Celentano and another legendary song from him. At first, if you, like me do not have a capable knowledge of Italian and cannot understand the text at the beginning, you would feel Celentano’s sound coming from the heart skimmed through a velvet throat
Month: March 2008
Understanding President Abdullah Gül: An Attempt Part I
(31.03.08)
Turkey is boiling nowadays, the waters are just to reach the last metal parts of the pot. Civil society organisations and various segments of the strongest interest groups are calling for restraint and even asking the parties to go one step back. It is kind of the Ottoman Army Chorus one step back- two step forward march style or what? During the Nevruz/Newroz Celebrations we again see scenes reminding the notorious 1992-93 era. Turkish army was just in Northern Iraq for a 10 day operation amidst the harsh weather conditions. The US asked Turkey to retreat inofficially, and the Prime Minister whilst visiting Spain opened the Pandora’s box of “turban”.
Within the midst of this chaos, President Gül is travelling the world, we do understand that he is pre-occupied with the image of the Kösk – The Presidential Palace. He and the first-lady are busy in decorating the rooms and giving another face. 3-4 months ago there were rumours that the first lady works in tandem with mode-designers to give a modern image to the turban and to make it more sympathetic for the old guard.
Gül is nevertheless a side of the latest judicial developments. His name is also in the document and he is a side of the dispute. Furthermore, his hardline politics of pushing forward his name to the Presidency and getting that seat also put his rising star of the ‘man of consensus’, ‘the smiling face of the AKP’ or the ‘European side of the AKP’ in to calamity. He is cross-challenged about the Saudi King’s presents to him, whether he gave them to the state or kept them, if yes what were they and so on, however he does not talk about these kinds of things.
His last meeting with Baykal should have been stiff, the legitimacy of the President is in question by Baykal. he is not attending any ceremonies, nor sending his members to the Kösk. He is also the memory of the Turkish kemalists, reminding GÜl’s stance at times like the Manti Diplomacy.
It must be hard for Gül, because I was sometime ago sure that he understood the integration to the neo-liberal order and representing the organic intellectual side of the hegemony. however, lately i am not sure about this, especially nowadays, his past and his relations with the AKP and his genetic code stops him to move one step forward and take the initiative. he was not an initiative taker, but a technocrat, and a good one. however, he lacked Özal’s innovation and independency, because he was never the first man, he was the technocratic leader, not the political one. and now, amidst the crisis of authority, his crisis of authority and legitimacy becomes embedded to the latter. unfortunately..
They’re selling postcards of the Hanging: A Thought on the Turkish Media.29.3.08
They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
The circus never left the town in case of the Turkish Republic. They always sold postcards of the hangings, they applauded the generals, they cheered for the fundamentalists, they acknowledged the wisdom of cowards hiding behind the man with the blue eyes. They are the spin-doctors of the Turkish society. Like the Ottoman intellectuals, they love the West but never give afford to understand it thoroughly. Orientalism is nailed in their hads, became a modus operandi of their perceptions. They never tried to understand the European Union, they could not even manage to be organic intellectuals of the Round Tables. They sell postcards of the hangings, and they write stories beneath those, they love their nation above all.
They have also their orientalisms, they also have their genetic code of racism mostly. The British holigans deserved to be ripped by the dis-located youth. The circus unfortunately never left the scene in Turkey. They slowly made the country a mega-circus, in which the clowns are kings. The clowns gives money and makes people cry in the prime-time. They earn money from tears, they sadistically exploit their own people. The clowns in this circus laugh to make u laugh, but never forget to take your purse from your pocket. Our clowns sell postcards of the hanging, the hanging of the Turkish democracy, which never managed to be a mature adult, which always had a knock on the head everytime she tried to talk. and memorised those postcards of the hanging thought by bloody clowns….
The lyrics are from the desolation road of bob dylan….
http://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/songs/desolation.html
photo from:
Give The Anarchist a Cigarette – I’m not THere
Give the anarchist a cigarette…whilst people were looking for a messiah to give the message, the religious side of the anti-culture, Bob was talkin about anarchy, communism and other stuff. Being you and changing is not appreciated. You got to stay as you are and as it is told to be. so give the anarchist a cigarette can be seen as the metaphor of the I’m not there, but from which direction? the myth and the different faces of the myth, or the man and the myth clashing constantly. bob’s fame is his dark shadow. always one step to close, always behind ur neck. so u change, and you are not there.
March 2008 – Basra: Beginnings of a new Civil War?
Iraq is experiencing a very important curve in its desire of stabilisation. According to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki the latest operation in Basra is aimed at putting an end to the centrifugal forces or what he terms as “lawless gangs”. This is also a sole chance for Nouri al-Maliki to show his American bosses that the investments and training for rebuilding the Iraqi army worked out good, and once the Americans are back, Iraqi forces can continue to control some parts of the country, especially the ones which are vital for oil revenues. More than 30.000 soldiers and police are taking part in the operation, and according to news agencies up until more than 100 people are dead and 300 are wounded. For Maliki this operation is very important in showing the fractions such as the Sadr-clan who the boss will be in Iraq once the Americans are gone, and I guess therefore he is personally attending the operation plannings.
Basra is nevertheless Iraq’s only port city and also a very important oil field. Meanwhile, BBC reports that (1) one of Iraq’s two main oil export pipelines from Basra was blown up in a bomb attack, sending oil prices above $107 a barrel. Therefore, this operation also becomes important for securing the oil revenues.
Furthermore, as we see in the photo, in the notorious Sadr-City, people demonstrate against the Maliki government. The Sadr City, which was called the Saddam City before, is one of Baghdad’s 9 districts and has a population of roughly 2.000.000. It is a post-modern gated community, immune from the Iraqi central government, ruled by a fundamentalist figure-head, which uses the vacuum carefully.
(1). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7317614.stm
Photo taken from: http://english.aljazeera.net/PhotoGallery/Aspx/Show.aspx?album=iraqviolence¤tPage=4&slidshow=Next
Urla and Its Islands
Niyazi Berkes
Niyazi Berkes
“Türk Düşününde Batı Sorunu”
Bilgi Yayınevi: 1975: Ankara and Istanbul, 304 Pages
Niyazi Berkes’in bu kitabi hakkindaki notlarim….
Congress of Berlin – 1878
Treaty of Berlin – Aftermath
The Treaty of Berlin was a complete blow to the Ottoman diplomacy. The Congress also signified that the Ottoman Empire could no longer take British commitment for granted, and was forced to face a powerful Russia and continuing separatist movements in all sides of the Empire.
The new Sultan Abdülhamit took the British and the Tanzimat bureuacrats responsible for the disaster. The Eastern Question was on the table once again, and this time the stakes were high. Britain took first Cyprus then Egypt and Sudan though on paper since 1914 they were Ottoman provinces. The former principalities of Bulgaria was divided into three parts, principality of bulgaria, autonomous East Rumelia, and Ottoman Macedonia. Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Sancak was annexed by the Austri-Hungary.
The Congress was also the very apogee of Bismarck. The Pax-Britannica was slowly fading away, and Germany realised that it can no longer stay aloof as a satisfied power in the extremely fragile international order. The demise of the Pax-Britannica meant the demise of the former agreed norms and rules on the Ottoman Empire. With the rising tide of colonial imperialism, the Eastern Question could no longer be left unsolved. However, following the Congress, the Sultan sidelined the Sublime Porte and began to rule the Empire from his Yildiz Palace. Abdulhamit attempted to change the form of state, that of a subordinate bureaucracy sided with the Levantine population and the foreign investors, plus the comprador Greek and Armenian merchants and investors, noting the Galata bankers. Instead, Abdulhamit tried to establish a “hobbesian state” aimed at creating a loyal bureaucracy which would at times play crucial roles.
Adriano Celentano – Storia D’Amore (1969)
I’m not There Film Trailer
nevruz
Nevruz and fights with the police: the Kurdish view
The Turkish view
The strange thing is how news can be manipulative, in the one video the guy seems like dead, in the other he is waking up and walking slowly. this does not mean that the Turkish police was one-sidedly brutal, it also means that the other party that of some Kurdish fractions also use the media in order to manipulate…
Giambattista Vico
Giambattista Vico, the founder of the Vichian approach to understanding the world order was born in Napoli on 23 June of 1688 as a son of a Neapolitan bookseller. During the time he was born Napoli was the fourth city in Europe after London, Paris, and Istanbul (Cox:2002:47). Caravaggio, Bernini, Rosa, Telesio, Campanella were all Neapolitans.
State Minister in Charge of Foreign Trade Visits India
Turkey’s Colourful State Minister Kürsat Tüzmen visits India 🙂
I am a follower of Tüzmen’s speeches and foreign visits. I do think that he inherited the Özalian approach of taking plane full of investors to foreign lands and the minister acting as a brooker between the state and the private sector. Tüzmen also likes to speak about his role in order to achieve this grand goal 🙂 Zaman daily reports: “Tüzmen, “Sadece ticari mantıkla insan ilişkilerini yürütmek mümkün değil. Bütün bu yaşam biçimlerini ve kültürleri öğrendiğimizde, bu bilgiler ticaretin kalitesine de yansıyacaktır.” değerlendirmesini yaptı.” – “Tüzmen, it is not possible to manage human relations with pure commercial logic. once you learn all sorts of living and culture, these wisdom will also reflect itself to the quality of the commerce.”(1)
Tüzmen continues: Hinduların Holi’si, Müslümanların Mevlid’i, Farsların Nevruz’u ve Hıristiyanların Goodfriday bayramları bu yıl aynı zamana rastlıyor. Roughly he is saying that this year,Hindu’s Holi, Moslem’s Mevlid, Persians Nevruz, and Christian Good friday. At the same time, in the South East region of Turkey, people are fighting with the police and the army in the streets. Tüzmen forgets to mention the Nevruz of the Kurds, and every year Turkish state also congratulates Nevruz. One day Tüzmen should really attend a real ceremony in his own country, and i am very curious about how he will connect this with the capitalist logic… wait and see. show goes on.
(1). http://www.zaman.com.tr/haber.do?haberno=668419
http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/galeridetay.aspx?cid=10858&rid=2
23 March 08
. Ilhan’s Selcuk’s release and the discussion on the Ergenekon issue
. Hurriyet reports: Nevruz Savaslari: Nevruz Wars”
. Hurriyet reports again, “Halka mesir macunu atti – lüten oyuna gelmeyelim”, PM Erdogan “threw mesir candies to the people…please let us not be tricked”
.yenisafak reports, “Menderes Havaalanı’nda sehpaya çıkarak konuştu” “he spoke at the Menderes airport by stepping up on to a coffee table”. Stepping up to the stand, in Turkish also means, the last step before being hanged down by your executioner, also the place, the Menderes Airport in Izmir is a reference on Menderes’ story. To recall, Adnan Menderes, former member of the Free Republican Party and the Republican People’s Party, the key figure of the Democrat Party movement who governed the country during the era of 1950-60, up until his execution following the first military coup d’etat of the Turkish Republic on May 27, 1960. Virtually all right wing populist political parties in Turkey somehow embraced the political vision of Menderes, and his execution is a popular image. The Justice Party – Adalet Partisi of the 1960s and 1970s of Süleyman Demirel took its name from the word “justice”, which means “justice” to the former DP members and their fate. However, even with enormous popular support, justice could not come. The AKP or the “Justice and Development Party” also mentions the word justice. However this time justice is also to the conservative segment of the population who hitherto been constrained upon the “turban-headscarf” issue.
The above picture is the picture of Turkish politics, spontaneous speeches, who cause the listeners to cry with tears, reports Yeni Safak. Populism is the very problem of the Turkish politics. No government ever touched the issue of military coups, or the illegal actions of illegal or paramilitary organisations. Sad but true
Some thoughts on the Newroz/Nevruz
I’m Not There Film Review
I’m Not There is Todd Haynes latest film (2007). According to imdb.com the plotline can be summarised as ” Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician’s life and work” (1) The name of the film derives all the way long Dylan’s basement tapes days. So it was born around 1967 -1975 and the Band was also a family member in its recordings, however the song was never released before.
the photo is taken from
The Depression of 1873-1896
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1873
http://www.thehistorybox.com/ny_city/panics/panics_article8a.htm
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=894451#PaperDownload
Izmir as a Levantine City
This article will be about the Levantine population and heritage in Izmir
The photo is taken from
Who is Antonio Gramsci?
the photo is taken from:
Seriesofhopes 