Film | Arif v 216

January 5, 2018, 2:44 pm

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Arif V 216 is the sequel of G.O.R.A. After 8 years, Arif's old friend 216 from planet GORA pays a visit to Earth.Together they go on a quest where they'll be visiting 70's. 

Mavi Boncuk | Arif v 216

Directed by Kıvanç Baruönü[1], "Arif v 216" features Cem Yılmaz, Ozan Güven, Seda Bakan, Zafer Algöz, Özkan Uğur, Çağlar Çorumlu, Özge Özberk, Farah Zeynep Abdullah, Ahu Yağtu and Mert Fırat. Written by Yılmaz, the film focuses on the journey of Robot 216 and Craftsmen Arif who were previously seen in the film "G.O.R.A." This comedy science fiction depicts events after Robot 216, who has always dreamed of being a human, decides to live with his friend Arif in the world.

Produced by Onur Cakir
Cinematography by Jean-Paul Seresin
Film Editing by Ilker Ozcan
Art Department Sevgi Dündar
Foley artist Leith Ridley


[1] He completed his elementary, secondary and high school education in Zonguldak. While studying at Ankara University Faculty of Communication Radio, Television and Cinema Department, he was interested in theatre and photography. In his college years, he started to work in the field of TV broadcasting - his childhood dream. He worked for many years in one of Turkey's first private radio stations as programmer and chief editor. He had a prominent role in the development of private radios in Turkey and their legal foundations. With the establishment of Number One Music TV channel; he returned to television programming and started to direct music videos. From early 1990s to 2000s, he has directed numerous music videos and received various TV Music Awards. He was long time employed in Tv news programs as audiovisual director and advisor. He worked in feature films "Dansoz" and "GORA" as assistant director and post production supervisor and in "Kelebegin Ruyasi" as production designer. His directorial debut is the feature film "Patron Mutlu Son Istiyor".

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In the Fade is a Clear Winner

January 8, 2018, 6:55 am

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Fatih Akin gewinnt Golden Globe für "Aus dem Nichts" Mavi Boncuk | See also Cannes Win

After taking the Best Actress prize for Diane Kruger in Cannes last May, Fatih Akin’s In The Fade scooped the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film tonight. This is the German director’s first win and beat out other Cannes favorites The Square and Loveless as well as Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father and Sebastian Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman from Chile. Along with each of those (save Jolie’s film) the movie is shortlisted for a Foreign Language Oscar.

In her first German-language role, Kruger plays a woman whose life collapses after the death of her husband and son in a bomb attack. The police arrest two suspects, a young neo-Nazi couple, but Katja wants justice.

Kruger was on stage with Akin , quickly getting in a thank you to the HFPA “for elevating this movie, even though it’s foreign language.”A stunned Akin said, “How did that happen?” The film has sold just 100,000 tickets in Germany, he noted. He also thanked the usual round of collaborators as well as U.S. distributor Magnolia Pictures and German partner Warner Bros, following that up with a quip that fell flat, “If you see a cop, warn-a-brother” .

He gave a shout-out to Thierry Frémaux, the Cannes Film Festival chief who was in the audience tonight. “You opened the door.” And then turning to Kruger said, “This is yours, this is ours.”

While the story is contemporary and timely, Akin first wrote a draft of it in 1992. “Can you imagine?” he said to me the last time we spoke. “As a teenager back then, I could have been a target just because of the way I look, because my parents are Turkish. That really bothered me.” Sadly, he says today, “Nothing has changed since then. It seems that many of us haven’t done the homework or reflection since then.”


Akin repped Germany as the Oscar submission 10 years ago, but did not advance to the shortlist. He calls it a “bit like a computer game to reach different levels.” With the Globe he’s potentially advanced another level, although the Globes and the Oscars don’t always match up. Since 2010, they’ve been in line five times with: 2015’s Son Of Saul, 2013’s The Great Beauty, 2012’s Amour, 2011’s A Separation and 2010’s In A Better World. SOURCE

Kristal Oil and Micaleff Story

January 8, 2018, 10:44 am

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Mavi Boncuk |

Kristal Oil which has been the first branded olive oil in Turkey, was established in 1938 in İzmir by Anthony Micaleff[1].

 Kristal Oil has been one of the first brands that produced olive oil and released packed olive oil to the market in Turkey. It has also been the first company that exported packed and branded olive oil. Today, as a pioneer in Turkish olive oil market, Kristal Oil exports olive oil to 25 countries.
In 1950s, while olive oil was mainly consumed in Aegean and Marmara Regions which are the production areas, Kristal Oil has been the leading company introducing and adopting the habit of consuming olive oil among Turkish people in Anatolia.

In 2007 along with the partnership of Arkas Holding, Kristal Oil has increased its investments and production capacity even more. 

The ship on the logo symbolizes the migration of brand founder Anthony Micaleff’s family from Malta to İzmir in the 1860s. On the logo of Kristal oils, the ship stands for trust, progress and prosperity.

This is the story of how a ship changed the destiny of a family, and how that ship became synonymous with olive oil. It all started in the 1850’s when great-grandfather Micaleff embarked on a journey to the east, from Malta to Crimea, leaving his two sons in Izmir.

Their started life in İzmir as ship chandlers. When the Crimean war was over the sons did not want to return to Malta, having already started family businesses in Izmir. The destiny of the Micaleff family began with that ship voyage, as the family went on to become one of the biggest producers of olive oil in Turkey.

The grandson Anthony Micaleff eventually established the first branded olive oil company in the country in 1938. Christopher Dologh, the present general manager of the company, says his uncle, Noel Micaleff, Anthony’s son, now 83 years of age, still hosts olive oil tastings in the company every single day.

The association between that eastward-bound ship and olive oil is nothing more than a lucky coincidence. When Anthony Micaleff started olive oil production as a branded product, there was no packaging available in Turkey, so he brought in tin can-producing machines from France, becoming the first producer to sell olive oil in tin cans in the country. SEE: Tin Can History by A. Ercan Öner
İzmir, 2014)  Tin Can Museum

An image of the ship that changed the destiny of the family was stamped on the cans.

In those days road transportation was troublesome in Anatolia, so the olive oil was transported to other parts of Turkey via ships and then transferred to inland destinations. In many parts of inland Anatolia, the olive oil became known as “the oil with the ship,” as the emblem featured first in tin cans, and then later in glass bottles.


For many the image of the ship indicated quality. The Kristal tin cans became a regular feature of households. They were re-used as measuring implements, as the weight written on the can was fully trusted. Other tins ended up as storage containers or flower pots in window sills blooming with colorful geraniums.

The Levantines in the city have maintained a two-way umbilical cord connecting European cities and İzmir, nurturing both sides in various ways. They traded the plenty of Aegean to Europe, providing them with figs and Smyrna sultanas for their Christmas puddings and Turkish carpets for their houses. They supplied cotton, textiles and Turkish tobacco and in return were introduced to European urban culture, establishing factories and institutionalizing the industrial sector.

They have become a part of the community. Even if some have had to leave, they have always felt İzmir to be their hometown. Many feel more at home in Turkey than in their ancestral land, the Micaleff family included.

Enrichetta Micaleff, wife of Anthony Micalleff’s son Charles, is of Italian ancestry. In an oral history interview with the Levantine Heritage Foundation she has said she does not feel Italian when in Italy, even though Italian is one of her mother tongues. Like many Levantines, her mother tongue is more than one, a mix of Italian and French, with a passable command of Greek and finally Turkish. Although she does feel herself to be an Izmir local, she does not consider herself totally Turkish, as she is ethnically different. His husband is from British Malta and was a British subject, but at home they did not speak English. She says most Levantines end up being neither fish nor fowl, but for her that is fine, and she is proud to be a Levantine.

Kristal sold 49 percent of its shares to Arkas Group in 2007, another Levantine company, broadening its horizons in both domestic and international markets. Interestingly, the symbol of the ship is even more important in the Arkas family. The Arkas group was also founded in Izmir as an import-export agency in 1902, sailing ships to seven seas.


For many Levantines, ties to their ancestral lands were forged through ships. Long ago the ships brought them to their new land, and ships saved them from hard times in war, many came back with ships, the ships sustained their existence through trade as with the Arkas family, and the ships branded their identity as with the Micaleff family. 

SOURCE




 

[1] Micallef is a Maltese surname. It has been recorded in Malta since ancient times, and its origins probably lie in the name Micali, a variant of Michael (in Hebrew, Michael means "Who is like God"). However, another possible derivation for the surname is the Maltese word "mħallef", which means 'judge', and thus its origin is not certain. This surname is found in various Medieval records, normally as Makluffi. Prior to the late 15th century, most people bearing this surname were of the Jewish faith. The history of the small Jewish Community of Malta goes back to the arrival of the Semitic Phoenician settlers almost three thousand five hundred years ago. It is believed that they were accompanied by Israelite mariners from the seafaring tribes of Zevulon and Asher. The discovery of carved menorahs and Hellenistic inscriptions in a number of Jewish catacombs near Valletta and Birzebbuga attests to a community living here in Grecian and Roman times. For long periods during the Middle Ages the Jews of Malta, who had settled here from Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa and Spain, lived a fairly independent and prosperous life. Several were doctors, a profession monopolised by the Jews of Malta at that time. Others were agricultural land owners and import-export agents, but the majority were shopkeepers and itinerant merchants.

In Memoriam | Ambassador (R) Ömer Engin Lütem (1933-2018)

January 8, 2018, 1:12 pm

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Ambassador (R) Ömer Engin Lütem who died on January 5, 2018 after a long illness.

Mavi Boncuk |

Ambassador (R) Ömer Engin Lütem  (b. 1933 Istanbul, Turkey-d. January 6, 2018 Ankara Turkey) graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Ankara in 1957 and became career diplomat in the same year. 
Ambassador Lütem directed the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies (AVIM) in Ankara, Turkey, with whom TASC partnered in 2016 for the advancement of studies in violent extremism, anti-terror, Turkish - Armenian history, and Turkish - Armenian reconciliation.

Ambassador Lutem lead a stellar professional career in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Community. He was born in 1933 in Istanbul, Turkey. He graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Ankara in 1957 and became career diplomat the same year. During his service at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Lütem served as the Turkish Consul General at Cologne, Germany (1975-1979), Director General of Personnel of the MFA of the Republic of Turkey (1979-1981), Director General of Intelligence and Research of the MFA of the Republic of Turkey (1981-1983), Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to Bulgaria (1983-1989), Deputy Undersecretary of the MFA (1989-1992), Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to the Vatican (1992-1995) and the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Turkey to UNESCO (1995-1997). After his retirement in 1998, he served as the Director of the Institute for Armenian Research at Eurasian Strategic Research Center (2000-2008) and Director of the Center for Eurasian Studies (2009-2012). Ambassador Lütem was the editor of the journals Armenian Studies (published since 2001), Review of Armenian Studies (published since 2002), and International Crimes and History (published since in 2005). 


His works include:
Türkiye-Bulgaristan İlişkileri, 1983-1989 vol. 1 (Turkish-Bulgarian Relations, 1983-1989 vol. 1), ASAM, Ankara, 2000.
Balkan Diplomasisi (Balkan Diplomacy), ASAM, Ankara 2001
Ermeni Sorunu El Kitabı (Handbook of the Armenian Question), ASAM-TEİMK, Ankara, 2003
Türkiye-Bulgaristan İlişkileri, 1983-1989 vol. 2 (Turkish-Bulgarian Relations, 1983-1989 vol. 2), ASAM, Ankara, 2005.
Armenian Terror, ASAM, Ankara, 2007.
Armenian Question: Basic Knowledge and Documentation, AVİM, Ankara, 2009.

SÖYLEŞİ

Ömer Engin Lütem
Oyuna gelmeyelim 
Türkiye 5 Şubat 2001 

B. E. Lütem ile 1980'li yıllardan itibaren gelişen Ermeni sorunu hakkında bir sohbet yaptık.

Kışlalı- 1981'de İstihbarat ve Araştırma Genel Müdürlüğü'nde ne yaptınız?
Lütem- Ermeni cinayetleri bir yana o dönemde bir de muazzam Ermeni propagandası vardı. Her Türk diplomatı öldürdüklerinde "Ermeni soykırımı" vurgulanıyor, dünya basınında yer buluyordu. O zamanki askeri hükümet bu konuya çok önem verdi. Bu alanda çalışmak için kuruldu daire. Hem gelişmeleri izledik hem de dışta gereken diplomatik girişimleri koordine ediyorduk. Faydalı şeyler yaptık. Kitaplar yazıldı. Bunların başında Kamuran Gürün'ün Ermeni Dosyası kitabı gelir. Kendisi de o zaman Dışişleri Bakanlığı Müsteşarı idi. B.E. Bilal Şimşir de Arşivler Genel Müdürü olarak kitaplar yazdı. Bu kitaplar hâlâ ana kitap. Bunlara tabii eklemeler de yapıldı. Yurt dışında Türkiye'ye karşı suç işleyip yakalananların davalarına Türkiye'nin müdahil olarak katılmasını sağladık.

‘Kamuoyunun ilgisi azdı’

Kışlalı- Hükümetler önem vermeye devam etmediler sonra değil mi?
Lütem- Doğru. O zaman önem verildi ama 1985'ten sonra ilgi azaldı. Cinayetler durmuştu. Kamuoyu ilgisi azaldı. Bu tabii de hükümetin ilgisinin azalması garip. Daha ziyade cinayet olunca ilgi var. Bu ilgisizlik dışarda ciddi gelişmelere imkan verdi. 1987'de Avrupa Parlamentosu'nda ilk kararı çıkardılar. Çok önemli bir karardır bu. Türkiye'den pek tepki gelmedi. Sonra benzer kararlar 90'lı yılların başından itibaren gelmeye başladı. Kıbrıs, Belçika, Rus Duma'sı kararları geldi. Bunlarla hükümetler pek ilgilenmediler. Kamuoyu da tepki göstermedi. Böylece bu günlere geldik.

Kışlalı- Peki hükümetler böyle ilgisiz kaldı. Ama sizin kurduğunuz daire bunları izleyip hükümetleri uyarmadı mı?
Lütem- Gayet tabii. Arkadaşlarımın görevi bu. Bunu mutlaka yapmışlardır. Ama karar hükümetlere ait. Bizim ülkede iki önemli konuyla birden uğraşılamıyor galiba. İş işten geçtikten sonra başka konuya eğiliniyor. Bugünkü olaylar bunun açık misali. Bakanlığa yığınla bilgi geliyordu. Bunlar muhakkak değerlendirilip makamlara bildirilmiştir. Ama küçümsenmiştir.

‘Zafiyet içinde kaldık’

Kışlalı- Neler yapılabilirdi acaba?
Lütem- İşin birkaç yanı var; bunlardan biri diplomatik girişimler. Kamuoyuna yönelik faaliyetler de bilimsel kitaplar yayımlamak, gerektiğinde seminerler düzenlemek gibi. Asıl kesilen faaliyet soykırım olduğu iddialarına cevap verecek yayın ve benzer faaliyetlerin durdurulmasıdır. O sırada Ermeniler dünyanın birçok yerinde yoğun faaliyetlerine devam ediyorlardı. Diplomatik girişimler bilimsel, tarihi verilerle desteklenmeyince boşlukta kaldılar.

Kışlalı- Bugünkü durum nedir Batı dünyasında?
Lütem- 1915 olaylarının soykırım olduğuna inanmayan kimse kalmadı dışarıda. 80'li yılların ortasından itibaren tezimizi tanıtma açısından büyük zafiyet içinde kaldık. Tereddütler soykırım olduğu noktasında değil de; acaba modern Türkiye'yi rencide edecek bir şey yapalım mı yapmayalım mı noktasındadır. Yoksa 'Hayır soykırım olmamıştır' diyen çok az insan ve ülke var. 80'li yılların başında 50-60 bilim adamı ABD'de gazetelere verilen ilanda "Soykırım yoktur" diyordu. Bugün arasanız bunlardan hiçbirini bulamayabilirsiniz.

Kışlalı- Üzerlerinde Ermeni kamuoyu baskısı olduğu için çekiniyorlar herhalde?
Lütem- Tabii fikirlerini değiştirmemişlerdir ama dediğiniz gibi büyük baskı karşısında kalmışlardır. Adım adım bu noktaya gelindi. Bu olumsuz gelişmelere şaşmamak gerek. Çünkü Türkiye soykırım iddialarını çürütecek savunmayı yapamamıştır. Şimdi bizim Enstitü; Ermeni Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, bunu yapmaya çalışacak.

Kışlalı- İşlevi ne olacak?
Lütem- Ermeni sorunlarıyla uğraşan yegâne sivil kuruluş bu. Devlet içinde de yok. Bir başlangıç. Dışta tek amaçları soykırım iddialarını yayma olan çok Ermeni kuruluşu var. Enstitü olarak iki görevimiz var. Biri; bilimsel yayını yapmak. Bir dergi çıkaracağız. İnternette Türkçe ve İngilizce site açacağız. İkinci faaliyetimiz eğitime yönelik olacak. Genç üniversite mensuplarını bu konularda eğiteceğiz. Doktora yapmalarını, tez yazmalarını teşvik edeceğiz. Türkiye'de Ermeni konusunu bilenlerin sayısı az olduğu gibi bunların çoğu da yaşlanmış durumda.

‘Tepki çok büyük’

Kışlalı- Sizce ülke bu sorunun ciddi bir sorun olduğu ve ciddi çaba olmadan kurtulamayacağı idraki içinde mi?
Lütem- Garip bir durum var. Herkes kendini güncele göre ayarlıyor. Şu anda herkes böyle ama sonra ne olur bilemem. Şimdiki tepki çok büyük. Bir kısmı sizin de arkadaşlarınız olan diplomat şehitlerimiz öldürüldüklerinde ortaya çıkan tepkiden daha fazla tepki var şimdi. Oysa o olaylar şimdikinden daha önemliydi.

Kışlalı- Olayların birden artmasının Ermeni Cumhuriyetinin kurulmasıyla ilgisi var mı?
Lütem- Ondan ziyade Koçaryan'ın durumuyla ilgili. İlk gelen Petrosyan soykırım iddiasını rafa kaldırmıştı. Ama 7 sene görevde kaldı Türkiye'den bekledikleri hiçbir gelişme sağlayamadılar. Türkiye'ye karşı hayal kırıklığına uğradılar. Koçaryan tutum değiştirdi. Şimdi dışarıdaki Ermenilerle, diaspora ile uyum içinde görünüyor. Soykırım konusunu sürgit edeceği belli.

Kışlalı- Dışişlerinde 'Ermeni devletiyle yakınlaşma' eğilimi var. Ama onlar bunu zafiyet işareti olarak alıyor. Bir de; bu gerçekçi mi? Azerbaycan'ı kaybetmeyi göze almadan?
Lütem- Bu, cambazlığa benziyor. Bunu yapmaya kalkarsak yıllardır izlediğimiz Karabağ politikamıza aykırı olmaz mı? Birçok açmazı var. Zamanlamasından da şüphem var. Ama Ermenistan ile diaspora arasında soykırım konusunda büyük fark var. Diasporayı ayakta tutan soykırım iddiası. Ermenistan halkının başka büyük dertleri var. Sovyet döneminde de pek bu konuda bilinçlendirilmemişler.

Kışlalı- Paris'te alınan karar sizce sadece oradaki Ermeni oylarından dolayı mı? Yoksa bazı ihaleleri alamamaları, bundan dolayı Chirac'ın Türkiye'ye gelmekten vazgeçmesi de rol oynadı mı?
Lütem- Genellikle dediğiniz gibi buna inanılıyor. İhaleleri alamamalarının verdiği büyük burukluğun etkisi olmalı. Bu arada Türkiye'yi fazla rencide etmemeye de itina ediyorlar. Kanun lafzında. Ama Türkiye bunlardan hiç etkilenmedi ve açık seçik suçlanıyormuş gibi tepki gösterdi. Fransızların bu tepkiyi beklediklerini zannetmiyorum. Hesaplarının yanlış olduğunu şimdi görecekler.

Kışlalı- Türkiye bu tür karar çıkaranları umursamasa 'Cehenneme kadar yolunuz var. Ne çıkarırsanız çıkarın' dese ilerde başına büyük dert açar mıydı?
Lütem- Hayır açmazdı. Ama Türkiye'de bunu böyle hissetmek mümkün değil. Kamuoyu bunun böyle hissedilmesine izin vermez. Çok hassas.

Kışlalı- Bundan sonra tazminat ve toprak isteği gelebilir mi?
Lütem- Bunu diasporada düşünenler olduğu anlaşılıyor. Ama soykırımı kabul etmeyene tazminat nasıl zorlanır? Toprak isteği ise hayal olur.

New Turkish BD | 1951 by Levent Cantek and Sefa Sofuoğlu

January 8, 2018, 2:43 pm

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1951 Written by Levent Cantek [1] Illustrated by Sefa Sofuoğlu

ISBN 9789750523052
1st Printing January 2018 | İletişim Yayınları |176 pg. 

Mavi Boncuk | 

See: A Short History Of Comics In Turkey by Levent Cantek

[1]Levent Cantek, is the author of the book Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman, on the history and evolution of Turkish comics. Studied international relations at Bilkent University, and received his masters in journalism from Gazi University. He finished his PhD at Ankara University, and is one of the editors-in-chief of the Toplum ve Bilim (Society and Science) journal. He is the author of books Comic Books in Turkey (Iletisim, 1996), Markopasa, A Legend of Humor and Opposition (Iletisim, 2001), Karaoglan, An Erotic Nationalist Icon (Oglak, 2003), Republican Adolescence (Iletisim, 2008), Anatolian Tales (Dipnot, 2009), Donkey Immigrating to the City (Iletisim, 2011), Black Smoke (Iletisim, 2013) and Entrusted City (Iletisim, 2014). 

Levent Cantek 1969 Ankara doğumlu. Bilkent Üniversitesi’nde Uluslararası İlişkiler Lisans eğitimi aldı, Gazi ve Ankara Üniversitelerinde Gazetecilik yüksek lisans ve doktorası yaptı. Çizgi roman ve mizah ile ilgili çalışmalarıyla tanınıyor. Kültür tarihi ile ilgili çalışmalar yapıyor. TV dizi ve film senaryoları yazıyor. Editörlük ve akademisyenliğini sürdürüyor. Kitapları: Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman (İletişim Yayınları, 1996), Markopaşa, Bir Mizah ve Muhalefet Efsanesi (İletişim Yayınları, 2001), Çizgili Hayat Kılavuzu (der. İletişim Yayınları, 2002), Karaoğlan, Erotik ve Milliyetçi Bir İkon (Oğlak-Maceraperest, 2003), Çizgili Kenar Notları (der. İletişim Yayınları, 2007), Cumhuriyetin Büluğ Çağı (İletişim Yayınları, 2008), Anadolu Masalları (Dipnot Yayınları, 2009), Şehre Göçen Eşek (İletişim Yayınları, 2011), Dumankara (Grafik Roman, İletişim Yayınları, 2013), Emanet Şehir (Grafik Roman, İletişim Yayınları, 2014), Uzak Şehir (Grafik Roman, İletişim Yayınları, 2015), Kuş Eppeği (İletişim Yayınları, 2017), Muhalefet Defteri: Türkiye'de Mizah Dergileri ve Karikatür (Levent Gönenç ile birlikte, YKY, 2017). 

Sefa Sofuoğlu Sefa Sofuoğlu was born in Adana Turkey in 1964. He studied at the Cukurova University and became a pupil of famous Turkish comic artist Oğuz Aral, drawing for his magazine Gırgır. He also contributed his comics to magazines Fırfır, Avni and Dıgıl. He lives in Adana and runs an advertising agency. (from Lambiek.com | Last updated: 2012-04-24 )

 1964 yılında Adana'da doğdu. 1985 yılında Ç.Ü. Eğitim Fakültesi İngilizce Bölümü'nden mezun oldu. Gırgır dergisindeki “Çiçeği Burnunda Karikatürcüler” köşesinde Oğuz Aral’ın iki satır eleştiri yazması için yüzlerce karikatür çizdi ve gönderdi. 1980 yılında Gırgır'da karikatürü yayımlandığında uzun süre kendine gelemedi. Kendine geldikten sonra çizmekten hiç vazgeçmedi. Gırgır'ın yanı sıra, Fırt, Dıgıl, Avni, Fırfır, Holigan, Parazit, Küstah, Ekspress gazetesi, Milliyet Güney ve Sabah Güney'de karikatür ve çizgi öyküleri yayımlandı. Sabah Güney'de yayımlanan karikatürleri Alemin Keyfi Yerinde adıyla 2009 yılında kitaplaştırıldı. Adana’da yaşayan Sofuoğlu, 1996 yılından beri reklamcılık, halkla ilişkiler ve yayıncılık sektöründe hizmet veren Öncül/Sefa İletişim Hizmetleri’nin kurucu ortağıdır ve art direktör olarak çalışmaktadır.

Article | Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco

January 11, 2018, 7:34 am

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Please allow me to have this posting written by a multi talented intellectual that I admired for quite a while.

In 1995, the late Umberto Eco wrote an essay on what he called “Ur-Fascism”. What he meant by this term is the fuzzy constellation of ideas and feelings out of which fascism grows. “[B]ehind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives.” In the case of fascism, this is Ur-Fascism.

Eco’s essay is as relevant today as when he wrote it. Indeed, with the election of Trump, and the debate over to what degree it is fair to call him or his positions “fascist,” it is extremely timely.

Mavi Boncuk |

Ur-Fascism

Umberto Eco 

JUNE 22, 1995  ISSUE
The New York Review of Books

In 1942, at the age of ten, I received the First Provincial Award of Ludi Juveniles (a voluntary, compulsory competition for young Italian Fascists—that is, for every young Italian). I elaborated with rhetorical skill on the subject “Should we die for the glory of Mussolini and the immortal destiny of Italy?” My answer was positive. I was a smart boy.

I spent two of my early years among the SS, Fascists, Republicans, and partisans shooting at one another, and I learned how to dodge bullets. It was good exercise.

In April 1945, the partisans took over in Milan. Two days later they arrived in the small town where I was living at the time. It was a moment of joy. The main square was crowded with people singing and waving flags, calling in loud voices for Mimo, the partisan leader of that area. A former maresciallo of the Carabinieri, Mimo joined the supporters of General Badoglio, Mussolini’s successor, and lost a leg during one of the first clashes with Mussolini’s remaining forces. Mimo showed up on the balcony of the city hall, pale, leaning on his crutch, and with one hand tried to calm the crowd. I was waiting for his speech because my whole childhood had been marked by the great historic speeches of Mussolini, whose most significant passages we memorized in school. Silence. Mimo spoke in a hoarse voice, barely audible. He said: “Citizens, friends. After so many painful sacrifices … here we are. Glory to those who have fallen for freedom.” And that was it. He went back inside. The crowd yelled, the partisans raised their guns and fired festive volleys. We kids hurried to pick up the shells, precious items, but I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.

A few days later I saw the first American soldiers. They were African Americans. The first Yankee I met was a black man, Joseph, who introduced me to the marvels of Dick Tracy and Li’l Abner. His comic books were brightly colored and smelled good.

One of the officers (Major or Captain Muddy) was a guest in the villa of a family whose two daughters were my schoolmates. I met him in their garden where some ladies, surrounding Captain Muddy, talked in tentative French. Captain Muddy knew some French, too. My first image of American liberators was thus—after so many palefaces in black shirts—that of a cultivated black man in a yellow-green uniform saying: “Oui, merci beaucoup, Madame, moi aussi j’aime le champagne…” Unfortunately there was no champagne, but Captain Muddy gave me my first piece of Wrigley’s Spearmint and I started chewing all day long. At night I put my wad in a water glass, so it would be fresh for the next day.

In May we heard that the war was over. Peace gave me a curious sensation. I had been told that permanent warfare was the normal condition for a young Italian. In the following months I discovered that the Resistance was not only a local phenomenon but a European one. I learned new, exciting words like réseau, maquis, armée secrète, Rote Kapelle, Warsaw ghetto. I saw the first photographs of the Holocaust, thus understanding the meaning before knowing the word. I realized what we were liberated from.

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In my country today there are people who are wondering if the Resistance had a real military impact on the course of the war. For my generation this question is irrelevant: we immediately understood the moral and psychological meaning of the Resistance. For us it was a point of pride to know that we Europeans did not wait passively for liberation. And for the young Americans who were paying with their blood for our restored freedom it meant something to know that behind the firing lines there were Europeans paying their own debt in advance.

In my country today there are those who are saying that the myth of the Resistance was a Communist lie. It is true that the Communists exploited the Resistance as if it were their personal property, since they played a prime role in it; but I remember partisans with kerchiefs of different colors. Sticking close to the radio, I spent my nights—the windows closed, the blackout making the small space around the set a lone luminous halo—listening to the messages sent by the Voice of London to the partisans. They were cryptic and poetic at the same time (The sun also rises, The roses will bloom) and most of them were “messaggi per la Franchi.” Somebody whispered to me that Franchi was the leader of the most powerful clandestine network in northwestern Italy, a man of legendary courage. Franchi became my hero. Franchi (whose real name was Edgardo Sogno) was a monarchist, so strongly anti-Communist that after the war he joined very right-wing groups, and was charged with collaborating in a project for a reactionary coup d’état. Who cares? Sogno still remains the dream hero of my childhood. Liberation was a common deed for people of different colors.


In my country today there are some who say that the War of Liberation was a tragic period of division, and that all we need is national reconciliation. The memory of those terrible years should be repressed, refoulée, verdrängt. But Verdrängung causes neurosis. If reconciliation means compassion and respect for all those who fought their own war in good faith, to forgive does not mean to forget. I can even admit that Eichmann sincerely believed in his mission, but I cannot say, “OK, come back and do it again.” We are here to remember what happened and solemnly say that “They” must not do it again.

But who are They?

If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolini’s fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty in acknowledging that today the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, born from the postwar Fascist Party, MSI, and certainly a right-wing party, has by now very little to do with the old fascism. In the same vein, even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement.

Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. Is there still another ghost stalking Europe (not to speak of other parts of the world)?

Ionesco once said that “only words count and the rest is mere chattering.” Linguistic habits are frequently important symptoms of underlying feelings. Thus it is worth asking why not only the Resistance but the Second World War was generally defined throughout the world as a struggle against fascism. If you reread Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls you will discover that Robert Jordan identifies his enemies with Fascists, even when he thinks of the Spanish Falangists. And for FDR, “The victory of the American people and their allies will be a victory against fascism and the dead hand of despotism it represents.”

During World War II, the Americans who took part in the Spanish war were called “premature anti-fascists”—meaning that fighting against Hitler in the Forties was a moral duty for every good American, but fighting against Franco too early, in the Thirties, smelled sour because it was mainly done by Communists and other leftists. … Why was an expression like fascist pig used by American radicals thirty years later to refer to a cop who did not approve of their smoking habits? Why didn’t they say: Cagoulard pig, Falangist pig, Ustashe pig, Quisling pig, Nazi pig?

Mein Kampf is a manifesto of a complete political program. Nazism had a theory of racism and of the Aryan chosen people, a precise notion of degenerate art, entartete Kunst, a philosophy of the will to power and of the Ubermensch. Nazism was decidedly anti-Christian and neo-pagan, while Stalin’s Diamat (the official version of Soviet Marxism) was blatantly materialistic and atheistic. If by totalitarianism one means a regime that subordinates every act of the individual to the state and to its ideology, then both Nazism and Stalinism were true totalitarian regimes.

Italian fascism was certainly a dictatorship, but it was not totally totalitarian, not because of its mildness but rather because of the philosophical weakness of its ideology. Contrary to common opinion, fascism in Italy had no special philosophy. The article on fascism signed by Mussolini in the Treccani Encyclopedia was written or basically inspired by Giovanni Gentile, but it reflected a late-Hegelian notion of the Absolute and Ethical State which was never fully realized by Mussolini. Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric. He was a militant atheist at the beginning and later signed the Convention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessed the Fascist pennants. In his early anticlerical years, according to a likely legend, he once asked God, in order to prove His existence, to strike him down on the spot. Later, Mussolini always cited the name of God in his speeches, and did not mind being called the Man of Providence.

Italian fascism was the first right-wing dictatorship that took over a European country, and all similar movements later found a sort of archetype in Mussolini’s regime. Italian fascism was the first to establish a military liturgy, a folklore, even a way of dressing—far more influential, with its black shirts, than Armani, Benetton, or Versace would ever be. It was only in the Thirties that fascist movements appeared, with Mosley, in Great Britain, and in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, Spain, Portugal, Norway, and even in South America. It was Italian fascism that convinced many European liberal leaders that the new regime was carrying out interesting social reform, and that it was providing a mildly revolutionary alternative to the Communist threat.

Nevertheless, historical priority does not seem to me a sufficient reason to explain why the word fascism became a synecdoche, that is, a word that could be used for different totalitarian movements. This is not because fascism contained in itself, so to speak in their quintessential state, all the elements of any later form of totalitarianism. On the contrary, fascism had no quintessence. Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions. Can one conceive of a truly totalitarian movement that was able to combine monarchy with revolution, the Royal Army with Mussolini’s personal milizia, the grant of privileges to the Church with state education extolling violence, absolute state control with a free market? The Fascist Party was born boasting that it brought a revolutionary new order; but it was financed by the most conservative among the landowners who expected from it a counter-revolution. At its beginning fascism was republican. Yet it survived for twenty years proclaiming its loyalty to the royal family, while the Duce (the unchallenged Maximal Leader) was arm-in-arm with the King, to whom he also offered the title of Emperor. But when the King fired Mussolini in 1943, the party reappeared two months later, with German support, under the standard of a “social” republic, recycling its old revolutionary script, now enriched with almost Jacobin overtones.

There was only a single Nazi architecture and a single Nazi art. If the Nazi architect was Albert Speer, there was no more room for Mies van der Rohe. Similarly, under Stalin’s rule, if Lamarck was right there was no room for Darwin. In Italy there were certainly fascist architects but close to their pseudo-Coliseums were many new buildings inspired by the modern rationalism of Gropius.

There was no fascist Zhdanov setting a strictly cultural line. In Italy there were two important art awards. The Premio Cremona was controlled by a fanatical and uncultivated Fascist, Roberto Farinacci, who encouraged art as propaganda. (I can remember paintings with such titles as Listening by Radio to the Duce’s Speech or States of Mind Created by Fascism.) The Premio Bergamo was sponsored by the cultivated and reasonably tolerant Fascist Giuseppe Bottai, who protected both the concept of art for art’s sake and the many kinds of avant-garde art that had been banned as corrupt and crypto-Communist in Germany.

The national poet was D’Annunzio, a dandy who in Germany or in Russia would have been sent to the firing squad. He was appointed as the bard of the regime because of his nationalism and his cult of heroism—which were in fact abundantly mixed up with influences of French fin de siècle decadence.

Take Futurism. One might think it would have been considered an instance of entartete Kunst, along with Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. But the early Italian Futurists were nationalist; they favored Italian participation in the First World War for aesthetic reasons; they celebrated speed, violence, and risk, all of which somehow seemed to connect with the fascist cult of youth. While fascism identified itself with the Roman Empire and rediscovered rural traditions, Marinetti (who proclaimed that a car was more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace, and wanted to kill even the moonlight) was nevertheless appointed as a member of the Italian Academy, which treated moonlight with great respect.

Many of the future partisans and of the future intellectuals of the Communist Party were educated by the GUF, the fascist university students’ association, which was supposed to be the cradle of the new fascist culture. These clubs became a sort of intellectual melting pot where new ideas circulated without any real ideological control. It was not that the men of the party were tolerant of radical thinking, but few of them had the intellectual equipment to control it.

During those twenty years, the poetry of Montale and other writers associated with the group called the Ermetici was a reaction to the bombastic style of the regime, and these poets were allowed to develop their literary protest from within what was seen as their ivory tower. The mood of the Ermetici poets was exactly the reverse of the fascist cult of optimism and heroism. The regime tolerated their blatant, even though socially imperceptible, dissent because the Fascists simply did not pay attention to such arcane language.

All this does not mean that Italian fascism was tolerant. Gramsci was put in prison until his death; the opposition leaders Giacomo Matteotti and the brothers Rosselli were assassinated; the free press was abolished, the labor unions were dismantled, and political dissenters were confined on remote islands. Legislative power became a mere fiction and the executive power (which controlled the judiciary as well as the mass media) directly issued new laws, among them laws calling for preservation of the race (the formal Italian gesture of support for what became the Holocaust).

The contradictory picture I describe was not the result of tolerance but of political and ideological discombobulation. But it was a rigid discombobulation, a structured confusion. Fascism was philosophically out of joint, but emotionally it was firmly fastened to some archetypal foundations.

So we come to my second point. There was only one Nazism. We cannot label Franco’s hyper-Catholic Falangism as Nazism, since Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian. But the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. Consider the following sequence:

1 2 3 4
abc bcd cde def
Suppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.

But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counter-revolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of them indulgently accepted by the Roman Pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages—in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism.

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.” The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old “proletarians” are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the US, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson’s The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Falangists was Viva la Muerte (in English it should be translated as “Long Live Death!”). In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against “rotten” parliamentary governments. One of the first sentences uttered by Mussolini in the Italian parliament was “I could have transformed this deaf and gloomy place into a bivouac for my maniples”—“maniples” being a subdivision of the traditional Roman legion. As a matter of fact, he immediately found better housing for his maniples, but a little later he liquidated the parliament. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

On the morning of July 27, 1943, I was told that, according to radio reports, fascism had collapsed and Mussolini was under arrest. When my mother sent me out to buy the newspaper, I saw that the papers at the nearest newsstand had different titles. Moreover, after seeing the headlines, I realized that each newspaper said different things. I bought one of them, blindly, and read a message on the first page signed by five or six political parties—among them the Democrazia Cristiana, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Partito d’Azione, and the Liberal Party.

Until then, I had believed that there was a single party in every country and that in Italy it was the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Now I was discovering that in my country several parties could exist at the same time. Since I was a clever boy, I immediately realized that so many parties could not have been born overnight, and they must have existed for some time as clandestine organizations.

The message on the front celebrated the end of the dictatorship and the return of freedom: freedom of speech, of press, of political association. These words, “freedom,” “dictatorship,” “liberty,”—I now read them for the first time in my life. I was reborn as a free Western man by virtue of these new words.

We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: “I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

Let me finish with a poem by Franco Fortini:

Sulla spalletta del ponte
Le teste degli impiccati
Nell’acqua della fonte
La bava degli impiccati.

Sul lastrico del mercato
Le unghie dei fucilati
Sull’erba secca del prato
I denti dei fucilati.

Mordere l’aria mordere i sassi
La nostra carne non è più d’uomini
Mordere l’aria mordere i sassi
Il nostro cuore non è più d’uomini.

Ma noi s’è letto negli occhi dei morti
E sulla terra faremo libertà
Ma l’hanno stretta i pugni dei morti
La giustizia che si farà.

* * *

(On the bridge’s parapet
The heads of the hanged
In the flowing rivulet
The spittle of the hanged.
On the cobbles in the market- places
The fingernails of those lined up and shot
On the dry grass in the open spaces
The broken teeth of those lined up and shot.

Biting the air, biting the stones
Our flesh is no longer human
Biting the air, biting the stones
Our hearts are no longer human.

But we have read into the eyes of the dead
And shall bring freedom on the earth
But clenched tight in the fists of the dead
Lies the justice to be served.)
—poem translated by Stephen Sartarelli

Copyright © by Umberto Eco

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To Save Turkey’s Democracy, The Country’s Opposition Must Offer Erdogan A Grand Bargain

by Soner Cagaptay

SOURCE

Soner Cagaptay is the author of The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey, and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

JANUARY 8, 2018

Turkish democracy is dying. Of the three parties in the country’s legislature that oppose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the leader of the first — the Peoples Democracy Party (HDP) — has been jailed by Erdogan. The leader of the second — the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) — has said he wants to join forces with Erdogan. And the leader of the third, and main opposition faction — the Republican People’s Party (CHP) — has been labeled a “national security issue” by Erdogan’s deputy prime minister.

Erdogan’s crackdown is not irrational. Rather, it is a deliberate calculation. He is a prototype of populist and right-wing leaders that seem to be on the rise in many regions of the world. Since coming to power in 2003, he has demonized so many opposition groups — a number of people Erdogan arrested have died in jail while waiting to appear in court — that he faces certain prosecution if he loses elections. To avoid being ousted democratically, Erdogan has decided to end democracy in Turkey.

The problem for Erdogan is that despite his best efforts to build a majority in his favor, and even with extensive allegations of voter fraud, he only won by 51 percent in a recent referendum to increase his executive powers. Erdogan’s policies have not created a solid majority, but a deeply polarized society.

His opposition — which constitutes nearly half of Turkey, and includes leftists, social-democrats, liberals, secularists, Alevis, and Kurdish nationalists — detests him. And yet by delivering economic growth, and fanning conservative, and often politically Islamist views, Erdogan has built a base that shares his politics — the other half of Turkey, which adores him.

Erdogan’s future hangs by a thread. Although he won the referendum by the slimmest of margins, he lost the vote among 18 to 32 year-olds, who came of political age after his rise, by a 5 point margin. The majority of people raised under him reject Erdogan, and as more of these youth come of voting age, he faces the risk of being defeated in the next elections in 2019. This is why he has been taking steps to stymie democracy in Turkey.

Following the failed 2016 plot against him, which awakened Erdogan’s worst fears about falling from power, the Turkish government put in place a state of emergency to pursue coup plotters.

Erdogan has used the state of emergency to broaden his crackdown on the half of the country that refuses to fold under him. And he has extended the state of emergency, which gives his police the right to detain anyone without a court order, five times. For the most recent extension, Erdogan said that the state of emergency will remain in place “until there is peace and welfare in Turkey.”

Going forward, he will ensure that elections are not free or fair. Allegations of voter fraud have already emerged: in the aftermath of the referendum, statements from European election monitoring body Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe warned that unequally distributed state resources had created an unfair campaign season. But Erdogan dismissed such allegations and refused to allow a voter fraud inquiry after the referendum — because there is no graceful exit for him.

Turkey’s democracy is on a death watch. It will only be saved if factions opposing Erdogan come together and offer him a grand bargain, including a promise that he and his administration will not be prosecuted should they lose elections. This offer of blanket amnesty should extend also to the members of Erdogan’s family who have been implicated in corruption allegations.

Turkey’s intellectuals, in pro- and anti-Erdogan camps alike, can play a role in this process, acting in the common interests of all citizens, by drafting an open letter. It would call for anti- and pro-Erdogan factions in the country to come together around a new social consensus. The pro- and anti-Erdogan blocks, each 40-million strong, are equally large demographically as well as politically, and neither side will vanish regardless of how hard the other side tries to eliminate it. This initiative should proceed on the basis of that social fact.

The way forward for Turkey is a new societal consensus that would simultaneously provide freedom of religion for the country’s pious half and conservatives, and freedom from religion for secularists and liberals. The intellectuals’ role would be to start a public debate that would then be taken up by the country’s four main parties represented in the legislature.

While liberals and leftists have traditionally dominated among Turkey’s intellectuals, at every stage, pro-Erdogan thinkers and opinion-makers ought to be involved in this process which should culminate in joint action by the parties in the legislature. The latter should act to write conjoined freedoms of and from religion into the country’s constitution as an amendment, paving the ground for a grand compromise between the Turkey’s pro- and anti-Erdogan halves.

A joint statement signed by all the parties in the country’s legislature should crown this compromise. The statement should outline Turkey’s history of win-lose politics that extends well into the pre-Erdogan years promising to put a definite end to this brand of national politics once and for all. Erdogan himself is intimately familiar with being on the losing side of politics. He was born in 1954 to a poor conservative family in a working-class Istanbul neighborhood and, for decades, suffered from discrimination in the hands of Turkey’s once secular political system and elites, including a jail term in 1999 — Hopefully this experience has left in him a kernel of sympathy for those who oppose him politically.

The end product should promise that neither Erdogan, nor any members of his party, family, or administration will face persecution for their acts in the past 15 years — in other words a truth and reconciliation manifesto. The Turkish Armed Forces, traditionally the most respected institution in the country, can be the guarantor of this manifesto. At first, it may not appear be such a good idea to invite the generals back into politics. Yet, being a conscript-based force, the Turkish military is a sole remaining institution in which pro- and anti-Erdogan Turks alike participate, coming together. The Turkish Armed Forces can not only play a role in bringing together Turkey’s disparate halves, but can also stand behind this proposition with more credibility than any other institution in the country.

This will be a tall order. Erdogan’s opposition comprises various fractions. Some of these groups, such as the leftists, despise him so deeply that consensus will be difficult to secure. And Erdogan himself may not agree to take the olive branch, regardless of how ironclad its terms are, refusing to trust the opposition’s commitment to amnesty. Many people in his camp are unrepentant and might not see the virtue in any sort of deal.

Still, the greatest risk facing Erdogan is that, if he does not reach a compromise with his opposition, parts of his 40-million-strong opposition, such as far leftists, could radicalize, turning violent. At this juncture, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a violent Kurdish nationalist group that has been fighting Turkey for decades, would be more than happy to act as the avant garde of Erdogan’s violent opposition. The PKK has already positioned itself in this role, exclusively targeting officials of Erdogan’s AKP, as well as members of his security forces. The group’s most deadly attack in the last decade took place in December 2016 when it bombed government buses carrying police officers in downtown Istanbul, killing 36 cops and injuring many others.

This outcome is dangerous. Turkey has an unfortunate history of right-left political violence going back to the 1970s Today, it is not implausible that hard-leftist as well as Kurdish violence could trigger widespread unrest in Turkey, with radical right-wing political Islamists in the pro-Erdogan camp taking up arms themselves. Among these groups, ISIL has already demonstrated its eagerness to play storm-trooper role against Erdogan’s detractors: In addition to foreigners, the group has exclusively targeted liberal Turks, social-democrats, leftists, socialists, Alevis (who are liberal Muslims), and Kurdish nationalists — which together constitute the anti-Erdogan camp in Turkey — in terror attacks since 2015, killing over two hundred people.

Erdogan has good reason to take his many rivals at home and abroad and the threat they pose to his rule seriously. For his own part, the Turkish leader has many enemies, from Russia and the Assad regime to the PKK, who hope that he will fail. Despite recent efforts to make up with Ankara, Moscow is ultimately interested in deepening Turkey’s political crisis. According to former State Department official Naz Durakoglu, in the run up to the April 2017 referendum, Sputnik Turkiye, Turkish language version of Russian-government owned news and propaganda outlet, produced many times more the combined output of other foreign media in Turkey, and unlike these other outlets, campaigned almost exclusively against Erdogan.

Putin does not want to replace Erdogan with a liberal or leftist alternative. Rather, the Russian leader wants to exacerbate and prolong Turkey’s crisis between Erdogan’s supporters and opponents. Putin’s overarching goal is to see a weak NATO and a paralyzed Turkey, likely violently divided between pro- and anti-Erdogan camps, reinforces that goal. Turkey has NATO’s second largest military and is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East and southeastern Europe. It is not a matter of if, but when Russia will boost Erdogan’s current violent opposition, ranging from the PKK to Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a hard-Marxist outfit, to undermine Turkey’s stability, and therefore weaken the transatlantic alliance.

Bashar al-Assad, who Erdogan has tried, in vain, to oust in Syria’s civil war is guaranteed to be a nemesis to Erdogan. Even if Erdogan slowly untangles Ankara from the Syrian conflict, Assad will not forget the fact that Erdogan has gone after him, supporting proxies, which have tried to kill him. The Syrian dictator will use his own proxies, such as the PKK and the DHKP-C, with which the Syrian government has ties stretching back to the Cold War, to hurt Erdogan, subsequently undermining Turkey’s stability.

This explains why Moscow has deployed troops to PKK-ally People’s Protection Units’ (YPG) Afrin enclave in northern Syria, abutting Turkey. Afrin is surrounded by Putin-ally Assad regime forces and Turkey and its allies in Syria. What is more, with Moscow’s encouragement, the Assad regime has opened up a land bridge from Aleppo to the YPG’s Manbij enclave in northern Syria, saving it from being overrun by Turkey-backed forces in Syria. By inserting himself into Kurdish politics, Putin (together with Assad) is ensuring that he has a Kurdish card to play against Erdogan, in Syria —and in Turkey.

Turkey’s opposition and Erdogan together have a chance to save the country and its democracy. This strategy is not guaranteed to work, but it is the only graceful exit that may be left.

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Article | The Only Thing Turkey and the U.S. Can Agree On

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Opinion | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Only Thing Turkey and the U.S. Can Agree On
By NICK DANFORTH  

SOURCE

JAN. 10, 2018

Nick Danforth (@NicholasDanfort) is a senior policy analyst for Bipartistan Policy Center’s national security program. Nicholas Danforth serves as a senior policy analyst for the national security program. He completed his Ph.D. in history at Georgetown University and has written widely about Turkey, U.S. foreign policy, and the Middle East.

SEE ALSO: November 2017 Power and Corruption in Erdoğan’s Turkey: Context and Consequences By: Blaise Misztal, Nick Danforth, Jessica Michek, and Ryan Gingeras (DOWNLOAD REPORT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey speaking at the Grand National Assembly in Ankara this week.CreditAdem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty


WASHINGTON — Last week, a federal jury in New York convicted a Turkish banker, Mehmet Hakan Atilla[1] of playing a role in an elaborate gold-smuggling scheme that involved bribing high-ranking Turkish government officials to help Iran evade American sanctions.

Making the case even more explosive, testimony at Mr. Atilla’s trial alleged that the scheme had the approval of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mr. Erdogan, of course, is not pleased. The other day, he again voiced his longstanding claim that the Iran sanctions violation case is just the latest link in a chain of C.I.A.-orchestrated plots against him, including the 2013 protests in Gezi Park and the 2016 attempted coup. Mr. Erdogan has also tied the case — initially brought by the United States attorney at the time, Preet Bharara — to accusations of corruption against his family by Turkey’s main opposition party, saying that both were part of the conspiracy.

Relations between the United States and Turkey are already strained over issues from Washington’s support for Kurdish fighters in Syria to Turkey’s arrest of American citizens and State Department employees. This verdict risks pushing them closer to the breaking point. Mr. Atilla’s conviction, which is likely to lead to heavy fines against the state-owned bank where he worked, has already led to a new wave of anti-American invective from high-ranking Turkish officials.
Turkey’s president feels under siege. And with both the United States government and parliamentary opponents accusing him of corruption, he will continue his domestic crackdown and his anti-American rhetoric. This is dangerous. Every newspaper closed or politician arrested, like every new diplomatic spat with the United States or Europe, will further strain Turkey’s social fabric and weaken its economy.

American policy makers could soon find themselves facing an acute dilemma: As Mr. Erdogan becomes more aggressive, the means at Washington’s disposal to apply pressure on him increasingly risk destabilizing Turkey even further.
Already, provocations like the attack on protesters in Washington last spring have prompted talk of economic sanctions in Congress. When Turkey arrested a local employee of the United States consulate who was accused of assisting in the collection of evidence for the sanctions case, the State Department suspended the issuing of nonimmigrant visas in Turkey for several months. Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defense missiles could set off new sanctions.
In an increasingly tense and transactional relationship, targeted steps like these can help curb some of Mr. Erdogan’s more antagonistic behavior. But getting tough on Turkey is unlikely to reverse the negative trajectory of the relationship. And it will ultimately produce diminishing returns.

There are several reasons for this. Turkey is already paying a serious economic price for measures that Mr. Erdogan feels are necessary to maintain his power, as post-coup purges and a continuing state of emergency frighten away foreign investors. Moreover, from Ankara’s perspective, the United States is already putting enormous pressure on Turkey. To Turkey, Washington’s military support for Syrian Kurdish fighters whose partners are at war with the Turkish Army, for example, makes matters of visa policy seem small.

As Turkey’s political and economic situation deteriorates, the risk grows that further pressure will be counterproductive. Any sanctions with real bite would only increase the already serious possibility of a major economic crisis in Turkey. Rather than leave Turkey more dependent on Washington, such a crisis could well empower those in Ankara who already believe that Turkey has less to lose and more to gain by breaking with the West completely.
Given the grip on power that he now enjoys, Mr. Erdogan is unlikely to be voted out, regardless of how bad the economy gets. If he decides to cling to power at all costs, even his fall would be more likely to unleash violence than facilitate a smooth return to some form of democracy. In these circumstances, pushing the country toward the brink would do little to advance America’s ideals or interests, much less those of the Turkish people.

For all of Mr. Erdogan’s anger at America, he now stands to benefit from the very American cynicism he regularly denounces. However infuriating and dangerous American policy makers find him, they will ultimately find the alternative — chaos in Turkey — scarier. Having missed the opportunity to apply pressure earlier in Mr. Erdogan’s tenure, when it might have been effective, Washington is likely to end up quietly hoping he maintains his hold over the country for the same reason it has supported many other authoritarian leaders: stability.

With this in mind, American policy should look toward helping Turkey emerge intact from an inevitable period of authoritarian rule as early as realistically possible. Congress should focus any future sanctions on concrete issues affecting bilateral relations, like the targeting of American government employees and citizens. American leaders should remain consistent in their public and private criticism of Mr. Erdogan’s undemocratic behavior, rather than withholding or deploying it selectively as a diplomatic tool.
Finally, it is important to prevent further escalation of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict. The United States can use its military and diplomatic leverage in Syria to forestall both Turkish attacks on Kurdish forces there and renewed terrorist attacks by Kurdish groups in Turkey.

Beyond this, though, Americans can do little but brace for what’s next. Turkey’s political turmoil, like its relationship with the United States, will almost certainly get worse before it gets better. In the end, the only interest Washington and Ankara share may be a desire to keep Turkey from becoming even less stable.


[1] New York Trial Verdict Adds to U.S.-Turkey Tensions
BY NICHOLAS DANFORTH

Thursday, January 4, 2018

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On Wednesday afternoon a jury in the Southern District of New York found Turkish banker Hakan Atilla guilty on five out of six counts connected to illegal financial transactions that enabled Iran to evade sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear program. The trial has long created tension between the United States and Turkey, the verdict will certainly not alleviate it. As Atilla’s lawyers promise to appeal, it remains to be seen how Turkey will respond and, crucially, whether this verdict will be followed by additional indictments of Turkish officials or, more likely, fines against Turkish banks.

Already, Turkey’s Minister of Justice has announced that he views the case “as an attack on Turkey’s sovereignty.”

Already, Turkey’s Minister of Justice has announced that he views the case “as an attack on Turkey’s sovereignty.” But such rhetoric has become standard for Turkish officials by now, along with claims that the entire trial was part of a political plot orchestrated by the Fetullah Gulen movement, whose influence extended to the judge and prosecutors in the case. Other critics noted an irony that has been echoed by many U.S. observers as well: among the many people involved in the sanctions-busting scheme, Atilla came off as a hapless bureaucrat who had profited far less for his crime than higher-level officials who remain free in Turkey. That Atilla faces serious jail time (the sentencing is in April) while Reza Zarrab, following a plea deal that enabled him to become the prosecution’s star witness, presumably does not, represents another irony that has drawn sympathy from an emotional if not strictly legal perspective. 

From a diplomatic perspective, the most positive development following the trial is that Ankara appears open to negotiating the fine that Halkbank, where Atilla worked, agrees to pay. This would avoid a worst-case scenario that some analysts had speculated about, where Turkey simply refused to pay, thereby creating an unprecedented crisis where it would potentially be cut off from the global financial system. 

Whether U.S. prosecutors take any further steps, beyond the expected fines against Halkbank, and whether Ankara decides to escalate its rhetoric or engage in any retaliatory measures will determine whether the tensions surrounding the trail continue to grow. The recent resolution of the U.S.-Turkish visa crisis, alongside some of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s more conciliatory gestures toward Europe, suggest that for the moment at least Ankara is not eager to escalate. 


Yet viewed in a broader context, the case itself serves as a reminder of the deep and structural challenges that will continue to bedevil the U.S.-Turkish relationship. Ankara’s initial willingness to prioritize its trade relations with Iran over the security interests of NATO as a whole, coupled with the deep conviction Atilla’s trial itself was part of a politically motivated attempt to bring down the Turkish government, suggest that whatever happens in the case at hand, the tensions United States and Turkey will continue to grow further apart in the coming year.

Profile | Roderic H. Davison

January 11, 2018, 12:22 pm

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Roderic H. Davison

Roderic H. Davison (April 27, 1917 – March 23, 1996) was an American historian of the Middle East who taught at George Washington University from 1947 to 1993. He served as president of the Middle East Studies Association and the Turkish Studies Association, and as treasurer of the American Historical Association.

Born in Buffalo, New York, the son of an academic at Robert College, Roderic Davison grew up in Istanbul. He graduated from Princeton University in 1937 and gained a masters and PhD in history from Harvard University. In 1947 he began teaching courses at George Washington University, on Near Eastern and European diplomatic history and on the Ottoman Empire for over 40 years. Becoming professor in 1954, he retired in 1993.

Roderich Davison died of respiratory illness on March 23, 1996 at Sibley Memorial Hospital.[1]

Books
Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856-1876, Gordian Press (June 1973), ISBN 978-0-87752-135-8
Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774–1923, Saqi Books (2001), ISBN 978-0-86356-324-9
Turkey: A Short History, The Eothen Press (1998), ISBN 978-0-906719-22-0

Article | The Armenian Crisis, 1912–1914 The American Historical Review, Volume 53, Issue 3, 1 April 1948, Pages 481–505, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/53.3.481 Published: 01 April 1948


SEE ALSO: ARTICLE ON R.H. DAVISON

Profile | Ulrich Trumpener (1930 - 2017)

January 11, 2018, 12:39 pm

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Mavi Boncuk | Ulrich Trumpener (March 24, 1930 - September 9, 2017)

Germany and the  Armenian Persecutions 1914 - 1918 by Tilrich Trumpener (PDF LINK)


Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1918
Ulrich Trumpener

Questioning whether the Germans were actually as influential or dominant in the Ottoman empire as most standard works suggest, the author attacks the myths surrounding Turkey's role in the war.

First published in 1968.

Table of Contents
Frontmatter, pg. i
Preface, pg. vii
Contents, pg. xi
Abbreviations, pg. xiii
Note on Spelling and Place Names, pg. xv
I. The Eve of World War I, pg. 1
II. From Alliance Treaty to Intervention, pg. 21
III. The German Generals in the Ottoman War Effort, 1914-18, pg. 62
IV. Political Evolution of the Alliance, 1914 to Early 1917, pg. 108
V. Peace Feelers and the Problem of the Straits, 1914-17, pg. 140
VI. Dissension over Transcaucasia, 1918, pg. 167
VII. The Armenian Persecutions, pg. 200
VIII. Germany’s Financial Support, pg. 271
IX. The Bagdad Railroad, pg. 285
X. German Efforts to Secure Economic Predominance, pg. 317
XI. Collapse of the Alliance, pg. 352
XII. Summary, pg. 366
Appendices, pg. 373
Bibliography, pg. 383
Index, pg. 409
Backmatter, pg. 434


Editions
Paperback 2015  ISBN9780691622750  452 pp. 6 x 9 1/4
Hardcover 2016  ISBN9780691649498  452 pp. 6 x 9 1/4
E-book ISBN9781400877591

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Word Origin | Kamyon, Araba

January 15, 2018, 7:03 am

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Kamyon: camion FR camion[1] m (plural camions, diminutive camionnetje n) (Belgium) der Lastkraftwagen GE; truck (US)[2]; lorry (UK)[3]; 
[ Düstur, 1890] Kamyon ve el arabası vesaireden ikinci sınıf eşya itibarile sıkletleri nisbetinde rıhtım resmi alınacaktır.
kamyonet "[Fr camionette] küçük kamyon" [ Cumhuriyet - gazete, 1930]
Yalova belediyesi Bursa'dan birkaç kamyonet de getirdiği halde
from Fr camion bir tür at arabası (14. yy), motorlu yük aracı (20. yy)

Araba: KTü: [ Codex Cumanicus, 1303] currum from persian; TR: araba OTü araba at arabası Sakha: rraha ; Avesta: raθa; Sanskrit:rátha- रथ iki tekerlekli tören arabası.

[1] Unknown origin, however, most likely early 19th century. Possibly from chemin (“way, route”), see Spanish camino, or from Latin chamūlcus (“cart”), from Ancient Greek χᾰμουλκός (khamoulkós, “crane, windlass, or possibly other machine”), from χθών (khthṓn, “earth, ground”) +‎ ἑλκέω (helkéō, “I drag”).

[2] truck (n.1)
"vehicle," 1610s, originally "small wheel" (especially one on which the carriages of a ship's guns were mounted), probably from Latin trochus "iron hoop," from Greek trokhos "wheel," from trekhein "to run" (see truckle (n.)). Sense extended to "cart for carrying heavy loads" (1774), then in American English to "motor vehicle for carrying heavy loads" (1913), a shortened form of motor truck in this sense (1901).

There have also been lost to the enemy 6,200 guns, 2,550 tanks and 70,000 trucks, which is the American name for lorries, and which, I understand, has been adopted by the combined staffs in North-West Africa in exchange for the use of the word petrol in place of gasolene. [Winston Churchill, address to joint session of U.S. Congress, May 19, 1943]

Truck stop is attested from 1956.

[3] lorry (n.)

"a truck; a long wagon with a flat bed and four wheels," 1838, British railroad word, probably from verb lurry "to pull, tug" (1570s), which is of uncertain origin. Meaning "large motor vehicle for carrying goods on roads" (equivalent of U.S. truck (n.1)) is first attested 1911.

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Mavi Boncuk | Turkey said on Wednesday it would not hesitate to take action in Syria’s Afrin district and other areas unless the United States withdrew support for a Kurdish-led force there, but Washington denied such plans and said “some people misspoke”. 

The plan has infuriated Turkey, which considers the Syrian YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, which has fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since 1984. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the European Union, Turkey and the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson denied that the United States had any intention of building a Syria-Turkey border force and said the issue had been “misportrayed, misdescribed”.

“Some people misspoke. We are not creating a border security force at all,” Tillerson told reporters on board an aircraft taking him back to Washington from Vancouver, where he had attended a meeting on North Korea.

“I think it’s unfortunate that comments made by some left that impression,” he said, without giving details. “That is not what we’re doing.”

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TCA Statement on the PKK-YPG Connection

January 18, 2018, 10:43 am

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 TCA is a fully independent 501(c)(3) public charitable organization that receives no funding from either the U.S. or Turkish government. It is funded entirely by Turkish Americans who believe in a strong U.S.-Turkey relationship and who are proud of their Turkish heritage and by others who share these ideals. TCA is not affiliated with any other organization.

Washington, DC
1510 H St. NW Suite 900 
Washington, DC 20005
Telephone: 202-370-1399 
Fax: 202-370-1398 
Email: info@tc-america.org

Boston
48 Jonas Brown Circle 
Concord, MA 01742 
Phone: 978.318.0047
Fax: 978.318.0037

TCA Statement on the PKK-YPG Connection

The Turkish Coalition of America is concerned about the recent disagreement between the United States and Turkey regarding apparent U.S. plans to help a PKK-linked Syrian Kurdish militia set up a 30,000 person “Syrian Border Security Force.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the move nothing short of establishing a terror army along Turkey’s border and warned of the “unintended consequences” as Turkey vows to “suffocate” the terrorists.[i] The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement condemning the US for not consulting with Turkey as a member of the anti-ISIL coalition and for its continued cooperation with the PKK-linked People’s Protection Units (YPG).[ii]  Turkey has vociferously opposed the U.S.-led coalition’s close cooperation with the YPG since the Obama administration. In May 2017, the Trump Administration began to directly arm the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF.) The primary component of the SDF receiving U.S. military assistance has been the YPG Kurdish militia, which is the armed wing of the Syrian People’s Democratic Party (PYD), which is a subdivision of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK.) The PKK is an armed terrorist organization, listed as such by the United States under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Turkey perceives the creation of a PKK-affiliated Border Security Force as a national security threat along its southern border. While the Trump administration still views the YPG as the most effective fighting force against ISIL, it apparently fails to acknowledge Turkey’s decades-long fight against PKK terrorism. The US also has provided no guarantees that the equipment being provided to the YPG will not work its way into the hands of PKK terrorists inside Turkey. Further, the US has provided no timetable for the eventual disbanding and disarming of this force.  U.S. officials have previously acknowledged on record that the YPG and PKK are the same organization.  • During an April 28, 2016 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, when asked by Senator Lindsey Graham whether the PYD and its military wing, the YPG were aligned with the PKK, Secretary Carter unambiguously said “yes.”[iii] In his testimony Carter underlined that “the PKK is a terrorist organization, not only in the eyes of the Turkish government, but in the eyes of the U.S. Government…”[iv]  • Gen. Raymond Thomas, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), when speaking on a panel at the 2017 Aspen Security Forum, stated that the U.S. had asked the YPG to re-brand because of its alleged links to the PKK.[v]  • The Tactical Action Report (TAR), conducted by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) has confirmed the affiliation between the PKK and the PYD/YPG. TRADOC, in a 2016 unclassified report for public release, has noted that the YPG had formed an alliance with the PKK in Syria.[vi] A number of Members of the Congress have also expressed their concern with the U.S. decision to arm the YPG.  • Senate Foreign Relations member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., has argued against President Trump’s decision to arm the Syrian Kurdish forces as it would antagonize Turkey and “invite more problems.”[vii]  • Both the Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-AZ, and committee member Lindsey Graham, R-SC, have long argued that relying on the YPG to destroy ISIL is not an effective strategy. Sen. Graham said: “Turkey is of the view that this strategy will never work and will never result in destroying [IS]. And they’re very worried that the training of the Kurdish forces inside of Syria is going to flow into their side of the border. I cannot tell you how upset they are with our Syria policy.”[viii] This blatant arming of a terrorist-affiliated military by the US puts enormous strain on ties with its NATO ally Turkey. It widens the rift in the already-stressed bilateral relationship. Providing arms to the YPG also impedes a future reconciliation process that will have international support. A permanent rupture in the US-Turkey relationship over this issue would be a loss for both sides. We urge the US to reconsider its decision on the Border Security Force and recommit to its strategic partnership with Turkey.

Screenshot depicting YPG guerillas after they dedicated the fall of Raqqa to PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and unfurled an imposing flag with his image. [ix] Ocalan is serving a life sentence in prison in Turkey.

[i] “Turkey’s President Assails U.S.-Trained Kurdish Border Force,” The New York Times, January 15, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/us/politics/syria-turkey-kurds-border.html  [ii] “No: 15 14 January 2018, Press release regarding the statements on the establishment of a so-called “Syrian Border Security Force” under the PYD/YPG terrorist organization’s command,”http://www.mfa.gov.tr/no_-15_-teror-orgutu-pydypg-komutasinda-sozde-suriye-sinir-guvenligi-gucu-kurulacagi-yonundeki-beyanlar-hk_en.en.mfa  [iii] “United States Senate Hearing to Receive Testimony on Counter-ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) Operations and Middle East Strategy,” Thursday, April 28, 2016, U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Washington, D.C., https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/16-51_04-28-16.pdf  [iv] Former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter on PYD-YPG-PKK connection during Senate hearing:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWYaEZ6B4w  [v] “SOCOM Commander: U.S. asked YPG to re-brand because of alleged terrorist link,” Military Times, July 22, 2017, https://www.militarytimes.com/2017/07/22/socom-commander-us-asked-ypg-to-re-brand-because-of-alleged-terrorist-link/  [vi] “Battle for Sinjar, Iraq,” TRADOC G-2 ACE Threats Integration, April 2016, https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-BattleforSinjar.pdf [vii] “Congress unsure what’s next after Trump decides to arm Syrian Kurds,” Al-Monitor, May 9, 2017,  https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2017/05/congress-unsure-trump-decision-arm-ypg-kurds-syria-turkey.html [viii] “Will Congress rein in US support for Syrian Kurds?,” Al-Monitor, April 12, 2016, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/04/congress-syria-kurds-support-turkey-ypg-pkk-isis.html  [ix] https://twitter.com/DefenceUnits/status/920979562720321537/video/1

EU Watch | MAM says 'Olive Branch'

January 22, 2018, 6:01 am

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On Saturday, Turkey launched an operation in the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin aimed at rooting out armed Kurdish groups, which Ankara considers a threat to its security.

Turkish ground troops followed a day after, crossing the border into Syria alongside thousands of Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, as part of the so-called Operation Olive Branch.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said that the operation in Afrin would be followed by a push into the northern town of Manbij, which the US-backed Kurdish forces captured from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in 2016.

Mavi Boncuk |

In Memoriam | Enver Ercan (1958-2018)

January 22, 2018, 6:20 am

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Enver Ercan was the editor of Varlik Publishing after founder Yaşar Nabi Nayir (1908-1981) [ Varlik 1933-81][1]  and Kemal Özer  (1935-2009) [Varlik 1983-90] . All were poets.

Mavi Boncuk | 


Enver Ercan (Istanbul, January 21, 1958-2018)

Enver Ercan was born in Istanbul in 1958. He studied at Haydarpaşa High School. Since 1985, he has prepared and directed literary pages for newspapers and magazines such as "Güneş", "Sabah", "Yeni Düşün", and "Varlık". His poems have been published in many literary magazines including “Broy”, “Gösteri”, “Milliyet Sanat”, “Yeni Düşün”, "Yeni Olgu”, and “Varlık”. Since 1990, Ercan has served as a director of the literary magazine “Varlık”. In 2001, he founded the Komşu publications and has published literary magazines such as “Yasak-meyve” and “Sıcak Nal”.

Awards:
1997, Cemal Süreya Poetry Award
1997, Yunus Nadi Poetry Award

Poetry books:
Eksik Yaşam (1977)
Sürçüyor Zaman (1988)
Geçtiği Her Şeyi Öpüyor Zaman (1997)


DEPREM SENARYOSU
Aletsel büyüklüğü kaç olursa olsun 
Şok irisi bir artçıda 
Bizim evin zemin kata kadar 
Ineceği kesin 
Kapıları bile çalmadan hem de 
Yüzümün şekli ne hale gelir o hengâmede 
Bilemem ama 
En günahkâr ben olurum 
Yıllardır biriken 2-3 ton kitapla 
Kızım zaten ayrı alem 
İkide bir kitapların sonunu düşünÜyor: 
'bir de yağmur yağarsa... ' 
  
benim umurumda bile değil 
o anda başıma ha tuğla gibi 'kitab-ı mukaddes' 
ha iki ciltlik 'suç ve ceza' 
ne çıkar 
hep birlikte yuvarlanıp gideriz o hızla 
ta en alt kata kadar

Yine de etik bir sorun kurcalıyor kafamı 
Bana müstahak, tamam da 
6 kat dolusu insanın ne günahı var 
canları çıkacak kitap okumaktan 
saatlerce enkaz altında



Yasakmeyve / Sayı 1 / Şubat Mart 2003

[1] Yaşar Nabi  

Poet and writer. (b. 25 December 1908 Üsküp / Macedonia - d. 15 March 1981, İstanbul). He began his education in Üsküp and continued in İstanbul. He finished Osman Gazi Primary School in Kadıköy, Torosyan Armenian School, Üsküp İrfan School and Üsküp French School and the Commerce and Banking Department of Galatasaray High School (1929). He worked at Ziraat and Merkez Banks, the newspaper Hakimiyet-i Milliye (Ulus) (1934-40), the Turkish Language Association (1940-43) and at the Translation Office of the Ministry of National Education (1943-46). Transferring the journal Varlık that he began to publish with Nahit Sırrı Örik and Sabri Esat Siyavuşgil in 1933 to İstanbul in 1946, he established Varlık Publications in which he published about 2000 books, most of which were translations about Western ideas and literature. He also published the review Cep (1966-69) and the Varlık Annual. The Great Service Award of the Ministry of Culture was given to him because of work in publishing (1979). After his death, the Yaşar Nabi Nayır Literature Reward was established.

Yaşar Nabi whose first poems were published in the journal Servet-i Fünun (1920) published the journal Meşale (1928, eight journal) and a collaborative poetry book called Yedi Meşale (The Seven Torches, 1928) with Cevdet Kudret, Vasfi Mahir, Salih Esat, Kenan Hulusi, Ziya Osman and Muammer Lütfi. Apart from Yedi Meşale (The Seven Torches), he published his poems and articles in journals such as Servet-i Fünun, Yeni Kitap, Hayat, Muhit, Çığır (1926-23) and the journal Varlık (1933-81) that he published himself. Although he began his literary career with poetry, he turned to other genres and wrote about sixty works including stories, novels, plays, articles and translations from Western writers such as Panait İstrati and Balzac.

WORKS:

POETRY: Yedi Meşale (Seven Torches-collaborative work, 1928), Kahraman (Hero, 1929), Onar Mısra (Repair the Lines, 1932, new edition with the addition of Mesafeler – Distances, published under the name Kahramanlar - Heroes, 1970).

NOVEL: Bir Kadın Söylüyor (A Woman is Speaking, 1931), Adem ve Havva (Adam and Eve, 1932).

SHORT STORY: İnkılap Çocukları (Children of the Revolution, 1933), Bu da Bir Hikâyedir (This Is Also a Story, 1935), Sevi Çıkmazı (Dead-End of Love, 1935).

PLAY: Mete (Mete, 1933), İnkılap Çocukları (Children of the Revolution, 1933), Beş Devir (Five Periods, 1933), Köyün Namusu (Integrity of the Village, 1933), Radyofonik Öyküler (Radio phonic Stories, radio plays, 1979).

REVIEW-ARTICLE: Balkanlar ve Türklük (People from the Balkans and Being Turkish, 1936), Edebiyatımızın Bugünkü Meseleleri (Issues of Our Present Education, 1937), Nereye Gidiyoruz (Where Are We Going?, 1948), Yıllar Boyunca (Through the Years, 1959), Atatürkçülük Nedir? (What is Atatürk’s Political Doctrine, 1963), Atatürk Yolu (The Way of Atatürk, 1966), Edebiyat Dünyamız (Our Literature World, 1971), Dost Mektupları (Letters of Friends, letters of dead writers, 1972), Değişen Dünyamız (Our Changing World, 1973), Çağımıza Ters Düşenler (Those that Are Against to Our Era, 1975).

ANTHOLOGY: Edebiyatçılarımız Konuşuyor (Our Authors Are Speaking, 1976).

His translations have also been published.

Word Origin | Pazen, Pamuk, Emprime, Patiska, Organza, Tül, Tülbent, Kumaş

January 24, 2018, 2:46 pm

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Mavi Boncuk |

Pazen: from FR  basin[1] bir tür ince pamuklu kumaş oldFR bombasin/bombasine  fromIT bambagine/bombagine pamuklu kumaş  oldLAT bambax pamuk  oldGR bombúks/pambáks βομβύξ/παμβάξ  oldGR bombúks βομβύξ koza, ipek böceği kozası → pamuk

bāzen [ Ahmet Vefik Paşa, Lugat-ı Osmani (1876) ]

Pamuk: cotton EN[2] oldFA pambak/pambuk pamuk kozası (old Pahlavi or Parthian)  oldGR bombúks βομβύξ koza, özellikle Ege adalarında ipliğinden kumaş yapılan bir tür böceğin kozası. from AR qutn.

Pamuk [ Divan-i Lugat-it Türk (1070) ]; panpuk [ Ebu Hayyan, Kitabü-l İdrak (1312) ]


Emprime: fromFR  imprimé basılı, basma (kumaş)  fromFR  imprimer basmak, damga vurmak → pres
 [ c (1930) : emprime kaşkollar ve yarı ipek yünlü kumaşlar ]

Patiska: batiste EN[3] from IT batista bir tür keten kumaş ~ Fr batiste a.a. ~ öz Bâtiste de Cambrai Felemenkli kumaş imalatçısı (13. yy)

batista/patista [ Kemal Beydilli, Türk Bilim ve Matbaacılık Tarihinde Mühendishane (1822) ]

İtalyanca batista "bir tür keten kumaş" sözcüğünden alıntıdır. İtalyanca sözcük Fransızca aynı anlama gelen batiste sözcüğünden alıntıdır. Bu sözcük Bâtiste de Cambrai "Felemenkli kumaş imalatçısı (13. yy)"özel adından alıntıdır.

Organza: Organdy or organdie  fromIT organza bir tür ince muslin  fromAR urġancī اورغنجى  Urġanc Orta Asya'da bir kent, Urgenç

 [ c (1951) : Astaş'tan alınan sarı organza tuvaletliğin provası için Enver Baki'nin terzihanesine gidildi ]

İtalyanca organza "bir tür ince muslin" sözcüğünden alıntıdır. İtalyanca sözcük Arapça urġancīاورغنجى  sözcüğünden alıntıdır. Bu sözcük Urġanc "Orta Asya'da bir kent, Urgenç" sözcüğünün nisbet halidir.Detail of a linen batiste handkerchief, 19th century.

Tül: lace, tulle EN[5][ Ahmed Mithat, Felatun Bey ve Rakım Efendi, 1875] [ Şemseddin Sami, Kamusü'l A'lâm, 1891] dantela, tül, havlu ve saire fabrikaları vardır fromFR tulle bir tür dantel, çok seyrek dokunmuş bez. Tulle Kuzey Fransa'da dantel işçiliğiyle ünlü kasaba. 

Tülbent: tülbent EN[6] gauze EN[7]

Kumaş: fabric[8] fromAR ḳumāş قماش dokuma, bez fromAramaic ḳūmīsā קומיסא [#ḳms] gömlek, shirt, chemize[9]  [ Tezkiret-ül Evliya (1341) : Fuzayl bunların ulusı-yıdı kumaşı bunlara üleşdürür-idi ]


[1] A fabric made from silk, wool or cotton dyed black. From Middle French bombasin, from Late Latin bombasinum, ultimately from bombyx (“silk-worm”).

[2]  cotton (n.) late 13c., from Old French coton (12c.), ultimately (via Provençal, Italian, or Old Spanish) from Arabic qutn, a word perhaps of Egyptian origin. Philip Miller of the Chelsea Physic Garden sent the first cotton seeds to American colony of Georgia in 1732. Also ultimately from the Arabic word, Dutch katoen, German Kattun, Provençal coton, Italian cotone, Spanish algodon, Portuguese algodão. Cotton gin is recorded from 1794.

The earliest evidence of cotton use in the Indian subcontinent has been found at the site of Mehrgarh and Rakhigarhi where cotton threads have been found preserved in copper beads; these finds have been dated to Neolithic (between 6000 and 5000 BC). Cotton cultivation in the region is dated to the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered parts of modern eastern Pakistan and northwestern India between 3300 and 1300 BC. The Indus cotton industry was well-developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the industrialization of India. Between 2000 and 1000 BC cotton became widespread across much of India. For example, it has been found at the site of Hallus in Karnataka dating from around 1000 BC.

The Greeks and the Arabs were not familiar with cotton until the Wars of Alexander the Great, as his contemporary Megasthenes told Seleucus I Nicator of "there being trees on which wool grows" in "Indica". This may be a reference to "tree cotton", Gossypium arboreum, which is a native of the Indian subcontinent.

Cotton has been spun, woven, and dyed since prehistoric times. It clothed the people of ancient India, Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, and their use spread to the Mediterranean countries.

In Iran (Persia), the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC); however, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. The planting of cotton was common in Merv, Ray and Pars of Iran. In Persian poets' poems, especially Ferdowsi's Shahname, there are references to cotton ("panbe" in Persian). Marco Polo (13th century) refers to the major products of Persia, including cotton. John Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who visited Safavid Persia, spoke approvingly of the vast cotton farms of Persia.[13]

gin (n.2) "machine for separating cotton from seeds," 1796, American English, used earlier of other machineries, especially of war or torture, from Middle English gin "ingenious device, contrivance" (c. 1200), from Old French gin "machine, device, scheme," shortened form of engin (see engine). The verb in this sense is recorded from 1789. Related: Ginned; ginning. Middle English had ginful "ingenious, crafty; guileful, treacherous" (c. 1300).


[3] Batiste is a fine cloth made from cotton, wool, polyester, or a blend, and the softest of the lightweight opaque fabrics.  Batiste is a balanced plain weave, a fine cloth made from cotton or linen such as cambric. Batiste was often used as a lining fabric for high-quality garments. Batiste is also used for handkerchiefs (cotton batiste) and lingerie (batiste de soie).

"Cambric" is a synonym of the French word batiste, itself attested since 1590. Batiste itself comes from the Picard batiche, attested since 1401, derived from the old French battre for bowing wool. The modern form batiste or baptiste comes from a popular merge with the surname Baptiste, pronounced Batisse, as indicated by the use of the expressions thoile batiche (1499) and toile de baptiste (1536) for the same fabric

Cambric or batiste, one of the finest and most dense kinds of cloth, is a lightweight plain-weave cloth, originally from the French commune of Cambrai, woven in greige, then bleached, piece-dyed and often glazed or calendered. Initially it was made of linen; later, the term came to be applied to cotton fabrics as well. Cambric is used as fabric for linens, shirts, handkerchieves, ruffs, lace and needlework. The term "cambric cloth" also applies to a stiff, usually black, open-weave cloth typically used for a dust cover on the bottom of upholstered furniture.

Cambric was originally a kind of fine white plain-weave linen cloth made at or near Cambrai. The word comes from Kameryk or Kamerijk, the Flemish name of Cambrai, which became part of France in 1677. The word is attested since 1530. It is a synonym of the French word batiste, itself attested since 1590. Batiste itself comes from the Picard batiche, attested since 1401 and derived from the old French battre for bowing wool. The modern form batiste or baptiste comes from a popular merge with the surname Baptiste, pronounced Batisse, as indicated by the use of the expressions thoile batiche (1499) and toile de baptiste (1536) for the same fabric. 

Cambric was a finer quality and more expensive than lawn (from the French laune, initially a plain-weave linen fabric from the city of Laon in France. Denoting a geographic origin from the city of Cambrai or its surroundings (Cambresis in French), cambric is an exact equivalent of the French cambrésine (/kɑ̃.bʁe.zin/),  a very fine, almost sheer white linen plain-weave fabric, to be distinguished  from cambrasine, a fabric comparable to the French lawn despite its foreign origin. Cambric is also close to chambray (/ˈʃɒmbreɪ/ from a French regional variant of "Cambrai", a name which "also comes from Cambrai, the French city, where the material was originally made of linen yarn". Chambray (also spelled "chambrai") appears in North American English in the early 19th century. Though the term generally refers to a cotton plain weave with a colored warp and a white weft, close to gingham, "silk chambray" seems to have coexisted. Chambray was often produced during this period by the same weavers producing gingham.

White linen cambric or batiste from Cambrai, noted for its weight and luster, was "preferred for ecclesiastical wear, fine shirts, underwear, shirt frills, cravats, collars and cuffs, handkerchiefs, and infant wear". Technical use sometime introduced a difference between cambric and batiste, the latter being of a lighter weight and a finer thread count. Chambray, though the same type of fabric, had a coloured warp and a white weft, though it could be "made from any colour as you may wish, in the warp, and also in the filling; only have them differ from each other.

In the 18th century, after the prohibition of imports into England of French cambrics, with the development of the import of Indian cotton fabrics, similar[6] cotton fabrics, such as nainsook, from the Hindi nainsukh ("eyes' delight"), became popular. These fabrics, initially called Scotch cambrics to distinguish them from the original French cambrics,  came to be referred to as cotton cambrics or batistes. Some authors increased the confusion with the assumption the word batiste could come from the Indian fabric bastas.

In the 19th century, the terms cambric and batiste gradually lost their association with linen, implying only different kind of fine plain-weave fabrics with a glossy finish. In 1907, a fine cotton batist had 100 ends per inch in the finished fabric, while a cheap-grade, less than 60. At the same time, with development of an interest in coloured shirts, cambric was also woven in colours, such as the pink fabric used by Charvet for a corsage, reducing the difference between cambric and chambray. Moreover, the development and rationalization of mechanical weaving led to the replacement, for chambray, of coloured warp and white weft by the opposite, white warp and coloured weft, which allowed for longer warps.

The English folk song ballad "Scarborough Fair" has the lyric in the second verse "Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, / Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme / Sewn without seams or fine needlework, / Then he'll be a true love of mine." It also appears in the David Bowie song, "Come And Buy My Toys" in the lyrics "You shall own a cambric shirt, you shall work your father's land."

Lightweight opaque fabrics are very thin and light but not as transparent as sheer fabrics. The distinction between the two is not always pronounced. End uses include apparel and furnishings. 

[4] Organdy (a sheer fabric), lawn, and batiste begin as the same greige goods. They differ from one another in the way they are finished. Lawn and batiste do not receive the acid finish and, thus, remain opaque. Better quality fabrics are made of combed yarns.

Organdy or organdie is the sheerest and crispest cotton cloth made.[1] Combed yarns contribute to its appearance. Organdy is a balanced plain weave. Because of its stiffness and fiber content, it is very prone to wrinkling. Organza is the filament yarn counterpart to organdy.

Its sheerness and crispness are the result of an acid finish on greige (unbleached or grey/beige) lawn goods.

It comes in three types of finishes: "Stiff" is most commonly used, but "semi-stiff" and "soft" finishes are also available. The latter two finishes are more popular for summer wear and draped apparel whereas the first is more popular for loose apparel and home textiles such as dresses and curtains.

Organza is a thin, plain weave, sheer fabric traditionally made from silk. Many modern organzas are woven with synthetic filament fibers such as polyester or nylon. Silk organza is woven by a number of mills along the Yangtze River and in the province of Zhejiang in China. A coarser silk organza is woven in the Bangalore area of India. Deluxe silk organzas are woven in France and Italy.

Organza is used for bridalwear and eveningwear. In the interiors market it is used for effects in bedrooms and between rooms. Double-width organzas in viscose and acetate are used as sheer curtains.

Bombazine, or bombasine, is a fabric originally made of silk or silk and wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone. Quality bombazine is made with a silk warp and a worsted weft. It is twilled or corded and used for dress-material. Black bombazine was once used largely for mourning wear, but the material had gone out of fashion by the beginning of the 20th century.bombasine   

[5] tulle (n.) fine silk bobbin-net, 1817, from Tulle, town in central France, where the fabric was first manufactured. The place name is Medieval Latin Tutelae, said to be from Tutela, name of a pagan god. turban (n.) The majority of tulle is actually bobbinet, invented in Britain in the early 19th century. Bobbinet is made by wrapping the weft thread around the warp thread, creating a strong hexagonal design which tends not to twist or fall out of shape, because the wrapped threads maintain a state of tension. The result is tulle netting which is lightweight and surprisingly strong and durable for its weight. 

One of the most common uses for tulle netting is in garments. Tulle is often used as an accent, to create a lacy, floating look. Tulle may also be used in underskirts or petticoats to create a stiff belled shape. Gowns are often puffed out with the use of several layers of stiff tulle. Tulle netting is also used to make veils, since it obscures the features of the face while allowing the wearer to see out. 

lace (n.) early 13c., laz, "cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk, etc.," from Old French laz "a net, noose, string, cord, tie, ribbon, or snare" (Modern French lacs), from Vulgar Latin *lacium, from Latin laqueum (nominative laqueus) "a noose, a snare" (source also of Italian laccio, Spanish lazo, English lasso), a trapping and hunting term, probably from Italic base *laq- "to ensnare" (compare Latin lacere "to entice"). Later also "net, noose, snare" (c. 1300); and "piece of cord used to draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing" (late 14c., as preserved in shoelace). In Middle English it mostly had the sense "cord, thread," especially for tying or binding. It was used of fishing lines and perhaps the gallows rope, crossbeams in architecture, and the net Vulcan used to catch Venus in adultery. Death's lace was the icy grip of Death, and Love's lace was a binding love. From 1540s as "ornamental cord or braid," hence the meaning "fabric of fine threads in a patterned ornamental open net" (1550s), which soon became the main meaning of the English word. "Century Dictionary" (1902) describes by name 87 varieties. As an adjective, lace-curtain "middle class" (or lower-class with middle-class pretensions), often used in reference to Irish-Americans, is attested by 1928. 

lace (v.) c. 1200, "fasten (clothing, etc.) with laces and ties," from Old French lacier "entwine, interlace, fasten with laces, lace on; entrap, ensnare," from laz "net, noose, string, cord" (see lace (n.)). From early 14c. as "tighten (a garment) by pulling its laces." From 1590s as "to adorn with lace;" the meaning "to intermix (coffee, etc.) with a dash of liquor" (1670s) originally also was used of sugar, and comes via the notion of "to ornament or trim," as with lace. Meaning "beat, lash, mark with the lash" is from 1590s, from the pattern of streaks. Related: Laced; lacing. Laced mutton was "an old word for a whore" [Johnson]. Decorative ornaments can also be made from tulle netting. It is frequently used to wrap up party favors and gifts, especially for weddings and baby showers. Scraps of tulle netting are sometimes used in quilting and crafts as well, to add texture to a project. Multicolored tulle netting is often used for this purpose, to create tulle flowers and other ornamental accents. 

[6] tülbent "gauze, muslin, tulle," from Persian dulband "turban." The change of -l- to -r.

Muslin (n.) c. 1600, "delicately woven cotton fabric," from French mousseline (17c.), from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo, Italian name of Mosul, city in northern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) where muslin was made. Like many fabric names, it has changed meaning over the years, in this case from luxurious to commonplace. In 13c. French, mosulin meant "cloth of silk and gold." The meaning "everyday cotton fabric for shirts, bedding, etc." is first attested 1872 in American English. 

[7] gauze (n.) 1560s, gais, from French gaze, which is of uncertain origin. It has been conjectured to be from Arabic gazz "raw silk" [Barnhart], or from Gaza, Palestinian city associated with production of this fabric [Klein, Du Cagne], but Century Dictionary calls the latter conjecture, and there has been no evidence for either. 


[8] fabric (n.) late 15c., "building; thing made; a structure of any kind," from Middle French fabrique (14c.), verbal noun from fabriquer (13c.), from Latin fabricare "to make, construct, fashion, build," from fabrica "workshop," also "an art, trade; a skillful production, structure, fabric," from faber "artisan who works in hard materials," from Proto-Italic *fafro-, from PIE *dhabh- "to fit together" (source also of Armenian darbin "smith;" also see daft). The noun fabrica suggests the earlier existence of a feminine noun to which an adj. *fabriko- referred; maybe ars "art, craft." [de Vaan] Sense in English evolved via "manufactured material" (1753) to "textile, woven or felted cloth" (1791). Compare forge (n.)) which is a doublet. 

[9] shirt (n.) Old English scyrte "skirt, tunic," from Proto-Germanic *skurtjon "a short garment" (source also of Old Norse skyrta, Swedish skjorta "skirt, kirtle;" Middle Dutch scorte, Dutch schort "apron;" Middle High German schurz, German Schurz "apron"), related to Old English scort, sceort "short," from PIE root *sker-  "to cut," on the notion of "a cut piece." Formerly of the chief garment worn by both sexes, but in modern use long only of that for men; in reference to women's tops, reintroduced 1896. Bloody shirt, exposed as a symbol of outrage, is attested from 1580s. To give (someone) the shirt off one's back is from 1771. 

To lose one's shirt "suffer total financial loss" is from 1935. To keep one's shirt on "be patient" (1904) is from the notion of (not) stripping down for a fight.

chemise (n.) late Old English, cemes "shirt, undershirt," from Old French chemise "shirt, undertunic, shift," or directly from Late Latin camisia "shirt, tunic" (Jerome; also source of Italian camicia, Spanish camisa); originally a soldier's word, probably via Gaulish, from Proto-Germanic *hamithjan (source also of Old Frisian hemethe, Old Saxon hemithi, Old English hemeðe, German hemd "shirt"), which is of uncertain origin. The French form took over after c. 1200, along with the specialized sense "woman's undergarment." In early 19c. a short, loose-fitting gown worn by women; in early 20c. a dress hanging straight from the shoulders. Each of these is possibly a separate borrowing of the French word. Related: Chemisette.… 

Afrin Letter to Turkish MPs

January 25, 2018, 6:46 am

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Letter from 170 signatories to AKP MPs and all MPs in the Parliament via e-mail to demand a stop to the Afrin operation.THEIR CLAIM: "...Afrin, which poses no threat to Turkey..." Mavi Boncuk |


We the undersigned citizens call on you in the name of millions of our fellow citizens due to the authority and responsibility you hold.

We want peace and quiet in our country and region, not war. We believe the best way to protect our borders and avoid survival problems is through reciprocal friendship and strengthening good neighbor relations. We know by experience that our security won’t be achieved through an arms race that costs billions, at the price of young lives and with a war that will displace tens of thousands of people, but through bilateral negotiations and cooperaion, and we know that this is possible.

We also know that an armed intervention on Afrin, which poses no threat to Turkey and is part of Syria’s territory, will not  bring peace and security to our country and our region, but rather bigger problems and more destruction and pain, and that it will create deep wounds in the hearts of our Kurdish citizens.

Even the military presence of foreign states, who have turned the Middle East into a proxy war hell, is a violation of international law, but an intention to join them and steps taken in this direction will only create disappointment for our country, and cause irreparable social, political, economic and humanitarian losses for decades to come.

With our identity and responsibility as citizens, we are warning you who hold the authority in front of our people and history to heed our call, act responsibly, immediately stop the war and resolve the issue through dialogue.

With respect,”

The signatories are as follows: :


“ Abdullah Demirbaş, Fatma Bostan Ünsal, Nimet Tanrıkulu, Abdülbaki Erdoğmuş, Ferhat Tunç, Nimet Yardımcı, Ahmet Aykaç, Fethiye Çetin, Nur Bekata Mardin, Ahmet Faruk Ünsal, Fidan Eroğlu, Nurcan Baysal, Ahmet İnsel, Fikret Ünlü, Nurhan Keeler, Ahmet Özdemir Aktan, Füsun Ertuğ, Nurten Ertuğrul, Ahmet Tonak, Genco Erkal, Olga Hünler, Akın Birdal, Gençay Gürsoy, Onur Hamzaoğlu, Ali Bilge, Gonca Gül Gedikoğlu, Orhan Alkaya, Ali Haydar Konca, Gönül Saray, Orhan Silier, Ali Uçansu, Gülriz Sururi, Oya Baydar, Arzu Başaran, Gülseren Onanç, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, Aslıhan Karabacak Calviello, Gülten Kaya, Ömer Laçiner, Aydın Arı, Gürhan Ertür, Ömer Madra, Aydın Selcen, Hacer Ansal, Özgün E. Bulut, Aynur Özuğurlu, Halil Ergün, Özgür Müftüoğlu, Ayşe Erzan, Hasan Cemal, Pınar Kılıçer, Ayşe Hür, Hasip Kaplan, Rakel Dink, Ayşe Nur Doksat, Hıdır Işık, Rıfat Yüzbaşıoğlu, Ayşegül Devecioğlu, Hüda Kaya, Salman Kaya, Ayten Yıldırım, Hürriyet Karadeniz, Savaş Demirci, Bahattin Yücel, Sefa Feza Arslan, Baki Tezcan, Hüseyin Ayrılmaz, Sema Kaygusuz, Baskın Oran, Hüsnü Okçuoğlu, Semih Bilgen, Belgin Koç, İhsan Eliaçık, Semih Gümüş, Beyza Üstün, Kıvanç Ersoy, Semra Somersan, Binnaz Toprak, Kumru Toktamış, Serhat Baysan, Burhan Sönmez, Kuvvet Lordoğlu, Servet Demir, Bülent Utku, Lale Mansur, Simten Coşar, Celal Korkut Yıldırım, Lati Akyüz, Suavi, Celalettin Can, Levent Tüzel, Suna Uluçınar Aygün, Cem Mansur, Mebuse Tekay, Süleyman Çelebi, Cem Özatalay, Mehmet Rasgelener, Şahika Yüksel, Cengiz Arın, Mehmet Rauf Sandalcı, Şanar Yurdatapan, Ceren Şengül, Melehat Kutun, Şebnem Korur Fincancı, Cihangir İslam, Melek Taylan, Tahsin Yeşildere, Defne Asal, Meral Camcı, Taner Akçam, Deniz Türkali, Meryem Koray, Tarhan Erdem, Deniz Yonucu, Mete Çetik, Tarık Ziya Ekinci, Dilek Gökçin, Mine Gencel Bek, Tatyos Bebek, Ece Temelkuran, Muammer Keskin, Tebesssüm Yılmaz, Ekrem Baran, Muhammed Salar, Tilbe Saran, Elif Sandal Önal, Murat Belge, Tuna Altınel, Emine Uşaklıgil, Murat Çeyişakar, Tümay İmre,  Engin Sustam, Murat Morova, Ufuk Uras, Erdal Kalkan, Mustafa Altıntop, Ümit Kıvanç, Erdoğan Aydın, Mustafa Paçal, Ümit Özgümüş, Erol Katırcıoğlu, Muzaffer Kaya, Viki Çiprut, Ersin Salman, Nadire Mater, Yakın Ertürk, Ertuğrul Günay, Nalan Erbil, Yasemin Bektaş, Ertuğrul Mavioğlu, Nazan Aksoy, Zehra Kabasakal Arat, Ertuğrul Yalçınbayır, Nazar Büyüm, Zelal Ekinci,  Esra Arsan, Necmiye Alpay, Zeynep Oral, Esra Mungan, Nesrin Nas,  Zeynep Tanbay, Eşref Erdem, Nesteren Davutoğlu, Zişan Kürüm, Fadıl Öztürk, Neşe Erdilek, Ziya Halis, Fadime Gök, Neşe Yaşin, Zülfü Livaneli, Fahrettin Dağlı, Nil Mutluer.

TURKISH TEXT

“Biz aşağıda imzası bulunan yurttaşlar, elinizdeki yetki ve taşıdığınız sorumluluk nedeniyle milyonlarca insanımız adına size sesleniyoruz.
Ülkemizde ve bölgemizde savaş değil sulh ve sükûn istiyoruz. Sınırlarımızı korumanın ve beka sorunu yaşamamanın en iyi yolunun karşılıklı dostluk ve iyi komşuluk bağlarını güçlendirmek olduğuna inanıyoruz. Güvenliğimizin milyarlara mâl olan silahlanmayla, gencecik insanların yaşamı pahasına ve on binlerce aileyi yersiz yurtsuz bırakacak bir savaşla değil, karşılıklı müzakere ve işbirlikleri üzerinden sağlanacağını, üstelik bunun mümkün olduğunu, tecrübe ile biliyoruz.
Türkiye’ye bir tehditte bulunmayan, Suriye toprağı olan Afrin’e silahlı müdahalenin bölgemize ve ülkemize barış ve güvenlik değil, daha büyük sorunlar, yıkım ve acı getireceğini, Kürt yurttaşlarımızı da yürekten yaralayacağını biliyoruz.

Ortadoğu’yu bir vekalet savaşları cehennemine çevirmiş olan yabancı devletlerin oradaki askerî varlıkları bile uluslararası hukukun ihlaliyken, onların arasına katılmak gibi bir niyet ve bu yönde atılacak adımlar ülkemizi sadece hüsrana uğratacak, on yıllarca telafisi mümkün olmayacak toplumsal, siyasal, ekonomik ve insanî kayıplara yol açacaktır.

Yurttaş kimliğimiz ve sorumluluğumuzla, halkımızın ve tarihin önünde siz yetki sahiplerini uyarıyor, sesimize kulak vererek sağduyulu davranmaya, savaşı derhal durdurmaya ve sorunu diyalogla çözmeye davet ediyoruz.
Saygılarımızla.”