Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Sunday, May 04, 2008
May Day, oh May Day
May 1st was a total disappointment for anyone hoping for a sensible reaction from the government to requests by the Labour Unions to celebrate Labour Day. It was a day that ended in more anxiety than anyone could have imagined.
I also became a victim of this anger and pent up frustration over how the government handles things. Late in the evening after the traffic had finally begun to flow through Taksim square, I was sitting in my local neighbourhood bar with some friends glad that peace had finally been restored to Cihangir.
It had been a long day for anyone involved in reporting on it - like myself - or those who were trying to celebrate.
While sitting there feeling relieved that the day had finally come to an end without major casualties (a cameraman I know was hospitalised from tear gas, but survived), I saw a new aquaintance sitting a couple tables down from me and decided to do the neighbourly thing and say "Hi".
As soon as I approached the table I was immediately harassed by his dining companion. This was the following coversation as I remember it:
"I don't agree with what you said," the female diner said one minute after being introduced to me for the first time.
"What exactly don't you agree with?" I said, NOTE: I had never spoken to this woman before in my life.
"What you said about the government having made an offer to the unions," she said.
Not being prepared to encounter such a hostility, I immediately went on the defensive.
"Well the government did make an offer," I said. (which was to hold the rally in a different place in the city, somewhere "that would be more appropriate without disrupting business.")
"But what kind of offer," my acquaintance said.
I then told the hostile female diner that "as a reporter I have a responsibility to not have an opinion." It was a stupid thing to say, but I just wasn't expecting to be dressed down so publically by someone I don't even know.
Upon reflection, I have wondered just how she could have had an opinion on something I've said when we've never even met. I imagined that the only possible reason could be that I had talked to a colleague on the telephone, and asked him why in their report they hadn't mentioned the fact that the government had made an offer to the unions. And that I thought the report was slightly biased because of this omitted information - I thought she must have over heard me, perhaps I had been speaking quite loud.
The whole issue has bothered me ever since, so much so that I have actually had to sit here and write about it.
My response to this mystery diner is as follows:
Yes, the government made an offer. The problem with the offer, which I did actually say in my live televised report on May 1, is that the reasoning they gave was not the reality. The government said that they wouldn't allow Taksim Square to be used for the celebrations because it would disrupt a work day, and the economy was in no shape to handle that. As it was, the economy took a beating on May 1 anyway, why?
1 - All stores in and around the Taksim area were closed afraid of unrest.
2 - At least 60 schools were closed. Causing a cost to those children who lost a day of study.
3 - The cost of 30,000 police and few hundred village guard deployed to keep people out of the square all day long ironically may have totalled more than the so-called cost to the Turkish economy, which I also said in my live televised report.
4 - The damage that it has done to Turkey in terms of foreign investors perceptions of what type of country Turkey is, is immeasurable.
4 - AKP have lost, everyone has lost.
I stated that there had been an offer by the government in order to present the context of why there was so much frustration from those who simply wanted to hold a rally for one hour, and perhaps seek some closure for the terrible events of 1977. I don't agree with what the government's response was, but I am also realistic in the sense that public gatherings in Turkey do sometimes descend into a separate issue - that's because I actually attend many of them. This doesn't make me pro-government.
I have joined all the workers protests on the streets in Istanbul in the run up to the social security reform bill, and most of the people there I saw were 20 plus in age. Not 17 year old university students. This does leave the question: What exactly is labour day in Turkey really about? And how is the government going to deal with it in the future?
We will see next year I expect. But to the lady who quite rudely shot me down before asking me why I had thought it important to point out the government's offer - namely because it does more to present the real politics of AKP and indeed the current state of Turkish politics - then I ask you to read this and next time ask "why" before you jump to conclusions based on a sound bite that you overheard without knowing what that sound bite was really all about.
I empathise with your frustration, I feel it too, which is why I delivered a report that may actually have added more context to Turkey's image abroad.
May 1st was a total disappointment for anyone hoping for a sensible reaction from the government to requests by the Labour Unions to celebrate Labour Day. It was a day that ended in more anxiety than anyone could have imagined.
I also became a victim of this anger and pent up frustration over how the government handles things. Late in the evening after the traffic had finally begun to flow through Taksim square, I was sitting in my local neighbourhood bar with some friends glad that peace had finally been restored to Cihangir.
It had been a long day for anyone involved in reporting on it - like myself - or those who were trying to celebrate.
While sitting there feeling relieved that the day had finally come to an end without major casualties (a cameraman I know was hospitalised from tear gas, but survived), I saw a new aquaintance sitting a couple tables down from me and decided to do the neighbourly thing and say "Hi".
As soon as I approached the table I was immediately harassed by his dining companion. This was the following coversation as I remember it:
"I don't agree with what you said," the female diner said one minute after being introduced to me for the first time.
"What exactly don't you agree with?" I said, NOTE: I had never spoken to this woman before in my life.
"What you said about the government having made an offer to the unions," she said.
Not being prepared to encounter such a hostility, I immediately went on the defensive.
"Well the government did make an offer," I said. (which was to hold the rally in a different place in the city, somewhere "that would be more appropriate without disrupting business.")
"But what kind of offer," my acquaintance said.
I then told the hostile female diner that "as a reporter I have a responsibility to not have an opinion." It was a stupid thing to say, but I just wasn't expecting to be dressed down so publically by someone I don't even know.
Upon reflection, I have wondered just how she could have had an opinion on something I've said when we've never even met. I imagined that the only possible reason could be that I had talked to a colleague on the telephone, and asked him why in their report they hadn't mentioned the fact that the government had made an offer to the unions. And that I thought the report was slightly biased because of this omitted information - I thought she must have over heard me, perhaps I had been speaking quite loud.
The whole issue has bothered me ever since, so much so that I have actually had to sit here and write about it.
My response to this mystery diner is as follows:
Yes, the government made an offer. The problem with the offer, which I did actually say in my live televised report on May 1, is that the reasoning they gave was not the reality. The government said that they wouldn't allow Taksim Square to be used for the celebrations because it would disrupt a work day, and the economy was in no shape to handle that. As it was, the economy took a beating on May 1 anyway, why?
1 - All stores in and around the Taksim area were closed afraid of unrest.
2 - At least 60 schools were closed. Causing a cost to those children who lost a day of study.
3 - The cost of 30,000 police and few hundred village guard deployed to keep people out of the square all day long ironically may have totalled more than the so-called cost to the Turkish economy, which I also said in my live televised report.
4 - The damage that it has done to Turkey in terms of foreign investors perceptions of what type of country Turkey is, is immeasurable.
4 - AKP have lost, everyone has lost.
I stated that there had been an offer by the government in order to present the context of why there was so much frustration from those who simply wanted to hold a rally for one hour, and perhaps seek some closure for the terrible events of 1977. I don't agree with what the government's response was, but I am also realistic in the sense that public gatherings in Turkey do sometimes descend into a separate issue - that's because I actually attend many of them. This doesn't make me pro-government.
I have joined all the workers protests on the streets in Istanbul in the run up to the social security reform bill, and most of the people there I saw were 20 plus in age. Not 17 year old university students. This does leave the question: What exactly is labour day in Turkey really about? And how is the government going to deal with it in the future?
We will see next year I expect. But to the lady who quite rudely shot me down before asking me why I had thought it important to point out the government's offer - namely because it does more to present the real politics of AKP and indeed the current state of Turkish politics - then I ask you to read this and next time ask "why" before you jump to conclusions based on a sound bite that you overheard without knowing what that sound bite was really all about.
I empathise with your frustration, I feel it too, which is why I delivered a report that may actually have added more context to Turkey's image abroad.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Turkey’s Christians are they really in danger? And from who?
At what point does a sensational sentence become more important than the personal safety of the subject it contains?
The recent case of Aljazeera English on “Turkey’s Unsafe Christians”, March 10, 2008, is an example. The opening sentence, “Christians in Turkey are living under a shadow of fear and insecurity due to a violent backlash by nationalist hardliners”, is a head turner, the reader is hooked immediately, it plays on our sympathy and compassion.
The report was shocking. It tells of a Christian missionary who is taunted by “conservative, nationalistic, religious angry young men who have a deep-seated aversion to being told to change their ways”, and was even kidnapped. This is sadly all too common in Turkey where Christian missionaries are seen by a staunchly nationalist youth as agents of the West sent to undermine the Turkish state.
The problem with the story is that it presents the argument as a religiously and culturally motivated one that is rooted in history: “Mistrust and hatred of Christianity has been embedded in the culture of the Black Sea region of Turkey for decades some say centuries.” It equates today’s nationalist youth with “the crusades and the First World War when the Christian minority in Turkey sided against the then Ottoman empire.”
This report then links this deeply rooted Black Sea nationalism with an horrific incident in a southern Turkish city over 500 kms away: “Recent attacks on Christians in Turkey have been very ferocious, including the torture and killing of a group of missionaries in the town of Malatya. Three youths currently face trial on charges relating to those attacks.”
The report failed to mention the recent arrests of over 30 members of an ultra-nationalist group called Ergenekon with alleged links to the Malayta killings and is believed to operate out of the Turkish Patriarchate, a Christian church in Istanbul.
Mustafa Akyol, an editor at the Turkish Daily News wrote on February 3: “It appears that the church might not only be linked to Ergenekon but could actually be its very base. According to the prosecutor, the church has been “the headquarters and the financial hub” of the covert gang.”
Today’s Zaman, Turkey’s leading conservative English language newspaper reported on January 29, that “Leaders of the Ergenekon gang had jointly decided to “OK”, the murders of three Christians in Malatya.”
The group are also allegedly linked to the slaying of Hrant Dink, an Armenian Turk, who was gunned down outside his office in February 2008 by a nationalist youth.
Ergenekon is suspected of shady links to groups hidden within the state. These groups are commonly referred to as Turkey's "deep state," a phenomenon in which individuals and groups occupying various state positions take justice into their own hands to shape Turkey in accordance with their political convictions.
Today’s Zaman also states: The Ergenekon organisation was working to create a chaotic atmosphere so that its counterparts in the military could overthrow the government, charges brought against the group by a law court in Istanbul has confirmed.”
If it is proven that Ergenekon, is linked to these killings, then the report on Turkey’s unsafe Christians by Aljazeera English takes on a different light.
On March 6, Bianet, an independent Turkish news portal, cited links to the “Susurluk incident”, a scandal that proved for many Turks the existence of the deep state in Turkey: “The roots of the gang are said to go back to the Susurluk case of 1996. A car accident in that city which shook Turkey because it revealed connections between the state, the mafia, and nationalist hit men.”
Cengiz Candar a columnist for the Turkish Daily News, states the importance of rooting out such organisations in Turkey. “Leaving things half-done will also prove how impossible it is to firmly attach Turkey within any particular structure of the “modern world” or of the European Union. The Ergenekon investigation is indeed one of the “most important incidents” of recent Turkish history toward securing the country's future.”
Fetiye Cetin, Dink’s family lawyer agrees and explains that proving the involvement of nationalist elements of Turkish security services in Dink’s murder will be a similar test: “If the government really wants democracy and rule of law, it has to solve this murder case. Because Turkey's enlightenment partly depends on the clarification of this case. It all comes down to some security forces. They should investigate and see if there was negligence or purposeful act.”
Turkish police were repeatedly warned of death threats to Dink, but failed to protect him.
The report therefore failed to look at why Turkey’s Christians are taunted and how Turkey’s youth, especially outside the commercial hubs such as Istanbul and Ankara are also victimised by such groups because the dire situation they find themselves in. Turkey suffers from high unemployment, 10 % nationwide but it doubles in areas like the Black Sea where at least 50 % of the population are below the age of 30 with little or no job prospects. They are swept into an unregistered economy, which creates a sense of failure and despair. The national education system itself is staunchly nationalist in nature and contributes to these feelings.
The sad fact that this reporting is still practised in Turkey means that it is a nation that is still deeply misunderstood
At what point does a sensational sentence become more important than the personal safety of the subject it contains?
The recent case of Aljazeera English on “Turkey’s Unsafe Christians”, March 10, 2008, is an example. The opening sentence, “Christians in Turkey are living under a shadow of fear and insecurity due to a violent backlash by nationalist hardliners”, is a head turner, the reader is hooked immediately, it plays on our sympathy and compassion.
The report was shocking. It tells of a Christian missionary who is taunted by “conservative, nationalistic, religious angry young men who have a deep-seated aversion to being told to change their ways”, and was even kidnapped. This is sadly all too common in Turkey where Christian missionaries are seen by a staunchly nationalist youth as agents of the West sent to undermine the Turkish state.
The problem with the story is that it presents the argument as a religiously and culturally motivated one that is rooted in history: “Mistrust and hatred of Christianity has been embedded in the culture of the Black Sea region of Turkey for decades some say centuries.” It equates today’s nationalist youth with “the crusades and the First World War when the Christian minority in Turkey sided against the then Ottoman empire.”
This report then links this deeply rooted Black Sea nationalism with an horrific incident in a southern Turkish city over 500 kms away: “Recent attacks on Christians in Turkey have been very ferocious, including the torture and killing of a group of missionaries in the town of Malatya. Three youths currently face trial on charges relating to those attacks.”
The report failed to mention the recent arrests of over 30 members of an ultra-nationalist group called Ergenekon with alleged links to the Malayta killings and is believed to operate out of the Turkish Patriarchate, a Christian church in Istanbul.
Mustafa Akyol, an editor at the Turkish Daily News wrote on February 3: “It appears that the church might not only be linked to Ergenekon but could actually be its very base. According to the prosecutor, the church has been “the headquarters and the financial hub” of the covert gang.”
Today’s Zaman, Turkey’s leading conservative English language newspaper reported on January 29, that “Leaders of the Ergenekon gang had jointly decided to “OK”, the murders of three Christians in Malatya.”
The group are also allegedly linked to the slaying of Hrant Dink, an Armenian Turk, who was gunned down outside his office in February 2008 by a nationalist youth.
Ergenekon is suspected of shady links to groups hidden within the state. These groups are commonly referred to as Turkey's "deep state," a phenomenon in which individuals and groups occupying various state positions take justice into their own hands to shape Turkey in accordance with their political convictions.
Today’s Zaman also states: The Ergenekon organisation was working to create a chaotic atmosphere so that its counterparts in the military could overthrow the government, charges brought against the group by a law court in Istanbul has confirmed.”
If it is proven that Ergenekon, is linked to these killings, then the report on Turkey’s unsafe Christians by Aljazeera English takes on a different light.
On March 6, Bianet, an independent Turkish news portal, cited links to the “Susurluk incident”, a scandal that proved for many Turks the existence of the deep state in Turkey: “The roots of the gang are said to go back to the Susurluk case of 1996. A car accident in that city which shook Turkey because it revealed connections between the state, the mafia, and nationalist hit men.”
Cengiz Candar a columnist for the Turkish Daily News, states the importance of rooting out such organisations in Turkey. “Leaving things half-done will also prove how impossible it is to firmly attach Turkey within any particular structure of the “modern world” or of the European Union. The Ergenekon investigation is indeed one of the “most important incidents” of recent Turkish history toward securing the country's future.”
Fetiye Cetin, Dink’s family lawyer agrees and explains that proving the involvement of nationalist elements of Turkish security services in Dink’s murder will be a similar test: “If the government really wants democracy and rule of law, it has to solve this murder case. Because Turkey's enlightenment partly depends on the clarification of this case. It all comes down to some security forces. They should investigate and see if there was negligence or purposeful act.”
Turkish police were repeatedly warned of death threats to Dink, but failed to protect him.
The report therefore failed to look at why Turkey’s Christians are taunted and how Turkey’s youth, especially outside the commercial hubs such as Istanbul and Ankara are also victimised by such groups because the dire situation they find themselves in. Turkey suffers from high unemployment, 10 % nationwide but it doubles in areas like the Black Sea where at least 50 % of the population are below the age of 30 with little or no job prospects. They are swept into an unregistered economy, which creates a sense of failure and despair. The national education system itself is staunchly nationalist in nature and contributes to these feelings.
The sad fact that this reporting is still practised in Turkey means that it is a nation that is still deeply misunderstood
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The headscarf, the headscarf, the headscarf. This is just a fraction of the times I've heard this small item of clothing mentioned this week. Turkey is spinning from the headscarf frenzy, which has given me a chance to meet some women that perhaps I wouldn't have had the chance to otherwise.
I live in a relatively trendy neighbourhood and live a very Western life-style as do many of my Turkish friends. I'm not saying they are all big drinkers many of them are not, but for ease of understanding they live very secular lifestyles. But hang on a minute, what does a "secular life-style" mean? And here we are again, right back to redefining the definitions in Turkey.
A practising Muslim woman gave me her take on Turkey's secularism this week:
"The government should be impartial. It shouldn't violate the rights of its citizens who wear the headscarf by always taking the side of those who don't wear it. If it describes itself as secular, and if we define secularism as the separation of state from religious affairs -this is the typical description in Turkey- yes these two are separated. But the government always had the authority to organize and direct religious affairs. In Turkey, religious life, religious beliefs have always been oppressed."
Pretty articulate don't you think? She is one of the millions of women who lost the chance to further their studies after the headscarf ban in universities was implemented over a decade ago. It's a sad story. She moved away from her hometown to find a better life and get herself a higher education, only to find it was all shattered after the ban came in.
The woman I met is an example of why women need to have an education, because it gives them more choices and as some experts have been saying in the Turkish media this week, could prevent extremism in the future. The only problem now is that women are still discriminated against once they leave university as the headscarf is also banned in public office.
Regardless of the hype and the inevitable lifting of the ban, another interesting development is going on in Turkey. The constitutional package that has been agreed on by the ruling AK Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is slated to include a clause on the type of headscarf that will be permitted.
This for me is an extremely curious development. It could be Turkey defining its own Islamic dress code aimed at keeping a more extremist type of Islamic expression at bay. Or a promotion and institutionalising of it, depending on which way you're looking from.
The clause is said to allow "the traditional scarf tied under the chin in universities but not the veil, chador or burqa".
The headscarf has been worn in Anatolia for thousands of years, and will be for many more I expect. This could therefore be seen as a revival perhaps of the "Turkish headscarf".
I tried to also interview a more secular Turkish woman this week so that I could profile these two women back to back. But I couldn't find a more secular woman who wanted to go on the record about their fears. Why not? Even the more religious conservative Turk has fears of extremism. They don't necessarily want to live with Sharia. They have lived with the imposition of not being able to attend university for over a decade now, and say that they don't want to impose anything on anyone.
The problem here is that both sides aren't talking to each other. The woman that I interviewed, who is now the mother of 4 because she was deprived of her education is hoping that her kids will get the opportunities she once took for granted.
I hope that Turkey is able to make this transition smoothly, I think it will, most people you talk to are not against the lifting of the ban but they are against extremist politics. So an education may be the best preventative measure to fight against such issues anyway.
And as my subject told me this week, it is a personal choice to practise Islam and how to practise it.
"We wear the headscarf and the reason is our belief in Allah. Since we believe Allah ordered us to cover our heads, we wear it. I don't see myself in a position to order anyone to cover their heads if they are not believers. If they do, it wouldn't mean much. If they believe, they would voluntarily cover their heads. If she thinks the headscarf is unnecessary, she wouldn't wear it. But it is unacceptable to forbid people to go to school or to work with their headscarf on with a presumption that one day those who wear the headscarf will force others to do so. They act with pure prejudice. And honestly, they impose their prejudices on the other side as a cruel act. I don't think it is right when a person who doesn't wear the headscarf says 'I am not wearing it,
so you shouldn't wear it either'. I mean, people say they are Muslim. But if they don't fulfill the requirements of their belief, the
responsibility belongs to them. "
This statement is an open desire for equality but at the same time denies it, which is the precise issue more liberal Turks have with the more religious conservatives.
Do I have to cover my hair to believe in God? Not at all. And as an Iranian friend recently told me the enforcement of the Islamic dress code in Iran has lead to a less sincere faith in some young Iranians. Covering the hair in Turkey dates back beyond Islam, but was a cultural identity that has been accepted for thousands of years.
Live and let live, but don't be complacent.
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