY-GC on December 5, 2007. There is an interesting connection with our last event to Rumi along with Arthur C. Clarke’s 90th birthday, which interestingly coincides with the departure date to that of Prof. Halman, from our world. This huge loss alone has already inspired The LM to possibly dedicate an event in the near future to FOUR UNIVERSAL MEN: RUMI, EMRE, CLARKE, and HALMAN!

Prof. Halman presented his “Atatürk: In His Words”
at the New York Turkish Center, 2010.

In 2011, Prof. Halman’s eleven books were published right around his 80th birthday. We were communicating at one point in hope that we could organize an event to launch his translation from the contemporary Turkish poetry in English, which titled “A Brave New World” in New York! Further, he had already promised to speak about, at the next conference on “Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) & Ataturk.” Although we have missed that opportunity forever, Prof. Halman was generous enough to share his book’s e-version with the organization titled “Atatürk Alive: In his Words,” which has become a historical source for the organization.

Now, let us imagine Prof. Halman citing the below stanza:

“When love arrives, all needs and flaws are gone –
I love you beyond the depths of my soul –
I was born with divine love –
Death is for beasts, it is not the Lover’s destiny –
I love you, so the hand of death can never touch me.”

– Yunus Emre: Contemporary of Rumi (2008)
For each public event of the LM with Prof. Halman, the organization did in collaborated with three different institutions for each time such as New York Turkish Center (2004), Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT) and Columbia University, New York (2008).

In that regard, in 2005, the organization had collaborated with Professor Edward Foster, College of Arts and Letters at SIT in Hoboken, New Jersey, who had then already knew Prof. Halman very well for a long-period of time. Prof. Foster; who is also a publisher and editor of the Talisman and both Prof. Halman’s and the LM’s long-term collaborator and friend as well as an Advisory Board Member, shared his sincere thoughts on Prof. Halman with us. “Talat Halman showed that it was possible to be a gentleman, an intellectual, an educator, an administrator, a statesman, a friend, a translator, a historian, an editor, an essayist, a scholar, a poet, and, above all, a man of exceptional kindness whose great ambition and achievement was to serve others and to leave the world a better place than he had found it.”

Stephen Kinzer, the very first New York Times foreign correspondent for Turkey and Iran (1996-2000), Professor at Brown University – International Studies, and former Advisory Board member of the LM stated the following: “Talat Bey was a humanist deeply convinced that knowledge can make the human spirit soar. Bringing the best of world culture to Turkey, and bringing Turkish culture to the world, was the focus of his life. He was never aggressive, partisan, angry, or divisive. This was one of Turkey’s greatest global citizens. We have lost a titan. Turkey’s future depends on whether there are enough Turks with his wisdom and gentle passion.” In Prof. Kinzer’s words, “We have lost a titan” in which, the organization perceives the term “we” as a universal loss.

One of the organization’s former editor and supporters, Emily Alp, wrote in her article, titled “Yunus Emre: “The visit to a heart is best of all…” based on the “Yunus Emre: Contemporary of Rumi” event (2008) “The event put on by Light Millennium—in collaboration with Columbia University—served as an appropriate reminder that it is a human impulse to shut people out using religion but a divine aspiration to include them no matter what their faith or other differences may be. Indeed, Emre believed that spiritual perfection could be found when all religions combine.

Yunus Emre stood fast against fundamentalism and rigidity as practices in the Islamic faith and in general society; according to Halman. He promoted the idea of expansion beyond the self through love and service to others. He was indeed a mystic as well as a point of contrast for Europeans wallowing in the dark ages as well as over-zealous enforcers of the Islamic faith throughout his native land of Anatolia and beyond.

‘Pharisee, make the holy pilgrimage if need be a hundred times—but if you ask me, the visit to a heart is best of all,’ Halman quoted.”
Mujgan Hedges; Board Member and Treasurer of The Light Millennium wrote on Prof. Halman’s remarkable generosity to offer and share his knowledge, translation, time, expertise to whomever approached him from the Turkish-American community in the U.S:
“Prof. TALAT HALMAN was a great supporter; monetarily and emotionally to many Turkish American Associations. He was only a phone call away when his wisdom and advice was needed.
He was a unique person and a proud Turk. He will be missed by many. May his soul rest in peace.”

The following poems of Yunus Emre have been translated by Talat Halman. Last quatrain of poem reads:

“To you, what Yunus says is clear,
It is meaning is in your heart’s ear:
We should all live the good life here,
Because nobody will live on.”

For the concluding of this tribute, through Rumi, Prof. Halman’s says to all of us and the world “farewell,” in the following Rubaiyat:

“THIS IS THE NIGHT OF THE SEMA
WHEN WE WHIRL TO ECSTASY.
THERE IS LIGHT NOW,
THERE IS LIGHT, THERE IS LIGHT.
THIS IS TRUE LOVE
WHICH MEANS FAREWELL TO THE MIND.
THERE IS FAREWELL TODAY, FAREWELL.”

– Rumi: Soaring to Ecstasy** (2004)

_ . _

[*] Detailed biography of Talât Sait Halman:

Prof. Talat S. Halman presentations – selected media releases on the
Lightmillennium.Org:
[**] RUMI: SOARING TO ECSTASY – 2004
https://www.lightmillennium.org/2005_15th/thalman_rumi_p1.html
https://www.lightmillennium.org/2005_15th/thalman_rumi_p2.html

“YUNUS EMRE: TURKISH MEDIEVAL HUMANIST MYSTIC” – 2005
https://www.lightmillennium.org/2006_17th/thalman_yemre_p1.html
https://www.lightmillennium.org/2006_17th/thalman_yemre_pII.html
Presented by Prof. Halman
Media Release: http://www.lightmillennium.org/events/thalman_yemre_mr.html

YUNUS EMRE: CONTEMPORARY OF RUMI – 2008
Media Release: http://www.lightmillennium.org/events/yemre_mr_oct27_08.html
https://www.lightmillennium.org/21st_22nd/emilyalp_yunusemre.html

”Atatürk Alive: In his Words” E-book by Prof. Talat S. Halman
https://www.lightmillennium.org/ataturk/thalman_book_p1.pdf
https://www.lightmillennium.org/ataturk/thalman_book_p2.pdf

City of Cities: Byzantium – Constantinople – Istanbul – 2011:
https://www.lightmillennium.org/2011_25th/thalman_stevens_apr7_11.html.

December 13, 2014
Marmaduke Pickthall and the Glorious Quran

Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (1875–1936) is well-known as one of the translators of the Holy Quran into English and a British convert to Islam. He is regarded as an orthodox, mainstream, Sunni Muslim. When Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din established the Woking Muslim Mission in England in 1913, Marmaduke Pickthall was not yet a Muslim but had become attracted to Islam. He was already well-known as a scholar and novelist. He began to take part in the activities organized by the Woking Muslim Mission. His subsequent acceptance of Islam is described in a brief report written by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din for Paigham Sulh, the Urdu periodical of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore.

The Islamic Review of January 1918 contains a brief report of a meeting, at the “London Muslim House”, organised by the “Muslim Literary Society, on 29th November 1917. It informs us that Mr. Pickthall delivered a lecture there entitled Islam and Modernism. The report goes on to state:

“Opportunity was taken by the audience who crowded the lecture hall to give an ovation to Mr. Pickthall for his having declared openly a few days before his acceptance of the Faith of Islam.” (p. 3)

At the link provided, this issue of The Islamic Review is available online. The report is on pages 3 and 4. His speech is also published in this issue, and runs from page 5 to page 11 of the magazine.

the_holy_quran-marmaduke_pickthall

November 9, 2014
Why Turkey Wants Russell Crowe’s Ark

Why Turkey Wants Russell Crowe’s Ark

A small town in southeastern Turkey, which claims to be the resting place of Noah’s famous vessel, hopes a few timbers from the Hollywood blockbuster could draw tourists to the historically rich region.

ISTANBUL—Ravaged by decades of fighting between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish military, an impoverished region in remote southeastern Anatolia is hoping for a boost from Hollywood.

Authorities in Sirnak province say they want to bring the wooden structure representing the biblical ark in Russell Crowe’s recent movie Noah to Turkey and install it on the slopes of the local Mount Cudi to attract tourists. According to Islamic tradition, Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Cudi, and not on Mount Ararat on today’s border between Turkey and Armenia, about 160 miles to the north-east of Sirnak.

The plan raised hopes of lifting the region out of poverty, but suffered a potentially fatal setback this week as officials from Paramount, the maker of Noah, said the ark from the film had been taken apart after shooting was done. “I’m pretty sure it’s been disassembled,” said Ari Handel, who was a producer and co-writer of the movie.

Now Sirnak is hoping that Crowe’s ark will generate some income for the province of around 85,000 people, which sits on Turkey’s borders with Syria and Iraq.

Still, authorities in Sirnak said they were determined to go ahead with the project, even if it meant to import just a few wooden parts from the set. “We will do everything we can to make it happen despite this,” Osman Gelis, the head of Sirnak’s Chamber of Trade and Industry, told The Daily Beast on Saturday. “Maybe the government can do something.”

The plan by Sirnak is a sign of a growing confidence by people in Turkey’s Kurdish region that the bloody conflict between rebels and the army may finally come to an end. Since the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), seen as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms to fight for Kurdish self-rule in 1984, more than 40,000 people have died.

“This is very important for us, and we help where we can,” Gelis about the project. “It will be a big plus for our economy. He said he would try to go all the way to the top and get Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan involved. “We will tell him how big this is for us and for religious tourism. We can’t wait” to have the ark, he said.

Years of fighting cut off Turkey’s Kurdish region in the southeast of the country from the economic development in the rest of the country. Sirnak has a per capita income of around $2,600 a year, which makes it the poorest of all of Turkey’s 81 provinces. The countrywide average stands at roughly $11,000 a year.

Now Sirnak is hoping that Crowe’s ark will generate some income for the province of around 85,000 people, which sits on Turkey’s borders with Syria and Iraq. Locals believe that Noah was buried in the town of Cizre, which lies in the province. An image of the ark is the province’s official symbol.

A spokesman for Sirnak’s tourism and culture board confirmed the project was underway. “We just don’t know yet where to put the ark exactly,” said the spokesman, who identified himself by his first name Sabri. “But it will be somewhere on Mount Cudi. The aim is to attract tourists.”

Cihan Birlik, head of Sirnak’s Cultural, Tourism and Development Association, told Turkish media the Tourism Ministry in Ankara had promised to try and get the movie ark to Turkey.

Birlik said the idea was to create a national park on the slopes of Mount Cudi and put the Hollywood ark in the middle of it. A zoo, recalling Noah’s biblical mission to save animals from the flood, was also part of the project. “Thousands of tourists will flood into Sirnak and Cudi,” Birlik said.

In offering to provide a home for central pieces of a Hollywood set, Sirnak is following the example of the northwestern Turkish province of Canakkale, home to the ancient city of Troy. Following the 2004 movie Troy, starring Brad Pitt, Canakkale bought the Trojan Horse used in the film and put it in a public park.

In the Kurdish area, tourism offers a glimmer of hope in a region crippled by decades of violence. Thousands of villages in south-eastern Anatolia were destroyed as hundreds of thousands of people fled into Turkey’s big cities and to Europe to escape the fighting.

Hopes for peace rose when the Erdogan government decided in late 2012 to start negotiations with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on the prison island of Imrali near Istanbul. In the ongoing talks, Ocalan is asking for more regional autonomy for Kurdish provinces but is no longer seeking an independent Kurdish state separate from Turkey.

Ever since Ocalan ordered a cease-fire and a withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkey to bases in northern Iraq as a sign of goodwill in spring last year, the fighting has largely stopped, even though a final settlement to end the conflict once and for all remains elusive. This week, Turkish media reported a major breakthrough in Ocalan’s talks with Ankara’s representatives on Imrali, but the reports were denied by both the government and Turkey’s biggest pro-Kurdish party, the People’s Democracy Party (HDP).

Still, there is new optimism in the region. With stunning natural beauty and several important biblical and cultural sites, ranging from the birthplace of the prophet Abraham to spectacular Roman mosaics, the Kurdish provinces have started to attract tourists since the fighting died down. The number of visitors touring Turkey’s Kurdish region rose by 23 per cent last year to 1.5 million visitors, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

A modernization programme for the region’s infrastructure also helps. Since last year, Sirnak province has its own airport, which offers daily flights to and from the capital Ankara and Turkey’s metropolis Istanbul.

In another sign of a newly-found enthusiasm, Sirnak recently organised a bicycle tour around Mount Cudi—something unthinkable even a few years ago, as the mountain was a military no-go zone for three decades. Gelis, the head of the trade chamber in Sirnak, said the region had seen a slight increase in the number of visitors. “But with the ark, numbers will explode.”

– See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/11/why-turkey-wants-russell-crowe-s-ark.html#sthash.LF5TCMEB.dpuf

August 2, 2014
Therapia, Istanbul

Source : http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/data/Journals/AJP/930463/732.pdf

July 23, 2014
Turkey: Facing an Uncertain Prognosis on Healthcare

June 26, 2014 – 2:58pm, by Alexander Christie-Miller

A slowing economy and rising healthcare costs, coupled with a possible crackdown on physicians’ moonlighting, could reverse gains made by Turkey’s decade-long overhaul of its healthcare system.

Broadening access to high-standard healthcare has been lauded as a key achievement of the Justice-and-Development-Party (AKP) government since it came to power in 2002. In 2003, only 24 percent of Turks from the poorest 10 percent of society had health insurance, according to a survey of 25,290 households by the Turkish Statistical Institute. In 2011, that figure had risen to 85 percent of 3,551 households surveyed. Correspondingly, overall satisfaction levels with healthcare among queried households increased from 39.5 percent to 75.9 percent.

But now, economic trends are pointing to a rockier future. “There’s been a significant increase in healthcare expenditure at a rate well above the rate of GDP growth, and that can’t continue forever,” said Martin Raiser, World Bank country director for Turkey.

Healthcare expenditure increased by 11 percent per year between 2002 and 2011, according to Raiser. Over the same period, Turkey’s average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was around 5 percent. The World Bank recently reduced its growth-predictions for 2014 from 3.5 percent to a mere 2.4 percent. Economists widely predict lower growth rates over the coming years as well.

That slowdown likely could increase unease within the medical profession; some doctors claim a government effort to prevent state employees from moonlighting in privately owned medical facilities risks driving the best-qualified physicians out of the state sector.

In 2014, base monthly salaries for doctors and specialists working in state hospitals were 3,456 liras ($1,612) and 4,187 liras ($1,953), respectively, according to an announcement by the Ministry of Finance. (Performance related-bonuses can increase these amounts substantially).

Later this year, Turkey’s Supreme Court is expected to rule on an appeal by the government in a 2010 case, in which a lower court struck down an amendment to prevent doctors at university hospitals from working privately.

Macit Arvas, a gynecological oncologist at Cerrahpaşa, a prestigious university-affiliated medical facility in Istanbul, says he will quit the hospital where he has worked and taught for 34 years if the Supreme Court reverses the earlier annulment and upholds the law. “It would not be possible to go on working at the university hospital if they go through with this. The problem is making enough money,” Arvas, 61, told Eurasianet.org at the private doctor’s office where he works evenings, and as a specialist in a university hospital earns an above-average salary.

A similar moonlighting ban at non-university state hospitals has already driven many of the most experienced physicians to work full-time in the private sector, where salaries can be up to 10 times higher than those paid by the state, he added.

Ali Çerkezoğlu, head of the Istanbul Medical Association, agrees. “When the government brought in the restriction on working privately, they did not increase public sector pay,” Çerkezoğlu said.

“Many doctors escaped to private hospitals, especially successful and experienced doctors, and the result has been that the quality of care in the state hospitals has been decreasing.”

Currently, oncologist Arvas performs an average of one or two operations a day, mainly on cervical and uterine tumors.

“If people like me leave the university hospital, people without a lot of money will not be able to get proper healthcare—that’s the effect you’ll see,” he said. Government reforms have opened up university hospitals to citizens who could never have afforded them in the past.

Arvas also fears that an exodus of talent could drive down the quality of teaching, leading to a longer-term decline in professional standards.

In response to questions from EurasiaNet.org, a statement from the Ministry of Health asserted that the opposite was the case. It claimed that doctors’ part-time private work cut into their public and university commitments and, as a result, led to lower standards.

“This practice has negatively affected the education of assistants and the patient care services, and has opened the way to discontent in the service field,” the emailed statement read. “It becomes more difficult for doctors in their practices to focus on their job with the divided attention [caused by working privately].”

For now, both the government and Arvas are holding their breath for the Supreme Court ruling on moonlighting. The Health Ministry affirmed that the government will abide by the court’s decision.

Raiser, the World Bank director, who described Turkey’s healthcare advances of the past decade as “remarkable,” predicted the days of satisfied patients may be drawing to a close. Turkey will have to work harder to improve care in the future, he added. “Turkey will need to prepare for a situation in which the next generation will be assuming that healthcare access will be there and will increase their demands,” he said.

==================

“Originally published by EurasiaNet.org”. : .

June 28, 2014
H.R. 4347, Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act

A VICTORY OVER TURKEY AND CYPRUS BY

COMBINED GREEK-ARMENIAN LOBBY

WITH SUPPORT FROM PKK

To require the Secretary of State to provide an annual report to Congress regarding United States Government efforts to survey and secure the return, protection, and restoration of stolen, confiscated, or otherwise unreturned Christian properties in the Republic of Turkey and in those areas currently occupied by the Turkish military in northern CypruS

===========NEWS FROM HELLENIC SOURCES==========

Hellenic American Leadership Council
22 W. Washington St.
Suite 1500
Chicago, Illinois 60602
(312) 262-5902

Thursday, June 26, 2014 |

BREAKING NEWS: HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
“HAS THE BACK” OF CHRISTIAN MINORITIES IN TURKEY AND OCCUPIED CYPRUS
Turkish Caucus attempts to gut bill fail; Committee adopts
Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act

WASHINGTON, DC – The House Foreign Affairs Committee took a resounding stand in favor of religious freedom this morning, adding a new way to pressure Turkey to return thousands of stolen Christian holy sites.

Introduced by Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY), H.R. 4347 requires the Secretary of State to provide an annual report to Congress regarding United States Government efforts to survey and secure the return, protection, and restoration of stolen, confiscated, or otherwise unreturned Christian properties in the Republic of Turkey and in the Turkish occupied northern part of Cyprus. H.R. 4347 was amended to include Congressman Gus Bilirakis’ Resolution calling for the immediate reopening of the Halki Theological Seminary. An amendment by the co-chair of the Turkish caucus that would have gutted the Act was decisively defeated, and the Act was adopted by voice vote.

“Despite overly generous claims of ‘progress’, the truth is that religious freedom and human rights have suffered setbacks over the past few years in Turkey,” said HALC Executive Director Endy Zemenides. “As Congressman Chris Smith said before the Committee, the ‘sword of Damocles hangs over these Christian minorities. We thank Chairman Royce, Congressman Engel and their Committee for — as Congressman Smith put it — rising up to “get the backs’ of these minorities.”

HALC worked closely over the past year with the Armenian National Committee of America, which spearheaded the advocacy efforts on H.R. 4347. “Americans of Armenian, Greek and Assyrian heritage – the descendants of those subjected to genocide by Ottoman Turkey from 1915-1923 and whose churches continue to be held captive by the Turkish Government – join with friends of all faiths in welcoming Committee passage of the Royce-Engel Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act,” said ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian. “The adoption of this measure sends a strong signal to Ankara that it must stop its anti-Christian conduct and start coming to terms with its moral, material, and legal obligations to Armenians, Syriacs, Cypriots, Pontians, and other victims of Turkey’s still unpunished genocidal crimes.”

H.R. 4347 builds on a 2011 measure (H.Res.306) spearheaded by Chairman Royce and then House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-CA) calling upon the government of Turkey to honor its international obligations to return confiscated Christian church properties and to fully respect the rights of Christians to practice their faiths. Years of advocacy on the opening of Halki Theological Seminary and Congressman Bilirakis’ previous legislative efforts also helped pave the way for H.R. 4347.

The full text of the legislation will be posted at www.hellenicleaders.com as soon as the amendments are incorporated.

June 27, 2014