the missionary position

only thus far the ship skippered by tayyib effendi could fare into the uncharted oceans of freedom and liberty.

adopting the missionary position in politicking, tayyib & co. & rosy forfeited their capacity to institute that aura of legitimacy encompassing all elements in the community, which is the binding cement of social unity. only in that aura can a society experience cohesion in concord, dissent and resultant diversity that constitutes its dynamism (see blog of aug 13, 07).

tayyib & co. & rosy's 47 percent electoral victory was an acknowledgement that they could be accepted as legitimate governors of the whole nation. the vote, in spite of the strong surge of opposition that is now solidly entrenched in one third of the nation, gave them license to end the bureaucratic stranglehold over the society, to set it free from impediments that functioned to divide the people. it empowered tayyib & co. to write the new social contract, to instate the new parameters of legitimacy embraced by all.

instead, they dropped into the missionary position, and once again attempted to foist their own religiously colored agenda as the priority of the entire society.

the country desperately needed the remedies that a new constitution, i.e., the new social contract could bring. the right political cadres could turn it into a catapult that could launch turkey into a far better epoch; were the totality of the society paid due respect. instead, tayyib & co. & rosy hinged their priority on their obsession to cover women, or the dubious liberty of women to cover themselves up.

covering-up is an obvious ban! it restricts women's appearance and behavior. it restrains their birth rights to determine how to use their own bodies, for the service of men; so that men will not sin! this is an insult to women because it reduces them solely to objects of sexual desire for men. it also humiliates men, who materialize as creatures that cannot tame or civilize their meanest instincts in the presence of minimal stimulation. so, tayyib & co. & rosy, in their missionary position, have devoted their energy to elevating a ban that naturally demeans and subordinates the human race, both woman and man, to the eminence of a liberty!

tayyib & co. & rosy launched their campaign to liberate through carceration because that is the extent of their understanding and sense of freedom... because they feel emancipated as they surrender (*). they strive to cover, conceal and control; instead of open and make transparent, emancipate... they try to confine and contain, instead of release and liberate. therefore, they attempt to represent the covering up of women as a freedom, rather than making sure that nobody persecutes (and certainly does not prosecute) any woman for un-covering and baring her body. they cannot bring themselves to accept the universal recognition that the body is essentially a private domain and not a matter of public intervention (**).

the problem is not that simple, though. in their recalcitrant resistance to modernity (***) tayyib & co. and rosy are so engrossed with problems long solved by the modern world in the 18th and 19th centuries that, they are philosophically too retarded to realize that the uniformity they are keen to impose in the name of religious freedom is a straitjacket that restrains the heterogeneity of a modern society; strangles its life-lines of culture and thought. faiths, and all of them simultaneously, are only one color in the hue of social multiplicity. prioritizing any religion just turns plurality into a monochrome; causes the hue to turn gray.

what about the 47 percent electoral victory? oh, do not trust the public vote; it is a fickle mistress, at best! at least one fourth of it was loaned to tayyib effendi & co & rosy, because it was obvious the rest of the political machine was in a state of utter hebetude as far as creative society management was concerned and had no answers to give to any question, including how and why their sole bastion, secularity was to be protected. that minimum 10 percent was a credit extended to tayyib & co. & rosy to unite the country around a basic legitimacy, without conceding from cohesion in concord, dissent and diversity. they were not accredited to assume the missionary position and pursue their conventions from yesteryears.

tayyib effendi &. co. & rosy failed grossly. they failed within 60 days of their electoral victory. with them, the turkish society failed; look at what is happening: a superior court considers birth control pills in a wife's purse as evidence of adultery and lessens the sentence of the husband who killed her... a nitwit folk singer and a dimwit "poet" praise the murder of hrant dink in an extremely stupid but dangerously racist song... more examples abound but not now, wait for another post...


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(*) "islam" means surrender.
(**) that is why, in civilized communities, even in the bible belt, exposure of one's body is usually a misdemaneor only. and civilization began aeons ago, with the recognition of habeas corpus, "having a body".
(***) to modernity, as a way of mind (culture) not to modernization which is more limited to enjoying the fruits, especially techno-mechanical fruits of modernity.