Amasra Photos November 28, 2006
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Here are some of the photos from Amasra. The one with the swarm of people was fun. Monday was apparently first day of basic training for new army recruits and on Sunday night, when we were coming home to Ankara, the recruits were sent off by family and friends. It was intense: there were crowds chanting “the best soldier, our soldier”, drums pounding, and people dancing as these boys loaded the buses and embarked to the capital. I wonder if these people would be so enthusiastic if their children and friends were stuck in a deathtrap like Iraq.
Black Sea November 27, 2006
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Leave for one weekend and it seems as though the whole world passes you by. We took a shotgun trip to Amasra on the Black Sea coast this weekend, really for no other reason that because we needed to get out of Ankara. The trip was hardly worth the effort: 36 hours total, 10 on a bus, another 2 split between dolmuşlar and service buses, 8 sleeping. Most importantly, 6 hours of unnecessarily extensive drinking. Midterms had taken their toll on us. The pictures from Amasra are really cool and the way the fog from the sea hit the coastline was just surreal. I will have some pictures posted ASAP. When I arrived home our water had been turned off because we hadn’t yet paid our water bill. So I’m a little dirty. Photos of Amasra, not of me being dirty.
For now, here are the current events in Turkey…
‘Freedom’ of Speech November 27, 2006
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A professor at Gazi University, Attila Yayla, has been ‘hauled to the dock‘ for his criticism of the founder, Atatürk. He presented a speech last week in İzmir in which he reportedly stated that the era of Mustafa Kemal was ‘a period of regression, not progress’. The article cited actually gives a good insight into the condition of freedom of speech in Turkey and the degree to which Turks hold respect for their ‘Exalted Leader’.
Sometimes I wonder if my Turkish foreign policy professor will share the same fate as Yayla. He does not question Atatürk so flagrantly, but nonetheless encourages (read: forces) the students to think critically about the way they have been socialized by the state dogma. He likes us foreigners because apparently we are not ‘walking dogmas’.
The Pope in İstanbul November 27, 2006
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Pope Benedict XVI will visit Turkey this week, and if you’ve been watching the news (and in the Turkish news), the protests against his visit are getting bigger. Benedict sparked outrage in the Muslim world in September when he quoted a Byzantine emperor’s criticism of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. Of course, the quote was perceived out of context – no one cared that what he intended was to draw out the essential relationship between faith and reason. The reaction of many Muslims to his speech, sometimes violent, always angry, has done much to validate what he said. Like the reaction to the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb for a turban, these reactions confirm the very thing Muslims have been trying to refute.
This will be an interesting week in Turkey, as there will be more security for the pope than for US President Bush’s 2004 visit. As for myself, however, I have no plans to visit İstanbul. I will wait for the protests here, in Ankara, as he will come here before his 4-day visit to Turkey is over. I can’t wait.
Khatami in Ankara November 17, 2006
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This week, former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami visited Ankara as part of a meeting of the UN-backed Alliance of Civilizations Initiative, co-sponsored by Turkey and Spain. On Wednesday he spoke here at ODTÜ. For me, it was a once-in-lifetime opportunity to see one of the most popular figures in Iranian politics. He speaks English and German well, but presented his speech in Farsi and was translated into Turkish – neither of which I speak well enough to say much more than “I don’t speak Turkish/Farsi.” Were it not for my translator, Kas, I would have been lost.
Khatami presented a message calling for the use of ‘dialogue of civilizations’ rather than ‘clash of civilizations’ as a paradigm for intercultural exchange. In reality, this could have been said by anyone, but the fact that this has been said before makes it no less necessary to to transmit and reinforce.
It is reassuring that there are Iranians who speak more rationally than the ranting of the current President Ahmadinejad. It is more reassuring that the rational ones are also popular.
“Security” in Turkey November 12, 2006
Posted by cpapuschak in Politics.add a comment
Here is something fun for you all to think about. My campus is a prison, and the dormatories have the most seemingly ridiculous restrictions, because political killings were a part of life here, and still are.
There was a time when things were not so peaceful here. After the 1980 coup, there was widespread political violence between nationalists, socialists, and Islamists. The universities in Ankara were in the thick of it all, with ODTÜ broadly representing the socialists, and every other university in the city representing the nationalists.
Then, in 1985, a group of students from Gazi University came to ODTÜ, attacked the dorms, and killed 17 students and wounded dozens more. That is why today there are armed guards at the gates and Jandarma troops patroling the streets. That is why the rules at the dormatories are so restrictive.
The best part of this story is that apparently this shit hasn’t stopped – sometime last week a Gazi student was killed in political violence. National elections are set to occur early next year, but I honestly do not know what to expect. All I know is that Kızılay, where I live, is ground zero.
This was not mentioned during our predeparture sessions, and it certainly isn’t advertised here. I cannot support this with relevant Internet links. You won’t find anything about this on the Internet, least of all in English. All I can tell you is what students and instructors have told me.
At first, the Jandarmas patroling campus will put you on edge. Knowing this, they become your friends.
Was it Genocide? November 4, 2006
Posted by cpapuschak in History.add a comment
In Turkey, no question opens such deep wounds as this. The Armenian massacre between 1914 and 1918 is not a taboo topic, but it is nonetheless a sensitive one. Ask the question and you get the impression that most Turks simply wish it would go away.
The real question, for we yabancılar (foreigners), is not whether what happened nearly 100 years ago can be called ‘genocide,’ but why modern-day Turkey is so sensitive about something that happened nearly 100 years ago under the Ottoman government.
Under the infamous Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, Turkish writers are still being punished for calling it ‘genocide.’ The law, in fact, penalizes “insulting the Turkish Republic,” and has come under scrutiny in Europe as the success of Turkey’s EU negotiations rely heavily on freedom of speech. Many of Turkey’s top writers find themselves on trial for libeling their country.
The 2006 Nobel Laureate in Literature is Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer who was on trial under Article 301 until the charges were dropped in January.
It is my belief that sound scholarly debate is the proper way to dispel historical myth—not limitations to freedom of speech. If the truth is to be found, it the issue must be the focus of honest and vigorous research and debate. This is advice not only to the Turkish government, but also to the Austrian, German, and French governments .
The sensitivity toward the issue of genocide is not so difficult to understand, but the events in question took place nearly 100 years ago and under the Ottoman Empire, not the Turkish Republic. No one living today can be blamed for what happened.
