EU Watch | Hodja Makes New Constitution

July 8, 2013, 1:54 pm

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Mavi Boncuk | Turkish Constitution to get a new life.

When they saw Hodja  sitting by the lake and stirring some yogurt into the water they asked him what he was  doing.
“I am adding starter into the lake to make yogurt,” he answered.
“But is it possible to turn the lake into yogurt?”
“I know it is impossible but what if it happens” Hodja replied.

Anayasa (Constitution)

B-Anayasa (Constitution for me)

Ata-Yasa (M.K.Ataturk's Constitution)

"what if it happens” Hodja replied.

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Article 3

July 8, 2013, 4:13 pm

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Mavi Boncuk | 

OP-EDS AND ARTICLES FROM 
THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY

WHAT DOES TURKEY GAIN FROM PKK TALKS?
By Soner Cagaptay | Al-Sharq al-Awsat | May 4, 2013


On April 25th,  the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) announced that it would withdraw its militants from Turkish soil after more than four decades of fighting against Ankara, including carrying out terror attacks inside Turkey.

The announcement follows recent news that Ankara has begun official peace talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan aimed at ending the long conflict in Turkey's southeast. A successful resolution would deliver peace to Turkey and bring the Syrian Kurds -- some of whom have indirect ties to the PKK -- closer to Ankara. This in turn would strengthen Ankara's hand as it strives to unseat the neighboring Bashar Al-Assad regime. Alongside Turkey's rapprochement with the Iraqi Kurds, the process could help Ankara build a "Kurdish axis" in the Middle East, or at least a friendly cordon. Yet rivalries with Iran could complicate any such plans.

READ MORE

Alawite State and Stamps

July 9, 2013, 11:38 am

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Mavi Boncuk | 

France never designed postage stamps specifically for the Alawite State. There was an initial period in which Syrian stamps were used, inevitably causing accounting difficulties between the Alawite and Syrian postal services. In 1925, French stamps were overprinted “ALAOUITES” and surcharged in the denomination in piastres. This was printed both in French and in Arabic. The stamps were overprinted in various colors and styles, and are readily collectable.

Later between 1925 and 1930, similar overprints were used on stamps of Syria. Airmail overprints included the word “AVION” and after 1926 a picture of a monoplane.

The Religion Monitor| Bertelsmann Stiftung

July 9, 2013, 2:45 pm

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MAVI BONCUK |

The Religion Monitor[1[ of the Bertelsmann Stiftung reveals: Widespread approval for the separation of church and state / Decline in religiosity from generation to generation

The largest numbers of people claiming to be "very", "fairly", or "moderately" religious are found in Turkey (82 %), Brazil (74 %), India (70 %), and the USA (67 %). The lowest numbers are found in Sweden (28 %) and Israel (31 %). Germany ranks in midfield with an overall score of 57 % (26 % in eastern Germany and 64 % in western Germany). These findings emerge from the international data collected by the 2013 Religion Monitor of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, which is based on interviews with 14,000 people in 13 selected countries. Fewer than half the respondents in Europe stated that religion was an important aspect of their lives

WEB LINK

FULL TEXT IN ENGLISH


[1] Religion and Cohesion

Religious diversity is part of today’s world. In Germany, for example, adherents of different faiths live together with many people who do not belong to a religious denomination at all. Religion is a key factor determining how people think and act, and therefore a major social force. Consequently, one of the main challenges the world faces today is finding a way for people of different cultural and religious backgrounds to coexist in harmony within any given society. Moreover, if we want to live together in freedom and diversity in the future, we must gain a better understanding of religion and its significance for social change. 

That is why the Bertelsmann Stiftung conducts its Religion Monitor survey – most recently for the second time. A total of 14,000 people in 13 countries were asked during the most recent survey about their attitudes toward religion and the relationship between religion and society. The data are currently undergoing a detailed analysis by religion specialists, sociologists and psychologists, both in Germany and abroad. 

In-depth reports on individual topics and countries will be released over the course of the year. Initially, however, we are publishing a study providing a general overview of the results: 

The study Religiosität und Zusammenhalt in Deutschland (Religiousness and Cohesion in Germany) by Detlef Pollack and Olaf Müller focuses on the current situation in Germany (available in German only). 

The study Religiosität im internationalen Vergleich (Religiousness in International Comparison) by Gert Pickel takes a comparative look at the 13 countries included in the Religion Monitor. 

Privy Council says....Karamehmet

July 10, 2013, 10:08 am

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Turkey's Cukurova Holding AS appeared to emerge victorious in the country's most high-profile boardroom battle in decades as a U.K. court ruled on Tuesday it could reclaim control of Turkcell.

The decision would re-establish Cukurova's control over a business that holds some 50% of Turkey's mobile-phone market and has been identified as a strategic asset by the country's government. 


Mavi Boncuk |

Mehmet Karamehmet, one of Turkey’s best known businessmen, has won a long-sought victory over Russia’s Alfa Group in a legal battle over control of Turkcell , the country’s leading mobile group. But he still faces challenges in a saga in which the Turkish state has played an increasing part.
The UK Privy Council ruled on Tuesday that Mr Karamehmet’s privately held Cukurova group must pay $1.56bn to reacquire control of Turkcell from the Alfa Group of the Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman.

The total was far closer to the $1.5bn Cukurova said it owed Alfa than the $3bn claimed by the Russian group. The court also ruled that interest would only start to accrue on the $1.56bn as of Tuesday’s verdict. Its decision on the terms and conditions came in the wake of a January ruling in which the Privy Council said Cukurova should have the opportunity to redeem the shares, which Alfa took control of when Cukurova defaulted on a $1.35bn loan in 2007.

Article | Emanet Çeyiz, 1923 Greco-Turkish Population Exchange

July 17, 2013, 7:51 am

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Mavi Boncuk |
Documenting the Past and Publicizing Personal Stories: Sensescapes and the 1923 Greco-Turkish Population Exchange in Contemporary Turkey 
Asli Iğsiz
From: Journal of Modern Greek Studies 
Volume 26, Number 2, October 2008  | pp. 451-487 | 10.1353/mgs.0.0035

National identification practices and nationalist historiography in Turkey have long focused on erasing differences and diversity and configuring a “homogeneous” nation. More recently, an increasing personalization of geography through familial attributes and memories became an anchor for self-identification in contemporary Turkey, traceable through family history and personal narratives in the public domain. This shift in the way people engage with the past is symptomatic of nostalgia for a traceable self-identification through family histories pursued to geographies of “origin” as opposed to the “administered forgetting” of such identifications by nationalist ideologies. We can track this change over the last two decades in cultural products, such as documentary novels, memoirs, and family cookbooks, which have opened a space in the public domain to reconsider the past and to rewrite history at an individual level. The dynamics of this change are particularly evident in the case of the 1923 Greco-Turkish Compulsory Population Exchange and its representation in Kemal Yalçın’s documentary novel, The Entrusted Trousseau: Peoples of the Exchange (Emanet Çeyiz).   

See also: History, Memory and the 1923 Greco-Turkish Population Exchange: But the memory remains more by Aytek Soner Alpan 

Asli Igsiz | The Hagop Kevorkian Center[1]

Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Comparative Literature
M.A., University of Michigan, Near Eastern Studies
M.A., Hacettepe University, French Literature
B.A., Bogaziçi University, Foreign Language Education

Areas of Research/Interest 
Nineteenth and twentieth-century literary cultures and cultural representation in the Ottoman State, Turkey, Greece, and France; cultural history and memory; minority cultures, cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism; governmentality; forced migration; comparative methodologies; multidisciplinary epistemologies.

[1] The Hagop Kevorkian Center[*] for Near Eastern Studies at New York University was created in 1966 to foster the interdisciplinary study of the modern and contemporary Middle East and to enhance public understanding of the region. The Kevorkian Center's activities focus on the histories, politics, economies, religions, cultures and languages of the area stretching from North Africa to Central Asia.

[*] Sibel Erol 
 Clinical Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 
Ph.D. 1993, University of California, Berkeley. 
 Office Address: Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 50 Washington Square South New York, NY 10012
Email: sibel.erol@nyu.edu

Article | Brand Turkey and the Gezi Protests

July 17, 2013, 8:25 am

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Mavi Boncuk |

Brand Turkey and the Gezi Protests:

Authoritarianism, Law, and Neoliberalism

Jul 12 2013

by Aslı Iğsız

The Gezi Park protests, and the state response to them, have crystallized larger dynamics in Turkey. These include recent legal changes and their contribution to the institutionalization of neoliberalism, centralization of powers, allegations of cronyism, authoritarianism, and encroachment on professional independence and labor rights. Overall, these protests offer a valuable opportunity to consider how high-security, neoliberal nation states operate in general, with Turkey as a particular instance. In this context, surveillance and anti-terror laws give the impression of a state of exception, which suspend the rights of citizens, whereby state officials appear to transcend law for the “public good.” As such, law appears to be deployed to concentrate power and to promote neoliberal institutionalization, whereas those who are unhappy with these policies are criminalized. This was exemplified in the Gezi protests.

Download and Read More (PDF)

Source: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/12907/brand-turkey-and-the-gezi-protests_authoritarianis

Article The AKP Decade: An Economic Success Story ?

July 17, 2013, 9:21 am

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Mavi Boncuk | 

Al Jazeera Magazine, in its July edition, published the article  “The AKP Decade: An Economic Success Story ?”  by Betam’s[1] Director Seyfettin Gürsel.

You can find the document  here

[1]
Betam | Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research 
Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences,  Bahcesehir University, Besiktas Istanbul. Turkey

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Professor Dr Udo Steinbach and Zenith Cover

July 17, 2013, 11:05 am

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Zenith - Journal of the Orient is the leading German magazine for the Middle East, the Maghreb and the Muslim world

Dossier: The Kurdish state
The Kurds are the winners of the Arab Fruhlings?

a policy dossier on the LARGEST stateless people in the Middle East.

For the states in which to live today Kurdish minorities, the vision of Kurdistan was a nightmare. However, one that was believed to have conquered. And now, of all the Arab  Spring brings back things moving. The territorial integrity of Syria is in question and in northern Iraq, the Kurds loose more and more of the central government in Baghdad. The growing tensions between Sunni and Shiite Regionalmächten seem to vessels supplying this development as well as the "peace process" in Turkey. Certainly, it is worth thinking available via the sense and nonsense of a Kurdish nation state. 

Mavi Boncuk |

Professor Dr Udo Steinbach

Professor Dr Udo Steinbach is a Middle East specialist who teaches at the Centre of Near and Middle East Studies at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany.

He was Director of the German Institute for Middle East Studies, a research institute dealing with the contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia from 1976 to January 2007, before becoming Director of GIGA Institute of Middle East Studies (IMES) from February to December, 2007.

Professor Dr Steinbach , 68, was awarded a Phd in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Freiburg and Basel and has written numerous books and publications on political and social developments in the Middle East. He is a counsellor and expert for various public and private institutions.

His main areas of research are political and social change in the Arab countries and Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan; the manifestations of political Islam and the Middle East in the international system.

More reports by Professor Dr Udo Steinbach

Contact Information

us@udosteinbach.eu

www.udosteinbach.eu

In Memoriam | Leyla Erbil (1931-2013)

July 19, 2013, 11:32 am

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Leyla Erbil, one of Turkey’s most creative writers, with a talent matching her discretion, has passed away today after being treated in an intensive care unit for weeks following a heart failure. 

In Memoriam | Leyla Erbil (b. İstanbul 1931, - d. İstanbul 18 July,2013)

Erbil, 82, was the first Turkish female writer to be nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature by PEN International in 2002. She also won the association’s prestigious short story prize this year.

Mavi Boncuk |


Her first story Hallaç (Cotton fluffer) came out in 1961, the same year she became a member of the Turkish Worker’s Party (TİP) along with other intellectuals such as Behice Boran, Çetin Altan and Yusuf Ziya Bahadınlı. Her first novel Garip bir Kadın (An odd woman), published in 1971, became a masterpiece. Casting a resolute female gaze over a male world and penned with an innovative language, the book’s critical success earned Erbil comparisons with Virginia Woolf. 

Another short story collection, Gecede (In the night) would reinforce her reputation as a majestic narrator of the female condition.  

Her following novels, Karanlığın Günü (The day of darkness) and Mektup Aşkları (Loves from letters) came during the dark era of the 80s, in 1985 and 1988 respectively. She dedicated the 90s to writing essays, before releasing in 2001 Cüce (Dwarf), another of her masterpieces replete with dark humor.

Kalan (The remaining), published in 2011, related the tragedy of Istanbul’s multicultural communities through the eyes of its cosmopolitan and rebellious female protagonist Lahzen.

Erbil momentarily abandoned the exploration of women for odd men in Tuhaf bir Erkek (An odd man) published in 2013. Perhaps closing a circle, Erbil said in an interview that the novel intended to explore how one man could impersonate many others – or, more concretely, how Hurşit becomes sometimes Zurşit, Kürşit, Mümin and Bünyamin – for obviously different reasons than a woman.  

And Turkey… If it had to possess a gender, for Erbil it would be neither an “odd woman” nor an “odd man.” “Turkey is still introspecting itself, hasn’t given itself a name. It’s a hermaphrodite,” she replies with a touch of derision. 

(pictured) Leyla Erbil with Sait Faik Abasiyanik

STORY COLLECTIONS
Hallaç (1961)
Gecede (1968)
Eski Sevgili (1977)
NOVELS
Tuhaf Bir Kadın (1971)
Karanlığın Günü (1985)
Mektup Aşkları (1988)
Cüce (2001)
Üç Başlı Ejderha (2005)
Kalan (2011)
Tuhaf Bir Erkek (2013)
OTHER WORKS
Tezer Özlü'den Leylâ Erbil'e Mektuplar (1995)
Düşler Öyküler (1997)
Zihin Kuşları (1998)

Sonar | July 2013 Election Poll

July 19, 2013, 1:03 pm

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Johan Vandewalle | Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language

July 19, 2013, 1:10 pm

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Mavi Boncuk |

Turkish-FL, Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language

Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 14:44:42 +0200
From: Johan Vandewalle rug.ac.be>
Subject: Turkish-FL, Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language

I hereby wish to inform all colleagues teaching Turkish as a Foreign
Language that a "Forum for Teachers of Turkish as a Foreign Language"
has been created on the adress:

http://www.egroups.com/group/Turkish-FL

Everyone who is teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language (TFL), all over
the world, is kindly invited to contribute to this Forum. You may write
in Turkish or English. The aims of this Forum are: (1) to describe
problems encountered by foreign students of Turkish and, most important,
suggest possible solutions; (2) to clarify specific problems of Turkish
language use that have not yet been sufficiently described in existing
Turkish grammars; (3) to discuss different didactic approaches, methods
and techniques that are being used or could be used for TFL; (4) to
evaluate new publications in the field of TFL; (5) to exchange
information on seminars and symposia on TFL; (6) to maintain contact
between Teachers of TFL.

Best regards,

Johan Vandewalle

Turkish-FL moderator

See also: 

Türkçekent

Orientaal's links for Turkish Language Learning

There must be about 5 000 000 pages using the Turkish Language on the Internet. This page presents a selection of Turkish Language sites that may be useful for Turkish Language Learning. In this way we want to create a kind of virtual town ("kent") where students and teachers of Turkish can study, work, dream and enjoy themselves.

Word Hunter | Selfie

July 19, 2013, 3:38 pm

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Word Hunter | Selfie

Looking for a new Turkish word for 'Selfie'. Any suggestions

Mavi Boncuk |

Word Origin | Hodri

July 21, 2013, 6:14 am

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Mavi Boncuk |
Hayde bre: "encouragement and defiance expression (Rumelia/Balkan dialect)" 
Used in shortened form 'hodri' for wrestling[1] matches to invite opponent to competition. Hodri meydan | Come to the field.

[1]Oil wrestling (Turkish: yağlı güreş), also called grease wrestling, is the Turkish national sport. It is so called because the wrestlers douse themselves with olive oil. It is related to the Uzbek kurash, Tuvan khuresh and Tatar köräş. 

The wrestlers, known as pehlivan[*] (Persian: پهلوان‎ meaning "hero" or "champion") wear a type of hand-stitched lederhosen called a kisbet (sometimes kispet), which is traditionally made of water buffalo hide, and most recently has been made of calfskin.

[*] Used in Turkish dialects as: Balaban,balwan, balıvan, palğan

Chobani | Number 2 Pushing Hard

July 21, 2013, 2:25 pm

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Mavi Boncuk |

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MODERATING ISLAMISTS: TURKEY'S LESSONS FOR EGYPT

July 22, 2013, 10:00 am

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Mavi Boncuk |
ANALYSIS OF NEAR EAST POLICY FROM THE SCHOLARS AND ASSOCIATES OF THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE

MODERATING ISLAMISTS: TURKEY'S LESSONS FOR EGYPT

PolicyWatch 2103
July 22, 2013

By James F. Jeffrey and Soner Cagaptay

The Turkish coup of 1980 demonstrates that army intervention can restore democracy in some cases, while Turkey's generally successful development since then illustrates the role that the military, other institutions, and the international community can play in moderating Islamist movements.

Read Article

2020 | Promotional Olympic Videos

July 24, 2013, 12:56 pm

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Judge for yourself.
Mavi Boncuk |

The Times Ad | Open letter to PM

July 24, 2013, 1:07 pm

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Mavi Boncuk | 

Artists and scholars, including celebrities known for their activism, such as Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Ben Kingsley and movie director David Lynch, have condemned the Turkish authorities’ heavy-handed crackdown on the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in a full-page letter published July 24 in the British broadsheet The Times and addressed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

Andrew Mango, the biographer of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Fazıl Say, the Turkish pianist who was recently sentenced for blasphemy after tweeting several lines attributed to a poet, were also among the signatories.

Other signatories included: Irish novelist Edna O’Brien, British Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, British actress Vanessa Redgrave, British film director of Turkish origin Fuad Kavur, Hungarian Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and American freelance journalist and writer Claire Berlinski.

The signatories, who described the Turkish government as “a dictatorial rule,” slammed Erdoğan’s uncompromising stance regarding the protesters’ demands. Erdoğan’s orders “led to the deaths of five innocent youths,” the letter said, adding that he might be called to render account to the European Court of Human Rights for the police’s violence.

They also likened the counter-rallies organized by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a response to the protests with the annual Nuremberg rallies organized by the German Nazis.  

“Only days after clearing Taksim Square and Gezi Park relying on untold brutal force, you held a meeting in Istanbul, reminiscent of the Nuremberg Rally, with total disregard for the five dead whose only crime was to oppose your dictatorial rule,” the letter said, emphasizing that more journalists were imprisoned in Turkey than in Iran and China combined.

“Moreover, you described these protesters as tramps, looters and hooligans, even alleging they were foreign-led terrorists. Whereas, in reality, they were nothing but youngsters wanting Turkey to remain a Secular Republic as designed by its founder Kemal Atatürk,” the letter added.

Istanbul 1975 | The Great Railway Bazaar:

July 26, 2013, 11:27 am

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Still makes a good read. Try first 3 chapters [1] as they relate to the Turkish portion of the ride.

Mavi Boncuk |

[1] The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia is a 1975 travelogue written by the American novelist Paul Theroux. It recounts Theroux's four-month journey across Asia by train, travelling through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, before finally returning via the Trans-Siberian Railway. Many people consider this a classic in the genre of travel writing.[1] [2] The first part of the route, to India, follows the hippie trail.

Crescent Dawn

July 28, 2013, 9:10 am

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In A.D. 327, a Roman galley barely escapes a pirate attack with its extraordinary cargo. In 1916, a British warship mysteriously explodes in the middle of the North Sea. In the present day, a cluster of important mosques in Turkey and Egypt are wracked by explosions. Does anything tie them together?

NUMA director Dirk Pitt is about to find out, as Roman artifacts discovered in Turkey and Israel unnervingly connect to the rise of a fundamentalist movement determined to restore the glory of the Ottoman Empire, and to the existence of a mysterious “manifest,” lost long ago, which if discovered again . . . just may change the history of the world as we know it.