Category Archives: Turkey

The Gezi Occupation: for a democracy of public spaces

"Arab Spring", Development, Environment, Ethics, Turkey


Occupied Taksim, June 10

by Nilufer Gole, Open Democracy, June 11, 2013

“Respect” has become a new slogan tagged on walls all over the cities, and expressing the need for a return to civility and call for politeness in Turkish public life. Gezi occupation reveals to us all, how “public square” becomes literally vital for our democracies.

Over the past week, protest movements have spread across Turkey’s largest cities, and appear to become widespread urban uprisings. Despite often violent police intervention, people have not hesitated to take to the streets and block avenues, neighbourhoods, and their cities’ central spaces. Others participate from their balconies, with whole families chiming in to the protesters’ chorus, banging on pots and pans. They have found pacifist means of protest that require no arms or political slogans to express their discontent and frustrations with the Erdogan regime.

This urban movement, started by young people, supported by the middle classes and featuring a strong female presence, has not weakened in the face of impressive displays of force by riot police who use tear gas without hesitation. Clouds of gas cover the sky in town centres, making breathing difficult; but these clouds, symbols of pollution and the abuse of power, have only bolstered the anger of ordinary citizens.

The public sphere has been suffocating for some time in Turkey. Restrictions on freedom of expression and the crackdown on the opposition, particularly journalists who have lost their jobs and the mass media which has changed its editorial line, have put a muzzle on public discourse. The most recent protests in Taksim, which were not covered by the major television stations, are ample proof of this. Continue reading The Gezi Occupation: for a democracy of public spaces →

Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #3: Turkey and Persia

Coffee, Iran, Lithographs, Orientalist Images, Turkey


Area: 63,800 sq. mi
Population: 4,490,000
Government: Absolute Despotism
Scenes: Merchants Buying Carpets

previous post I began a series on coffee advertising cards with Middle Eastern themes. One of the most colorful collections is that provided by the Arbuckle Coffee Company. In my great, great aunt’s album there were several Middle Eastern and North African nations represented, but from a different series than in the Arbuckle’s 1889 series. The 1889 version of Turkey is shown above, but my aunt’s version of Turkey is decidedly more imaginative:

Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #3: Turkey and Persia →

Taksim is not (yet) Tahrir

"Arab Spring", Turkey

By James M. Dorsey, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, June 2, 2013

Almost a week of countrywide protests in Turkey have left an indelible mark on the country’s political landscape: broad discontent with the policies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies and increasing haughtiness bubbled to the surface; militant soccer fans thousands of whom joined the Taksim Square protests united and were politicized; and the role police force plays in solidifying opposition groups and resolve was highlighted.

Mr. Erdogan’s intransigence and hard-handed police attempts to suppress the protest with tear gas and water cannons swelled the ranks of the demonstrators and turned a demand for perseverance of a 75-year old Istanbul park into a massive call for the prime minister’s resignation. Thousands of militant fans of Istanbul’s three rival soccer clubs led by the left-wing, most politicized of the support groups Carsi, the ultras’ of Besiktas JK, joined forces for the first time in 30 years as they march to Taksim Square. So did rival soccer fans in other cities.

Comparisons between Taksim and Cairo’s Tahrir Square that has come to symbolize the ability of the street to topple a government are tempting. To be sure, there are superficial similarities but these are outstripped by the differences. The two square share the unification of rival soccer fans with a history of fighting one another; the occupation of a main city square; the protesters’ slogan: Erdogan, istifa! or Erdogan resign in imitation of Egypt’s Mubarak irhal! or Mubarak leave!; the violent police crackdown; and the ultimate at least partial government backdown.

But unlike mass demonstrations that toppled leaders in North African nations, the protests in Turkey are against a democratically elected leader who has won three elections with a respectable majority, presided over a period of significant economic growth and repositioned his country as a regional power with global ambitions. They also occurred in contrast to Arab countries in a country that despite all its warts is democratic and has a strongly developed, vociferous civil society. Continue reading Taksim is not (yet) Tahrir →

Harun’s Harem Prime Time

Film and Video, Gender and Sexuality, Journalism and Media, Turkey


From left, the women of Turkey’s Building Bridges: Ebru, Ece, Aysegul (who occasionally joins the four hosts on their show), Aylin, and Ceylan; Courtesy of A9 TV

[Webshaykh’s Note: I previously posted a blog commentary on the media beauties of Harun Yahya. A recent article in Slate is on the same group, and I post the start of the article below.]

The Versace Harem
A group of Muslim women with tight shirts, bright lipstick, a feminist mission, and total devotion to a creationist guru.

By Jenna Krajeski. Slate, Thursday, May 2, 2013

I first agreed to meet Ece, Ceylan, Aylin, and Ebru because I didn’t really believe they existed. They host the Turkish talk show Building Bridges and had recently gotten some attention, but not for the interviews. The women look astonishing. They are mostly bottle blonds, save for Ece, who has raven hair. Neon lipstick gives their lips a whole extra dimension. They coordinate outfits. At one of our meetings, they wore brightly colored satin pantsuits and T-shirts with designer brand names that stretched over their chests. What they talk about on Building Bridges—interfaith dialogue, women and Islam, the greatness of Turkey—isn’t particularly sexy, but their outfits are designed to make up for that. They are also devout Muslims—conservative, even—a supposed contradiction that is also the show’s allure.

Guests often appear—usually by Skype—with their eyebrows arched in the manner of a serious person certain he is the victim of a practical joke. But they proceed. The women sweetly dare the guests to suggest the hosts are anything but what they claim to be—activists, political commentators, Muslims—because of how they dress. During one interview, which I observed in the studio, Ceylan right away asked a German diplomat if a “true religious education” could “combat bigotry.” Continue reading Harun’s Harem Prime Time →

Harun’s houris

CyberOrient, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Turkey


Harun Yahya, a.k.a Adnan Oktar

But what greater temptation than to appear a missionary, a prophet, an ambassador from heaven? Who would not encounter many dangers and difficulties, in order to attain so sublime a character? Or if, by the help of vanity and a heated imagination, a man has first made a convert of himself, and entered seriously into the delusion; who ever scruples to make use of pious frauds, in support of so holy and meritorious a cause?
David Hume, “Of Miracles” (1748)

David Hume, the eminent 18th century philosopher, was probably not thinking about Islam when he wrote his seminal essay “Of Miracles,” but his description resonates well with the media realm of the would-be Mahdi Harun Yahya (alias of Adnan Oktar). Put enough money and media-savvy glitz behind a delusion and the gullible will come to the trough. All you need to do is check out the main website of Harun Yahya to see a sexed-up Disney version of Islam. And even if you happen to be Igbo (yes Igbo), you can read what the Harun Yahya machine has to say about the “Koran.”

The checkered history of Adnan Oktar is hardly a secret, especially in Turkey. But his cyber-reach is massive, with multiple websites available in many different languages. If you have time to spare, spend a few minutes perusing some of his 160 websites devoted to attacking evolution, proving miracles, calling for an Islamic Union led by Turkey, the coming of the Mahdi, hell, atheism and beyond. Oktar recently made news by interviewing Israeli guests, despite earlier writings which include holocaust denial.

The latest twist in the televised adoration of Adnan Oktar might best be labeled “Harun’s houris.” Continue reading Harun’s houris →

Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire

Books You Should Read, Environment, Islamic History, Turkey


Last year I had the privilege of serving on the Albert Hourani Book Award Committee for the Middle East Studies Association. There were a number of excellent books submitted, but in the final analysis it was unanimous for a remarkable historical study by Sam White entitled The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), parts of which are available on Google Books. For an interview about the book, click here.

Below is the statement released by the committee:

Our committee reviewed over eighty books for this year’s Albert Hourani Book Award. Manycommittee members commented on the large number of high quality works from the incredibly rich and diverse body of nominations. Finally settling, unanimously, on a single work of superior scholarship could not have been achieved without the conscientious, diligent and professional attention my four fellow committee members gave to their colossal task: Michael Bishku of Augusta State University, Terri DeYoung of the University of Washington, Devin DeWeese of Indiana University, and Daniel Martin Varisco of Hofstra University.
The committee has chosen Sam White’s masterful work, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press as the 2012 recipient of the Albert Hourani Book Award. Sam White is an assistant professor of history at Oberlin College. Continue reading Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire →

Notes from Algeria and Turkey

Algeria, Conferences and Talks, Islam: Introduction, Teaching Resources, Turkey


Notes from Algeria and Turkey — Charting the Modern Face of Islamic Civilization and Democracy in a Global World

by Bruce Lawrence, Transcultural Islam Research Network, November 30, 2012

What can we learn from an aging Turkish Imam with a pan-Turkish cultural movement to his name and a deceased Algerian philosopher — both of whom command attention as devout Muslims and men of science — about civilizational rebuilding in the modern era?

Scholars gathered in Algiers from Nov 21-22 at the College of Islamic Sciences at the University of Algiers to find out.

“The Philosophy of Civilizational Rebuilding, according to Malek Bennabi and Fetullah Gülen: Guidelines for Creative Thinking & Effective Action” was the theme for the conference, and I was invited to give a paper on this weighty subject.

I had been teaching in Istanbul during Fall 2012. My assignment there had been to train graduate students, both Turkish and non-Turkish, in theories and methods that apply to civilizational studies.

I had also been traveling and giving lectures elsewhere in Turkey, including a memorable lecture to 400 students at Mustafa Kemal University in Antakya — where the topic was Islam and Global Civilization and included a survey of constitutionalism, citizenship and cosmopolitanism, along with numerous approaches to Islamic civilization in the crowded marquee of world civilizations that claim to be both global and universal.

Just who were Fethullah Gülen and Malek Bennabi? Why was their thinking paired to address the topic of civilizational rebuilding, and how would their views advance an initiative that spanned centuries and engaged some of the best minds, from Ibn Khaldun in late 14th century North Africa to Arnold Toynbee in mid-20th century Britain? Continue reading Notes from Algeria and Turkey →

Ottoman Music

Languages, Music and Dance, Ottoman Empire, Poetry, Teaching Resources, Turkey


Ottoman ensemble in a Suleymaniye manuscript

For anyone interested in Ottoman music, or music as such, check out the nice webpage just uploaded in the Ottoman History Podcast.

Ottoman Classical Music: History and Transformations
with Mehmet UÄŸur Ekinci
74. Music of the Ottoman Court

While the Ottoman Empire was undoubtedly home to rich and diverse musical traditions, the subject of Ottoman music has often evaded historical analysis due to the scant nature of pre-nineteenth century sources on the subject. In this podcast, Mehmet Uğur Ekinci provides a general outline of the history of music during the Ottoman period along with its various waves of transformation and discusses his upcoming publication of Kevserî Mecmûası, an eighteenth century musical treatise that provides a rare glimpse of notation in Ottoman music before the nineteenth century. We also provide a number of recordings of Ottoman music composed during different periods.