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Tag: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

12th president of Turkey

AMERICA’S WAR-HORSE HARLOTS (by Cem Ryan)

AMERICA’S WAR-HORSE HARLOTS

Stoop, Romans, Stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords; Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,
And waving our red weapons o’er our heads, Let’s all cry, “Peace, freedom, and liberty !”
Julius Caesar, Act III, i

According to experts if you really, really want to get rid of a neighbor—“bump off” is the professional term—call the mafia. But if you’re a down-at-the-heels fast fading super power, broke and bewildered, and need to continue the Arab Spring fairy tale about having the Arabs choose America-friendly democracies that sprout like orange groves throughout the Middle East, these same experts unanimously suggest you call Turkey. Just dial 011-90-ALLAHSBOYS. Oerators are standing by to answer your calls.

ALLAH’S BOYS specialize in duplicity: double-talking, double-dealing, and double-facing. Once upon a time not so very long ago “peace at home, peace in the world” was a national motto in Turkey. Now, thanks to ALLAH’S BOYS, there is no peace anywhere. And even more recently, ALLAH’S BOYS declared a foreign policy aphorism: “zero problems with our neighbors.” Now Turkey has nothing but problems and zero genuine neighbors, despite the weak-knee scribbling of the government-controlled propaganda press.

So since America needs to oust the leadership of Syria, Turkey is their international gangster of choice. Need to secure the oil pipeline forever? Want to protect Israel’s borders, even though expansionist Israel has never declared them? Call Turkey. This amnesiac country can forget the “van minit” fiasco at Davos in approximately one minute, if the price is right. It’s so terribly easy. All it takes is money.

Yes, ALLAH’S BOYS will do the sneaky, dirty work, especially on their brother Muslims, very democratic, these boys. After all, ALLAH’S BOYS are CIA creatures. Remember the “our boys did it!” exclamation from the 1980 CIA-induced Turkish military coup? ALLAH’S BOYS are the bad seed Islamo-fascist children of that catastrophe. True masters of disaster who have raped their own country through privatization, just like the juntas did in South America. Inside Turkey environmental disaster prevails. Forests are destroyed, rivers contaminated by stupid self-serving plans. “No river shall run in vain,” says the head ALLAH’S BOY, meaning that all running waterways will somehow, somewhere generate electricity. Forget nature. Turkey’s once thriving agriculture is nearly barren, its seed imported from Israel. The uneducated voting base of ALLAH’S BOYS remains bedazzled and uneducated. With no economic plan for the future, ALLAH’S BOYS encourages them to have at least 3-5 children. It needs the votes. The once proud Turkish Army has been purged, its senior ranks now stuffed with government toadies. The recent military disasters related to America’s drone-fiascos attest to its incompetence; it has yet to explain or otherwise account for the grievous loss of Turkish lives. Hundreds, thousands—one loses count—of democratic dissenters are in jails throughout the land. Everyone is wire-tapped. Public-space cameras abound. Fascist style police control the streets. Every public assembly of citizens turns into a police riot. Democratic constitutional protections no longer exist. The judicial system is thoroughly politicized. Art, music, cinema, theater, writing, all is subject to censure or fine or destruction. And political thievery an institutional art form.

All this and more is what America’s favorite adopted sons, ALLAH’S BOYS, have brought to their own country. ALLAH’S BOYS knows how to do two things very well, destroy and make money. And America truly loves what this motley crew has done for now the US is paying them big war-bucks for a new, disastrous adventure in the name so-called democracy. Now the Arab world is experiencing democracy a la Turka, as prepared in America, as delivered by ALLAH’S BOYS and their CIA handlers.

It all happened so quickly, like love at first sight. Only two years ago the capo of ALLAH’S BOYS wondered out loud about “what business does NATO have in Libya?” This was shortly after he had accepted the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Award. But then a breeze blew past his bristled upper lip bringing the smell of cordite, carrion, and chaos, followed by a little bird carrying a wad of large denomination American dollars. Twitter. Twitter. And ALLAH’S BOYS suddenly learned how to make money from war. And suddenly Muammar became a big-time loser and the Turks were bombing Libya along with the rest of NATO. And for the last 15 months ALLAH’S BOYS have been provoking Syria. In collusion with the CIA, automatic weapons, tanks, rockets, all the toys of war, have been given to the so-called Friends of Syria mercenaries. These unsavory characters bear a painful resemblance to the US-financed gangsters who toppled Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square in 2003 and, to Hillary Clinton’s great glee, sodomized and disemboweled Gaddafi last year. And now the murderers from the infamous Blackwater gang are in southern Turkey. Such is the way ALLAH’S BOYS (and the CIA) operate. Money. Money. Money.

But now they have provoked Syria too much. A Turkish jet, violating Syrian air space, coming in low and fast, got dropped into the sea. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin fiasco? The concocted incident that “validated” America’s disastrous war in Viet Nam? This is the same lying subterfuge played on the world stage, courtesy of the CIA and America’s puppet show provided by ALLAH’S BOYS. And now ALLAH’S BOYS cry murder most foul their own self-provoked crisis. And of course their American handlers echo the outrage. Make no mistake about this: they, ALLAH’S BOYS and America, are the real murderers of the two downed Turkish pilots. Along with the incompetent military commanders who approved this mission of provocation. But indeed they all found out that, Yes, Syria does indeed have an air defense capability. How stupidly negligent can one be? Ah, but the money is good.

As they used to say about Mexico and America, can be said about Syria: “Poor Syria. So far from God. So close to Turkey.” And to think Bashar Assad, a physician trained in England and president of Syria, and his stylish wife, Esma, British and college-educated, were feted in Ankara not too long ago. His wife dazzled in comparison to the fashion-retard covered wives of ALLAH’S BOYS. Then, Turkey and Syria were on great terms. The border was open. No visas or passports necessary. Trade was booming between Hatay in southern Turkey and Syria. But then that same little bird flew in the window at Ankara. And suddenly the room was full of money. And suddenly it became War! War! War! And American war bucks galore filled the Turkish air. And the ever capacious, ever open pockets of the Turkish government became happy pockets indeed.

The Turkish media lackeys bang their pathetic war drums. ALLAH’S BOYS cry wah-wah-wah to NATO, the UN and any other agency who cares to listen. It’s known as the alibi-cover up scam, also known as “protesting too much.” But the BOYS have America’s melodramatic outrage to revel in, and “endless support” according to the hapless American ambassador. So now Turkey can add its bloody hand to the millions of its Muslim “brothers and sisters” killed and displaced in Iraq and Afghanistan. What a bloody bunch! What a collection of phonies! What a dishonorable gang!

There is no honor in war. Just examine the photographs of the destroyed Iraqi children. Where are your children, ALLAH’S BOYS? There surely is no honor in America’s endless, hopeless, murderous wars. And there is nothing but treachery and greed among America’s War-Horse whores, these dogs of war who wave their red weapons over their heads crying “PEACE! FREEDOM! LIBERTY!” when they really mean MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! Killers all.

And all this carnage under the aegis of the Nobel Peace Prize winning American president.

The shame is boundless, the rape obscene.

Cem Ryan
13 July 2012

PS: See the websites of West Point Graduates Against The War and Service Academy Graduates Against The War for further details about America’s war crimes and its war criminals.

http://www.brighteningglance.org/americarsquos-war-horse-harlots-29-june-2012.html

Money makes the world go around…

Joel Grey, CABARET

Money, money, money, money

Money, money, money, money

Money, money, money, money, money

_____________________________________________________

THE DESTROYED CHILDREN OF IRAQ

WAR IS A CRIME!

STOP THE WAR CRIMINALS!

July 13, 2012
Turkey learns who its real friends are – so much for ‘strategic realignment’

The Syrian crisis has exposed the folly and weakness of Ankara’s attempts to become a regional superpower

Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the lawmakers of his Justice and Development party in Ankara on 26 June. Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty

Funny how times change. When the Bush administration sought permission to transit its Iraq invasion troops through Turkish territory in early 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara’s soon-to-be installed prime minister and his Justice and Development party (AKP) bluntly refused. Their bold defiance of America’s will won plaudits around the Arab world, not least from Syria.

With President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, not that of Saddam Hussein, now viewed in Ankara as a dangerous enemy, and with the prospect of a bilateral or regional conflict inching closer following Syria’s shooting down of a Turkish military plane, Erdogan has swiftly changed his tune. Unwilling to take on Assad by himself, Erdogan turned to the US and Nato for support this week. So much for Turkey’s much discussed “strategic realignment”.

Turkish commentators have stressed, with unconvincing vehemence, that despite eschewing a direct military response and seeking help from the western powers instead, Erdogan has not “lost face”. Mehmet Ali Birand, writing in Hurriyet, said the prime minister’s cautious reaction befitted a “serious” state. “Now it is Syria who should be thinking ahead because from now on life will be more difficult … Up to now, a verbal dispute was being experienced. Now it is two enemy nations openly confronting each other.”

But Erdogan’s vow to target Syrian military formations should they approach their shared border, support opposition forces “at any cost”, and do all he can to bring down the Assad dynasty, barely disguises the weakness of Turkey’s position. Ankara’s twin priorities are both domestic in nature: modernisation and economic growth. Turkey does not want, and cannot afford, a war along its southern border that would jeopardise these aims, further destabilise the Kurdish regions, and seriously compromise its broader regional interests. Assad, presumably, knows this well.

This inherent Turkish weakness was apparent before the Syrian uprising began last year. And it has been aggravated by a string of grave miscalculations by Turkey’s foreign policy triumvirate – Erdogan, the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, and the president, Abdullah Gul – that have left the country largely unprepared to deal with recent events, not least the fall-out from the Arab spring.

Of the three, Davutoglu is the brains. A former professor of international relations dubbed the “Turkish Kissinger” (the nickname is intended as a compliment), Davutoglu coined the AKP’s trademark policy of “zero problems with neighbours”. In short, Turkey would strengthen its ties with the Arab countries it formerly colonised, act as a good faith conduit to Iran, and maintain a pragmatically positive relationship with Israel. In theory, all this would strengthen Turkey’s position as a burgeoning regional power and a hub where the west met the near east.

Some called the policy re-Ottomanisation. And for a while it seemed to be working, as Davutoglu argued in a Guardian interview in 2010. Regarding Syria in particular, old arguments about shared water resources, the disputed border province of Hatay, and Syria’s support for anti-Turkish Kurdish militants were set aside. Instead, in 2004, a free trade agreement was signed, visa-free travel was proposed, Gul and Erdogan made high-profile visits, and in 2009 the two countries held joint military exercises. Syrian commanders were invited to inspect Turkish border defences. This open-handedness appears unfortunate now.

So, too, does much else pertaining to Davutoglu’s self-interested, blind-eye good-neighbourliness. Relations with Israel went predictably pear-shaped after it shot up a pro-Palestinian freedom flotilla. Post-occupation Iraq under Nouri al-Maliki appears to prefer Tehran’s embrace to Ankara’s. Iran’s nuclear programmers have proven wholly unappreciative of Turkish mediation efforts. And the Kurdish question is as unanswered as ever, witness last week’s Turkish air raids inside northern Iraq – another reminder of Ankara’s ongoing ineffectuality.

Maybe Egypt, now under Muslim Brotherhood management, will have something to learn from Erdogan’s softly softly Islamist approach to Turkey’s secular, Ataturkist legacy. Chances are, not.

The Syrian crisis gives Turkey’s leaders an opportunity to reorient their country’s outlook, on the sounder basis of knowing who your real friends are, not who they might be. The US and Britain fall firmly into the first camp and so do most of the European Nato powers, notwithstanding the anti-Turkish sentiment encouraged by the unlamented Nicolas Sarkozy and some German soulmates. Russia is definitely no friend to Turkey, no more than will be Iran if push comes to bloody shove in Syria.

If growing bands of Syrian refugee “guests” and defectors, unpredictable military provocations, the threat to Lebanon, a ruined commerce and the Damascus regime’s generally reckless behaviour are not enough to convince Turkey’s leaders where the hope of safety best lies, then perhaps they should focus on one particular issue: Syria’s large arsenal of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

The Christian Science Monitor highlighted the danger this week: “As Syria slides into ever worsening violence and parts of the country begin to slip out of control of the state, Syria’s chemical and biological weapons arsenal, air defence systems, and ballistic missiles could be up for grabs – a potential bonanza for radical militant groups and a massive challenge for the west in attempting to check proliferation.

“Hard data on Syria’s chemical and biological warfare capabilities is scarce, but the country is believed to have one of the largest chemical agents stockpiles in the world, including VX and Sarin nerve agents. It also has an impressive number of surface-to-surface missiles, such as Scud-Ds which can be fitted with chemical warheads, and modern Russian anti-aircraft missile batteries, including portable shoulder-fired systems.”

The prospect that some of these weapons might be used by a desperate regime bent on survival, or may fall into the hands of terrorist groups, however defined, is a daunting one. The ensuing chaos could easily trump what has happened in Libya and the Sahel after the fall of Gaddafi. It poses a potentially existential threat to Turkey and other neighbours. Hopefully, Erdogan and chums now fully understand this.

June 28, 2012
Turkey in the era of Erdogan
Turkish diplomacy, which a couple of years ago seemed to be sweeping all before it, now risks looking naive and ineffective
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- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey, in the era of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is playing a regional and global rule that has filled its leaders with pride and ambition.

The country’s record of economic and political success has greatly added to its prestige and power. Some around Erdogan have even spoken of a “new Ottomanism”, that would see the country re-emerging as a dominant force in the region.

But the Arab spring and, specifically, the uprising in Syria have risked exposing Turkey’s claim to a unique influence in its region. Turkish diplomacy, which a couple of years ago seemed to be sweeping all before it, now risks looking naive and ineffective.

Yet, even through the flaws in the Erdogan approach to the world are now emerging, the prime minister can justly point to a transformation in the country’s international image in recent years.

Article continues below

In the decades before the Erdogan era, foreign policy was one-dimensional. Following in the tradition of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country was determined to look West. Its self-imposed mission was to join the European Union (EU).

Unfortunately, in recent years, it has become painfully clear that — whatever the official position — the EU does not really want Turkey inside the club. Turkey risked being put in the humiliating position of a spurned suitor, with no proper alternatives.

Erdogan and his AKP party were, however, perfectly placed to respond to rejection from Europe. As a party with Islamist roots, that is in a state of semi-conflict with Turkey’s secular elite, the AKP was happy to develop relations with the Middle East.

At a time when the Gulf was booming and the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) were trendy — and with Europe in a slump — a Turkish foreign policy that looked East, as much as West, made both political and economic sense.

Better still, the country’s efforts to burnish its role in the Muslim world enhanced it prestige in Washington.

At a time when the Barack Obama administration is desperate to build better relations with the Muslim world, Turkey has seized upon as an example of a country that is governed by a mildly Islamist party, but which maintains a democratic system, a secular constitution, a successful economy and a foreign policy that is friendly to the West.

As they say in America, what’s not to like?

As it happens, many Americans and Europeans have become uneasy with the direction of Turkey in the Erdogan era.

Its efforts to co-broker a nuclear deal with Iran were regarded as distinctly “unhelpful” by Washington, at a time when the US was leading an effort to ramp up sanctions on Iran.

A serious deterioration in the relationship with Israel has also lost Turkey many friends on Capitol Hill, even as it burnished Erdogan’s credentials as a popular figure in the Muslim world.

As Turkey has lost friends in the West, its democratic credentials have also come under closer scrutiny. A wide-ranging inquiry into an alleged plot to stage a military coup has involved the administrative detention of scores of suspects, many of whom have been awaiting trial for years.

Yet, Erdogan has continued to enjoy an excellent relationship with Obama, who reportedly sees his Turkish colleague as a valued interlocutor.

The real difficulties with the Erdogan approach to the world have risen from closer to home.

The single slogan that summed up Turkey’s new approach was provided by the country’s hyperactive Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who coined the phrase “zero problems with the neighbours”.

Given that Turkey’s neighbours and near-neighbours include Iran, Syria, Iraq and Russia, this policy was more controversial and less bland than it sounded.

Davutoglu was speaking about more than mere conflict-avoidance. He believes that Turkey’s rich cultural inheritance and network of economic ties should allow the country to operate with ease and understanding in a range of countries.

The Turkish foreign minister has also claimed that his country has a “unique understanding of the Middle East”.

It was all the more awkward, therefore, that Turkey seemed nearly as wrong-footed by the Arab spring as the EU or the US.

Erdogan did side fairly swiftly with the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, but he had initially opposed the Nato intervention in Libya — only later attempting a victory lap in Tripoli, after the Muammar Gaddafi regime had been deposed.

Although many Arab intellectuals and members of the Muslim Brotherhood have looked with great interest at the Turkish model, there is little sense that an awakened Arab world is looking at Turkey as a regional leader.

Old antagonisms between Turks and Arabs — colonisers and the colonised — are probably too deep for that to happen.

The Syrian conflict has been particularly difficult for Turkey. As part of the “zero problems” policy, Erdogan had cultivated a special relationship with Bashar Al Assad.

Now, in common with many Turks, he is aghast at events in Syria and has cut the Al Assad regime loose.

But Turkey seems uncertain about how to respond and has failed to play a galvanising role in the international response — exposing its pretensions to be a regional leader.

The aspiration to have “zero problems” with neighbours has now been displaced by a real world in which Turkey in fact has awkward relations with most of its neighbours: Iraq, Iran, Syria and Israel — foremost among them.

This has left Turkey feeling exposed and anxious that regional antagonists may stir up internal strife, particularly with the Kurdish minority.

Yet, if this collision with reality introduces a little more humility into Turkish foreign policy, that may not be a bad thing.

There is no doubt that Turkey has made big strides on the global stage in the Erdogan era. But there was always a risk, given the personality of Erdogan himself, that this pride would lead to a fall.

If Turkey gets away instead with a couple of stumbles — and learns to tread more carefully — the country’s forward march can continue.
June 28, 2012
Turkey’s PM threatens theatres after actor ‘humiliates’ daughter

Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemns ‘despotic arrogance’ of intellectuals and says he will cut state funding

Fiachra Gibbons in Istanbul

guardian.co.uk

Protesters gather to protest the closing of the National Theater

Turkish actors protest outside the Devlet Tiyatrosu, Turkey’s national theatre, in Ankara. Photograph: Roberto Giobbi/Demotix/Corbis

In a tale which could have come straight from the time of the sultans, when one wrong word could seal your fate, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is threatening to withdraw state support from the country’s theatres after his daughter said she was insulted by an actor during a play.

Erdogan, who dabbled in amateur dramatics as a student, has a reputation for wearing his heart on his sleeve. But his tirades against “arrogant, alcoholic actors” and an arts establishment he claims holds ordinary people in contempt have shocked Turkey.

Theatres cannot take government subsidies and then criticise the hand that feeds them, he said. “They have started to humiliate and look down on us and all conservatives.”

Actors took to the streets in protest after civil servants were handed artistic control of Istanbul theatres overnight last month in a separate row over an “obscene” play.

“If support is needed, then we the government can support the plays we want,” Erdogan said. “I am privatising the theatre. No theatres are being run by the state in almost any developed country. Here there is freedom. When we privatise the theatres you can play whatever you want. Sorry, but you cannot get your salary from the municipality and then criticise the management. There is no such absurdity.”

He railed against the “despotic arrogance” of intellectuals who always think they know best: “For God’s sake, who are you? From where do you get the authority to express opinions on every issue, to argue that you know everything? Are theatres your monopoly in this country? Are arts your monopoly? These days are gone.”

What some are calling “Turkey’s culture war” began in April last year when his youngest daughter, Sümeyye Erdogan, 30, walked out of a performance of Young Osman at the Ankara state theatre. Its story of a young, reforming sultan overthrown by a boorish military has a rich echo for the Erdogans and the AK party, who have broken the army’s hold on Turkey. What exactly happened during an improvised sequence when the uncouth soldiers growl at the audience is still disputed, but she claims she was humiliated by an actor, Tolga Tuncer, who picked on her because she was wearing a headscarf, mimicking her chewing gum and making offensive “haka-style” gestures at her.

Sümeyye Erdogan went to university overseas – studying in the US and at the London School of Economics – because headscarves were banned at the time in Turkish academic institutions. In an impassioned letter to Tuncer on Facebook, she appealed for the kind of tolerance she was accorded in Britain and the US. “As an artist you should be first to treat people who are different with respect … you had better get used to people with headscarves. Half of the people of Turkey are women and many of them wear headscarves. I don’t want to live my life fighting you. I will continue to love art and theatre and continue attending the theatre with my headscarf.”

Suspended and summoned before the culture minister, who said actors had “no right to interact with their audiences”, Tuncer refused to apologise for his actions, which he said were part of the play, but said he was sorry she had been offended. He claimed he did not know who she was and picked on her only because she was in the front row and was chewing gum.

Then last month’s controversy over an allegedly obscene play was used by Istanbul’s mayor, an Erdogan protege, to take artistic control of its municipal theatres after a religiously conservative playwright condemned Chilean playwright Marco Antonio de la Parra’s Daily Obscene Secrets without seeing it as “vulgarity at the hands of the state”. The play, an attack on the values of Chile’s military dictatorship, which had much in common with the Turkish generals who once locked Erdogan up, had been performed more than 70 times without protest, but is now being removed from the repertoire.

Arts organisations described the attacks as a “pointless witchhunt”, pointing out that the theatre is subsidised in almost every developed country and that Turkey’s state theatres are the fullest in Europe, thanks to low prices and a mostly traditional repertoire that appeals to conservative and religious audiences in the governing AK party’s Anatolian heartlands.

The crisis deepened this week as Istanbul’s theatre festival opened. Its director, Dr Dikmen Gürün, appealed for calm and said that cuts would be a disaster for smalltown Anatolia, where most stages are subsidised. Others say it will hit the Turkish TV industry, which relies on theatres to train actors for its series, which have huge followings throughout the Balkans and the Middle East.

Nor has the spat done anything to improve Turkey’s tattered reputation for free speech, with 100 mostly Kurdish journalists still in jail awaiting trial under anti-terror laws that date from the days of military rule. Despite Erdogan’s reputation as reformer, human rights groups are worried by an atmosphere of self-censorship, while the opposition accuses his AK party of using authoritarian legal machinery left over from military rule to undermine the country’s long secular tradition that it was meant to protect.

via Turkey’s PM threatens theatres after actor ‘humiliates’ daughter | World news | guardian.co.uk.

May 18, 2012
AS HE LAY DYING by Cem Ryan

AS HE LAY DYING

By Cem Ryan

As he lay dying in those autumn afternoons of 1938, Atatürk had one abiding desire. He longed for those distant days on horseback, just one more afternoon riding in the hills above the Bosphorus. He would go again with his military academy classmate, Ali Fuat, to the sultan’s hunting lodge in Alemdağ. They would once more picnic in that nearby meadow. Oh those cadet days, those days of youth. To be twenty-one again, rejuvenated. But by then the lodge was in ruins and Ataturk could barely walk.

Such is Turkey today. The nation of Atatürk is in ruins, his legacy near death. Think otherwise? Go see the ruination that today is Alemdağ. Go see where once grew the forests on the hills above the Bosphorus.

An emasculated army, a captive media, a politically compromised judiciary, and incompetent political opposition have sealed the fate of secular Turkey. These are the hammer blows to Atatürk’s dream.

Like Alemdağ, Turkey is a ruined landscape. Political corruption and environmental plunder have risen to the level of popular culture. Hundreds of those opposed to the ruling power are in jail. Listening devices and wire taps abound. Comments and demonstrations are stifled. The tone of public political discourse remains rancid. Insults, sex tape disclosures, threats and arrogant boasts are the fare fed to the passive Turkish public. The prime minister and his business cronies propose vast and bizarre infrastructure plans. They will dam all the rivers in order to generate electricity. They will dig a ridiculous canal from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. And they will do it, the Turkish public being what it is. Money. Money. Money. Capitalism on amphetamines.

Meanwhile the needs of the vast armies of the unemployed and the impoverished go unaddressed. The ruling party presents outlandish schemes as fait accompli, so confident is it of an election landslide. Imagine a canal that circumvents the Bosphorus. Imagine two new cities built to extend the already polluted and seething Istanbul. Why? To make Istanbul safer from earthquakes, they say. Such is what passes for logical thinking. Bizarre? Yes, well then consider the prime minister’s plan to build a nuclear reactor along a fault line. Dangerous? Not to worry. It’s no more dangerous than the cooking gas container in your kitchen assures the prime minister at the top of his lungs. So much for the land that Atatürk started on the path to science and knowledge. Turkey lies dying, its natural resources plundered, its brain lobotomized.

Even Atatürk’s Address to Turkish Youth is attacked by the media jackals. Undemocratic, intolerant, authoritarian mentality, illiberal, paranoiac, racist, fascist, are some of the labels that these hacks use to describe Atatürk’s words. How sensitive these petty scribblers are to his cautions about internal enemies, and those in power collaborating with foreign governments. They throw their words, these so-called journalists without being aware of time, history or treacherous religious underbelly that has always prevailed in Turkey. It is no mystery why the Turkish society has been so violent. Just observe the way they drive their cars, cheer on their favorite football teams, conduct their political discussions. It is really ludicrous.

Among many other things—military leader, tactician, strategist, political scientist, social philosopher, educator—Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a revolutionary thinker. He placed his trust in education and science. He trusted the future. For him, the future resided in the nation’s youth, not only in age but in mind. Such “youth” saw the way to a better world through the enlightened, founding principles that Atatürk embraced and applied to the new, revolutionary Turkey. That Turkey is dead.

The Turkish War of Independence was a great struggle for survival. The improbable victory was against all odds. The occupying great and not-so-great powers were sent away as they came. The backward, repressive five-century rule by religious dictators called sultans was consigned to the garbage dump of history. Youth was served. Instead of dark-minded ignorance there was the promise of education and enlightenment. Turkey was a young, revolutionary country, rid at last of the exclusive claims of religion, structured and heading towards a democratic future. But guess what? Turkey has a new sultan now, one with a sour face and an attitude to match. And the likes of him and his army of business jackals and covered women have the field to themselves. The treacherous political opposition works for its archaic itself. Turkey heads headfirst into the abyss, sleeping all the way.

A parting word on the political opposition. On Election Day, 12 June 2011, twenty-three separate parties stand in opposition to one party, the ruling party, the AKP. Representation in parliament requires gaining at least 10 percent of the total vote. The leading opposition party, the CHP, the party of Atatürk was the only opposition party sure of gaining some representation. It takes a special brand of ineptitude to be unable to find common ground to unify the opposition, an opposition that represents the majority of the total vote. The CHP, like Nero, fiddles around in nonsensical internal fights and petty arguments. But take a bold, active stand? Never! Rally the people? Impossible! It has been the best friend AKP. Who could imagine, a political weakling bearing the name “Ataturk’s Party.” Shameful!

Atatürk’s Turkey is in an existential struggle against the forces of fascist Islam. The Turkish army, the guarantor of Atatürk’s legacy, licks its wounds in silence. It’s generals run to America for help and instructions. The political opposition is doomed by its smug, selfish arrogance. The Turkish people, Atatürk’s beloved people, stand paralyzed, like the sheep on the eve of Kurban Bayram. Whither Turkey? Don’t ask.

Atatürk’s close friend, biographer and confidant, Falih Rıfkı Atay, wrote in 1968: “What would Atatürk do if he were alive today? Shall I tell you? He would curse the lot of us.” *

Cem Ryan

Istanbul

15 May 2012.

*Atay, Falih Rıfkı. The Atatürk I Knew, Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi, Istanbul, 1973, p. 252.

May 15, 2012
Erdogan Moves to Extend his Hold on Power in Turkey

By ANDREW FINKEL

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPrime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

ISTANBUL — Is Turkey’s prime minister past his expiration date? At first glance, the question sounds absurd. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led his Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., to three consecutive electoral victories, most recently in June 2011, and few doubt that if there were an election tomorrow he would chalk up victory number four.

A decade of A.K.P. rule has transformed Turkey from a debt-ridden, inflationary economy to one of the fastest-growing in Europe. The increase in confidence and prosperity has allowed Erdogan to tame the country’s military and reel in its die-hard judiciary. But there are ominous signs that the prime minister intends to overplay his hand.

This week, Erdogan said that Turks should begin debating a move from the current parliamentary system, in which most of the governing power rests with the prime minister, toward a presidential system with a more powerful executive, along the lines of the United States or France. Everyone knows what his push for a stronger president means: Erdogan would jump ship before his term as prime minister ends in 2015 and stand as president himself when the job becomes vacant in 2014. He would continue leading the country, with more power than ever.

The vehicle for change would be a major revision of the out-of-date Constitution. Most Turks agree that the country needs a new charter — one that would finally enshrine individual rights and provide for greater accountability and government transparency. In the view of many, the current Constitution concentrates too much power in the hands of an unelected state apparatus. Enacted in 1982 when the country was under military rule, the Constitution is seen as full of fussy provisos designed to protect the government from its citizenry rather than the other way around.

Notoriously, the Constitution tries to resolve Turkish Kurds’ demands to be able to express their own identity by pretending that those demands do not exist. Even agitating for regional devolution of power can be interpreted as an assault on the integrity of the state. And the biggest problem is that the Constitution’s guarantees of basic rights and freedoms are subject to so many qualifications that they end up being no guarantee at all.

The government is right to want to replace it. But the new Constitution has to be better than the old one. It should not serve as a means for Erdogan to hold on to power.

Under the current system, the president is not powerless: he appoints senior bureaucrats and can veto laws passed by Parliament, but the main power flows from the prime minister. As head of the cabinet, the prime minister has responsibility for the day-to-day running of government.

While no one has yet spelled out what a strong presidency would look like, it can be assumed that it will combine the might of the current office with that of prime minister. To do so without the approval of a popular referendum would mean securing the support of two-thirds of the Parliament and winning the support of at least one other party.

It is already clear that no opposition group would be willing to support a constitutional change that would end up giving Erdogan so much power. But that hasn’t stopped the prime minister from trying. His political allies have also joined the fray. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said this week that a presidential system allows for “the most effective supervision.’’

As a result of Erdogan’s efforts, discussion over the shape of the future of Turkey under a new Constitution will be hijacked by a debate over the future of just one man. Unfortunately, all of this is a distraction from the real issue of how to make Turkey’s government more representative.

At the moment Erdogan resembles a Moses wandering in the desert: having led his people from one sort of bondage, he is unable to lead them to the promised land. If he believes so strongly that Turkey should have a presidential system, then he first needs to declare that he is not a candidate.

Andrew Finkel has been a foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over 20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-language newspapers. He is the author of the book “Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

via Erdogan Moves to Extend his Hold on Power in Turkey – NYTimes.com.

May 12, 2012