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Category: Middle East

Why Arabs are confused on Turkey’s ethnic minorities

Sinem Cengiz
At a time when Ankara and the Gulf countries are at odds due to Egypt, a significant workshop on “The Future of Turkey’s Model and Role” took place in Abu Dhabi last week where Arab and Turkish intellectuals discussed future of relationship between Arab world and Turkey.

One of the main discussions in the workshop was on the impact of minorities’ issue on Turkey’s political scene and possible effects of this issue on Turkey’s regional role.

What I observed during the discussion of the topic was that Arab intellectuals are very much confused on the situation of the minorities in Turkey. Regarding the issue of Turkey’s Alevi community, which finds many of the government’s policies and regulations troubling, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge in the Arab side on who Alevis are, what their situation in Turkey is, and what their demands are.

Alevi problems

The problems of the Alevi community – constituting 15-20 percent of the Turkish population – are one of the main topics within the framework of Turkey’s democratization process that needs to be tackled.

Arab intellectuals, who strive to understand the Alevi issue, feels that Turkey will be facing a serious challenge on the matter

Sinem Cengiz

The fundamental demands of Alevis in Turkey are the formal recognition of “Cemevleri” (houses for religious gathering) as Alevi places of worship by state, transformation or reform of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) and the scrapping of compulsory religious classes for students. However, so far none of these demands have been addressed by the Turkish government – a situation that created anger and a disappointment by the Alevis.

Arab intellectuals, who strive to understand the Alevi issue, feels that Turkey will be facing a serious challenge on the matter if it fails to handle it appropriately. Arab participants in brief stated that: “We believe that Turkey is a developing country that works to solve its problematic issues.”

However, when we see the Alevi problem in the country, a deep confusion emerges towards the admiration for the Turkish model. If Turkey wants to become a regional actor, it should first be able to deal with three main issues: Alevi, Kurdish and non-Muslim minority.

These issues should not be considered as a threat by the state rather the deadlock of these issues probably will be a threat for the future aspirations of the Turkish state in the region.”

The Kurdish issue in Turkey was another crucial topic that Arab intellectuals touched upon although in that matter also there is a lack of proper understanding on what the situation of Kurds in Turkey is and where the ongoing settlement process launched by Turkish government in order to resolve the decades-old Kurdish conflict is heading to.

Kurdish worry

Arabs stated that they have a worry about the Kurdish issue in the region and they wonder that what will be the impact of the settlement process on the situation of the Kurds in the region.

According to Arab intellectuals, Turkey is facing challenges regarding its Kurdish issue as the matter is not well understood by the policy-makers. “We are in a worry that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is running after his political ambitions rather than the benefit of the country” said one participant.

Indeed, the Kurdish issue should be Turkey’s number one priority to solve. It will remain as a burden on the shoulders of every Turkish government until it is solved sincerely.

However, the main cause and root of all these issues is entirely related to Turkey’s failure to become a full-fledged democracy and its failure to establish a state based on the rule of law at international standards.

The deficit of democracy leads to the persistence of problematic issues of Kurds, Alevis and religious minorities in Turkey.

Getting to the root cause

Arab intellectuals came to a conclusion with their Turkish counterparts in the discussion that unless a right reading to the root cause of the issue is done, it would be not possible to find the proper method to solve the issue – which may eventually cause Ankara’s dream to become a major player in the region to come to an end.

Arab intellectuals noted that Turkey should be able to achieve a balance between different groups and have equal policies regarding these groups, adding that only a Turkey that succeeded in solving these issues could serve as a model for the Middle East.

This workshop once more made us realize that one major obstacle between Turkey and Arab countries to understand each other’s domestic issues is the lack of knowledge and comprehensive understanding on both sides.

However, while the Kurdish and Alevi issues occupies a complicated place in Turkey, it becomes quite normal for the Arab intellectuals to fail to understand what is going in Turkey regarding these issues. However, I would say “better late than never” for the rising interest of the Arabs on the minority, Alevi and Kurdish issues in Turkey.

___________________

Sinem Cengiz is an Ankara-based Diplomatic Correspondent for Today’s Zaman Newspaper, which is the best-selling and the most circulated English daily in Turkey. Born and lived in Kuwait, Cengiz focuses mainly on issues regarding Middle East and Turkey’s relations with the region. Cengiz is also a blogger at Today’s Zaman’s blog section where she provides fresh and unusual accounts of what’s going on in Ankara’s corridors of power. She can be found on Twitter: @SinemCngz

via Why Arabs are confused on Turkey’s ethnic minorities – Al Arabiya News.

May 25, 2014
Erdogan Called Protester “A Sperm of Israel”

During clashes between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and protesters in Soma, Erdogan called out to one of them: “Why are you running away sperm of Israel?” The protesters stress that Erdogan’s government ignored the shortcomings in mine safety which led to the Soma disaster that killed hundreds of people.

Rachel Avraham

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is documented cussing a demonstrator and calling him “the sperm of Israel.”

In the documentation, Erdogan appears shouting: “Come and yell at me in front of my face. Why are you running away sperm of Israel?” He then beats him.

According to the country’s authorities, at least 282 people were killed in the coal mine in Soma, which is defined as the most serious mine disaster in the country’s history. Rescue workers continue to search for survivors against all odds. The protesters stress that Erdogan’s government ignored the shortcomings in mine safety that led to the Soma disaster.

www.jerusalemonline.com,May 16, 2014

By now, we all know, of course, that Erdogan’s family has Georgian (speaking) (Armenian) Jewish roots from mother side and Pontus Greek roots from father side.

May 16, 2014
KILLER KOAL

“Most of the things one imagines in hell are there—heat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and, above all, unbearably cramped space.”

“Watching coal-miners at work, you realize momentarily what different universes different people inhabit. Down there where coal is dug it is a sort of world apart which one can easily go through life without ever hearing about.”

George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937

Soma, a small town near Manisa in western Turkey. By the Aegean Sea, a beautiful place, if you don’t have to be a coal miner or love one.

It’s now an ant swarm. It ebbs and flows around the human conveyor belt that runs from the endless rows of ambulances and the mouth of the lignite mine. Lignite is the poorest quality coal useful mostly for power generating plants. And the people in Soma are poor too, but in a different sense, a tragic sense. The stretchers bearing the living, the dead and the dying beat an endless track from the suffocating depths to the white ambulances. The bearers stack their loads in the back of the ambulances like well-cut logs. And off they go, back to the pit. And the ambulances crawl through the swarm to the hospital whose morgue is overflowing. It’s a simple, deadly rhythm now in its twentieth hour. Most of the women are covered. They weep alone in small groups.

A transformer blew up deep in the mine. The electricity failed. No elevators. A fire down below. No way out. No air, just carbon monoxide. The death count rises. It’s now at 205, but it’s more like 250. (In the interest of accuracy. as of 2:42 pm 14 May 2014 the “official” count is 232…now 238, now 240.) There are hundreds still buried hundreds of meters underground. The fire still burns. The deaths will be in the millions because every time one sees a stretcher with a limply swinging foot, or covered over, one dies a little. And there are more than 70 million of us living here, watching this absurd tragedy. They just brought out a 15 year-old boy, dead. Turkey’s, rather the Turkish government’s treatment of children is abysmal. One weeps thinking about all of this. And then, if one is human, one gets angry. How can all these poor people die at work? The record for coal mining deaths is 263 at Zonguldak in 1992. It seems in easy reach since so many are still unaccounted for and time inexorably wears on.

Not too many years ago, five or six, there was another mine disaster, small compared to Soma, “only” 130 died. The television channel ran some file film of a miner underground. And next to the miner what should appear but a canary in a cage. Jesus, I shouted, this stuff disappeared a hundred years ago! Well, it would be nice, but extremely naïve, to think so.

For this is Turkey. And here coal mining safety is a joke. One disaster after another comes to the mining families of this saddest of countries. And again neighborhoods are devastated by the massacre of its men. Except for China, Turkey has the worst coal mining safety record in the world. This industry like most others has been privatized by the government. That means cut costs to maximize profits. That means low wages. That means Soma Group, the mining company, operates uncontrolled and unregulated despite all the official blather. But why shouldn’t it? The Turkish government operates the same way and no one does anything about it.

So who is at fault? Easy. Soma Mining is owned by Alp Gürkan. In a 2012 interview, Gürkan said the company had managed to drop the cost of coal to $24 per ton from $130 before privatization. How grand! Yes, grand, indeed. How did he do it? Well, he hired subcontractors “for hard work with low salaries” thus undercutting union workers organized by Maden-İş. But his master stroke of “genius” seems to be Gürkan’s decision to have his company simply manufacture the electric transformers instead of importing them. And it was one of these “home-made” transformers that caused this human catastrophe, this mass industrial murder, this genocide of the working class. So it seems clear that prima facie evidence of criminal negligence points toward one Alp Gürkan, Chairman of the Board. The police can find him for purposes of preliminary investigation at: Soma Holding A.Ş, Lale Sokak No:5, Levent – İstanbul.

There is also another material witness and perhaps a co-conspirator. On 29 April Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party rejected a demand for a parliamentary investigation regarding safety in the Soma mines. Why was this petition refused? Does it have to do with the hoses he has everywhere? That refusal was just two weeks ago! Question him! Erdoğan can be found somewhere in Ankara. He has yet to appear at Soma. He, like Godot, may never come. It would be good.

As I write, the students in Ankara are protesting this horrific tragedy. Everything is normal, for Turkey. The police are gassing as usual, shooting canisters directly at them. The cops are chasing them through a beautiful pine forest. TOMA and helicopters are on the scene. Beatings will follow. Students of Ankara unite! You have nothing to lose but your brains.

The air is as heavy as lead.

No more words…

James (Cem) Ryan
Istanbul
14 May 2014

EXCEPT…

HUKUMET İSTİFA!

May 14, 2014
Turkey Keen to Access Iranian Pharmaceutical Companies’ Technology

TEHRAN (FNA)- Turkish companies are seeking cooperation with leading Iranian pharmaceutical companies in a bid to utilize their valuable experiences in the sector, a Turkish official said.

The official, who coordinates Turkey’s pharmaceutical companies, said that the Turkish side is willing to develop cooperation with the Iranian side.

He further added that Turkish Abdi Ebrahim Company is resolved to transfer Iranian Sinagen Company’s know-how to Turkey to produce biological medicines.

First joint pharmaceutical project based on modern technology will be launched in Turkey, if an agreement to that effect be signed.

Iran and Turkey have in recent years increased their cooperation in all the various fields of economy, security, trade, education, energy and culture.

via Farsnews.

May 6, 2014
A ‘New Israel’… in eastern Texas?

Long-shot congressional candidate Allan Levene has a uniquely improbable two-state solution

By Anthony Weiss

Congressional candidate Allan Levene has a Middle East peace plan: have Israel exchange the West Bank for this land in southeast Texas.

JTA — With the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations floundering, it may, perhaps, be time to consider an entirely different kind of two-state solution. One that involves the State of Texas.

Allan Levene

Congressional candidate Allan Levene is proposing to cut the Gordian Knot of Middle East peace by creating a second State of Israel on the eastern coast of Texas, which he would call New Israel. The idea, briefly, is to take (through eminent domain) roughly 8,000 square miles of sparsely populated land bordering the Gulf of Mexico and give it to Israel as a second, non-contiguous part of the State of Israel. Israel would get the land only if it agrees to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders.

Israel wins because it would gain a new, peaceful territory far from the strife of the Middle East, in a place where, as Levene suggests, “the climate is similar,” and Israel could “have access to the Gulf of Mexico for international trade.” The U.S. wins because it would no longer need to send Israel billions of dollars a year in foreign aid. Texas wins because of all the construction jobs from building an entirely new state within its borders. The Palestinians win because they get the West Bank, and because now Israel, too, gets to see just how fun it is to have a non-contiguous state. Everybody wins!

And, in fact, it’s an idea with plenty of precedent. Theodor Herzl temporarily embraced a British proposal to establish a Jewish homeland in Uganda (though the backlash against the idea almost destroyed the Zionist movement). And in 1938-40, various plans were floated to settle European Jewish refugees in the Alaska territories – a notion that later inspired Michael Chabon’s novel, “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.”

Admittedly, the plan raises a few questions. OK, a lot of questions. Texans don’t generally seem too excited about the federal government stepping in and seizing land. And it’s not clear exactly how the construction of an entirely new state, and all those delectable construction jobs, gets funded (since, remember, this is supposed to save the U.S. billions of dollars). And while Israelis have generally shown plenty of enthusiasm for moving to places like New York and Los Angeles, coastal Texas has never ranked all that high on the list of preferred destinations. And – well, you get the picture. There are questions.

But Allan Levene has never been daunted by long odds – or, for that matter, by multi-state solutions. A British Jewish immigrant and naturalized citizen, Levene is simultaneously running for Congress, as a Republican, in two non-contiguous states — Georgia and Hawaii (though not, interestingly, in Texas).

Why, you might ask, is Levene running in two states? Easy – because he couldn’t get on the ballot in two other states, Minnesota and Michigan (where he was aiming for two separate congressional districts, because why not?).

Aside from creating New Israel, Levene also hopes to reduce the national debt, largely by eliminating U.S. corporate taxes and using pension rules to set congressional term limits. He also wants to put conspiracy theories to rest by investigating national catastrophes with not one, not two, but three separate commissions.

Levene’s candidacies are long shots – his support in polls has been minimal, and his fundraising has been negligible. The odds that a New Israel will appear just south of Corpus Christie are not much better.

www.timesofisrael.com, April 26, 2014

May 5, 2014
MEN IN MASQUERADE

Photo taken in the northern Syria town of Raqqa. (Courtesy: Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently)

In case you are one of the millions of Turks still celebrating the fact that Fenerbahçe, to no one’s great surprise, won the league football championship, well, you need to get a grip on reality, painful as that might be. The so-called “news”-papers still regurgitate this gloriously boring “news.” Tapes of the melodramatic fan and player antics after Sunday’s no-score game still runs on the sports channels. And thus all seems right with the world. Except it’s not. The world is horrible.

One really must wonder about the mentality of the Turkish people. Their government is causing a slaughter, if not a genocide, of the Syrian people. And I mean, specifically, that the Syrian Alevites are being directly targeted by Sunni Jihad proxies financed by Turkey. It’s a political “thing” dealing with pipedreams of a neo-Ottoman Sunni empire. By definition, that targeting constitutes a genocide. But the terror spread throughout Syria by Turkey and America affects all the Syrian people, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, atheist, all of them. These bankrolled gangsters are cutthroat killers. Killers kill. But cutthroat killers mutilate. All this should make one wonder. So I do.

Mostly I wonder why the allegedly good-hearted, the self-proclaimed “hospitable” Turks show such little interest and concern about the bloody massacre just next-door caused by their bloody-handed government. It’s no secret. It’s been no secret for years. After all, Seymour Hersh’s article was more affirmation than news. But in Turkey, the approved story on Syria is mostly simple-minded propaganda. Suddenly two years ago, Bashar al–Assad became a bad guy. And Erdoğan was hired by America to do what he does best. But now the truth is out. And things have moved from horrible to catastrophic.

So what consumes their interest, these Turkish people? Why do they now fixate ad nauseam, on television and in the press, on the Ottoman slaughter, if not genocide (the words all mean “mass murder”) of the Armenians in 1915? 1915! Then, a war was on. The Russians were enemies. Turkey’s eastern Armenians collaborated. War is murder. Blah-blah-blah. 100 years ago! 100 years ago! Yet today, the Turkish government openly exports death and destruction and Jihadist terrorism to their neighbor, Syria. And nothing happens. Football. Family. Life is busy. What’s for dinner?

Turkish people! What kind of a social conscience do you have? To silently sit while events of Nazi proportions are being done to the Syrian people by your government? It seems inconceivable that you can fill the streets for Fenerbahçe football but not even mumble a care about what your tax money is doing to the Syrian people. You know the story of the people who watched the freight trains come and go through the tiny town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz). They also said they didn’t “know.” But the camps were only a kilometer away. “We didn’t know.” Will that also be your alibi? Denial.

Turkish people, get real! Wake up from your football-slumber! You allowed the prime minister to appear on the Charlie Rose Show and lie, misrepresent, and double-talk to the world. He does to the world what he does at home. It is ridiculous.

He said that during legal protests every other country beats and gasses and kills its citizens. So what’s the problem? And neither you nor Charlie said anything.

He said, how can a country be corrupt when it has had such dramatic economic growth? And neither you nor Charlie mentioned that he (the prime minister) sold ALL the assets of the nation to finance the destruction of the cities and nature itself. And that everyone in favor politically has a piece of the action. That this growth “miracle” is based on plunder and crony-capitalism. And that’s the economic truth.

He said, how can he be a dictator when 45.5% of the people vote for him. And neither you nor Charlie asked about the majority of the people—54.5%—that voted against him. And why!

He said that he didn’t know Fethullah Gülen was such a threat until 17 December 2013 when he made a “coup.” And neither you nor Charlie Rose said, “Nonsense!”

Nonsense, it is. As everyone knows, Gülen disclosed his own treacherous plan 15 years ago. That’s why he escaped from his country into the warm embrace of the CIA and the Green-Card Land called Pennsylvania. Surely everyone knows that Gülen, a master of disguise, was recorded advising his treasonous followers that:

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers…. You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey.”

And fifteen years ago Erdoğan was one of his adherents. Without Gülen and the CIA, Erdoğan would never have left the Kasımpaşa neighborhood of Istanbul. And even an ordinary journalist, let alone Charlie Rose, should have known this. Does Charlie know the real reason why Gülen, no angel himself, is now Erdoğan’s sworn enemy? If Charlie only knew a few journalistic facts he would have quickly figured it all out. We all have, and we’re not respected journalists at all. We’re not even respected. So here’s the truth (and now I’m whispering): On 17 December 2013, a Gülenian wind blew the roof off the massive corruption enterprise called the government of Turkey.

Actually Charlie Rose only masquerades as a journalist, as elementary-school educated Gülen masquerades as an Islamic scholar, as Erdoğan masquerades as a statesman, as Abdullah Gül masquerades as a head of state and as the CIA masquerades as a patriotic, law abiding part of the American government. In Turkey, everyone is someone else and everyone plays dress-up. Welcome to the Mardi Gras a la Turka. It’s a political-social condition called Deceit.

Speaking of which, now the terrorists gangsters, financed, fed and armed by Turkey, are performing a new trick, crucifixion. They apparently grew tired of eating the pulsating hearts of their victims and mutilating their corpses. This is what happens when nitwits make foreign policy. False-flag Turkey supplies thugs with sarin gas. America supplies them with TOW missiles. The inmates run the asylum. Everything is out of control. Crucifixions! The mind cannot grasp the horror. Turkey no longer has borders. Turkey no longer has a viable military chain-of-command. Nor has it a viable judiciary. All of this has been brought about by the man who would now be president. Do the Turkish people know his credentials for the job? Is this the ultimate masquerade?

Turkish people, Get real! Wake up! The day will come when this Turkish government will be in the dock at The Hague for war crimes. Turkish people! By your silence, by your media’s collaboration in this criminal enterprise, by everyone passively accepting the commission of these war crimes, so too will your consciences be on trial. You and the country may never recover from these awful deeds done in your name.

Oh, what have you allowed your ballot boxes to do to your Syrian friends and neighbors and even families! How needy you must be to sell out for bribes of coal and rice, and some of you for so much more.

Oh, what have you allowed your passive, inept political opposition parties to do…and not do!

All the plunder, all the gold, all the dollars, all the shoeboxes, the airports, the money-counting machines, the tunnels, the bridges, the million-dollar wristwatches, the power plants, the shopping centers, the football frenzies and their obscenely expensive stadiums, all of this stuff that masquerades as democracy and capitalism and social value will not buy one second of relief from the coming guilt and shame. Murder, destruction, sickness, starvation, complete barbarism has been unleashed from Turkey. Turkey has raped and murdered Syria. And this is happening now, not a century ago. Crucifixion, a final act of savagery, killed a man named Christ and created Christianity. From evil came good. But in Turkey’s case…one wonders.

Would you not agree?

James (Cem) Ryan
Istanbul
1 May 2014

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