The problem with 'modern' Turks is... they are outdated

Published in Turkish Daily News, 08 April 2008

The English word “modern” has made its way into colloquial Turkish and is used interchangeably with its direct Turkish equal, “çağdaş,” which literally means “of the era.” Though the word “modern” in English still maintains the connotation of something that is up to date, such as a modern kitchen, it also signifies something belonging to modernity and modernism as the social condition and philosophy, which dominated late 19th and most of the 20th century.

In many ways, the “modern” is really no more “çağdaş.” We live in a completely different social condition, shaped by a completely different philosophy. Therefore, if I were to compliment an intellectual with the word “modern” today, it would be more of an insult. I would be suggesting that his or her ideas and reactions are passé and naïve, if not backward. Similarly, when a building is called “modern” in architecture, it refers to the concrete lumps of the previous century, which were built with the ideals of managing human beings as effectively as possible while maximizing cost and benefit, with no consideration of aesthetics and quality of life whatsoever.

Outdated Enlightenment:

Interestingly, when the word “modern” is used in Turkish, it is always a complement. Its unique use as a positive adjective includes a “modern person” and “modern society.” However, when we look at what a person must believe or do in order to be called “modern,” an irony surfaces. What is described as a “modern” outlook in Turkey is often nothing than the banal repetition of outdated Enlightenment ideals. Some of the “modern” myths that linger among us in their full pride are:

* A country can only survive if it is a homogenized nation state that has to assimilate any different identity into a well-defined single type. Any element of difference -- language, ethnicity, religion and opinion -- is a threat to its existence.

* Citizens are part of a foolish herd that must be led, controlled and managed for their own sake, even against their own wishes.* The goal of education is to produce non-questioning and easily controllable citizens.

* Religious beliefs belong to the “dark ages.” If only we have more education and science, they would die out and everyone would be atheists. For now, we should make sure that it is limited to personal space.

These “modern” beliefs were, in fact, the glimpse of heaven promised by the “çağdaş” men of the 19th century. Yet, where we stand today is far from the anticipated Shangri-La.The modern vision is the very reason why the 20th century was one of the darkest ages of history. “Modern” ideals and know-how are two sizes too small for today's ever-obese global reality. As every futile attempt to cover global rips with local patches shows, we can no more share the optimism of the “modern” man who thinks, if only we have the commitment and strength, our future would be bright.

The only one who is not aware of this is the “modern” man. He walks our streets, full of himself, confident of the future that awaits him at the end of his path, like a sleepwalking French man who is consumed by his daydream that his culture, language and values present the pinnacle of human civilization, which everyone else envies or aspires to reach. One must be careful not to honor the “modern” man with the status of the lovable, but naïve, Don Quixote. “Modern” man is often dangerous, aggressive and poisoned by his self-confidence. He is loud and distractive, and if he only has his way, he will easily move beyond good and evil and push his black and white homogenized pill down our throats.

We need less ‘modern' Turks:

It is because we have so many “modern” Turks around that we are distracted from breaking the all-too-human cycles of Armenian-Turkish, Kurdish-Turkish, Secularist-Islamist conflicts. It is because of the “modern” vision that non-Muslims of Turkey have to continue to live in daily fear that at any moment a “modern” man who has the courage to face the challenge may put a bullet in their heads. It is because of the “modern” academics of our nation that Turkish universities, with the noble exception of a handful, are gigantic and distasteful sausage machines that produce non-analytical and démodé “modern” copycats. It is because of the “modern” leaders of our country that we face the risk of turning into an Amish or Hasidic community stuck in history, thinking that a certain previous century, with its aims, dress, language and strategies was the only and ideal ‘pure' and ‘real' moment.

So what we need least are more “modern” Turks. It is time for us to learn to see today's world as it is and not through outdated ideals. We urgently need more “çağdaş” Turks, who are able to look beyond the clichés of a past century and lead our nation to safety in this increasingly bleak age. We need high caliber pioneers, just like Mustafa Kemal was in his “çağ” (era)

Deconstructing old and new 'deep state'

Published in Turkish Daily News , 03 April 2008


For the outsider observing Turkey, the issue of the so-called "deep state" can be quite confusing, if not incomprehensible. Though the media and commentators regularly report their activities and allude to their dark relationships with state officials, often questions of who they are and why they are involved in such activities are omitted along with a deeper analysis as to the nature of their organization and how people are recruited into their ranks.This failure to analyze the "deep state" often leads to wrong conclusions, which attribute the activities of these groups directly to the Turkish State and Armed Forces. It would, in fact, be true to think so if the groups named broadly as "deep state" were like the ones that existed during the cold war and 70s. However, today's ‘deep state' is completely different and more dangerous than the earlier ones.

After the cold war:

Though throughout the centuries rulers had their secret forces to do dirty jobs in order to maintain their power, during the cold war clandestine operations became national policies to fight an unconventional and secretive war with a vicious enemy. Intelligence and security forces worked alongside criminals, capable individuals and groups in secretive operations to send messages, control their societies and counterbalance their enemies' activities. Some elements of this still exist in Turkey and can be seen in the untold stories of how the Turkish armed forces and police force have tried to “solve” the Kurdish “problem.” With the end of the cold war these groups and individuals faced the cold space all alone. State policies, intelligence priorities and social tensions have evolved, making them redundant. Some simply adjusted to the new reality in full melancholy, others turned to becoming mercenaries, providing their expertise for money in the new market of civilian security.

Yet, once one gets used to confronting an archetypal enemy, life gets rather dull when the dragon is dead. So the knights roam the banal streets of our contemporary existence with a dragon-shaped vacuum in their hearts. Since fighting against a giant enemy provides a strong, clear and comforting identity and self-worth, the ex-knights are not only bored but also left in a void. And what value has a knight without a crusade? What's more, the knights have been declared useless once their expiration date has passed. Their mighty and most noble patron no longer needs, wants or employs them. Their societies do not know, value, cherish or care about them. From a firm belief in being the protectors and guardians of their societies, they face the anonymity and darkness of insignificance.

The curse of anonymity, insignificance and passive participation in an aggressive age affects all of us. The ratio of “losers,” who cannot make it or feel safe in this slippery century, increases every single day. For the economically and socially deprived, there is no chance of establishing a singular significance. One option they have is the possibility of being assimilated into a higher cause, with social ties with our ex-knights, whose former titles and relations are seductive for the sensually deprived. When the ex-knights and the deprived meet, their orgies become self-fulfilling and interdependent. They need each other to satisfy each other's deprivations.

Retired officers and protégés:

That is why the new deep "state" is formed by two particular groups: retired or redundant army or security officers and their committed protégés and foot soldiers. Together they make up the gang of final attempts to feel alive, resolute on finding and slaying enemies, in the process saving imagined kingdoms from imagined ills. Since it is almost impossible to clearly pinpoint enemies in this century, unlike during the cold war when one could look at a map and see who was with or against us, mistrust and conspiracy theories, along with a resentment of the “system,” mystify the state as well as its citizens. Everyone and everything is and can be the needed enemy; a nation, composed of zombie-like enemies, that needs to be protected from itself!

They find supporters, especially among mid-management levels of the state structures, in people who are equally “worried” about their nation, but most importantly frustrated with their lack of power or saying they have over the state of affairs, as their hands are tied and mouths are gagged by the state legislation for civil servants, called 657. Where lower and higher ranking civil servants have so much to lose by partaking in “deep state” and their actions are quite visible, middle management can usually find a secretive space where the risk is manageable. This makes the new “deep state” more dangerous than the old one, as the targets and means to deal with them are not controlled or commissioned by the state but are left at the mercy of a groups of thugs with their irrational rationalities. Unlike the old “deep state,” the links of the new ones to the state consist of individuals who are sympathizers and can do only so much for them. Therefore, stopping their activities becomes a difficult task, since these groups are only accountable to themselves.

The post-IRA example:

We have seen a similar pattern following the change in politics in Northern Ireland and the disarmament of the IRA. Yesterday's freedom fighters turned into today's nuisances very quickly, left without financial and social support. Some learned how to cope with the new era and find a safe place in it, but some evolved into thugs, adding a language of higher values to mere criminality and pursuits of money. And not so surprisingly, they also describe Ireland as having been “defeated” from within by weakened politicians who “sold out” their souls. We can show similar examples all across Africa, Latin America and Russia.

If this reading of the new “deep state” is correct, then the new school Turkish deep state, with its funny hairstyles and 60's fashion sense, is the disruptive emanation of the ghosts of a past century. As the global experience of similar ghost sightings show, when there is the political will, even the most “dangerous” ones can eventually be bought, rehabilitated or muted. So the main question isn't how deep their organization is, or what dirt can surface when their heydays are brought into the light. The main question is, does the Turkish government have the political will to do so?

New Turkish curriculum teaches children to be 'sacrifices'

Published in Turkish Daily News, 25 March 2008

Turkishness is hard to maintain, as I always point out. Not only does one have to keep up to date with shifting political moods in Turkey, but also one must share an unchallenged historical and teleological narrative. This constant effort at alignment with the officially sanctioned identities is a difficult process, especially for us Turks who dwell outside of our “motherland.” There is a real danger that we will “give in” to the erosion and, God forbid, loose our Turkishness.

Yet, we have not been forgotten and left alone in our identity problems. In addition to the efforts of our Foreign Ministry, the Turkish Directorate for Religious Affairs and Education Ministry do their “very best” to make sure that we have the resources to face the challenge.
All for the nation!

For example, the Education Ministry recently sent a proposed curriculum to be used in the supplementary schools where expatriate Turkish families send their children on the weekends. It is called “Draft Educational Program: Turkish language and culture lessons for Turkish children living abroad, Grades 1 to 10.” Its cover informs us that it was written in 2006 by a “special commission” in Ankara, formed by two Turkish language teachers, two religious education teachers, one Turkish history teacher, and, last but not least, a “program development expert.”

These seven education “experts” have obviously toiled hard and long considering our problems and developing a new generation of Turks in a foreign country. Amid all the important issues our children might face, they picked up one of the most “important” elements of being a Turk and sought to communicate this through a story to third grade pupils.

The “heart-warming” story is that of Mehmet, once again, but not an ordinary one:

Continue Reading "New Turkish curriculum teaches children to be 'sacrifices'"
Mehmet was 20 years old when he was called in for his compulsory military service. His entire village sent him off to fulfill his duties with great jubilation. During a health check-up, his commanding officer recognized that one of Mehmet's hands was dyed in henna. When the commander asked why this was so, Mehmet told him that he did not know the reason but it was his mother's decision. So the commander asked Mehmet to write a letter to his mother and tell her that the commander wanted to know why she dyed Mehmet's hand.

Since the request for clarification came from the ranks, the mother responded with the following:

“My dear son, we received your letter. We were all happy. You ask about the henna I dyed on your palm. Send my greetings to your commander. I kiss him on his eyes. I pray for blessings. May God give all of you strength! Tell your commander this: We use henna for three different things: We dye beautiful girls, so that they can have a home of their own someday. We dye sheep, so that they can be sacrifices for God. And, my dear son, we dye the brave ones who leave for the army. We dye them, because military service is holy. Your grandfather was martyred in the Balkans and your uncle in Gallipoli. We dyed you because you too will fulfill this holy service to protect your nation.” The curriculum ends the story after the mother's response, informing us that this answer moved the commander deeply and brought him to tears.

From an exegetical point of view, the peak of the story is the symbolic preparation of Mehmet for being a “sacrifice” for our nation. This should set an example for all of our children at the earliest opportunity. The younger we impart this value, the more effective it will be. Thus, a 9-year-old Turkish child living in London should be groomed and prepared to daydream about tanks, bombs and being murdered. He should be raised as a non-questioning sheep, ready to lie on the altar whenever the orders for him to do so arrive.

Yes, their foreign (read gavur) education may be really good at teaching them to be critical thinkers and independent achievers in a global age. Yet, there are some things which a Western education can never give. Thanks to our “expert commission” and the spectacular efforts of our Education Ministry, the missing ingredient in the Turkishness of our children has been supplemented. Sleep well, commissioners of Ankara! You have saved our future!

Turkish Armed Forces and Postmodern War-Management

Published in Turkish Daily News, 17 January 2008

The Turkish and international media gave wide coverage to recent Turkish excursions into and bombings of outlawed PKK targets in northern Iraq.

Most of the commentaries focused on the pros and cons of military campaigns on the fragile state of Iraq, the never-ending ‘final moves' to end PKK terror in Turkey and the rekindling of Turkish-American relations. These are in fact legitimate questions, but there is more that needs to be analyzed.

A key area that has escaped from the critical (and often clichéd) eyes of mainstream commentators in Turkey is why these campaigns have been communicated to Turkish society in the way that they have been. In this article, I want to draw attention not to the military attacks and their results or implications, but to how the Turkish Armed forces have employed and orchestrated cutting-edge public relations tactics.

Old school war-management:

In the good old days, managing societies that were engaged in wars was a lot easier. Since the primary information source was the armed forces themselves, the governments easily constructed stories of heroism, success and sacrifices performed for ‘higher ideals.' The pointless destruction, war crimes and failures could easily be left out in the dark. Society was just a spectator enjoying the unified narrative presented in movie-like news from the front lines. What mattered was that ‘we' were winning and ‘we' were ‘heroes' fighting for a ‘just' cause.

The only alternative source of information was the veterans, who had to choose to play either the ‘hero' with the hope that their sacrifices were in fact worth something, or the reclusive survivor who never spoke about war. And when those returnees refused to choose between these two sanctioned roles and dared to speak against their government's policies and the horrors of war, they were declared mentally or morally impaired and pushed out to the margins.

Thus, it was quite easy to manage one's society in the old days. All you needed to do was report as many successes and heroic stories as possible. However, with the development of independent media and easy access to the production and dissemination of photographs and videos from the front lines, the job of the governments and top generals became more difficult.

The Vietnam War was not more destructive or ‘evil' than any other war. In fact, the 20th century had seen bigger and more fatal wars. Yet, for the first time we were able to see the reality of war right in our living rooms, often contradicting the official euphemisms and stories presented to us. This meant that it was becoming a lot more difficult to lead us into collective hypnosis.

A single image of a young girl, Kim Phuc, screaming with pain from her burns and running away naked from a napalm bombing with a bunch of kids, became a turning point for war opposition. It muted all stories of military success and the idea that the war was being fought for noble causes. Though this signaled the end of traditional war-management, it only resulted in more sophisticated strategies. The new strategy, which was first applied during the Desert Storm campaign, uses the same tool that ended the old strategies.

New generation war-management:

If independent media taught us to mistrust the official narratives and cheap heroisms, it also led us to a fixation on the image and visual stimulation. If the previous problem was lack of information and its boring officialdom, our new problem is information overload and its erotic powers.

In order to compete with other producers for our decreasing attention spans, TV reporting has reduced the content of the information to minimal while maximizing its visual and musical effects. As the minimum amount of information is added on to amazing views of fighter jets, attractive uniforms and ‘cool' war toys, the war becomes a ‘thrill.' The shock-and-awe tactics create a sense of ‘awe' of human technology and its precision. The individual becomes fixed on sexy images at the expense of reality.

The news of bombing is presented with black and white videos supplied by the Air Force, which shows war more like an unreal video game. The more the dose of visual stimulation is increased, the more societies fall into rapture and intellectual numbness. Since we are more focused on the airplane, we have no perception of where the bombs fall, or moreover, of the deaths of the human beings underneath them. The U.S. has employed this style of perception management in its controversial campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan with great success.

It appears that the Turkish Armed Forces have learned more from the U.S. than intelligence and F-16 production. All throughout the north Iraq campaigns, top generals and government officials spoke endlessly about our newly acquired spy, night flight and bombing technologies. Newspapers presented the most attractive military pictures along with details of each bomb dropped and how our pilots are trained. TV channels showed videos of the bombings and real-life satellite images of the camps.

It has indeed been a successful example of war-management. Turkish society has faced minimum ethical dilemmas and found much pride and stimulation in our brand new military toys.

The AK Party, the failure of Islamism and traditional Turkish politics

Published on Nthposition, 8 January 2008

The Armed forces and the hopeful parties who sought to capitalize on their chance for power portrayed the last elections in Turkey as a choice between a secular state and a theocracy. The Western media picked up this rhetoric, and the elections were turned into an archetypal struggle between Islamism and democracy as the Turkish nation was said to be deciding on her 'soul'.

There were signals all along that the things were not what they seem to be. A significant portion of liberals, non-Muslims and ethnic minorities in Turkey voted for the AK Party, which was presented as a taqiya movement with mischievous plans to implement an Islamic state. These groups would face the harshest treatment if Turkey turned out to be ruled under Shari'a law; yet, they chose to take the 'risk' because the AK Party has been one of the governments most committed to addressing issues of human rights and religious freedom in the country.

Many observers abroad feared that with the reselection of the AK Party, Turkey would severe her ties with the West and turn Eastward, which would have significant implications on international security and economic relations. Yet foreign investors and most of the Europeans who hope for Turkish integration into the EU openly supported the AK Party because it has been the most proactive and serious government Turkey has ever had on EU negotiations as well as legislative changes, which led to an increase in foreign investment.

Learned commentators who sought to trace an agenda from the AK Party's long-abandoned roots in the Islamist Refah Party (Welfare Party) read the AK Party's increasing appeal in Turkey as a return or strengthening of the Islamist goals, which were brought to a halt by a soft intervention of the Armed forces on 28 February 1997. Yet Refah Party's successor, the Saadet Party (Felicity Party), and the nationalist-cum-Islamist BB Party (Great Union Party) openly condemned the AK Party as an un-Islamic party which had sold out to the West. Meanwhile, books claiming that Abdullah Gul and Tayyip Erdogan were Jews and Zionists topped the bestseller list.

Similarly, as doomsday scenarios of incompatibility of Islam and Secular Democracy found flesh in mass demonstrations, most of the interested onlookers missed the covered women amidst the 'secular' crowds. A couple of Turkish journalists picked on a middle-aged woman in a headscarf, who had 'naively' responded to the question of whether Turkey would become an Islamic state by saying: "Turkey will remain secular, Inshallah."

Ironically, it was the naivety of the journalists who did not realize that a clash between Islam and a secular state existed only as a prescriptive discourse, rather than as a descriptive reality. Turkish Islam has evolved to such a level that a Muslim could seek the help of Allah to sustain a secular state.

Now, the elections are over: we have a reaffirmed government and a promising new president. Turkey is on the same path as she was a year ago. However, the question of what was really happening in Turkey still needs to be asked. Once again, the developments in Turkey signal new formations of Islam and its relationship to politics.

The AK Party is a newcomer to the Turkish political arena. It won a majority vote in its first ever election on November 2002. Its conservative stand, which reflected traditional Turkey, and its commitment to pursuing full EU membership and economic reform struck a chord with a significant portion of the country. The brand-new face of its leaders presented a way out of the never-ending cycles of Turkish political tail chasings between the 'left' and the 'right'. Its young leadership presented a worldview driven by realpolitik in line with the demands of a global world and the need for modernization, unlike the traditional Islamist appeals for a return to a Golden Age and the establishment of the global rule of Islam in solidarity with the Muslim world.

Many people gave the AK Party the benefit of the doubt for want of any other viable option and as a reaction to the then ruling elite. The exception to the disappearances of the older folk is Deniz Baykal, who remains the ineffective and not-so-loved leader of the opposition party that no longer has a clear political stand. After five years in office, however, the AK Party's performance has matched initial expectations, and it achieved one of the highest elections results ever in the Turkish history.

There are no legitimate signs that Turkey has turned out to be more Islamic under this administration. The legendary misuse of Article 301 - with its courtroom dramas and its fatal attacks on liberal intellectuals and non-Muslims - has been undertaken by the followers of an increasingly dangerous Turkish rightwing nationalism... which is also anti-AK Party.

This may come as a surprise to those who have been shown a Turkey - either by certain groups in Turkey or by clumsy Western journalists - that is deciding between the East and West; Islam and democracy; international openness and national isolation. None of these frameworks are helpful in trying to understand contemporary Turkey. The AK Party represents a new paradigm both in Turkey and for the rest of the world. It can be understood only on its own terms as a unique product of the failure of Islamism, which chased after the utopias of caliphate and umma, and the traditional political structures of Turkey that existed in a bittersweet love triangle of left, right and the Armed Forces.

How I became a 'so-called' Turk?

Published in Turkish Daily News, 3 January 2008
Re-Published in French by Yevrobatsi as Comment je suis devenu un «soi-disant» Turc

Re-Published in Greek by Phileleftheros as Πως μετεξελίχθηκα σε "λεγόμενο" Τούρκο


In his challenging book “Identity and Violence” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen argues that our identities are constructed not only through our own efforts but also by the enforcement of our setting. For example, an Irish man may consider himself ‘white' and can have strong feelings against people with darker skin colors. However, it is only recently that the English have considered the Irish ‘white.' The Irish have been seen in lesser terms than the ‘actual whites.'

The exclusion of the Irish from the noble ‘white' community obviously has nothing to do with color, as one doesn't really get whiter than an Irishman. Whiteness is a social construct and the ‘real whites' are considered so because of their privileged place within the community of ‘whites'.

Recently, I have learned the hard way that ‘Turkishness' too has its own share of social enforcement and exclusion. I have always seen myself as a Turk. Turkish is my mother tongue. I was born and have spent most of my life in Turkey. I am a Turkish citizen. I genuinely love my country and I am committed to its future. All the members of my family are ethnic Turks, with the exception of one grandma who is Kurdish and my great grandmother who was a Greek convert to Islam. All these years I assumed that these were what made one ‘Turkish.'

Yet, my ‘Turkishness' has been challenged. This first happened when I turned 18 and, out of my disillusionment with Islam, I decided to follow the Christian faith. Though none of my family members are devout Muslims, I spent the following 11 years trying to explain that I love my country, do not work for the CIA and have no part in plans to reinstate the Byzantine Empire. My apologetics have not been too successful as since then I regularly hear the rhetorical question; “What kind of a Turk are you?”

As my ‘Turkishness' began to be questioned by my community, I too started losing my attachment to it. I studied in East Asia for three years and then continued my studies in the UK for three more years. Having studied five different languages (and messing them all up) and traveled to more than 20 countries for research or school reasons, I must admit that I love Japanese food and Shusaku Endo more than I love lahmacun (Turkish pizza) and Murathan Mungan.

When fate and academic interest in collective memory, ethnic conflict and transitional justice put me right in the middle of Turkish-Armenian relations, my Turkishness entered a new stage.

A clumsy newspaper called Avrupa Gazetesi – Turkish but printed and distributed in Europe – published a puzzling piece about a conference in which Dr Fatma Gocek and yours truly were going to speak to lobby for the Armenian cause. I only smiled, since I not only did not know Dr Gocek, nor have ever been invited to such an event, I was not even in the UK during that time.

The correction, which Avrupa Gazetesi published, was too late to stop the ripples. Soon, a host of nationalistic websites and e-groups elaborated further with titles such as “A new addition to the list of Traitors” and I was declared to be a ‘missionary', ‘Armenian lobbyist', but most significantly a “so-called Turk”. Thanks to these nationalist groups, I learned that there are two kinds of Turks: Turks-in-essence (özde Türkler) and so-called-Turks (sözde Türkler).

Some advice!

There is a moral to my identity career. First one is practical: if you don't want to lose your ‘Turkishness' please don't follow my footsteps, it would only lead you to anomie and significant loss of social capital.

The second one is theoretical. It appears that ‘Turkishness' is defined by religious affiliation plus historical and political opinion. Though most of these nationalist groups will give wild reactions when being a Turk is reduced to being a Muslim and Islam is seen as what makes us Turks, nevertheless adherence to the official and dominant views seem to be the criteria for judging to what degree someone is a Turk.

Apparently, citizenship, place of birth, mother tongue and personal feelings of the individual towards his or her country means nothing. One's ‘Turkishness' is validated and enforced by a quasi-official criterion and its willing executors, who have the market monopoly.

If this is so, then ‘Turkishness' is an ideology which one assumes through alignment of personal opinion. As ideologies inescapably shift and modify themselves, those who are privileged to be Turks-in-essence have to continually keep up with subtle changes so as not to be kicked off the list. Thus, it is quite tiring to remain a Turk and to maintain the boundaries of ‘Turkishness'. You never know when the next de-selection will be and who will be joined to the ranks of the outcasts.

A Theology of Guantanamo Bay

Philosopher Giorgio Agamben reminds us of the Roman figure homo sacer--the Sacred Man-- who, according to the Roman law, can be killed with impunity but cannot be sacrificed to gods. His biological life is divorced from political life putting him outside of the boundaries of what constitutes a human and what the rights of that human are. He not only does not belong to the realm of the ‘human’, but neither to the reality of the gods. What is not human and what does not have a ‘value’ can not be sacrificed to gods since its sacrifice would defile the sanctity of gods. Thus, homo sacer exists only as a biological body, not as a human. A theology which ascribes such a status inevitably shapes political forms.

During the 19th and 20th centuries a similar systematisation of which biological bodies would be ascribed the status of a ‘human’ was accomplished with the marriage of theological assumptions and the ‘findings’ of science that cemented the difference between biological life and political life. Theologically, there was developed the order of creation, levels of perfection and purity, and at which of these levels the Image of God is expressed in its perfect condition. Out of this cosmic ordering, there emerged the political theology that identified the nation, its security, significance and rights with this stage of advanced human lives, whose superiority has been proved by the shape of their skulls in line with the predetermined intellectual and athletic potential of ‘races’. Thus, Jews, Gypsies, mentally and physically handicapped were nothing but mere bodies that could and should be done away with so that they won’t ‘contaminate’ us.

Now racism—that is, the exclusion of a group on perceived grounds of difference and reasons—shows itself in properties of belonging, not in scientific criteria. You are either with ‘us’ or with ‘them’. But who are ‘we’? The bearers of civilization, justice, advancement, everything that is pure, good, noble, above all ‘we’ are the bearers of the Imago Dei, the Image of God! Who are ‘they’? Political representations of ‘them’, as seen visually in media representations, are whatever ‘we’ are not: evil, destructive, barbarian, uncivilized, backward. “They” are the bearers of the Image of the Devil! Therefore let us unite around a ‘crusade’ against the devil! The reproduction of ‘we’ and ‘them’ in this most common way is a theological one.

‘We’ act politically on such a theology in the never-ending war on terror, an infinite war with no visible enemies but only a theological embodiment of who ‘they’ are. This informs our ‘right’ for pre-emptive strike to secure ‘our way of life’, and in this process we theologically allocate the death tolls as well for which lives we can mourn. Some lives are more worthy to protect, mourn and cover in the media; say one life of ‘ours’ versus 3,000 of ‘them’ that die within a month, as Judith Butler powerfully argues in her book "The Precarious Life". In this disproportionality, what we mourn is the ‘collateral damage’. The ‘sin’ is that we could not live up to the militaristic precision and skill that ‘we’ possess, not the sin that ‘we’ have reduced ‘them’ to biological lives we can kill with impunity.

If one can be killed, since one is really not a human but only that of a biological being that embodies evil, then we can easily place such a being in an ‘indefinite detention’. We don’t even have to call them Prisoners of War, or have evidences of their crimes, or deal with them in the ‘justice’ which we embody. ‘We’ can keep them outside of the political sphere of international treaties, human rights conventions and not grant them even the right of a fair trial. These are all for ‘human beings’ who carry the Image of God, not for those biological bodies that still insist on living and breathing like a ‘human’ while all along who they really are is just the Devil. And the Devil is bad!

Even if now 'we' cannot show anything they have done thus far, since evil is so integral to their ontology they will surely one day do something wrong. Keeping 'them' outside of human community is a price ‘we’ have to pay. ‘We’ do not want to do these dirty and brutal things. President Bush 'wishes' to close down Guantanamo Bay. However, sacrifices have to be made for this ‘just’ war.

Theology enters into the stage at this point and helps us to assume that we live in a 'just' world, in which people get what they deserve and if the natural events do not provide that, those who believe in 'justice' should fight to settle the accounts. Yet, this blurs the deep-seated suspicion that we do not live in a just world, but rather a fallen one, and 'justice' is never met in such a context but remains to be the exclusive property of the powerful, of 'us'. Thus this war is ‘just’ in the sense that it is just for ‘us’ the human beings. This imagined ‘we’ has to be protected at the exclusion of the ‘other’, by the grace and help of God, ‘our’ God. And surely, God is on the side of non-evil and the righteous, isn’t he?

When we turn our eyes to our God, we see his Son who stands in front of the angry crowd, declaring that he came to set the captives free, to restore the sick, poor and sinful, meaning the outcasts, back to human community. We are told he is the one that leaves all of the flock behind to go after the lost sheep and that rejoices when one of the coins which were lost is found and is returned. At the very core of his gospel lies inclusion, restoration and integration of those who have been dehumanized by the religious saints, pure ones, the civilized, ‘we’. Much of his teachings criticise the hypocrisy of those who claim to know and love God when all the while their self-righteousness blinds them from the very core of knowing and loving God.

The core which produces the Good Samaritan. The core which eats and drinks with the 'unclean', sinful, weak and sick. The core which turns the other cheek. The core which chooses to forgive, show mercy and love, rather than wage a campaign of retribution and vengeance. In fact it is this core which Nietzsche despised the most about Christian faith. He saw this Christian reaction towards revenge and retribution to be decadence. That is why he didn't find the Christian notion of God 'noble'. He saw such a God who chooses mercy, forgiveness and inclusion, as unworthy of worship.

Jesus not only declares a completely opposite theology of relating to the 'other' who may have offended us, or may have even harmed us or may do so in the future, but also demands the same attitude from his followers. His imperative brings with it an automatic judgement, one will either hear his voice and follow his call or one will continue to develop a pure and godly 'we'. One will either seek his face in the zone in which dehumanization takes place or amongst 'us' , which is in its worst form when we presume to see his face when we look into the water.

We seek him in vain in our modern-day cathedrals of glory and power and higher values. He is in the prison, with those who are hungry, naked and vulnerable. He warns us that he will hold us accountable, not because we have failed to meet him among 'us', but because we have not run to his image, the image of God, which is in prison, naked and hungry.

Jesus identifies himself not with the powerful--who presume to decide which biological lives will be given the status of a human and thus granted political rights, and which ones will be reduced to mere physical existence—but rather with the despised, with the Homo Sacer. If Jesus were caught living the vicious subversive Gospel today, he would not be on a wooden cross, since the wooden cross no longer symbolizes what it did then: the dishonouring and dehumanization of the individual in the presence of the entire city as a punishment. He would be wearing an orange jumper, living in a cage, dishonoured and dehumanized, in the presence of the entire world who behold all this on the TV screen.

It is no surprise Dietrich Bonhoeffer declared that those who do not speak for Jews have no right to sing Gregorian chants, because failing to do so – failing to stop the dehumanization and death of millions of people in impunity--contradicts the very thing, the Gospel, that the church and Christianity is based upon. When the Church forgets the core which gives birth to her with an eternal imperative to follow, all of her functions, activities and sacraments become a self-judgement and a joke like that of the king who still believes in his majesty while all along the world recognizes that he is just naked.

In a milieu such as this, the church can assume its most usual role. The church can raise funds, do advocacy and organize protests for the release of the inmates, when she recognizes that the answer to our prayers for peace on earth is actualized when she assumes her calling. Yet, this reactive role is only a temporary band-aid to deep wounds.

There is one more thing the church can do that (if she does it) has the potential to literally change the world we live in. Surprisingly, this ‘thing’ is what we speak about the most: to live the Gospel of Jesus. Perhaps it is so familiar that we are now completely blind to its implications to the post-9/11 world we live in.

What is this Gospel? It speaks of love of the neighbour, which requires trust in God and taking the risk to care for the wounded Samaritan. It promotes inclusion of the ‘other’ and the restoration of their dignity rather than exclusion and dehumanization, which Jesus sharply and repeatedly condemned. This Gospel cherishes meekness and vulnerability, of loving and caring and humbling ourselves, rather than Nietzschean visions of great politicians who embody “strength” and “determination” to establish “our security” by moving beyond good and evil. It deconstructs the metaphysical “we” and “them” and unites us in the knowledge of our interdependence, createdness, vulnerability and need of forgiveness in the presence of a Holy God.

The Gospel gives no room for concepts such as “collateral damage” or Machiavellian means. For this Gospel, every human being is precious and every human life is worth living, saving and mourning for. After all, this is exactly why Christ died on the cross. Finally, this Gospel is about forgiveness and reconciliation, rather than seeking revenge and brutal retribution.

Several years have passed since 9/11, and none of us can really say that we now live in a better and safer world. At that junction in time, the Western church had a brilliant opportunity to actualize the Gospel and change the course of history. There is a growing consensus that masculine politics which followed 9/11 are not the solution, and now talks of inclusion, forgiveness, reconciliation and meekness dominate the secular circles. And I wonder why those who have a reason for their hope still keep quiet or are unable to see the profound implications of their faith to such debates…

We need 'tamadas', not historians or lobbyists

Published in Turkish Daily News, 13 December 2007

Re-Published in French by Collectif Van as Nous avons besoin de 'tamadas*', pas d’historiens ni de lobbyistes


You don't need a PhD in rocket science to recognize the complexity of Armenian-Turkish relations and its infinite regress to the samsaric cycles of prejudice, hatred and “you act right first, then I will too” attitudes.

Within this journey to nowhere, there are two dominant voices: Those who think that if they only had more third party countries or groups siding with them, they would “win” the battle of “truth” against the “deniers” and those who think that if only they had more historical research, books and commissions, they would prove the indisputable “truth” to the shame of the revisionists.

Both of these groups presuppose that this bizarre globalized quarrel is exclusively over the “truth” of past. Yet as the dead bodies lie in silence, the ones who are fighting are present tense actors with their present tense narratives, goals, fears or anticipations. In an ironic way, the dead are still victimized by the living, who politicize and utilize their memories just as their biological bodies were politicized and utilized prior to their murders.

So, the main challenge in front of us isn't whose “truth” will get the upper hand in the international circus, but it is how, if ever, we can tease out the present politics (whether that of identity or saving the face) so that we can genuinely mourn for the dead.

No matter what one thinks, “justice” is never really met after mass atrocities, especially historical ones. Notions of retributive justice embodied by tribunals are of no use when perpetrators exist no more. In spite of the aura of “justice” which they spread, the sheer number of victims and perpetrators mean that they have to pursue a symbolic course, often only condemning key actors. Contrary to their own self-perception, they fail hard in breaking cycles of hatred and preventing future atrocities.

Similarly, cultural factors limit the effectiveness of “justice” set in the courts. For example, even though a court in the Middle East may sentence a rapist, there is a high chance that the family of the victim will not find it satisfactory and pursue a sense of a justice by ways of an “honor killing.” For this reason, wise men and women have sought to pursue culturally relevant ways of working toward justice and reconciliation.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led the famous Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, combined the African concept of ubuntu with Christian notions of confession, forgiveness and reconciliation. Tutu argued that there was no future for South Africa unless blacks and whites lived together in harmony and this could only be achieved through forgiveness.

In Rwanda, the shortcomings of Western perceptions of justice as embodied in the tribunals have been supplemented by the use of Rwandan gacaca trials. In gacaca trials, the perpetrators are reintegrated to their local communities following a traditional ceremony.

What about Armenian-Turkish relations?

There is no court system in the world that can handle this issue. To even suggest a retributive pursuit is laden with serious conceptual faults. No amount of legislation passed in third party countries will move Turks to be open to correct a past wrong doing. No “objective” history book will be able to be the final word, as collective memories, by their very own nature, remain contested and modified along with contemporary demands. So, we are in need of another solution.

Isn't there anything we can find in the Anatolian cultures that can provide us with a much more relevant way? I believe there is, though it would sound naïve to the realist and punitive “adults” reading this article.

In the Armenian culture, there is the tradition of tamadas, who are prominent men managing the procession of toasts made around a table of food and drinks. In both Turkish and Armenian cultures, sitting around a table plays an important role. It symbolizes welcoming, accommodation, fellowship and celebration. Thus, a drinking table is much more suitable for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians than a U.N. committee room.

Drinking and eating draws us together into conviviality and sharing a personal and vulnerable presence, rather than the impersonal battlefield effect of courts, commissions and assemblies. Sitting around a table with a tamada ensures that everybody's voice and wishes are heard and given equal respect.

After the third shot, one recognizes the lovability of the other enough to reach out and kiss away the personal barrier that separates us from the stranger or unwanted. The eventual procession of the toasts to a closure, when the group feels that enough toasts have been made, means that a healthy mourning process reaches freedom from a melancholic sense of loss that poisons the one trapped in the past.

To be sure, this will not satisfy those who want “revenge” or reinstatement of a mythical kingdom or lost glory or maintenance of pure and heroic pasts. Sadly, justice and reconciliation remain patchy, imperfect and limited in our clay earth. What is left to us is our humanity in its raw form.

Whether we can actualize it to the extent that we can lament together and move beyond black and white narratives of victimhood or innocence, depends not on the U.S. House of Representatives or French parliament or a scholar at Cambridge University, but only on us: Turks, Armenians and a bottle of rakı or liqueur with Mount Ararat as the background.

Is Turkey going through the birth-pains of postmodernity?

Published in Turkish Daily News, 15 November 2007

Turkish intellectuals are often bombarded with new dramas unfolding every single day. As they rush to analyze the issue at hand and propose a way forward, what they often fail to process is the broader picture and how (or whether) these events are connected to each other.

Surely, every event is inherently contextual and unique. However, as the world we live in has begun to erase the clear distinction between the local and global, it is not only that most of the local problems have roots in global realities, but also that local problems often have global effects.

There is something uniquely Turkish about the issues we face in Turkey, but at the same time there is something extremely global about them. In this article, I present to the reader a chance to step back and look at contemporary Turkey in relation to a few global trends in order to see the matrix within which the ‘daily news' emerges.

Weakening of nation states:

Though I have never belonged to the tribe of social scientists who have been preaching the end of nation states, it is true that strict and purist nation state vision has lost much of its appeal and hold at home and globally.

As nation states continue to put themselves under international law and governing bodies or banks, their claims for ‘sovereignty' and control over their ‘nation', which was once taken for granted, are no more what they once were. The Human Rights regime under which we live and the presence of international NGOs and global media remove the arbitrary power that states have.

The issue of Kurds and non-Muslims in Turkey emerges not from some international conspiracy but from the increasing difficulty of trying to implement a 19th century vision of a ‘nation' by way of assimilation and social engineering.

Disillusionment with the elites:

One of the reasons that sociologists offer for the resurgence of political Islam in many countries, which were previously thought to be set on the blissful path of secularization is the fact that secularism is interwoven with a ruling elite who often are far away from the ‘people'. The word ‘halk' in Turkish, like the word ‘people' in every language, has an underlying notion of lesser beings or the herd.

When we look at how the AK Party was able to emerge in such a short amount of time and topple down all of the traditional political elites, we see not an ‘Islamization' of Turkey but the failure of the traditional power structures of the Turkish political system. Even though our Armed Forces asked for a ‘social reflex' amidst the well-orchestrated marches ‘to save the Secular Republic', the outcome of the last elections showed how the ‘herd', in line with their kind in other national farms, is tired of being controlled.

Failure of 19th century secularism:

Classical secularism is based on three assumptions; a) the separation of the state and organized religion, b) the limitation of religious belief to the personal sphere, c) the ultimate demise of religion. This 19th century vision, which has been thought to be the direction of the future, has been largely aborted by the academia.

The resurgence of religions in politics and its strong come back in academic circles and greater society since 1960s have proven that the assumptions b) and c) do not automatically follow a), and that religion flourish and continue to play a strong role under perfect a) conditions. As the politics of Latin and North America, Africa and Asia point, religion, one the most powerful social forces today, can never be ‘tamed'.

As long as the human race exits, our longing for ‘something more' will continue to make the religious a core part of our experience and what we believe will always influence every aspect of our lives. Thus, as we have arrived at the end of ‘Enlightenment' experiment, we are in need of a completely new paradigm for how religion's power can be channeled into a better future for all of us. Interestingly, AK Party seems to be the most advanced accommodation of Islam in the contemporary world.

Loss of neat and tidy identities:

The haunting recognition that the world is not as ‘solid' as we imagined it to be inevitably leads itself to anomy, a state of no longer having a firm know-how to run a country or even be a ‘patriot'. The Turkish society is struggling to make sense of and live in a ‘liquid' world, to use Zygmunt Bauman's vocabulary. This shows itself under every rock; from the contemporary memory boom to new and dangerous civil groups trying to do something for ‘our nation'; from increasing ethnic and religious violence to the synthetic tension between the ‘secular' and the ‘religious'; and from the wide appeal of conspiracy theories to anti-US and EU feelings.

What lies behind the calls to ‘close the door to globalization' is an instinctive reaction to the possibility that we may end up as the losers at the end of this slippery century. Behind every angry outburst lies a deep fear. Yet, none of this is limited just to Turkey. We see similar tensions in most of the countries in the world.

The list of global trends affecting Turkey can be extended further. Suffice it to say, the tensions we face in Turkey are not just Turkish. Our problem is that we are trying to be ‘modern' when the global experience has shown the shortcomings and failures of the modern vision. Whether postmodernism is or can ever be a paradigm internalized by the Turkish society is open to challenge, but it is increasingly becoming clear that Turkey is trying to find local answers to global problems in an outdated early 20th century toolbox.

Rehumanizing Armenians and Turks

Published in Turkish Daily News, 12 November 2007

You are not alone if you have not heard the word ''rehumanization'' before. Unlike its twin sister ''dehumanization,'' rehumanization is not a popular tool in politics and identity construction. We would rather build identities or pursue political power by stripping the other from their humanity in order to legitimize our superiority over them. We are more inclined to demonize, discredit, and humiliate the other in order to win an argument or establish our ''rights'' over theirs. Rehumanization is restoring the other's dignity and humanity and attributing the other the same rights ''we'' have or demand. Without rehumanization, there can never be reconciliation simply because without accepting each other as human beings and acknowledging the other's voice, we can never expect that the other will hear our pain and concerns and be moved by it to act unselfishly. Dehumanization is plentiful in Armenian-Turkish relations as each side still wages war for the exclusive rights to be heard. That is why debating sides tend to channel their energy only to disprove the other's historical account in order to prove the world how ''immoral'' or ''deceptive'' the other is.

'Subversive Armenians' :

I was never interested in Armenians or what may have happened during the fall of Ottoman Empire. What I knew was what I read on the papers (just like most people in Turkey); Armenians seek to represent the issue internationally with the obvious desire to achieve acknowledgement of Armenian deaths as genocide, in order to receive financial reparations from Turkey and ultimately to claim and have some parts of eastern Turkey incorporated into modern day Armenia. To be fair, some extreme –but thankfully few– individuals or groups in diaspora have made comments which seem to prove this interpretation of why Armenians are so aggressive about the issue. When this perception was combined with our firm belief in official histories and commitment to the welfare of our nation, there was no room left to hear what Armenians were trying to communicate. Then one day, I found myself on a trip to Armenia and Karabakh. Thousands of scenarios went through my mind and none of them was about receiving hospitality. After two weeks, I found myself crying in a church in Karabakh and embracing a new Armenian friend. The same night, I remember crying more around a dinner table dominated by vodka shots and toasts for a better future. I was finally able to see who lives on the other side of Mount Ararat; not a group of conspirators with a mischievous plan, but a group of broken and hopeful people. Since then, ''Armenians'' isn't an abstract category for me. The tension between us have been rehumanized and made flesh and blood.

'Evil Turks' :

Sadly, I was also about to crush into misconceptions and blatant fantasies of some Armenians about Turks. For example, there is something profoundly disturbing about Vahakn Dadrian, a prominent Armenian scholar. He continues to hold essentialist views, which argue that there is something inherent about being a Turk and a Muslim, which makes Turks the most suitable people to commit genocide, even though social sciences have concluded unanimously that there is no ''race'' as such and that ethnic violence occurs regardless of ''race,'' religion, class, gender and education. Less sophisticated versions of such a faulty framework can be heard regularly in layman's terms. If my memory does not fail me, I do not remember seeing a section in the memorial in Yerevan like the one in Yad Vashem– the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, dedicated to ''righteous among the nations.'' The phrase refers to non-Jews who risked their lives for protecting Jews. It is a simple yet profound way of rehumanizing a past conflict by showing the humanity found in both ends of the story. Aren't there Turks who have risked their lives protecting their neighbours and friends? An Armenian friend once replied to me by saying “only a handful, most of them did so for their own benefits.” In a single stroke, whatever they have done was relativized and stripped off its humanity. Thus, we are back to the black and white narrative of ''Evil Turks.'' A narrative not limited to then but also to now; Turks as an a-historical, unchanging, monolithic entity, burning with eternal hatred of Armenians. Ironically, the same people who ascribe a deterministic and decadent ontology to Turks also demand from them an unselfish moral act to own a crime that was committed by distant actors in their history and has dire social and economic implications.

The sad fact is though each side pays lips service to acknowledging that ''some Armenians'' may have been killed or Armenians ''may have killed'' some in rebellions, retaliations and pointless and immoral ASALA terror, very few people genuinely mourn the pain we have caused on each other, not just the pain ''we'' suffered. Even though bookshelves and columns are full of words about the other, in actuality we have very little knowledge of what the other thinks or feels. A significant portion of diaspora Armenians and intellectuals have a minimum if no real contact with Turkey or any Turks. Their prescriptive comments often signal the failure of self-referential deductions they make, which do not really correspond to the complicated reality of modern Turkey. Ultra-nationalistic and at times racist comments only serve to deafen Turkish ears, and fuel nationalistic sentiments that disregard Armenians all together. After all, only a small portion of Turks has any real contact with Armenians and the complexities of different Armenian voices and how much the past continues to hurt them.