Turkish PM says court is usurping parliament

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the Constitutional Court must explain its decision to overturn a government-led reform allowing students to wear Muslim headscarves at university

From Top To Bottom: "Secularism Is Being Lost!" - "Islam Is Being Lost!" - "The Economy Is Lost!"

Source: Milliyet, Turkey, June 11, 2008 VIA

[Constitutional Court’s preventive regime change] Protecting democracy from the people by ŞABAN KARDAŞ

Continue reading ""Time to discuss Turkey’s problem with the judiciary..." »

Posted by erkan at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know I love his novels, but he doesn't get it. What he says about football is one of the oldest intellectualist clichés. It is a simplistic reductionism he makes... He simply misses the complexities of football fandom.... Felt sorry for him:)

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER PAMUK:"Turkish football fosters nationalism"

By Ahmet Turgut

Nobel winner Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk says football(soccer) in Turkey serves nationalist and xenophobic thinking, but he would still be supporting the country's team at Euro 2008. Pamuk said in an interview with the Germany's weekly Der Spiegel magazine that football(soccer) in Turkey had become "a machine for the production of nationalism, xenophobia and authoritarian thought."

Continue reading "As 4 days left for EURO 2008, Orhan Pamuk doesn't get it..." »

Posted by erkan at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CLAIRE BERLINSKI's Pamuk: prophet or poseur? is an unfortunate piece. I wouldn't think about it but as it made into Turkish press and was immediately incorporated into the arguments of Pamuk haters, and as it generated some comments in a previous post, I take it my duty to launch the counter-attack as a die-hard Pamuk fan. I know very well that Mr. Pamuk does not need me at all but as a fan I have to perform my duty anyway:)

First of all, let me make sure that Orhan Pamuk has never been liked and accepted by many of the gatekeepers of Turkish literature. He has been "popular" -but in the sense of being known- but he has been rarely appreciated by the lay public of readers. In the small world of Ms. Berlinski's Cihangir, this may not be apparent but this is a fact to all of us breathing outside the Cihangir gates. Cihangir has become a safe haven for happy expats and mostly pseudo and would be intellectuals after a wave of gentrification that ended up driving ordinary lower class people away.

Continue reading "In defense of Orhan Pamuk- once again. Ms. Berlinski's hostility against Orhan Pamuk" »

Posted by erkan at 01:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Orhan Pamuk’s Other Colors: A Book Review Essay

On the jacket of Orhan Pamuk’s latest book, Other Colors: Essays and a Story, stands the black silhouette of a lone man – hands in his pockets, shoulders shrugged, face away from us – walking on top of a rail of the electric tram line that runs down the left lane of a damp, dark empty cobblestone street illuminated only by the fog smeared light of distant street lamps. In the background, two dark gray minarets of a giant mosque pierce the lighter grey sky. The jacket tells us that Ara Güler took this evocative photograph, that Chip Kidd designed the jacket and that Maureen Freely translated the text from Turkish - but nothing more.......

Continue reading ""Pamuk: prophet or poseur?" »

Posted by erkan at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

 Inspired and informed by Orhan Pamuk - Telegraph

Turkey to evaluate assess EU process

by Grassroots

"Turkey to evaluate assess EU process
The New Anatolian / Ankara 14 September 2007

The process regarding Turkey's accession to the European Union (EU) will be evaluated at a meeting on September 17, scheduled to be held at the headquarters of the Secretariat General for EU Affairs."

EU meeting to be held in Ankara

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul (L) shakes hands with Diyarbakir's Mayor Osman Baydemir during his visit to the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, September 14, 2007. REUTERS/Stringer (TURKEY)

MUMTAZER TURKONE: Abdullah Gül and the state's new Kurdish policy

Becoming president after days of tension and debate, Abdullah Gül began his first national tour in the Southeast. This trip sends out a very important message.

Continue reading "Orhan Pamuk's latest speech, Gül's Southeastern visit, the new Constitution, older news related to Turkish law, an EU meeting in Ankara..." »

Posted by erkan at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Noah Feldman's Complex Definition of "Secular"

by Amardeep Singh

DANNY HELLMAN ILLUSTRATION

Bergman and Antonioni, poised to enter heaven - are stuck in purgatory!

Scott Horton - The Importance of Being Orhan

"This will be a commercial work, appealing to the Istanbul middle class and its nostalgia for everything Ottoman". Christopher De Bellaigue, "There is no east: Reading Orhan Pamuk," Harper's , Sept. via Harper's Magazine.

Dalí Illustrates the Bible in New Exhibition at The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg

Salvador Dalí, They will all come from Saba, 1963-64 (Omnes de Saba venient)

Continue reading " Scott Horton: The Importance of Being Orhan" »

Posted by erkan at 02:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hmmm this could be an argument for pro-TR circles within the EU to scare the anti-TR, but I am not sure if it is effective any more. Without the EU process, ultranationalism will invade the ground and I don't think the establishment is that anxious with this. As "islamofascism" is the main enemy, some important circles here and there wouldn't mind that invasion in the short run. I might be exaggerating and pessimistic though.

The European Union is risking an Islamic backlash in Turkey, the EU's enlargement commissioner says....:

EU 'faces backlash from Turkey'

Network Europe:

Continue reading "EU 'faces backlash from Turkey" »

Posted by erkan at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

'This is funny to say ... but I like writing.' Orhan Pamuk at the ay festival. Photograph: Martin Godwin/Guardian

'If I'm at my desk, I'm happy'

Orhan Pamuk's prosecution for 'insulting Turkishness' made headlines around the world but, he tells Richard Lea, he is not interested in engaging directly with politics. Since winning the Nobel prize for literature last year, he is delighted to find that people are finally talking to him about his novels......

Kemalists versus Liberal Intellectuals in Turkey

Posted by erkan at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Turkey’s journalists are mourning the death of Hrant Dink, 52, a newspaper editor of Armenian origin who was gunned down on 19 January. The barbaric action of Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old Turkish ultra-nationalist, silenced an advocate of peace and democracy. Throughout his career, Dink fought passionately for acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide, and was awarded the Henri Nannen Press Freedom Prize in recognition of his efforts. His death has exacerbated the divisions between nationalists and the more progressive sectors of Turkish society. Tirelessly committed and always controversial, Dink never lost faith in the possibility of national reconciliation.

Posted by erkan at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

DAMARIS KREMIDA in Deconstructing Pamuk says:

In the span of five days two Orhan Pamuk symposiums are held in Istanbul, recognizing him in his true right as a novelist........

Posted by erkan at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Orhan Pamuk in The New Yorker (USA), April 16, 2007, Pg. 56 Vol. 83 No. 8

Posted by erkan at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)