Turkish Forum

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  • How Turkey is Gradually Being Colonized

    How Turkey is Gradually Being Colonized

    Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis March 01, 2009

    In a previous article entitled ´The Colonization of Turkey´ (), I drew a historical diagram of Iran, China, Japan, and Turkey, the only Asiatic countries that have not been colonized, at least in the way the proper meaning of the word suggests (military occupation and foreign administration ruling the colonized country). It is clear that through the aforementioned I consider Russia as a basically European country, as its historical center lies exclusively on European soil, in the west of the Ural mountains.

    Indirect Colonization and Socio-political Eclecticism

    Yet, if these four Asiatic countries have not been colonized stricto sensu, they have been indirectly colonized at all levels, economic, political, educational, cultural and geopolitical. Here, I want to clarify that I make a very clear distinction between voluntary acceptance of theories, systems, ideas, practices, and policies implemented by other countries and indirect colonialism. I would rather identify the former as Socio-political Eclecticism.

    Indirect colonialism means, on the contrary, blind acceptance of another country´s systems, ideas, practices, and policies without a chance for the accepting country (which is thus indirectly colonized) to preserve its authenticity, historical integrity, cultural and national independence. Indirect colonialism has mostly to do with systems composed in another country by theoreticians, philosophers, intellectuals and academia totally unrelated to the country that becomes indirectly colonized by accepting them. It may also involve the blind acceptance of a behavioural system.

    The examples of Communist China and post-WW II Japan are quite indicative; particularly, the Cultural Revolution was an extreme phenomenon of de-Sinization. To accept and implement a typically Euro-centric system of worldview (Marxism – Leninism), the Communist Party of China tried systematically to irrevocably delete the essence of 5000 years of Chinese Civilization, Integrity, Authenticity and Identity. Japan´s modern society, despite the preservation of number of traditions, doesn´t reflect what Japan has been over the past 500 years. The same can even be said for post-WW II Germany, but this is not the subject of the present article.

    Today´s Islam and Islamism: Indirect Colonization

    Indirect colonization can also take the form of acceptance of a theoretical simulacrum of a system that the indirectly colonized country and people consider as surely their own. This is precisely the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran; in fact, modern Islamism is not a system emanating out of the Cultural and Political Heritage of Islam. It is an Orientalist sub-system created in Western European (read mainly French and English) academic and Freemasonic ateliers that superimposes the religious element over the political only to accommodate the colonial powers´ anti-Islamic, anti-Ottoman, and anti-Iranian interests. As such, it has been projected on Muslim countries in a sophisticated way only to engulf them in vain queries, unrealistic purposes, catastrophic policies and permanent underdevelopment.

    The focus of the Islamism has certainly been the area of the so-called Arabic speaking countries, a vast part of the Ottoman Empire that was gradually cut off and victimized though the earlier projection of the equally colonial and absolutely fake dogma of (Pan-)Arabism. None of these countries has ever been Arabic, except Hedjaz, namely the Western part of today´s Saudi Arabia. Not a single inhabitant of the aforementioned realm (except the region of Hedjaz) is Arab, and the mere phenomenon of linguistic arabization did not change in anything the Aramaean, Yemenite, Coptic, Nubian, Kushitic and Berberic identities of the greatly different (from one another) nations who have been targeted by the colonial powers, detached from their own country (i. e. the Ottoman Empire), and monstrously deformed following the criminal projection of the fabricated, fake Arabic identity on them.

    Yet, Islamism was viciously supported by the colonial countries and diffused by them beyond the limited area of the so-called Arabic speaking countries. In the late 1970s, Iran fell victim of these colonial endeavours. Certainly, Ayatullah Khomeini and his team, and the various administrations of the 30-year regime could never imagine that they are real tools of the colonial powers that apparently constitute their enemies.

    However, contrarily to the Safevid Persian imperial policies, the Islamic Republic does not reflect any real political opposition to the colonial powers. The official Iranian claim for Vilayat-e Faqih is not a political system, and does not provide for any opposition to Anglo-French and American post-colonialism. The Iranian theoretical background of the Islamic Republic is a religious system that, although Shia, reflects Sunni schools of jurisprudence and philosophy in many aspects. But it consists in a superimposition of the religious on the political, and this did not occur at all at the Safevid or earlier times. In fact, this fact relates to our modern times, and to the colonial projections on the Islamic countries.

    From the times of the earlier Islamic dynasties down to the Ottoman and Safevid times, the political ideology of the Caliphate and the other imperial Islamic establishments certainly reflected Islamic values but was not subordinated to the religion. It was the continuation of earlier imperial political ideologies, the Sassanid Iranian, the Eastern Roman, the Arsacid Parthian, the Imperial Roman, the Seleucid Syrian, the Macedonian, the Achaemenid Persian, the Babylonian, the Assyrian, and the Akkadian systems.

    As imperial systems, not as religions, the Ottoman Empire, Safevid Iran, and Mogul India enabled the world of Islam to prevail over the rest of the world politically, economically, intellectually, culturally, educationally, academically, and artistically. In this case, the ´rest of the world´ was in fact limited to two realms: Northwestern Europe and China.

    The European colonial attack against these imperial systems (something that is not the subject of the present article) involved many methods, but the most critical one was the projection of the Freemasonry-invented and colonially diffused Islamism, a system which – so conveniently for the colonial powers and so pathetically for all Muslims – superimposed the religious over the political element within the query for an all-Islamic political entity.

    This Islamic pseudo-state, in which the religious element is superimposed over the political element, if we hypothesized that it existed, it would be the top colonial achievement throughout the Islamic world because it would consist in a non-political entity (a fake state – as any state without a proper political ideology is a fake) guided by an extreme deformation of Islam that is believed as Islam by today´s Muslims, and even worse, this deformation of Islam would play the role of the political ideology in that fake state.

    When I speak of deformation of Islam, I mean that to the earlier stages of prevalence of the Hanbalist school and the system of Ibn Taimiya have been added the most recent layers of Wahhabism and Islamic Modernism (Jemal al Din Afghani and Mohamed Abduh), which bear a strong mark of unscreened colonial influence. As long as today´s Islamic sheikhs, muftis, theoreticians, theologians, and intellectuals do not reject the aforementioned layers, they will fail to reach Islamic authenticity at either the political – ideological or the philosophical – theological level. Accordingly, what they call ´religion´ is totally irrelevant and illusory. But this is again not the main subject of this article.

    I expanded much on the issue of Islamism as indirect colonization, because what was achieved by the colonial powers in Iran in 1979 is attempted against Turkey with a 30-year delay.

    Kemal Ataturk and Modern Turkey: Colonial or Anti-Colonial?

    As I said earlier, a voluntary acceptance of theories, systems, ideas, practices, and policies implemented by other countries is not indirect colonialism. I used the term “Socio-political Eclecticism” to describe it. This was typical of Kemal Ataturk and did characterize the innovations he introduced in Turkey. I would not refer to the subject but I do so only to refute Islamist literature against the founder of Modern Turkey. This literature is abundant in Arabic and Farsi but it progressively finds however its way to the global mass media in several international languages due to the phenomenon of labor immigration. In fact, Arabic speaking countries´ elites, plunged in severe analphabetism and extreme obscurantism, have felt for many long decades a grave complex of inferiority because Turkey was not colonized, whereas their territories were colonized by the English, the French, the Italians, and more recently the Americans.

    The following trait is an additional testimony to the colonial nature of the Arabic speaking countries; both parts of their regimes, the local modernizers who want to pathetically imitate Europe and America (and they do so without understanding the logic and the reason behind every behavioural or theoretical particularity of the Westerners) and the Islamists who idiotically believe in the pillars of the Islamic Modernism and even more inanely desire the rise of an Islamic state (deprived of political ideology and with their deformed Islam playing the role of political ideology), hate Kemal Ataturk, revile Turkey´s achievements (that are all due to his policies), and try to defame them as a form of colonialism – called Turkey´s westernization.

    Rejection of colonialism is not a theoretical endeavour; it is mainly a political act. It denotes denial of the colonial powers, involving fight and war against them, lack of contact with them, opposition to their plans, dismantlement of their deeds and destruction of their interests at the local level. Even more importantly, rejection of colonialism means absolute refutation of all colonial proposals; in fact, national sovereignty implies automatic rejection of cooperation with colonial powers´ representatives (military, economic, administrative, academic, spiritual, etc.) and decisive punishment of all those who betraying their nation, for their own economic sake, collaborate in any form with the colonial powers´ forces.

    Nothing of all this concerns the pathetic apostates of the Ottoman empires who, believing in the diverse lies of the colonial representatives, collaborated with the English and the French only to see a disaster befalling on their countries that remained underdeveloped, anachronistic and dysfunctional. The various Arabic speaking groups who, after having been enticed by the English and the French, voluntarily worked with them, represent servility, docility and slavery better than any other ethnic group on earth. They were expecting to become rulers in a united ´Arabic´ kingdom, and they were divided to more 10 (ten) countries (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Qatar, Emirates, Oman, Bahrain)! But this was not what the English were promising in 1915 to these imbecile Arabic speaking groups in order to convince them to desert the national army of their country, the Ottoman Empire, and help them bring down the last political instance of the Islamic world. …..

    None of all these besotted, ignorant and lewd pseudo-elites of Damascus, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Mecca, and Cairo would have expected in the 1910´s the developments that followed the end of WW I. They were ´sure´ that the English and the French would help them substitute their bogus-state to the Ottoman Empire that they had hated due to the evil propaganda of the colonials, which they were gullible, obtuse and brainless enough to accept.

    The pro-Western (minority) and the Islamist (majority) elites of the so-called Arabic speaking countries, who have uninterruptedly served the colonial powers as the world´s most obedient and passive slaves, having engaged in typically evil duplicity (promising one thing to their colonial masters and saying precisely the opposite to their rude, uncivil and barbaric masses), denounce Kemal Ataturk´s policies that displeased the colonial powers because they were the means of a backward country´s rise to power and modernity.

    In fact, Kemal Ataturk, contrarily to Lenin, Mao and others, did not intend to (and did not) implement a certain system; although we have the tendency to view his policies now en bloc and thus consider them as a system, they were not perceived like that in the 1920s and the 1930s. His policies were not a mere imitation, a blind copy or a dogmatic transplantation of another system. There was a great role for the state in the restructuring of the economy, but there were private companies as well. There was a change of writing system far more radical than the small changes introduced by Lenin in the Russian alphabet. Everything was decided upon and introduced as policy in order to enable the local populations smoothly cope with Western European and Northern American competition in terms of science, technology, economy, efficient governance, and social infrastructure. It was an effort of modernization based on a pragmatic assessment of the then world.

    Kemal Ataturk´s policies were not dictated by the colonial powers, and this is very easy to reconfirm after crosschecking the subject at the global level; nowhere did France and England suggest to local governments to implement policies introduced in Turkey by Kemal Ataturk.

    At this point one has to denounce once forever the ridiculous myth of Arabic countries´ socialism; there has never been such a thing as Arab socialism. The socialists, the Nasserists and the Baathists did not dare implement even 10% of Kemal Ataturk´s reforms. No Latin writing, and no Sunday as weekend! And certainly, none of them dared prohibit the Islamic veil from the public places or to eliminate the religious schools that have always been the worst impediment in the path of modern countries for progress.

    The policies of Kemal Ataturk could not possibly and actually did not please the colonial powers because they offer to any country whereby they are to be eventually implemented the tools to achieve competition with the leading European countries. On the contrary, the colonial countries consider that their own interests are guaranteed when the targeted countries simply imitate Western policies, fail to understand the reasons and the purposes behind these policies, and are thus engulfed in internal inconclusive conflicts that are eternalized.

    We have a very clear indication of the terrible clash occurred between Kemal Ataturk and the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge which is the guiding force of the colonial regimes of France and England; to eliminate its subversive penetration, which was targeting him directly, Kemal Ataturk, as a true and staunch Freemason, decided the elimination of the institutions depending on the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge, and the cancellation of their evil works.

    However, one must have a clear idea of what Kemal Ataturk and his military – political establishment have been and what they have not. The latter is also of importance as it still influences and determines today´s Turkey, its political decision making process, and its intellectual – academic debates.

    Kemal Ataturk was not an atheist firmly engaged in favour of evolutionism and materialism; to depict him in this way bears witness to either ignorance or conspiracy. The Turkish Republic was never an anti-Islamic country determined to harm Islam; on the contrary, it was a state whereby nothing could be done in order to defame Islam. Contrarily to Kemal Ataturk´s state, the Islamic Republic of Iran constitutes a reason for Islam´s defamation, denigration and vilification. Similarly with Saudi Arabia, which is the state that defamed Islam most throughout the World History, Iran and every fanatic Islamist establishment misrepresent Islam and damage its chances of being correctly, fairly and accurately perceived by people allover the world.

    Ever Lurking Colonial Powers: from Turkey´s Adhesion to NATO to Erdogan´s High Treason

    As I already said in the previous article, Turkey´s adhesion to NATO in the early 50s was partly due to the pro-American policy of the heretic premier Adnan Menderes, who had attended the American College for Secondary Education at Izmir in the 1910s, and pursued a steady anti-Ataturk policy that rightfully ended with his execution, following a military coup against his demagogic and catastrophic government.

    Turkey´s participation in the NATO was certainly a form of partly colonization that did not affect directly the Turkish society. It mainly consisted in diffusion of falsehood (from the part of the top US, English and French military) among the top Turkish military, mainly the 3-star and 4-star generals. The falsehood had preponderantly to do with general geo-strategic considerations and perception of threats; by exaggerating the Soviet threat, the NATO colonials obtained Turkey´s participation in the Cold War.

    Of course, the overall phenomenon involved diverse methods such as excessive bribery, multifaceted deception, secretive initiation to American and English Freemasonic institutions that are all controlled by the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge, premeditated support of these generals in their promotion. This occurred in parallel with the very traditional method which provided for the selection of several Turkish students abroad for initiation and membership in the aforementioned institutions whereby every member is a real hostage; this is so because the initiation and the membership involve grave psychological constraints, psychic shocks, severe threats, and blackmail. The later social and professional promotion of the diverse members in the administration machine, the academia, the mass media, the politics, the diplomacy and the economy offers the means of power control to the evil and subversive organization that identifies its interests with those of England and France. As hierarchy is all that matters therein, the real targets are unknown to most of the members, but the ordered action is compulsory; consequently, the people held captive in this organization can prove to be greatly harmful to their own country – at their unbeknownst. In fact, every concept of national independence, personal, social and political freedom, and democracy is eliminated when this organization is allowed or manages to be fully functional. This is the reason Kemal Ataturk, well aware of their perversity, prohibited their further function in the 1930s.

    Several coups in Turkey were precisely due to the desire of the military to put under control or to limit the activity of this sort of unconscious traitors. Certainly Turkey is only one example in this regard; similar phenomena occurred in various countries.

    One can describe the entire system as an effort to totally control and damage other countries through a veil of predefined (pre-arranged) networks that function as catalysts. It goes without saying that more isolated a country is greater is the difficulty of the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge to penetrate it. That´s why the trickery of the liberal economy was invented in order to mainly help the malicious institution further penetrate whereby penetration was difficult or impossible in the past.

    With respect to Turkey, the first stage of colonialism involved mainly a few members, ceaseless contacts, extensive selection of data, and thorough analysis of the system´s functionality. The data would be later used, when the correct timing would be identified. The first stage lasted no less than 50 years, 1952 – 2003.

    The most important effect of this stage of colonialism was the high acquaintance with the details of political, military and economic life in Turkey, and the progressively acquired control of the various military projects, functions, plans, and practices. This was achieved through continuous interaction with the selected 3-star and 4-star generals, their Freemasonic initiation, and the subsequent long cooperation.

    During this period, while NATO served the colonial purposes as described, France and England never got rid of their hereditary Anti-Turkish racism and hysteria. Whenever the Cold War was not undergoing a severe crisis, the two European colonial powers pursued their plans either triggering Turkish – Greek conflicts (tragic events at Istanbul in 1955) or provoking inter-community misunderstandings in Cyprus (through the 50s and the 60s until 1974).

    In addition, they laid the foundations of their approach to what they diffused as ´Kurdish problem´ which is another typical fallacy because under the umbrella – name ´Kurds´ the Anglo-French colonial academia and diplomats compressed more than 10 different nations. The tactics is very old and widely implemented; a state whereby ten different nations are compressed and oppressed can never undergo proper and pertinent nation – building, and this situation triggers in turn internal conflict and underdevelopment. It is mainly in the 60s and the 70s that Anglo-French academia started speaking of ´Kurds´ (and meaning – erroneously – one nation) analytically.

    Similarly, the Armenian Diaspora was given the order to continue the anti-Turkish propaganda for the terrible massacres occurred in 1915 – 1916 in the Northeastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire because the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, incited by the French and the Russians, had decided to betray their own country for the sake of the enemy. Instead of demanding recognition of an inexistent genocide, the Armenians of the Diaspora should present to Turkey their apologies for having shamelessly betrayed their own country,

    At the same time, the reactionary elements of the Modern Islamic theology and the traditionalist minority managed to survive and to form some connections with Islamic extremists in countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and Pakistan. This was anticipated by the colonial powers, and offered them an additional point of pressure over Turkey.

    The second stage of Turkey´s colonization started with the rise of the AKP party in 2003. It was meant to complete the earlier preparation, and fulfill Turkey´s colonization. The sophisticated plan provided for the following parts:

    1. The political rise of an extremist Islamist party camouflaged up to great extent

    2. The parallel socioeconomic rise of provincial businessmen ready to form the backbone of the new establishment

    3. An active engagement of Turkey in negotiations with the European Union which would bring forth the pretext for democratization

    4. The orchestrated pressure by EU institutions and the Islamist party for limitations in the role of the military in Turkey

    5. The gradual diffusion and imposition of Islamist ideas and forms of thought among the Turkish society

    6. The recognition of the myth “Kurds” by the Turkish government

    7. The recognition of the myth “Armenian Genocide” by the Turkish government

    8. The elimination of Turkish ambitions in Caucasus and Central Asia

    9. The use of Turkish diplomacy in order to promote several colonial peace plans in the Middle East

    10. Advanced liberalization and consequently increased economic control of Turkey

    11. The final attack against the military establishment through the creation and meticulous guidance of a huge scandal directed against the military which would involve spectacular but untrue discoveries in order to impress the local people, and defame the military.

    12. Adoption of all the terms and dogmas of Islamic Modernism

    13. Acceptance of all the terms of the colonial dogmas, Orientalism, Pan-Arabism, and Islamism, and

    14. The final abolition of Kemal Ataturk´s Turkey and the subsequent adaptation of the country into a religious, barbaric and unilateral system – similar with that of the Ayatullahs of Iran or the religious extremism and darkness of Saudi Arabia.

    In a forthcoming article, I will analyze the character of today´s Turkey which is being altered and turned into that of a fully colonized country.

    Note

    Picture: Allenby enters Jerusalem; a critical development of the WW I in the Middle East.

  • The Geopolitical Great Game

    The Geopolitical Great Game

    Turkey and Russia Moving Closer

    By F. William Engdahl

    February 27, 2009 “Globalresearch” — Despite the problems of the ruble and the weak oil price in recent months for the Russian economy, the Russian Government is pursuing a very active foreign policy strategy. Its elements focus on countering the continuing NATO encirclement policy of Washington, with often clever diplomatic initiatives on its Eurasian periphery. Taking advantage of the cool relations between Washington and longtime NATO ally, Turkey, Moscow has now invited Turkish President Abdullah Gul to a four day state visit to discuss a wide array of economic and political cooperation issues.

    In addition to opening to Turkey, a vital transit route for natural gas to western Europe, Russia is also working to firm an economic space with Belarus and other former Soviet republics to firm its alliances. Moscow delivered a major blow to the US military encirclement strategy in Central Asia when it succeeded earlier this month in convincing Kyrgystan, with the help of major financial aid, to cancel US military airbase rights at Manas, a major blow to US escalation plans in Afghanistan.

    In short, Moscow is demonstrating it is far from out of the new Great Game for influence over Eurasia.

    Warmer Turkish relations

    The Government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has shown increasing impatience with not only Washington policies in the Middle East, but also the refusal of the European Union to seriously consider Turkey’s bid to join the EU. In the situation, it’s natural that Turkey would seek some counterweight to what had been since the Cold War overwhelming US influence in Turkish politics. Russia’s Putin and Medvedev have no problem opening such a dialogue, much to Washington’s dismay.

    Turkish President Abdullah Gul paid a four-day visit to the Russian Federation from February 12 to 15, where he met with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and also travelled to Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, where he discussed joint investments. Gul was accompanied by his state minister responsible for foreign trade, and Minister of Energy, as well as a large delegation of Turkish businessmen. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan joined the delegation.

    Visit to Tatarstan

    The fact that Gul’s Moscow visit also included a stop in Tatarstan, the largest autonomous republic in Russian Federation whose population mainly consists of Muslim Tatar Turks, is a sign how much relations between Ankara and Moscow have improved in recent months as Turkey has cooled to Washington foreign policy. In previous years, Moscow was convinced that Turkey was trying to establish Pan-Turanism in the Caucasus and Central Asia and inside the Russian Federation, a huge concern in Moscow. Today clearly Turkish relations with Turk entities inside the Russian Federation are not considered suspicious as it was once, confirming a new mood of mutual trust.

    Russia elevated Gul’s trip from the previously announced status of an ‘official visit’ to a ‘state visit,’ the highest level of state protocol, indicating the value Moscow now attaches to Turkey. Gul and Medvedev signed a joint declaration announcing their commitment to deepening mutual friendship and multi-dimensional cooperation. The declaration mirrors a previous ‘Joint Declaration on the Intensification of Friendship and Multidimensional Partnership,’ signed during a 2004 visit by then-President Putin.

    Turkish-Russian economic ties have greatly expanded over the past decade, with trade volume reaching $32 billion in 2008, making Russia Turkey’s number one partner. Given this background, bilateral economic ties were a major item on Gul’s agenda and both leaders expressed their satisfaction with the growing commerce between their countries.

    Cooperation in energy is the major area. Turkey’s gas and oil imports from Russia account for most of the trade volume. Russian press reports indicate that the two sides are interested in improving cooperation in energy transportation lines carrying Russian gas to European markets through Turkey, the project known as Blue Stream-2. Previously Ankara had been cool to the proposal. The recent completion of the Russian Blue Stream gas pipeline under Black Sea increased Turkey’s dependence on Russian natural gas from 66 percent up to 80 percent. Furthermore, Russia is beginning to see Turkey as a transit country for its energy resources rather than simply an export market, the significance of Blue Stream 2.

    Russia is also eager to play a major part in Turkey’s attempts to diversify its energy sources. A Russian-led consortium won the tender for the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear plant recently, but as the price offered for electricity was above world prices, the future of the project, awaiting parliamentary approval, remains unclear. Prior to Gul’s Moscow trip, the Russian consortium submitted a revised offer, reducing the price by 30 percent. If this revision is found legal under the tender rules, the positive mood during Gul’s trip may indicate the Turkish government is ready to give the go-ahead for the project.

    Russia’s market also plays a major role for Turkish overseas investments and exports. Russia is one of the main customers for Turkish construction firms and a major destination for Turkish exports. Similarly, millions of Russian tourists bring significant revenues to Turkey every year.

    Importantly, Turkey and Russia may start to use the Turkish lira and the Russian ruble in foreign trade, which could increase Turkish exports to Russia, as well as weakening dependence on dollar mediation.

    Post-Cold War tensions reduced

    However the main message of Gul’s visit was the fact of the development of stronger political ties between the two. Both leaders repeated the position that, as the two major powers in the area, cooperation between Russia and Turkey was essential to regional peace and stability. That marked a dramatic change from the early 1990’s after the collapse of the Soviet Union when Washington encouraged Ankara to move into historically Ottoman regions of the former Soviet Union to counter Russia’s influence.

    In the 1990’s in sharp contrast to the tranquillity of the Cold War era, talk of regional rivalries, revived ‘Great Games’ in Eurasia, confrontations in the Caucasus and Central Asia were common. Turkey was becoming once more Russia’s natural geopolitical rival as in the 19th Century. Turkey’s quasi-alliance with Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia until recently led Moscow to view Turkey as a formidable rival. The regional military balance developed in favor of Turkey in Black Sea and the Southern Caucasus. After the disintegration of the USSR, the Black Sea became a de facto ‘NATO lake.’ As Russia and Ukraine argued over the division of the Black Sea fleet and status of Sevastopol, the Black Sea became an area for NATO’S Partnership for Peace exercises.

    By contrast, at the end of the latest Moscow visit, Gul declared, ‘Russia and Turkey are neighboring countries that are developing their relations on the basis of mutual confidence. I hope this visit will in turn give a new character to our relations.’ Russia praised Turkey’s diplomatic initiatives in the region.

    Medvedev commended Turkey’s actions during the Russian-Georgian war last summer and Turkey’s subsequent proposal for the establishment of a Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform (CSCP). The Russian President said the Georgia crisis had shown their ability to deal with such problems on their own without the involvement of outside powers, meaning Washington. Turkey had proposed the CSCP, bypassing Washington and not seeking transatlantic consensus on Russia. Since then, Turkey has indicated its intent to follow a more independent foreign policy.

    The Russian aim is to use its economic resources to counter the growing NATO encirclement, made severe by the Washington decision to place missile and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at Moscow. To date the Obama Administration has indicated it will continue the Bush ‘missile defense’ policy. Washington also just agreed to place US Patriot missiles in Poland, clearly not aimed at Germany, but at Russia.

    Following Gul’s visit, some press in Turkey described Turkish-Russian relations as a ‘strategic partnership,’ a label traditionally used for Turkish-American relations. Following Gül’s visit, Medyedev will go to Turkey to follow up the issues with concrete cooperation proposals. The Turkish-Russian cooperation is a further indication of how the once overwhelming US influence in Eurasia has been eroded by the events of recent US foreign policy in the region.

    Washington is waking up to find it confronted with Sir Halford Mackinder’s ‘worst nightmare.’ Mackinder, the ‘father’ of 20th Century British geopolitics, stressed the importance of Britain (and after 1945 USA) preventing strategic cooperation among the great powers of Eurasia.

    F. William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press) and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca ). His new book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press) is doe for release in late Spring 2009. He may be reached via his website: www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net .
  • INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2009

    INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2009

    Exclusive Private Event

    YOU ARE WARMLY INVITED TO CELEBRATE

    INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2009

    Keynote speaker

    ŐZDEN TOKER INŐNŰ

    President of Inönü Foundation

    Light buffet served


    When:

    Sunday, March 8, 2009

    Where:

    Dag Hammarskjold Building

    240 East 47th Street

    43rd Floor

    Manhattan

    Time:

    2-5 PM

    Speakers:

    Ozden Toker Inonu: President of Inonu Foundation and The daughter of the late Ismet Inonu, the first Prime Minister and second President of Turkey.

    Dr. Linda Stillman : is the creator of special world conference Sophia 2010 Women and Wisdom, Sofia Bulgaria May 25-29, 2010. She serves as Chair of the Sophia 2010 International Executive Board, and Chair of the International Headquarters Council in New York City.

    Dr. Sema Gurun: Sema Gurun has been practicing psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for twenty years in New York and the international community within it. Until 2008 she served as a staff member in the United Nations Department for Political Affairs in the area of conflict resolution and peace building, while also serving as an ad hoc mental health advisor to UN staff. She maintains a private practice in Manhattan.

    Please RSVP for this event as space is limited. No walk-ins are allowed!

    646.295.0826

    ATKBNY@gmail.com

    INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2009

    SPEAKERS

    MS. OZDEN TOKER INONU
    Born in 1930 in Ankara, she is the daughter of the second President of the Turkish Republic. After finishing her primary and secondary education in Ankara, she attended Edinburgh University to study English literature. In 1955 she married journalist and Senator Metin Toker. Together they raised three children and now have seven grandchildren.

    In 1983, in order to maintain and develop the ideals established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and her father, Ismet Inonu, she began to serve as the vice president of the Ismet Inonu Foundation. In 1992 she assumed the presidency of the Inonu Foundation and continues to research and lecture about the formation of the Turkish republic.

    DR. LINDA STILLMAN
    Dr. Linda Stillman is the creator of the special world conference Sophia 2010 Women and Wisdom, Sofia, Bulgaria May 25-29, 2010. She serves as Chair of the Sophia 2010 International Executive Board and Chair of the International Headquarters Council in New York City. She first fell in love with the Bulgarian people, with their intellectual and passionate personalities, and their precious culture, 25 years ago and knew she would return one day to a free and flourishing country. In 2008, her world vision to create and motivate positive directions for global social development has become a powerful reality. Today, the thousands are becoming millions of women, men and young people from all continents, culture, and sectors of society, who embrace her collaborative and egalitarian social development approach towards a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world in the 21st Century.

    A graduate of Cornell University with a doctorate of distinction from the University of Bonn, Germany, Dr. Stillman is an international specialist of world culture and communication, collaborative negotiation, and human relationships. She is a United Nations representative for Soroptimist International, the world’s largest professional women’s service organization – 90,000 members, and a UN expert on women, culture and the dynamics of social development. For 25 years Linda has served as a professor/consultant of intercultural/interpersonal relations, global social development, and much more in several European countries and New York City. Currently, she is a professor/mentor of world cultural communication, human relationships and global civic engagement with the UN, at Pace University.

    Dr. Stillman has participated extensively in diplomatic endeavors: she participated in the organization of the Reykjavik Summit 1986 and assisted Eastern European refugees during the reunification of Germany 1989-1993. She has founded/chaired diplomatic and multicultural organizations in Morocco, former Yugoslavia, Iceland, Germany and the USA/NYC. She manifests and motivates intercontinental and intercultural connections and partnerships through diverse and far-reaching initiatives to advance world social development and to promote international goodwill and understanding.

    Dr. Stillman has helped organize numerous UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) NGO sessions as a UN representative. She has conducted multiple intercultural events at and for the UN. Her global civic engagement also includes: Chair of the UN CSW NGO Committees for the Integration off Men and Boys towards Gender Equality, Women and the Media, Advancement of Young People, and, currently, Women and Men Sharing Responsibilities, the theme of the 2009 UN CSW. She also serves on the boards of the UNIFEM USA NY Association; UN Millennium Development Goals Global Watch, and the American Association of University Women. She is also a published writer and editor and considers herself a global citizen residing in midtown Manhattan.

    MS. SEMA GURUN
    Sema Gurun is an International psychotherapist who specializes in difficulties of cultural adaptation, and the treatment of anxiety and depression. She works with the clientele who are plaintiffs of issues around love and work, helping them to become more comfortable within their lives by developing better strategies for coping and adapting to life’s cycles within their cultural setting.

    She has been practicing psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for twenty years in New York City and the International community within it. Until 2008 she serves as a staff member in the United Nations Department for Political Affairs in the area of conflict resolution and peace building, while also serving as an ad hoc mental health advisor to UN Staff.

    Ms. Gurun earned her Masters Degree in Social Work from New York University and trained as a psychoanalyst. She is also a painter and has had a lifelong interest in literature and the arts. She maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Manhattan

  • Democracy, Islam, and Secularism

    Democracy, Islam, and Secularism

    Turkey, as a Muslim-majority country, is the only member of NATO and on
    candidate member of the European Union. Assertive secularism, multiparty
    democracy, and military interventions are other puzzling aspects of
    Turkish politics. With its rising activism in the Middle East, Caucasus,
    and Central Asia, Turkey has also become an influential actor in world
    politics. This conference aims to present an integrated picture of Turkey
    by bringing together comparative perspectives on its past, present, and
    future, and delving into such issues as the legacy of the Ottoman Empire,
    secularism, religion, democracy, civil-military relations, and the
    European Union membership.

    Contact: Ahmet Kuru
    E-mail: ak2840@columbia.edu

    Date: March 6-7, 2009
    Time: 9:00 am to 5:30 pm
    Location: International Affairs Building 1501, Columbia University

    Co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and
    Religion; Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life; and Middle
    East Institute of Columbia University; and Institute for Turkish Studies

    Friday, March 6

    9.00 – 9.30: Coffee and rolls
    9.30 – 9.45: Welcome: Alfred Stepan
    9.45 – 12.45: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic
    Chair: Rashid Khalidi (invited)
    Discussant: Richard Bulliet
    Karen Barkey, “Empire and Religious Diversity: The Ottoman Model in
    Contemporary Perspective”
    Sükrü Hanioglu, “The Historical Roots of Kemalism”
    Nur Yalman, “‘The Three Ways of Politics’ Revisited: Whither the People of
    the ‘Sublime State’?”
    12.45 – 2.30: Lunch
    2.30 – 5.30: Religion, Religious Parties, and Democracy
    Chair: David Cuthell
    Discussant: Mirjam Kunkler
    Alfred Stepan, “Variations of Laïcité: Comparing Turkey, France, and Senegal”
    Stathis Kalyvas, “Does Christian Democratic Experience Travel in the
    non-Christian World?”
    5.30: Reception

    Saturday, March 7

    9.00 – 9.30: Coffee and rolls
    9.30 – 12.30: The AKP Government and the Military
    Chair and discussant: Alfred Stepan
    Ümit Cizre, “Society as the Battleground for Hegemony: Secular Military
    and the AKP”
    Ahmet Kuru, “Politicized Military and the Consolidation of Democracy in
    Turkey”
    12.30 – 2.30: Lunch
    2.30 – 5.30: Politics of the Future: European Union, Constitution, and
    Democratization
    Chair and discussant: Joan Scott
    Joost Lagendijk, “Turkey’s Membership to the European Union: Perceptions
    and Processes”
    Andrew Arato, “Legality and Legitimacy in the Making of a New Turkish
    Constitution”
    Ergun Özbudun, “Turkish Democracy in Constitutional Crisis”

    Short Bios

    Andrew Arato is Dorothy Hirshon Professor of Political and Social Theory
    at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of Civil Society,
    Constitution, and Legitimacy and Constitution Making under Occupation: The
    Politics of Imposed Revolution in Iraq, and co-author of Civil Society and
    Political Theory.

    Karen Barkey is Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. She is the
    author of Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective
    and co-editor of After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building,
    the Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires.

    Richard Bulliet is Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the
    author of The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, the editor The
    Columbia History of the Twentieth Century, and the co-editor of The
    Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East.

    Ümit Cizre is Professor of Political Science at Bilkent University,
    Turkey. She is the author of The Politics of the Powerful (in Turkish) and
    the editor of Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the
    Justice and Development Party and Almanac Turkey 2005: Security Sector and
    Democratic Oversight.

    David Cuthell is the Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish
    Studies in Washington D.C. He also teaches Turkish politics as Visiting
    Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Georgetown University.

    Nilüfer Göle is Professor of Sociology at Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en
    Sciences Sociales, France. She is the author of The Forbidden Modern:
    Civilization and Veiling and Interpenetrations: Islam and Europe (in
    French).

    Sükrü Hanioglu is Professor and the Chair of Near Eastern Studies at
    Princeton University. He is the author of Brief History of the Late
    Ottoman Empire, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908,
    and Young Turks in Opposition.

    Stathis Kalyvas is Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and
    Director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale
    University. He is the author of The Logic of Violence in Civil War and The
    Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe.

    Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia
    University. He is the author of The Iron Cage: The Story of the
    Palestinian Struggle for Statehood and Resurrecting Empire: Western
    Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East.

    Mirjam Künkler is Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton
    University. She is the co-editor of Comparative Study of the Role of
    Religious Institutions in Democratic Transition and Consolidation
    Processes (in German)

    Ahmet Kuru is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of
    Democracy, Toleration, and Religion at Columbia University and Assistant
    Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University. He is the
    author of Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United
    States, France, and Turkey.

    Joost Lagendijk is a Dutch politician from Green Left. He is a Member of
    the European Parliament and its Committee on Foreign Affairs. He is also
    the Chairman of the Delegation to the European Union – Turkey Joint
    Parliamentary Committee.

    Ergun Özbudun is Professor of Law at Bilkent University, Turkey. He is the
    author of Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic
    Consolidation and the co-editor of Atatürk: Founder of a Modern State. He
    recently chaired the academic committee to draft a new constitution for
    Turkey.

    Joan Scott is Harold F. Linder Professor at the School of Social Science
    in the Institute for Advanced Study. She is the author of Only Paradoxes
    to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, Parité: Sexual Equality
    and the Crisis of French Universalism, and The Politics of the Veil.

    Alfred Stepan, Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, director of Center
    for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion, and co-director of
    the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia
    University. He is the author of Arguing Comparative Politics and the
    co-author of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.

    Nur Yalman is Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. He is the
    author of Under the Bo Tree and “Some Observations on Secularism in Islam:
    The Cultural Revolution in Turkey,” Daedalus, and co-author of A Passage
    to Peace: Global Solutions from East and West.

    Link:

  • MONTANA-USA: Military Honors

    MONTANA-USA: Military Honors

    By Stephanie Domurat

    Story Published: Mar 1, 2009 at 7:19 PM MST

    Story Updated: Mar 1, 2009 at 7:19 PM MST

    Multimedia

    • Watch The Video

    BILLINGS – A Billings man is honored Sunday for his 50 years of military service.Dewey Hansen received The Tallman Award recognizing his work as an admission liaison for the Air Force Academy. He’s been in this role for 50 years and is one of only two officers to receive this award. Hansen began his military service at the age of 19, serving in World War II and then later retiring from active duty as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1978.

    He continued to serve through advising, recruiting and mentoring young Montana men and women seeking to serve their country. Hansen says he never could have dreamed he’d be honored in such a way, and says he has loved being able to make a difference.

  • Chinese probe crashes into moon

    Chinese probe crashes into moon

    Chinese probe crashes into moon

    The probe was launched in 2007 and mapped the moon’s surface

    A Chinese lunar probe has crashed into the moon in what Beijing has called a controlled collision.

    The Chang’e 1 lunar satellite hit the moon’s surface at 1613 local time (0813 GMT) at the end of a 16-month moon-mapping mission.

    China launched the spacecraft in late October 2007 on a mission to survey the entire surface of the moon.

    China’s ever-more ambitious space programme includes plans for a space station and landing a man on the moon.

    Future missions

    Launched into space on one of China’s Long March 3A rockets, the probe mapped the moon’s surface using stereo radar.

    Chang’e 1 was under the remote control of two stations in Qingda, eastern China, and Kashgar in the north-west of the country, the Xinhua news agency said.

    China became only the third nation – after the Soviet Union and the US – to put a manned spacecraft in orbit in 2003.

    State media said on Sunday China would launch a space module next year and carry out the country’s first space docking.

    “The module, called Tiangong-1, will provide a “safe room” for Chinese astronauts to live and conduct scientific research in zero gravity,” Chinese state media said.

    “Weighing about 8.5 tonnes, Tiangong-1 is able to perform a long-term unattended operation, which will be an essential step toward building a space station,” it added.