"Turkey: Not a country for old men
My blogger friend Hans' last column in Turkish Daily News:
Turkey: Not a country for old men
Hans A.H.C. de WIT
Politics is all about business and spin; all about negotiation and bargaining. Until, that is, you get what you want. And then you must communicate with other groups, like people who didn't vote for you. So, you act on a fine line of ethics: You are the leader of a political party which won the elections but not the heart, souls and minds of all Turks.
Mindset of judge not fond of parties
Party closure has become a general custom of Turkish politics, with 24 political parties having been closed down so far. Two parties are currently facing closure cases: the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which received 47 percent (16.5 million votes) of the vote in the July 22, 2007 elections, and the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which received 4 percent (2 million votes) of the vote in the same elections. The choices of 18.5 million voters are now subject to a political ban.A dirty war of words
Have you heard the latest story about our prime minister and our chief of General Staff?According to a columnist who happens to be a former minister of social democrat governments, when Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt, the chief of General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), visited Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at his İstanbul office last summer, he was blackmailed.
Democratization process parallel to economy
Turkey's integration into the global economy must proceed parallel to its democratization process, said Arzuhan Doğan Yalçındağ, the chairwoman ofWho cares for democracy in Turkey?
The political crisis created by the chief prosecutor's appeal to the Constitutional Court to ban the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) is surely an indication of the unconsolidated character of the democratic regime in Turkey, despite a history of at least 60 years. The crisis has also provided an opportunity to assess who really cares for the consolidation of democracy in Turkey, in both the domestic and international spheres.Report raises hopes common sense will prevail in scarf case
In a move likely to anger secular circles, a rapporteur to Turkey’s Constitutional Court, Osman Can, who submitted a report to the court last Friday about a case filed by two opposition parties against constitutional amendments removing a ban on Muslim headscarves at universities, said the court should reject the case.Court Report Says Headscarf Amendment Doesn’t Violate Secularism
The Constitutional Court rapporteur has recommended the rejection of an appeal by two Turkish opposition parties to annul a constitutional amendment pushed through by the ruling AK Party that would give headscarf-wearing women the right to attend university. The rapporteur’s report is not binding on the court’s decision, but his conclusion that the amendment was procedurally correct and does not violate the principles of secularism is important for another case before the court, that is, the closing of the ruling AK Party, since this amendment on the headscarf is one of the major “crimes against secularism” of which the AKP stands accused.
Fate of the headscarf ban
İlter TÜRKMENThe American confusion over Turkish politics
Julian CHRYSSAVGISWhy are the neo-cons so interested in Turkey?
Avni DOĞRUErdoğan's 'Otağtepe Criteria' unveiled
Mehmet Ali BirandCynics and realists
The bitter truth is that nothing is more harmful to Turkey than Turkey itself. This has been a fact, proven over and over since 1908, a crucial year that saw for the first time the confrontation of the country's elite, either ruling or keen to rule, with Western values for real.The contradictions of Turkish secularism by Sevgi Akarçeşme
Each time someone even attempts to suggest "redefining" secularism in Turkey, the fundamentalist Jacobins in the country are offended and interpret it as an implied desire to undermine secularism. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso's recent statement on secularism in Turkey ignited a new debate.