Wanted: Stories of Turks who saved their Armenian Neighbors

Published in Turkish Daily News, 15 September

The 20th century is full of things that we wish never happened, but they happened and nothing can undo them. Even though both Plato and Nietzsche urged us to start tabula rasa with a mighty and necessary lie that will enable the youth to forget the past completely, we know all too well that what is left in oblivion is always more present than we would ever want it to be. Forgetting is not an option, if not impossible, but mere remembering alone does not guarantee that things will happen “never again.” The battle we need to fight is not only against “too much forgetting” and “too much remembering,” both of which destroy the present and any chance of a better future, but also against how and what we remember.

“Righteous Gentiles”:

I don't remember at what age I first came to learn about the Holocaust, but I vividly remember what I felt when I read each page Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi and Viktor Frankl wrote. As my academic interests took me deeper into genocides and ethnic violence, my realization that normal people like me had turned out to be mass murderers has shaken my trust completely in my own and human beings' goodness. However, it was also within the same darkness that I have come to find hope in the deep and profound human potential to love and sacrifice for the other.

Hanna Arendt recounted the story of a German soldier, Anton Schmid, who disobeyed his orders and helped the rescue of 250 Jews till his execution by the Nazis. In his last letter to his wife, Schmid told her that he “merely behaved as a human being” when he risked his own life. After sharing the effect of listening to the story of Schmid during the Eichmann trial, Arendt noted; “How utterly different everything would have been in Israel, in Germany, in all of Europe, and perhaps in all countries of the world, if only more such stories could have been told."

This is exactly what Holocaust memorials have tried to do. With the Jewish concept of ‘Righteous Gentiles', Jews have found the moral backbone to not only remember the destruction and brutality but also the great courage and virtue that has been showed by non-Jews in risking their own lives to save their Jewish neighbors. There is a section dedicated to them in memorial sites, and Holocaust movies almost always include helpful Gentile characters.

While remembering the human truth in all of its beauty and darkness at the same time, the memory of the Holocaust has moved from being exclusively a Jewish memory. It is now the memory of our old race, the memory of the moment that humanity failed, not just Nazi Germany. It's because it has shifted from being exclusively a memory of ‘perpetrator Nazis' killing ‘Jews', both Jews and Germans and all of us can mourn together for what has happened.

'‘Righteous Turks':

I similarly don't remember when I first came to hear about massacres of Armenians, but I remember how I cried in the memorial in Yerevan for hours for all that has happened. I still shiver with pain each time I see pictures and hear stories of families scattered around the world. However, as I continued to read and reflect on memorial practices and sites, I have come to be increasingly worried that there were hardly any mention of ‘righteous Turks'- Turks who risked their lives to save their Armenian friends or even complete strangers – in the literature and commemorations. This is disturbing, given that a significant portion of Armenians who survived deportations would testify to the roles played by such Turkish friends in their escapes.

Failure to acknowledge the presence of these people not only betrays the truthfulness of the recollected accounts, but also reduces a historical event to its darkest moment without showing us all of its complexities. This failure automatically prepares the ground for dehumanization and stereotyping, which would have us believe the opposite of what we all know about the human condition: the line separating good and evil goes through the heart of each individual and given the right set of conditions we - regardless of race, nationality, gender, education, class and religion – are all vulnerable to commit the most grotesque violence against our neighbors.

For this reason, I have personally begun a web-based initiative, named Project Common Humanity, or PCH, to gather the untold stories of courage, virtue and sacrifice. My humble and limited attempt is in no way meant to undermine the suffering of the victims or even getting involved in debates on whether or not what happened was genocide. My only desire is that as we remember not only the pain but also the human beauty, we will come to see what happened under the broken shadow of Ararat not in terms of ‘Armenians' and ‘Turks', but as ‘our story'.

So if you know any such story, published or not, please consider sharing it with all of us. Visit PCH's amateurish blog and send your stories in Turkish or English. And join me to celebrate what unites us in an age that is obsessed with fixing what separates us.

Shiny Olympics shouldn't disguise China's dark reality

Published in Turkish Daily News, 1 September

I still remember the inquisitive looks of the Chinese students who listened carefully to a presentation I gave on Turkey while I was doing a course at a university in central China. Following a few relatively legitimate questions, one postgraduate student left me answerless (if there is such a word in English). With confidence and a heavy accent he asked; “what are the Chinese influences in Turkey?”

This was some 7 years ago and there were hardly any Chinese present in Turkey, only a handful of odd Chinese restaurants in the big cities. When I explained that we did consume Chinese products, but that there is really no tangible Chinese influence or involvement in Turkey, his tone turned sharper and more aggressive. He said; “surely there are Chinese communities, towns, businessmen and Chinese government investments in Turkey.” And subjected me to a tiresome mini-lecture on Chinese civilization and what great inspiration it has been for people in the world. Having been almost beaten up by two drunk Chinese men the night before, who thought I was an American, I humbly accepted that China rules!

What the Olympics showed:

All throughout the Beijing 2008 Olympics, I kept thinking about that postgraduate student. What did he make of the Olympics? Or more importantly, what do the millions of educated and increasingly dangerous patriotic Chinese youth see the international legacy of the Beijing Olympics to be? Has the world bowed down in front of the raising Dragon? Has the Middle-Kingdom (literal translation of the Chinese word for China; Zhonguo) finally assumed the central position it has always thought itself to deserve? Yes and No, but mostly No!

China has showed us that it can deliver the cookies, meet the deadlines and meet all expected infrastructure standards to a good quality. Great Britain, still haunted with the memories of Wembley Stadium and the Millennium Dome, will struggle to match the Chinese success on this front.

China has showed us that it has a remarkable amount of money it can dispose of for an event. That's one thing the UK will never be able to do, as the British public will never accept their government spending 25 billion pounds on an ego boost. It is already struggling to justify its humble 9 billion pound budget, which is higher than the initial estimations.

China has showed us that is has a remarkable amount of human resources it can dispose of with great control. Zhang Yimou, the artistic mind behind the opening and closing ceremonies, noted rather proudly that after North Korea, only the Chinese had the skills to perform such mass choreographies that we saw. According to the renowned director, Westerners lack the necessary discipline. I am not sure if it can ever be a point of pride to declare that only the country who can top China with its social management skills is a country with work (read death) camps and absolute totalitarian brutality.

Behind the scenes:

China showed us that it can be, or at least attempt to be, trendy, cool and warm, in its own way and with its own charm. But China has also inevitably showed us the face behind the mask. The computer animated fireworks and the cute girl lip-syncing the next-door-neighbors-kid's voice are the simplest confirmations that short term beautifying projects can't wipe away long-term ugliness.

Before, during and after the Olympic Games, the Chinese police detained, harassed, ‘cracked down' on, and forcefully removed from their homes those subversive people who stubbornly continued to insist on being treated as human beings. Others were banned from entering Beijing all together. The Chinese activists, religious leaders, and victims, who gave interviews to international media, disappeared after the interviews. The Tibet issue has always been the sexiest of the human rights issues in China, yet so much suffering was airbrushed over during the Olympics.

China's horrible domestic human rights track record, extremely dark and aggressive involvement in Africa and the dodgy backing of all possible dodgy countries of the world remain unshaken. So, after all that has been said and done, the arguments that the Olympics might bring an improvement on the human rights situation and force a maverick country into genuine relationship with the rest of the world have been washed away with that famous itsy-bitsy spider.

The outcome of the other main argument, that the Olympics and the number of foreign visitors to the country will help in opening the eyes of the Chinese society, has yet to prove itself true or be declared hallow. Given the internet terror launched by patriotic Chinese hackers and the self-gratification that the completion of the games without any major glitch gave birth to, it seems that none of the reactions against the Olympic torch or concerns of the international community have gone deeply under the skin.

The global public opinion, which has an extremely short memory span, will mainly remember the amazing World Records we witnessed, and then every now and then the magnificent opening ceremony. It is the sport - athletes and athletic achievements that makes the Olympics what it is, not the excess of narcissism maintenance efforts of its temporary host. To that extent, the legacy of the Beijing Olympics will always be remembered as ‘that Olympics where we have seen the super-human beings who ran and swam way faster than we could have imagined.

Egyptian zebibas and Turkish headscarves

Published in Turkish Daily News, 18 August 2008

Religiosity is quite difficult to measure. Is it the wearing of religious symbols that shows how deep a society is religious? Can you measure what role a religion plays in a society by keeping records of attendance throughout the years and come to the conclusion that high attendance means high religiosity and low attendance low religiosity?

This has been the case for studying religiosity in Europe. Attendance -- or lack of it -- to official churches was taken as proof that religious belief was in decline, almost non-existent. Yet, religion in contemporary Europe proves that although attendance to traditional churches has fallen along with the trust of Europeans of any authority and institution, religious beliefs have modified themselves and given birth to “belief without belonging” and non-traditional forms. It appears that God has not died after all; it's just that our measurements have been faulty and religious beliefs still play a significant role across Europe.

A similar problem of measurement emerges when we try to assert that Islam is rising or falling in a given country. Is it the number of people at the mosque? Or the number of people who wear headscarves? Given the fact that all women wear headscarves in Iran, can we conclude that Iranian society is deeply Islamic? Given that under the Taliban every man prayed regularly and attended the mosque, can we conclude that Afghan society was full of devout Muslims? In both cases, enforced practices are in no way true reflections of how deeply Islam is internalized.

Measuring religion in Turkey

This fundamental problem in social scientific research has serious implications for ongoing arguments about the “rise of Islam” in Turkey. There are two types of evidence used to argue that Turkey is becoming more Islamic: anecdotal and quantitative. Anecdotal evidence is made up of personal stories of the daughters of friends, who went “undercover” overnight or of foreigners who have been coming to Turkey every couple of years and say they feel people are more religious now. Quantitative evidence is the result of surveys that present a percentage for the broader society based upon data found through studying small populations, such as questionnaires showing us what percentage of respondents want Shariah rule in Turkey.

Anecdotal evidence is always problematic as it is driven from a small sample wearing subjective lenses and drawing subjective conclusions. Where I live, whom I know or what I am worried about may easily define what I see or think about Islam, which may never reflect the full picture accurately. Quantitative research suffers from similar weaknesses in design and outcome, but the most important issue is that the data itself is hardly conclusive.

It is true that quantitative studies as well as anecdotal narrations show us, with a serious margin of error and no authoritative percentage, that the numbers of women who wear headscarves in Turkey has increased. Yet, those who conclude that these data on their own prove the indisputable fact that theocracy is on its way shall not rejoice that quickly.

Egyptian zebiba

Allow me to show the problem with this premature conclusion by comparing Turkey with Egypt. Almost every year, I travel to Egypt and realize the increasing number of men, especially young, who have dark spots on their foreheads. These are called “zebiba,” and it is claimed that a life of prayer leads to visible marks on the spot where the head touches the prayer mat during Islamic prayers.

So, the increase in the number of “zebibas” should ipso facto mean the increase of religiosity among Egyptian men. However, I never see “zebibas” in any other Muslim country, but only in Egypt. Also, “zebibas” are increasing especially among young men, signaling the possibility that the traditional assertion of lifelong devotion is short-circuited by the youth. Honest conversations with Egyptians show further that most men use certain prayer mats and work “extra hours” to burn their skin so they can be accepted by the Muslim Brotherhood and find socioeconomic support.

This rational investment in “zebiba” points out that when religious groups gain social significance and individuals can benefit from association with them, human beings will learn to play the game in line with their own calculations of cost and benefit.

Turkish Headscarves

A similar point can be made about headscarves in Turkey. The quantitative “facts” that headscarves are increasing but the number of people who want Shariah rule in Turkey is still less than 10 percent, signal a significant problem with those who read the headscarf data as undeniable evidence of a Turkish retrogression to Iran. In many ways, the power-center change that came with the Justice and Development, or AK, Party has developed a new elite. Until recently employment, economic opportunities and state “favor” demanded one kind of affiliation; now the new game in town demands another. So the rise in headscarves might also be seen as a “rational social-economic investment” not reflective of deep religiosity.

On the other hand, one cannot deny that on some other levels Islam is gaining a fresh popularity in Turkey. Turkish Islam is increasingly becoming attractive on its own terms. When it is juxtaposed with other Islams across the world, it is the most dynamic, and believe it or not, secular, modern and pragmatic expression of the Islamic faith today. Ironically, Turkish Islam owes its regeneration and modernization to Ataturk's legacy and the current failures of Turkish politics and globalization..

The Turkish Fog of Morality

Published in Turkish Daily News, 9 August 2008

In Thailand, I am told, bits of the movies which are deemed too sexual or immoral are not cut out as in other countries, but only blurred. Thus the viewer stares at a misty screen for the duration of the "improper" scenes. This interesting form of censorship, some sort of a fog of morality, ironically mystifies what the viewer cannot watch and eroticizes even the most common and boring expressions of sexuality we have grown accustomed to seeing on the big screen.

A European friend living in Bangkok recently expressed her displeasure of having to watch some scenes of the movie "Sex and the City" blurred. It is quite interesting that although "Sex and the City" has a quite low age certification in Europe, in Thailand, the country that serves as the capital of sex tourism and most crooked sensualities, relatively mild scenes of the movie are deemed "improper"

Coverage of dark rumors:

This disparity between what goes on in broad day light and shown in public, as well as blurring of a scene as a form of censorship, provides us with a quite helpful metaphor in conceptualizing the bizarre show Turkish politics have performed for the last two years.

These have indeed been confusing, polarizing and intense times. Yet, after all that has been said and done, what is new or unheard of with shady political and militant organizations, men in uniforms dreaming of a comeback to direct power, different classes and elites fighting for the upper hand, saucy theories involving foreign intelligence agencies and doomsday scenarios? The only difference is that this time around the battles have been fought in front of Turkish society and the international media. For the first time, perhaps, the dirtiest elements of the futile dynamics of Turkish politics have been exhibited in public and debated ad nauseam. What we always knew but never spoke and named became spoken and named out loud.

There are two reasons why age-old diseases became such public sensations. First of all, freedoms of expression and press have come a long way in this country and led to the unprecedented coverage of dark rumors, which would have meant the end of media outlets and journalists just six or eight years ago. Thus, perhaps for the first time in Turkey, the media has become so fragmented and independent that no particular group could claim absolute control over what was to be made public or what kind of interpretation would be the mainstream or official one.

This positive development has led to the second reason. The same inevitable information outpouring has created an imperative for interest groups to manipulate what is being shown on the screen. If one cannot stop the leak, one might as well try to control the flow or spin the reports towards the desired direction. Enigmatic statements by retired officers, allusions and indirect messages from the politicians, off record and quite broad information given by state officials, leaked memos and phone conversations have completely blurred the scene with a cacophony of partial or misinformation.

Different domestic media outlets have continued to cover Ergenekon and AK Party trials and Laicism versus Islam debates through their own political inclinations and what little "special information" has been given to them by their big brothers. Foreign media have read Turkey through their own domestic lenses of integration of Muslim immigrants, EU accession and unknown future of political and militant Islam.

Just like in the Thai one, the Turkish fog of morality has only resulted in mystifying the mundane power games and political pressures. Both domestic and foreign observers have been captivated and fixated with the blurred colors on the screens. Although the scene that has been censured was nothing sexier than what we have always seen, the viewers' sensuality has been aroused by the showing of a tiny bit of political skin - enough to catch our attention but not enough to satisfy our curiosity.

Just as a brief glimpse of a bra in a business meeting can excite a man more than seeing topless beach goers, the limited information we had access to provided enough sensuality for commentators to imagine wild fantasies.

Mundane and boring:

Turkey was becoming Iran. The same people who were concerned about a sneaky shari'a imposition declared Islam and the Turkish nation to be under attack from Western missionaries, who were after a sneaky mass conversion of Turkey into a Christian nation. President Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan were ‘exposed' to be Jews, not "Islamists" as they look to be. "Learned" foreign observers foresaw civil war or an imminent military show down, and declared the notion of a Muslim majority democratic country a myth. In the middle of all of this, we have become children lost in a "forest of symbols,” as Baudelaire put it.

The current episode in the unfolding Chronicles of Türkiye is neither the last battle nor the most dramatic twist we have witnessed in the story of our adolescent Republic thus far. When the current fog of morality is lifted, our arousals cool off and we are able to reconstruct what we have not been allowed to see, we might all be quite disappointed with how mundane and boring the blurred scenes actually were.

Do Western women deserve what they get?

Published in Turkish Daily News, 28 July 2008

Not long ago, when I was still a budding postgraduate sociology student, I was thrilled to see a stand by the Muslim Society in the middle of the tiny road that is the “campus” of the London School of Economics. The stand was attended by a group of Muslim women covered in the hijab, who were asking those passing by to try one on to see for themselves how it felt.

I was fascinated by the creativeness of these women, who, I thought, were trying to challenge misconceptions about Muslim women in the West. I approached them with sincere appreciation and questions about their experiences during the day. After a couple of minutes of conversing, one of the girls told me a story, which shook me to my bones.

A dark story:

She was returning home late via a dark road. Right in front of her walked three white British girls, drunk and wearing miniskirts. A group of British men started verbally abusing the girls and asking them aloud for sexual favors. The drunken girls were rightfully petrified and did their best to run away. Then, my new Muslim friend reflected on the experience and pointed out that the men had not disturbed or said anything to her. She then proceeded with a passionate exhortation that if these girls had been more virtuous -- meaning covered -- they would not have ended up in that situation and that it was for this reason that rape was so common in the West. In other words, Western women were asking for it.

I have in fact heard and read this bizarre idea frequently in the Islamic world, but to face it in the middle of one of the most prestigious universities in the world was mere horror. As I struggled hard to control my temper, I pointed out to her that rape was as common, if not more, in the East as in the West, just as homosexuality, corruption and domestic violence were. I shared with her how the majority of the satellite pornographic channels were geared toward an Arabic audience, and how every computer at every Internet cafe I had used in the Islamic world was full of pornographic images in their browsing histories. In response to this I was told that I had been reading too much propaganda and that these were all lies. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who believes that there are no homosexuals in Iran, would be proud of her.

An Islamophobic liar?:

The worst thing, I continued to argue, was that even though rape is as common in the East as it is in the West, at least a woman has access to justice and protection in the latter. And one of the reasons why rape cases seem common is that actually women can and do report them in the West. I also added that premarital sex, prostitution and use of drugs were equally common in the Muslim world as any other place. Following this rebuttal, another girl manning the stand fell just short of naming me an Islamophobic liar. However, my criticism had nothing to do with Islam, but rather with problems in countries with a dominant Muslim population, which, according to the ladies’ faulty rationale, should have none of the things I pointed out. Having consumed all logic, truth and sincerity, I walked away truly disturbed.

To be fair, we are all vulnerable of falling into the trap of deeply believing in our own moral, cultural and intellectual superiority over those that are not one of “us.” Concepts such as ethnocentrism and logocentrism express inherent attitudes we all have, which blinds many of us to seeing the value of other people we share this fragile planet with. So in one sense to see the West as completely corrupt because it is not Islamic is not too far from the mistakes of those who see Muslims as violence-seeking, uncultured people trapped in the Middle Ages. Being aware of our own failures provides us with empathy towards those in whom we see our own weaknesses. There are serious problems in Western societies and none of us can blindly defend them. However, the problem in the Islamic world is not just that such reductionist and unethical representations of people from developed countries are seen as naked truths, but that they are hardly challenged by fellow mature Muslims.

What needs to be done?:

Whether this can be attributed to a religious cognitive dissonance (the disparity between what one believes about her community and where that community sits on a more realistic scale), a shame and honor worldview (believing that it is more important is to save face and have a good name, while not confessing or honestly acknowledging any shortcoming), or a mere inferiority complex (Muslim societies are often at the bottom of the economic, political and social development lists and hold a deeply internalized belief that they deserve to be at the top, believing they are not there because of the “Evil West,” but at least they can claim to be morally superior), is quite irrelevant.

If Muslims, particularly those living in Europe and North America, want to counterbalance the negative image of Islam brought upon their communities due to actual actions of extremists and less educated co-religionists in far-away lands, the least helpful attitude they could demonstrate is to adorn themselves with languages of perceived moral superiority over a “morally bankrupt” West. They would earn our genuine respect and adoration if they stop preaching feeble apologetic and aggressive sermons to us and actually combat serious social ills that drain the soul of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and humbly address serious problems their communities have in integrating with Western societies.

Defamation of Islam and denial of human rights abuses

Published in Turkish Daily News, 14 July 2008

Something extremely important has been happening at the highest levels of international diplomacy and human rights mechanisms without much public attention. A series of resolutions, named “combating defamation of religions,” have been passed at the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Human Rights Council for the last couple of years following intense lobbying by the Organization of Islamic Conference, or OIC. The resolution was first drafted as a stand against “defamation of Islam” and for obvious political reasons it has been adopted as “combating defamation of religions.” However, the text still singles out Islam and seeks to protect Islam from any accusations of or association with human rights abuses.

Ways nations deny human rights abuses:

At its face value, the resolution asks for mutual understanding, respect and condemnation of racism and marginalization. Leaving aside the important questions of whether respect can be legislated or dictated, whether criticism of a religion counts as a human rights abuse or breach of international law, or whether in fact Islam is in such a vulnerable place that it needs legal shields more than other religions, a further probe may prove that what the OIC is trying to do is not to protect Islam, but its own member states.

Denial of human rights abuses always goes hand in hand with committing them. As Stan Cohen points out, these denials can be literal - i.e. nothing like that happened; interpretive - i.e. something has happened but it isn't what you say it is; implicatory – i.e. it happened but we are not the ones to be blamed. We hear these kinds of arguments all the time. “Our country does not torture, this is a false accusation.” “It is true that the suspects were arrested, but they were not tortured, only questioned.” “We are at war with terrorists, though measures have to be taken, who are you to accuse us?” In the age of global media and nongovernmental organizations, literal denial is almost impossible as sooner or later the truth emerges.

This has made the jobs of governments quite difficult and led them to develop extremely sophisticated arguments that spin and reinterpret the emerged truth. Yet, it seems that the Middle Eastern and Asian governments still favor either literal denial, even though there is solid evidence, or implicatory denial through which they launch an aggressive attack on those who challenge their human rights track record.

It is interesting that these governments have always picked on contemporary Western liberal languages while shamelessly covering the mistreatment of their own citizens. When the liberal analysis focused on ethics of interventionism, these governments accused the U.N., United States and European countries of “interventionism” and disrespecting their sovereignty. When Orientalism was named as a fantasy, any Western government, NGOs, writer or journalist who criticized certain nations, they were accused of essentialism and caricaturing the Middle East as “barbarian.” When Western intelligentsia's sensitivity toward reductionism and racism along with political correctness and fear of further clashes led to at times uncritical endorsement of the language of “Islamophobia,” these governments were quick to use this as a way of covering up their traces.

A religion cannot commit human rights abuses:

So now, the final act of using Western sensitivities for denial of human rights abuses is the seeming call for “respect” and the fight against “the defamation of Islam.” With this argument any criticism of governments and their immoral police and intelligence officers is portrayed, manipulated and represented as an attack on Islam. Given the political climate we live in, none of us would ever want to be accused of such a dangerous “crime.” However, just as literal or interpretive denial might seem smart but very feeble at the first serious counter argument, the arguments of “defamation of Islam” are equally feeble.

A religion cannot commit human rights abuses, since a religion is an abstraction and not a living entity. Human rights abuses are committed by individuals and only individuals are legally culpable. Therefore, if one condemns human rights abuses committed by the Saudi police, what is criticized is not Islam, but particular individuals who live in a certain location and time. In order to get rid of the “headache” created by human rights arguments, Saudi Arabia might declare that Islam is being attacked and defamed. In this way, Islam is instrumentalized to shield against the truth of moral failure of individuals.

The freedom of expression definitely has its limits. We have seen how marginalizing and making reports by the media scapegoats have played a key role in dehumanizing the mass murders of thousands of people in Rwanda and Kosovo. We have to continually fight against racism and its dissemination for the greatest and most absolute ethical imperative: Protecting human life. However, when arguments for limiting freedom of expression contradict the same ethical imperative, we should be speaking and criticizing as loud as we can. If a country or a people abuses its minorities and put their lives at risk, we should (and must) boldly challenge them, even though they might easily argue that our criticism is portrayed as “insulting,” “disrespecting” or “defaming” them. Failure to do so is to willingly sacrifice the living human being at the altar of abstractions, imagined communities and created ideologies.

Rights for all:

Those who read my writings would know; I defend the rights of Muslim women to wear what they wish as much as I defend the rights of non-Muslim women to wear what they wish. I speak about Guantanamo Bay and human rights abuses suffered by Muslims under the “war on terror” as loudly as I can for the same reason I will continue to speak as loudly as I can when Muslim nations commit horrible atrocities. Just as I refuse to accept guilt when my Western friends accuse me of “defending terrorists,” I will forever reject any accusations that I am defaming Islam. I am only, and proudly, defaming a particular political regime and fighting to protect the human.

Fethullah Gülen versus Ayatollah Khomeini?

Published in Turkish Daily News, 30 June 2008

Last week, Fethullah Gülen, the leader of one of the most dynamic and influential religious movements in Turkey, was acquitted of the charge of undermining the secular Republic, which had led to his moving to the United States. Although it is not clear when and if Gülen will ever return to Turkey, an increasing number of Turkish and a small number of foreign commentators are drawing parallels between Gülen and Khomeini and arguing that Gülen’s return might lead to the much-feared overnight metamorphosis of Turkey into an Iran.

A faulty comparison:

From a purely sociological point of view, what I find phenomenal about this comparison is not the theoretical richness it offers us for reading contemporary Turkey in conversation with Iran, or even the content of its analysis, but why this argument is made in the first place. The social context of why it is so fashionable to compare Turkey with Iran, and every now and then with Malaysia, says more about the politics of fear and failures of Turkish democracy than an imagined nightmare that Turkey is about to wake up to. Neither Iran nor Khomeini is a helpful comparison for Turkish politics or the future of political Islam in Turkey. Evoking Iran only pollutes a healthy analysis and encourages extremely reductionist discourses. Leaving aside its political misuse, any comparison between two countries is fundamentally faulty.

The first serious mismatch between Khomeini and Gülen is the overall political context. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 did not happen because of Khomeini or his return. The dynamics of the economy, poor governance and foreign intervention had led to a wide reaction against the Shah’s regime, uniting the voices of leftists, communists, clerics and apolitical middle-class merchants. The eventual clerical manipulation of the revolution and imposition of theocracy were unexpected outcomes of a reaction to a failed political regime.

Today’s Turkey is nowhere near as fragile as Iran was in 1977-79, nor is there such a unanimous or clear-cut feeling of reaction against the rulers of the land, or even a consensus on who is actually at the root of the problem. The fact that the AK Party is in power with 47 percent of the vote makes it impossible to have an overnight revolution or instant change, as Turkish society is divided almost evenly and no group can declare unchallenged dominance.

The second mismatch is seen in contrasting the appeal Khomeini had and Gülen has in their respective societies. Within the political vacuum that lacked a credible and trusted political figure, Khomeini eventually emerged as representing authenticity, faithfulness to Persian culture and values, virtue and humility, in stark comparison to the Shah and his elitist excesses. His political language, with its religious and socialist tunes, connected with the broad revolutionary imaginations of the people. That is why his return to Iran from exile initially appealed to everyone. Similarly, the notions of Mahdi, the anticipated return of the Hidden Imam added a Messianic aura to his arrival in Tehran on a French jumbo jet.

Gülen will not return to a society that is expecting him as the Savior or the true representation of Turkishness or the antidote to current political failures. Although it is true that Gülen’s imminent return would cause tensions, it would only be tensions created by political interest groups which would use his presence for their own ends, rather than a unanimous welcome that would lead to the overtaking of the country. Although the Gülen movement will increasingly become one of the most powerful social and political Islamic voices in Turkey, at the moment there is no evidence that the movement has plans for a concrete recreation of or enforcement of a new political system. For now, the movement seems to be resolved to influence society and politics with a tolerant, conservative and traditional Islamic faith.

The third mismatch is the difference between Shiite and Sunni Islam. One of the questions that has always troubled observers of the Islamic world is why there has only been one Islamic revolution, and that in Iran, a Shiite country, and nowhere else. Although some have unconvincingly argued that the reactionary roots of the Shiite faith have created a more aggressive political theology, this idea completely contradicts different voices and eras in Shiite theology, which have categorically rejected participation in mundane politics.

However, there is an important element of the Shiite faith that always makes it a powerful social force, which is the strong structural relationship and hierarchy between the clerics and their followers. Sunni Islam is closer to Protestant Christianity in its autonomous, scattered and organic nature, whereas Shiite Islam is closer to Eastern Orthodox Christianity with its hierarchical, structured and multiple leadership roles. This is why a single Sunni Muslim leader can never hold the same social power and unquestioned following that a Shiite leader might attract. Thus it would be very difficult for Gülen to exercise power and enforce a vision like Khomeini was able to.

Allow me to put it boldly: The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was only possible due to unique factors enabling it to happen, not because of Islam. Even though it has presented itself in the language of a return to Islam and authenticity, it was the first modern revolution that used modern political concepts, such as the nation state, along with modern tools of social mobilization and participation and previously unknown theological concepts such as the rule of righteous jurist. As the age of such political revolutions has died along with the Cold War, and the global realities make such sentiments almost impossible to actualize, I think it is reasonable to argue that there will never be an Islamic revolution in the Middle East again.

Egypt, a better comparison:

Yet what might happen, in Turkey and across the region, is a strong polarization between Western-style governance (widely referred to as “secular”) and the populist appeal of Islamism amidst the socially and economically depraved masses and disillusioned middle classes and the intense fight for power, control, dominance and influence this would translate into. We already see this in a host of Muslim majority nations, such as Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

However, Sunni Egypt is the most likely scenario that Turkey will find itself in, whether in its weak economy, failure of a mature democracy, weakening influence of modernist secular politics, increasing mainstream political participation of Islamist groups, collapse of rule of law and willful breaking of international law. Somehow, I have not come across any comparative analysis of Turkey and Egypt and no fearful column asking whether or not Turkey will become like Egypt. For me this possible outcome is a lot more worrying than the mythical Persian narratives.

Rendition: Nothing new under the CIA's sun

Published in Turkish Daily News, 16 June 2008

Thanks to a few amateur plane watchers across Europe, we the mortals, who have no direct access to top secret deals and documents, have caught a tiny glimpse of the CIA's rendition program. Our knowledge of the program still draws from investigations of independent researchers and human rights organizations as well as testimonies of the small portion of detainees who have been released.

We can only speculate on the scope of the CIA's operations, but from what we can be certain of, there are two elements to rendition. The first one is the kidnapping of terror suspects globally by CIA teams or arrests of suspects in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US armed forces or ally Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The captives are held as “enemy combatants” in indefinite and incommunicado detention.

CIA's black sites:

Besides known military facilities where they are imprisoned, such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, airbases in Afghanistan, and the British island Dieogo Garcia in the Indian Ocean, there are secret prisons, referred to as “black sites” in official documents, which are run by the CIA in Eastern Europe, Africa and South East Asia with full cooperation or silent acceptance of local governments.

Reprieve, a British human rights group, recently pointed out the existence of military and civilian ships that are used as jails. Reprieve estimates that there are as many as 17 floating prisons wandering in international waters. This was a whispered rumor, but now it is being said publicly with the support of first hand testimonies of released detainees.

However, the most cunning (and immoral) policy the Bush administration has backed is outsourcing torture and imprisonment. In this headache-free approach, an ally country in the Middle East or South East Asia arrests and detains individuals in co-operation with the CIA. The subcontracted countries are already known for their notorious human rights abuses. Therefore, it is not the CIA who tortures or the U.S. Government who violates international law, but a third country (or employees of private security firms) presumes full legal culpability while the U.S. intelligence officers gather “vital intelligence” in “the war against terror.”

Although we have no knowledge of active participation of the United Kingdom in kidnappings, sadly it is clear that the U.K., and Germany, have benefited from the CIA's dirty activities, used the intelligence gathered through rendition and even allowed their citizens to be kept in horrible conditions. We do not know if Turkey has ever been involved in rendition. However, given the tensions that the Iraq invasion caused in Turkey and the refusal of the Turkish Parliament to grant right of passage to American troops heading for Iraq, it would be safe to argue that Turkey have not partaken of this scheme. It is, however, possible that the CIA planes carrying captives have used civilian and military airbases in Turkey without notifying the Turkish state.

Crime by government:

Whether an individual is directly kidnapped and kept by the CIA or by a third country, a captured prisoner has no real legal rights, protection, a clear end to his suffering or a chance to seek justice when it becomes clear that he may have been kept because of a mistake and that he might be innocent. The entire program is a serious breach of international law and denies individuals their most basic and non-negotiable rights in their arrests, detention, grotesque treatment and denial of access to legal representation and fair judicial process.

Their imprisonment in ambiguous lands out side of the U.S. or on floating boats on international waters have removed their access to the U.S. courts, thus any chance of keeping U.S. intelligence agencies accountable for gross human rights abuses they have committed. Alas, last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees have the legal right to access U.S. courts. What this ruling practically means and whether or not this will apply to all of the ghost prisoners in detention across the world remains ambiguous.

We will never know how many people have been victims of this policy. Reprieve claims that currently the United States is detaining 26,000 individuals without trial in secret prisons. Some of the captives clearly have links to militant Islamist groups or were Taliban fighters or are captured jihadists in Iraq. Some are just kidnapped on the tip of local intelligence agencies, sometimes arrested just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong ethnic and religious backgrounds, or because of name similarities. Some are handed over to American soldiers by Afghan or Iraqi militias and troops just because of cultural, political and personal grudges.

Sadly, none of this is new. During WWII, the United States kidnapped innocent Japanese residents in Latin America, not because of any suspected crime or relationship with Japan's war efforts. They were kidnapped as bargaining chips, simple people to be sold as Japanese officers and spies. When the war ended, a couple of thousand of them were stranded in the United States. They did not have any travel documents and were not allowed to be U.S. citizens. When Bill Clinton was in office, the U.S. Government offered these people an apology, albeit a superficial one with no concrete solution or recompense.

Stop this madness:

To those who believe that human history is a linear march, always towards the good and higher levels and naively hold that we learn (or can ever learn) from the horrors of our histories, what Chuang Tzu noted some 2300 years ago might come as surprising: “The greatest crimes are eventually shown to have been necessary, and, in fact, a signal benefit to mankind.”

So, it seems that Kohelet was right: There is nothing new under the sun. How many times have we watched yesterday's victims turning into today's perpetrators? How many times in the 20th century alone have we acted with great “strength” and moved “beyond good and evil” to “protect our way of life” and to assert our “self-determination,” all at the expense of fellow human beings weaker than us? How many millions have been lost to this Tolkeinic pursuit? And how much more is needed before we stop this madness?

Why Turkish Airlines makes me proud

Published in Turkish Daily News, 2 June 2008

I can't claim to have first-hand experience of all the significant airline companies in the world, but as someone who has traveled widely across the Northern Hemisphere, I can perhaps claim a small sample size, large enough to draw comparisons.

To be fair, Emirates and Singapore Airlines top the list of the best airplanes, best customer service, flight and airport experience. For me, they represent the ideals of world class traveling. The only negative thing about Emirates is the quite small and tight economy class seats, which always feel like settling into a space shuttle ready to take off.

Besides many peaceful and delightful flights with top airlines, I did have my fair share of nightmarish and so-wrong-that-it's-funny ones. Once, I boarded an Aeroflot plane to be greeted by two unshaven pilots with greasy hair and suits and sleepless faces along with their ungraceful airplanes and cabin crew. I don't remember repeating “Our father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name” that much before.

Around the World in 80 flights:

Once, a steward of the Turkmenistan flag carrier slapped my shoulder quite aggressively with no warning or verbal communication as I tried to fit my laptop bag into the only space that was left in the airplane, which had more carpets and giant plastic bags than passengers. She simply wanted me to get out of her way. To her credit, it worked. I kept quiet, ignored eye contact and any expression of ingratitude during the entire flight, even though the food was probably a health hazard and the drink served as “wine” was one of Saparmurat's secret weapons.

Continue Reading "Why Turkish Airlines make me proud"

On an extremely dirty, smelly and chaotic flight between India and Nepal, I watched stewards laughing as they were trying to continue to chat, drink and hold on to any possible stable object they can grab while the plane landed. They were still standing up.

Even on European flights, I have regularly encountered poor airports and customer service and rather rude flight crews that make you feel like you are receiving U.N. aid at a refugee camp rather than enjoying a flight you paid for. Once, I had to wait three hours at London Heathrow after a business-class-in-ticketing-but-economy-in-actuality flight with a Scandinavian flag carrier before walking out of the airport without my suitcase. I simply refused to wait two more hours for the next flight to bring a special tool to open the plane's locked cargo doors. British Airways and Alitalia have always caused me mini anxiety attacks the night before the flight, during the check-in, the flight and landing for similar reasons.

I can add more disturbing stories of travel gone sour, but one of the funniest things ever happened to me was during a flight between Manila and Boracay in the Philippines. The pilots of the 20 seater prop plane kept telling jokes to the passengers and played music from their portable players and speakers. True Pinoy style!

No matter where I was, whether in China, Kuwait, Israel, Egypt, Azerbaijan or Italy, seeing a Turkish Airlines (THY) plane at the airport and boarding one have always given me a sense of security, trust and a chance to take a breath as I sought to run away from tough and intense localities with haunted airports.

In all these years I have flown with THY domestically or internationally, I have not even once had a missing or damaged luggage. Where Emirates staff made me pay huge amounts on many occasions for just 3 or 4 extra kilograms, THY always showed grace. Not even once have I seen a stewardess treat passengers rudely or behave unprofessionally, even though I have witnessed many incidents where even I was convinced that it was ethical to strangle another passenger. To be fair, I have experienced a couple of over confident airport and ticketing staff here and there.

At the corporate level, when global factors of market speculations, increasing oil and production prices along with security fears lead many companies to bankruptcy, cut backs and playing safe, THY kept expanding its fleet, adding further destinations, recruiting new staff, and even opening its own flight school. When its domestic monopoly on flights was eventually broken and THY had to face the challenge of budget travel, it managed to continue to benefit and increase its number of passengers.

Still a serious road ahead:

When most private sector companies struggled to adapt to a global age and rival international giants, THY surfaced as one of the most self-reforming and improving companies in Turkey. One has to only glance into its extremely easy and dependable website, frequent flyer program, co-branded credit card and changing designs to get a sense of its energy and drive to be a major global actor. This is also evident in its new membership in the Star Alliance.

THY still has a serious road ahead to be on the same page as prime league players. It needs to employ more bilingual staff, add destination specific languages to its on flight instruction videos besides English and Turkish, upgrade its catering with better and more international food and invest in serious infrastructure and marketing initiatives abroad. Yet, as THY celebrates its 75th year, I am truly proud of where it is and truly excited about its future. And I promise (Boy Scout's honor), I have no links with THY nor they have any clue about me or this article, but each time I see a red and white tailed airplane, I can't help but smile.

Of Headscarves and Men

Published in Turkish Daily News, 19 May 2008

A major hotel in Tehran welcomes its guests with a large and lighted sign post that states:

“Dear guests, Hijab (Islamic veil) is a magnificent reflection of the culture of Iranian Muslim women. So we appreciate your respect to our own Islamic civilization and culture.”

I first saw this sign some years ago but didn't think too much about it. However, as I have increasingly been fascinated with the discourses used by countries and politicians to communicate their policies and convince others, a familiar object turned into a day-long obsession during a recent trip to Iran. The more I thought about it, the more absurd it started to sound.

Culture or law?:

To be fair, a host country has every right to ask its visitors to respect its cultural norms. For example, given the country I travel in I may decide against wearing shorts and seeking out Martinis. (That's also why I continue to keep Her Majesty's government responsible for allowing pink-roasted drunk English men walk around half naked in the middle of our cities at the first sign of sunshine.) However, a female foreigner visiting Iran need not be reminded of not causing a stir by showing some hair or skin, as it is required and enforced legally to wear a hijab. Thus, the sign post is rather ironic, if not redundant.

On a deeper level, cultural expressions are not codified and legalized practices. They are merely present, followed by some, ignored by the rest. The hijab was made compulsary at a certain point in history, thus it isn't necessarily a natural Iranian way of life. And any women who do not follow the imposed rule will suffer its consequences. Once in Iran, I witnessed the aggression of officials as they were trying to push two young girls into a van. Their crime was to wear sandals and headscarves which didn't cover all of their hair under the hot Persian sun. I hardly slept that night, as the innocent expression on the faces of the arrested girls occupied my mind.

Although headscarves are cultural expressions in rural areas across North Africa and the Middle East, the moment the political sovereign intervenes and dictates their use, it ceases to be cultural and turns into political regulation. In other words, it is the men-with-beards that have defined for the Iranian women how they should dress and live, claiming to do so to protect their "virtue" and culture.

Just north of Iran, in the land of my birth and first kiss, men-without-beards also decide how women should dress or express themselves. Unlike Iran, the arguments in Turkey are not about protecting women's "virtue" or some mythical essential culture but politicization of headscarves. It is said that in principle men of power have no problems allowing women to wear what they wish, but they are only limiting the access of women to education and work because headscarves have turned out to be political symbols.

There are serious problems in this line of thought just as in culture-talk in Iran. First of all, so what if something is used as a political symbol? We live in a democratic country which constitutionally gives the individual the right to political expression by voting, joining political parties and running for elections. Thus, to ban headscarves on the basis of their political nature is to contradict our very own political system.

Iran and Turkey, similar?:

More importantly, if the headscarves have turned out to be political – in other words, if the women who wear them started demanding equal rights and treatment – it is not because of Islam and Islamism. It is the sovereign who has banned the headscarves. Thus by entering the personal sphere and trying to regulate religious practices that transcend domestic politics, men have first made headscarves political and then sought to legitimize their sovereignty on the grounds that they are now political symbols.

Just as watching Iranian women arrested for not dressing up properly breaks my heart into pieces, to witness hundreds of thousands of women denied entry to university, or forced to remove their headscarves in humiliation, breaks my heart. Both in Iran and Turkey, men have defined what "virtue" is or how a woman should live, and sought to impose their ideas, all along declaring that they are the true liberators of women. Year 2008! Women still stand naked in this part of the world, ready to be dressed (or undressed) and led as men wish.