Erkan's Field Diary

...he produces one of the most humane portrayals of Atatürk.

  The film Mustafa demonstrates once again that Kemalist clergy (intellectuals, opinion leaders, cultural producers), cannot accept Mustafa Kemal as a human being. It is a suprahuman heroic entity. He has prophetic qualities. Any other portrayal is blasphemy. Can Dündar is a well-intentioned Kemalist but he could not escape being accused by these people and their militant disciples. I have watched the movie/documentary with a girl who started blurbing against the director before the movie and continued afterwards. This good work of biography has no meaning for her and others.

I would recommend the movie. It is too personal, it might ignore some of the social aspects of the early Republican years but it certainly gives clues to understand. Oh boy, those men and women around him in his later years are so familiar. He was surrounded by sycophants. He lost his closest friends and allies in political trials and he ended up surrounded with these people who would be the base of later cult of Kemalism. The cult was the reason of their existence and so they fed them. This still continues today.

Mustafa Kemal is a heavy smoker and drinker. He cannot sleep at nights, lonely and he cannot seem to have long term relations. So what? I would not lose my respect because of these but today's Kemalist clergy is socially conservative as much as Islamists are. So this portrayal hurts them....

Continue reading "As Kemalist clergy excommunicates Can Dündar," »

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PM Erdoğan gone crazy. His latest statements are unbelievable. He has explicitly supported citizens' use of weapons against protesters. He is riding on the nationalistic discourse even MHP does not use any more: Love or Leave... We will see what this will lead to. I am afraid that AKP now alienates most of Kurds. Mr. Erdoğan believes he has already secured more pious, traditional Kurds but he seems to ignore that religious Kurds are not like religious Turks. Every Kurd I know that does not support PKK still have a nationalistic consciousness. They voted for AKP because they thought this party was the only one that could embrace them. Now it seems this may not be the case. AKP might witness a big time disappointment in the region...

Prime Minister along with some other ministers... 

In the mean time, militaristic propaganda knows no boundaries in major Turkish TV channels. Those respected anchormen/journalists like Uğur Dündar and Mehmet Ali Birand have spent considerable amount of prime time coverage from commando education centers this week! Just watch the prime time news, you will see what I mean.  This week most of the members of Turkish government got briefed at the commando center!

No, the Prime Minister would not have said such a thing

Mehmet Ali Birand

PM accuses intellectuals of cultural erosion, forgets about Üzmez

The prime minister yesterday accused the country's intellectuals for the erosion of the concept of family in society, but remained tight-lipped on the much-criticized sexual harassment

Oktay Eksi: Quo vadis Turkey?

Where are we heading towards? We need to confess that we feel a sense of fear when we look at the prime minister's recent remarks and attitudes that support our previous concerns which have been raised in this column on related issue."

 

Continue reading "For a few more municipalities..." »

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● President Barack Obama:

I am not as euphoric as Democrats, but I certainly wake up to start imagining a more peaceful future. But this vicious cycle prevents me to be more euphoric: It is the same American nation that chose Bush for 8 years to have us all a nightmare. And for decades now, Americans first choose Republicans to have nightmares and then choose Democrats as saviors. Republicans mess up the American image, then Democrats spend all their time to fix it. Also think of Reagan era, Nixon era etc... So here starts a good cop era after a bad cop era... Poor Obama inherits a wreckage...

Continue reading "Obama, Obama!" »

Posted by erkan at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Erkan in a modest but excellent fish restaurant- another hidden secret of Istanbul- with his colleagues from Child Studies and Youth Studies units at Istanbul Bilgi University.

Last Friday was another down moment in Erkan's life. It started with exchanging civilized words with a girl who first flirted with me and then backed down. Since I am experienced with that, this moment of seeing the girl wouldn't upset me but it was the first small ring of a chain of events to come. Then came time for the lecture for my course on Intellectual Heritage- a history of thought course for PR students that covers from Enlightenment era to Semiology. It was a disaster. In my five years of teaching at Bilgi, I have the most indifferent audience. So I left the lecture with anger, coming back with making a quiz, intending to lower grades. A threatening tool I never used before and I don't believe it will really work.
then came Beşiktaş game. Good play but we lost two valuable points at home against Sivasspor. It was a terrible moment of despair. And finally I got back home and saw that Blogger was banned.

By Sunday night these happened to make feel better:
Beşiktaş was still at the top of Super League. Galatasaray, Trabzonspor, Bursaspor and Gaziantepspor all lost points and we could still remain at the top.
I talked to Milliyet about Blogger ban. It was published on Monday. I would later be interviewed by CS Monitor correspondent Yigal Schleifer whose articles are frequently quoted in this blog. I am quoted in Turkey tightens controls on Internet speech. I might be the only one in Turkey who benefitted from this ban:)

 In the mean time, I had some correspondence with Carole, Rice Antro coordinator. It is now something even more tangible. My defense will be on 8 December. I bought my plane ticket. I will be hanging around in Houston between 1-22 December. I am still expecting to hear from my readers whose feedback will sweat me in the remaining days. But I can handle that.

Blogger ban lifted temporarily.

I had some good lectures during this week, did some work for the thesis and did lots of reading. I am expecting to have a Good Friday tomorrow.

Beşiktaş fans from a previous European Cup game. Source: Milliyet daily.

 

 

Posted by erkan at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I hereby declare: for Erkan, PM Erdoğan is fallen out of grace and there is no more political support. Though Erkan knows in all modesty, this will not have much impact on the political scene.

Here are the reasons for Erkan's political move:

* He is (in)directly responsible for not initiating legislative move to stop growing web censorship in Turkey.
* Just talks too much and mostly phatic talk.
* Showyness in South Eastern cities. Nothing substantial done in Kurdish issues. Attacking the already politically weakened DTP continuously. Local Kurds may think PM Erdoğan's latest visits to the region as a show of force by the State.
* His attack against Taraf daily. This paper's claims are not really investigated. Stamped out by the army and government alliance.
* His attack against Doğan Media Group. If you did not have any substantive evidence why did you do so much bitching?
* Torture continues under his party's rule. Slow acting in Article 301 and indifference to web censorship.
* His desire to win the municipalities of İzmir and Diyarbakır. So what will happen when you conquer all? Is this that important? With the power and voter percentage you already have, you could have done a lot and you basically did not do.
* Appointing the same candidate for the incoming Istanbul municipality election. Mr. Topbaş did not provide us much comfort. All show of construction work throughout his administration years.I remind you two years of muddy Istiklal Street. Cheesy populism in metrobus system. Increased traffic jam for the car owners.

* Too emotional. Reacts to every protest. I hope he will react to his post, and I will get more traffic ehehehehe
* No sense of humor.

Posted by erkan at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I thought after yesterday's speech Mr. Erdoğan would not talk back immediately, and i spent the day out without recognizing today's speech until the evening. Well, Mr. Erdoğan gives "1 week" to correct the false news disseminated by Doğan group dailies. Mr. Doğan replied back in Kanal D to declare that his media will not be an obedient media in sum. I found Mr. Doğan a little bit scared. But only a little bit. He has a giant media empire, his journalists occupy many Press institutions, his daughter is the head of powerful businessman association, TUSIAD. Although he said last night "all state institutions belong to AKP,  they can finish us easily, we know that things do not work like that. A leftist TV channel, Hayat TV was closed nearly all summer and no body could help that but DMG is not a small marginal media group and dynamics of politics is much more complicated. Never politically correct Mr. Erdoğan waited for more than 2 years to attack back, and only after the Constitutional Court case, he felt more secure to start the battle.
Mr. Erdoğan claimed that Mr. Doğan visited him and requested some privileges for the Hilton Hotel site located in near the super valuable Taksim square. (In tonight's interview at Kanal D, Aydın Doğan said "of course, we always have requests from the government, we do lots of business and we have needs to discuss]  When he was rejected, DMG dailies began to attack. DMG is known to request some sort of airwave rights for CNN Turk. That is also refused. After tens of TV channels, anti-trust laws do not allow him for more airwave but Mr. Doğan wants more basically. Anyway, we will see new files to be opened in the next few days. In the mean time, in today's papers Abdullah Gül's visit to Armeania and the "battle" news competed in headlines. DMG's flagship Hürriyet replied back. Milliyet also. [circulation report of dailies are given in the end]



DMG's newly acquired furiously anti-AKP Vatan columnists charged their weapons like the ones above:

Continue reading "Day 2 in the battle of AKP vs. DMG" »

Posted by erkan at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

 After a corruption case whose details given below, DMG papers and CHP started a new wave of attack against AKP and its leadership. As usual Milliyet leads the accusations. As far as I remember PM Tayyip Erdoğan uttered the name of "Aydın Doğan" for the first time and he accused him of not having moral standards etc. So far Mr. Erdoğan was using an abstract term, 'media' to attack. Now he narrowed down that to DMG. Doğan Media Group has been explicitly targeting for a few years and now AKP seems to have decided to fight back.

DMG has been continously criticised in media criticism circles and in Communication schools. The group papers are unbelievably bold against whom they believe to be targets. This might be AKP, or Kurds/DTP or another media group or EU leaders.Their newsmaking sometimes reaches the boundaries of libeling. But they know they will remain impuned. There is virtually not a single institution that can have power over this group. Because Press Council and many other similar institutions are already occupied by DMG's senior journalists.

But of course, starting with tomorrow, PM's latest words will be interpreted as a political intervention to Media. This abstraction will not help for the ordinary people. Criticisers will be satisfied with this cliche interpretation but this will not change the fact that journalists are one of least trusted groups in society. As long as there are not any substantive occupational ombudsman like institutions, the press cannot be assumed to be innocent. 

Turkish press, particularly DMG, acts like a political actor and this inevitably will involve them in political struggles. They paved the way, and they will have to meet the consequences. I believe DMG, despite all its bitching, will now suffer from the political wrath of AKP and I don't read this as the suffocation of journalism by the political power. I read it as a clash of two political parties... Turkish press will survive maybe with better representatives...

Germans accuse Turkish gov't of piling pressure on fraud case

German prosecutors have claimed the Turkish government pressured for the release of suspects in the Deniz Feneri case, considered the biggest charity corruption case in Germany’s history, Milliyet daily reported on Friday."

 

Baykal blames PM for involvement in Lighthouse corruption - Turkish Daily News Sep 06, 2008

(AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

 The first half was uneventful. I have admit: I stopped watching and played cards instead....

Posted by erkan at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Map showing the Turkish areas that were inhabited by Armenians in 1915. Turkey's President Abdullah Gul has made a historic trip to Armenia to watch a football match and try to tackle decades of animosity between the estranged neighbours.

(AFP Graphic)

 

I am here in the office working on the dissertation, on a particular chapter and what I want most in life right now is to be in our joint, sitting with my friends and watching the game. Nearly in the break between the first and second halves of the game, we will have our traditional iftar. This will be the tenth? I am expecting 10-15 people to appear for the game and iftar.

There might be some protests in the Armenian side, some provocative acts but these are already expected. Hopefully, this will be a good day for two countries, a good day for me, having friends  around and playing cards all night after a soccer victory. Hmmm even if Turkey loses, I guess, I won't be too upset. 

There is an ache in my back for three days due to getting cold for sure but today i began to worry if there might be a case of hernia. My dad had one. This makes me more worried; i am going to see a doctor soon if there is no progress! ok Let me back to work on "Internet based Urban Legends in the EU Process" chapter...

Rounding the circle

President Abdullah Gül is traveling to Armenia for a historic visit; Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is off to Syria for Middle East talks; direct negotiations are taking place between leaders of the two communities in Cyprus, and the foreign minister of Turkey's neighbor and former rival Greece declares herself hopeful that the two sides will eventually reach a settlement; and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently visited Turkey.

Can Soccer Heal Turkey-Armenia Rift? - TIME

Issues dividing Armenia, Turkey

Continue reading "Historic game in 3 hours" »

Posted by erkan at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Ramadan started all over the world.  A whole month of fasting. Now I have to get back to work/writing so i will read the Wikipedia entry for fasting later but it seems Islam's is one of the most difficult fasting tasks. I wonder what kind of liars were those who said Islam is a religion of ease in my childhood. What kind of easiness involved in this ritual? :) As part of my eccentric fragments of belief, I do fasting. And since I don't feel attached to collective part of it, it doesn't seem very sensical. However, it is yet another test of iron will I won't quit. I think fasting is easier when practiced collectively and I sometimes feel jealosy for those living in a more collective mood. Yes, at least my family does fasting- mostly. But theirs is too routinized. I have to attend Iftar frequently because they are upset if i don't. But the iftar is just another dinner in which I have to put with the then current family issues.

Anyway, here is a roundup on Ramadan, corruption in Turkey- Zeynep Göğüş interview seems to be linked extensively in the net-, Alevis and AKP, and an update on Sulukule... 

Continue reading "Ramadan, the second day." »

Posted by erkan at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Turkey's new Chief of Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, center, is flanked by President Abdullah Gul, right, and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, during the Victory Day reception in Ankara, Turkey, late Saturday, Aug. 30, 2008. The celebrations marking an 86-year-old victory over Greece which was considered crucial in Turkish Independence War which led to the foundation of modern Turkish republic.

(AP Photo)

 

Our generals used an updated terminology in which even Habermas was quoted but continued to maintain 1930s rhetoric.  What I feel is that those anti-postmodernist, pro-status quo Turkish scholars might now be providing service to our generals. Better than nothing (!)

Some journalists like Ruşen Çakır read between the lines and provide a more positive outlook. But of course Mr. Çakır has shown signs of anti-Ergenekon case during summer. So it is your choice. I still liked some of his commentaries in NTV and I believe at the least the Chief of Staff- though classified as an hawk- will prefer not to explicitly intervene in politics.

 As I noted before, I believe, as long as civil political authority is powerful, whatever rhetoric the military has, politics will be not be interfered...

Our generals’ selectivity of security threats

Today, telecommunications technology, globalization and increased education have transformed Turkey and provided it a level of transparency, leading many people to not be convinced by demagogic rhetoric.

Continue reading ""Our generals’ selectivity of security threats" »

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Pablo Picasso, Untitled (Arlequín y Polichinela), 1924 Found in 20th Century Works on Paper from the Fundacion Mapfre Collection: Picasso, Tapies, Miro

Erkan is 'on duty' this week. So I will be in the campus representing PR and Advertising departments everyday btw 10 am-6 pm. I am always in the campus but normally I come at a later hour like 3 pm. Now i will have live like a normal person for the whole week and hopefully I will do lots of writing as nobody is really around. Oh boy academicians like summer so much. If you don't force them, they will never show up in their offices. This means i will be here alone with a few exceptional people.

In the mean time, NewScientist says Polygamy is the key to a long life:

This is a blow. I could not even become monogomous:)
and my lifespan is already shortened by Beşiktaş performance. Last night at the 66th minute I had to leave watching the Beşiktaş-Antalyaspor game as were losing 0-2 and a huge headache was banging because of anger. For 4 years, there is not an inch of progress in Beşiktaş defense and the rival scored two nonsense goals. After I left Beşiktaş had scored 3 goals and won the game though. National team performance, it seems..

and here comes another news which is a relatively good news for normal males: 7 Reasons Why It Sucks To Be a Male Porn Star
This link could go to a erotic site, so I warn you, don't put the blame on me.

Posted by erkan at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

 last week something like a minor judiciary coup happened within judiciary circles. I realize today that I have not emphasized that enough. A prosecutor from Ankara ordered the search of Ergenekon's Istanbul based prosecutor's headquarters. The claim was that Ankara prosecutor believed there was illegal phone listening happening in Istanbul prosecutor's office. So  like an ambush, some officials visited the Istanbul office, then began to  have a look who was being listened.  This is a giant scandal. Some officials were found to be listing those who was being listened. This is a scandal. This is a judiciary intervention to an ongoing trial by another section of Turkish judiciary. I hear that some bureaucrats in Ankara are very anxious because of the Ergenekon trial.

I hear that there are already new 'understandings' after the AKP closure case.  One shouldn't be very hopeful any more (!).

Ergenekon: worries and hopes

What will the outcome of the Ergenekon case be? This question alone is sufficient to explain the hopes and worries about the future of Turkey.

Elder brother caught in Dink case

The older brother of one of the main suspects in the murder of journalist Hrant Dink was detained by police yesterday. Osman Hayal was detained for being in Istanbul when a teenage nationalist

Ergenekon questions in Malatya massacre case

The lead suspect in the Malatya massacre case denied any connection with retired Maj. Gen. Levent Ersöz, who was arrested in relation to the Ergenekon case, in a trial at Malatya's Third Court

Continue reading ""Ergenekon: worries and hopes" »

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Jon Beech, Untitled, 1997
found in Works on Paper: The Natalie and Irving Forman Collection at The Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Erkan's one new interest is to check out the Quran blog at the Guardian. Thanks to Christian, I have become aware of this blog. It is fun to have a look and although i have no interest to declare authoritative statement, i will poke around and utter my own comments from time to time.

In Injunctions to the strong Andrew Brown says:

Continue reading "Erkan's further mumbling on some Quranic verses..." »

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AKP leaders are taking a risk by this all-track diplomacy. They might win big or lose big.

They have many in their cadres which could trigger this shift from traditional Turkish foreign policy and there have been signs of it already. Now, they are relieved of the closure ban and they are pushing for it. 

After the visit of Iran's leader, now there comes the mini African Summit and a notarious African leader, Bashir comes to Turkey second time in less than a year. As part of a grand plan, these risky visits might work but they are just too risky. The plan is to create independent good, powerful and profitable relations with neigbours. The plan is very innovative. After the 2nd WW, traditional Turkish foreign policy depended on its geostrategic importance for US. This symbolically ended in the first Gulf War where Turkey lost great and it became one of the sources of economic crisis in 2001. Major reliance on EU process in recent years also ended when AKP could not get enough of the process. Since 2004, AKP lost its belief in EU in general. I don't think this means hostile thinking against EU or US. Although ideologues of the new FP attempt might be uneasy with them, their main goal seems to make Turkey a more equal partner in relations with EU or US.

However, even for those who try to be more neutral to AKP, there is the problem of substance. Is there any substance in possible relations with the new 'allies'?  Like it or not, TR has been part of the Western system since 2WW. Political, cultural, economic relations all depended on this system although they were never satisfying. Can there be sustainable relations with others? Particularly when some of the others are subject to systemic hostility?

The ideologues of the AKP Foreign Policy (first person to come to my mind is Prof. Ahmet Davutoğlu, is known to have Neo-Ottoman tendencies. However, he and others seem to be realistic, too.

 

A new art of 'all-track' diplomacy

Relieved by a Constitutional Court ruling against a ban that helped it avert a political crisis, it was natural for the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, to expect a few days of relaxation.

 The Associated Press: Turkey's Gul urges Sudan leader to end suffering

 

Sudan's Bashir on visit to Turkey

Sudan's president makes his first foreign trip since he was indicted on genocide charges by the International Criminal Court. 

Continue reading "Turkey's "'all-track' diplomacy"" »

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View of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. EFE/Emilio Naranjo. found in Chinese Director Zhang Yimou Presents Dazzling Opening Ceremony at The Olympic Games

 I was not aware of this campaign as my life was disrupted by Yahoo! But probably I would not hear it on time. As usual, there is also a blogger community which is reclusive in some sense and I am an outsider. I realized this in a recent Turkish blogging awards stuff. I heard about the competition when the list of candidates were released. I compared mine and others in many categories and could not know why I wasn't there. Most of blogs are in Turkish of course and blog networks are based on some sort of friendship networks. If you are not in it, then you are out. This is the same for many issues (like cinema circles) and not different in new media stuff. Otherwise, mine is known, too but only needed when they need a sample for 'English language' blogs:) Still the campaign is good though 'authorities' will only be happy to see more closed websites (!)

Web Censorship Is So Bad in Turkey That Blogs Are Shutting Themselves Down In Protest

Erick Schonfeld

It doesn’t take much to get your Website banned in Turkey. Pretty much any complaint to a lower court can get a Website blocked in the country. Websites including YouTube, DailyMotion, Alibaba, Slide.com, and some Wordpress blogs have all been banned, usually because of some purported slight to the Turkish government or Mustafa Kemal Ataturk."

148 Turkish websites in protest against government ban

This week 148 153 (the number is rising) Turkish websites are shut down as a protest against the government ban. The Turkish government blocks YouTube since January this year. And in the last few weeks various other international websites like DailyMotion are also blocked. The 148 website as listed here show this text at their frontpage:
Bu siteye erişim kendi kararıyla engellenmiştir

Continue reading ""Web Censorship Is So Bad in Turkey That Blogs Are Shutting Themselves Down In Protest" »

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