is that crisis echoing in my bowels?

the great andre gunder frank once defined crisis (roughly) as a situation where the current balance is so disrupted that it can never be regained in the same place as it was lost.

the recent crisis that shook the stock markets, started davos-going captains of economy arguing whether we're dealing with a slowdown or a recession, appeared to be more or less taken under control in 48 hours by the world's exchanges, thanks a goodn deal to the fed's somewhat belated intervention.

since the balance was regained, then we can't speak of a crisis, right?

wrong!

***

this one, is not a crisis that can or will greatly jar the stock markets, which are likely to function as shock absorbers to this quake. the actual impact spreads deeper into the core of world economies, kicking their behindsto up and catch with the tidal waves of globality.

the fed naturally took the world economy as a whole in consideration whille making its move but its actual target was the rejuvenation of america's economy; more precisely, opening up to the world the in-bound economy of introverted america that i recently mentioned in a post.

america's economy, on the whole, is probably vital enough to survive at least a decade of what is conveniently (but mistakenly) referred to as isolationism. however, strong is hardly synonymous with competitive. in america, as well as all over the western world, many jobs and subsequent incomes were forfeited to rising new economies as chindia and adjacent countries. many businesses that fed americans in the 1970s have now moved to asia - and africa is in wait for asia's leftovers. in the last two decades, the global wealth from hi-tech goods and innovative services kept unqualified job markets in the west as full as cotton mills once did, but slowly, a saturation point was achieved.

following the logical course of globalization, the only way is to rev up homely economies; the traditional businesses that have made fortunes and have built america into the largest world-economy by far, to levels of competitivity where they can do the same for (theoretically, at least) the entire world. in practical words, it is a question of making a cadillac as rational an option for a hungarian family as a honda borrowing the capital from turkey.

obviously, such an undertaking can achieve success only through a major reconstruction that has to follow a calamitious crisis and recovers some new balance at far higher average levels of technoology and innovation. for instance, like developing a hybrid engine that runs on laughter, to keep the cadilllac moving at no cost...

as a rational means of setting a huge economic potential that corresponds to three thirds of the country's total might in motion, whipping consumption is the obvious best option. low interest rates are imperative both to boost people's spending and to encourage businnesses to more productive ventures.

hence, the crisis is one of inadequately productive economies, rather than a financial shake up. sure, the financial system will have to adjust and adapt to the new impetus but will have to keep it going unless it, too, risks a majestic corollary collapse.

and hence, a brake is going to apply on the rolling train of globalization - a trend already in motion since the eu enlargement and the recognition of the recent polish plumber syndrome by the european public. this, in essence is a period, favoring home-grown economies over the "foreign" (*); a respite for local, regional and national businesses strained under the unfair competition from chindian goods, so that they can have a chance of getting back in the game.

not a return to mercantilist protectionism of course... the new term is more comparable to a referee interfering with a boxing game in order to give a fighter slugged below the belt time to regain his breath and composure.

what about the working class? after all, marx's proleteriat is the essential body of consumers that keeps the wheels of economy turning. the western working man, now faces the challenge of becoming a productive force in itself, so that his labor becomes the indispensable element to keep the economic world going on - the only such labor is that of the mind, so heretofore beginneth the real knowledge society.

now, let's take a look at chindia et.al. - the so called emerging economies that, in reality, are exiled or exported enterprises from the west.

despite the protests, it seems mathematically solid that globalized business has contributed to the welfare and wealth of those remote places, in many instances at the expense of the western proleteriat. if capitalism is not suddenly going to metamorphose into a charity system, that mutual advantage is going to be preserved.

however, where chindia et.al. are concerned, it needs to be reitirated that we are talking about an economy, where the capital, the technology, the know-how and decision processes and even the markets are dominantly western controlled. and although an impressive number of scientists, technicians, managers etc. are increasingly assuming responsible roles and some prosperity does transfer to the states and administrators of host countries, without the western input, the whole chindia et.al. adventure is, kindly, kaput.

consequently, the time has also come to call chindia and its upsetting influence to line; i.e., toward a more systemic organization where unfair advantages will not hamper core western establishments inordinately where the essential principples of capitalist competition are concerned. as a matter of fact, china, for instance is a slave market with an unending supply of dirt cheap labor - which is also summarily dispensable, too, as work accident stats testify. the situation does not change much elsewhere around, either. chindian goods emit more than their fair share of effluents and carbon gases, consume too much energy, are known to be produced with harmful materials (as toys that children have bought in turkey) etc., etc...

in other words, chindia productions are susceptible to regulatory censorship from western markets and consumers, due to a plethora of shortcomings in their philosophy of state (or raja or sheikh or bwana or sultan) managed capitalism.

thus, a ball has started rolling that will not come to rest in its point of origin, although it is likely to cross a "turbulent" and tumultous path. that, in the words of the great andre gunder frank, is a crisis.

what i attempted here is a conjecture about how the path of the crisis must travel for optimal overall results. crises, though, are not famous for following rational, globally optimal courses. stupidity is one virtue humanity has insistently maintained, since adam gulped down eve's apple. after all, politicians are going to be instrumental in the way this crisis is to be managed. and history bellows loud enough for even the stone statues of yesteryear's politicians to hear that wherever politicians and states are involved, the effluence is weirdly attracted to the fan.

one last word: there is also an irrationally rational possible (though less probable) and impeccably humane course, the whole crsisis shindig may veer to: a revival of the 1968 "hippie" revolution (**) - but that is to come later... the flower-power golden dawn of the polis as the abode and asylum of freedom, peace and wisdom once again!

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(*) foreign, as in chindia... since this is really an era of globality, however, there can be no backbreaking of such developing remote economies. another likely method of bringing the "foreign" home, is to increase home's share in the productivity of the foreign... imagine the istanbul stock exchange quoting vietnamese rice packing company shares!
(**) for those, especiallly ex-commies, who do not accept 1968 as a revolution, i recommend (again) the great immanuel wallerstein's "1968, revolution in the world-system: theses and queries", in theory and society, vol. 18, no. 4, july 1989.

the deserved misery of brokeback-wall-refugees

i have long developed the conviction that the israeli - palestine question is already long answered: it is another of those squirmishes nobody really wants solved.

the status quo allows at once the israeli to reasonably shake off their backs droves of poor arabs who occasionallly tend to think blowing themselves up along with abraham' s other grand- children will give them a straight ride to heaven.

those arabs, divided within, due to greed, greasy political designs, avarice and incompetence are now particularly happy; since one side has finally won the graces of america and the other has justified iran's meddling in the region.

the peoople who suffer? they either enjoy the suffering or they have other agendas: nobody could really suffer a sleazy succession of "rulers" who have accomplished nothing since 1967, except to make them suffer more. "there are hospitals for animals in israel", a brokeback-wall-refugee to egypt from gaza was complaining to a tv reporter tonight; "we have no such hospitals in gaza for humans. we just want what exists for animals in israel for people in gaza".

sad rhetoric, possibly even true, too... but alas, why did the now brokeback wall go up, separating rowdy palestinians from both tame palestinians and israeli?

if they need israel that much for survival (and tthey do!), why blow their children to dust? what happened to the defiant joy that rocked half palestine the day hamas won the elections?

pain, suffering and misery are the bane of palestinians in this crisis for 40 years, and of course, that is sad. yet, a sadder issue is that the palestinians, at least since yassir arafat tripped both bill clinton and ehud barak on a course toward some settlement, have always made the choices that have rendered their lives even more wretched.

many refugees who jumped the brookeback-wall in the last 48 hours, probably harbor hopes that they can anchor themselves to a haven in egypt - itself hardly at the upper limit of struggling economies. most, of course, will not. the bokeback-wall will rise again high and stiff enough to break the back of anyone daring to seek refuge on the other side. as will rise more despondency.

this is the kind of misery that won't end even if every gaza dweller ties a bomb around himself and blows himself to jihady death. a misery that willl only break more backs, but will allow a gloating ahmadinajad to rationalize his existence and a sitting duckya to find worth in his self and deeds.

no, not possible... can one speak of a deserved misery?

the civilized civil war of americas and americans

it is too early to comment on the outcome of the u.s. primaries but the message of the process is obvious: a civil war is going on in the u.s. of america.


nothing like the sad fratricide of the 19th century; this is a far subtler, insidious but deep lying and possibly attritional struggle between the two politico-economic forces defining american power: to put forth a rough basis for the argument, let me point out that three fourths of the huge u.s. economy is introverted, takes place within the country. only one quarter of american output is global. naturally, economy, being the most easily measurable quality in social sciences, is less determining (in the orthodox marzist sense) than indicative. an introverted economy also points out to a "way of mind", a culture and assorted subcultures looking inward. since that introverted community is, on the whole, extremely privileged, too, it tends to become conservative, protective, xenophobic, apprehensive and vulnerable both in its moral and political preferences.


we are talking about two thirds of the populace of the most powerful nation in the worldç feeling threatened by a remote world that is competing with them in the areas of their traditional livelihood; chinese goods flooding them out of jobs, indian imports threatening moreç while alien immigrant cultures establish their bivouacs in hitherto all american communities...


on the "other" side, there is the "global" america that describes the shapes life can flow into around the whole world. an america of top notch science and technology and innovation and social liberties aesthesia and finesse etc.


no wonder the night obama and huckleberry finn - with chuck norris hopping with joy like a squirrel behind him- won the first race jay leno defined caucus as "a greek word which means every four years people will remember there is a place called iowa".


the let's-return-to-grass-roots double victory of obama and huck finn is a banner that there is some sort of a social war going on between america, "that vast, forgotten extent of land between new york and the west coast" as described by the comic character homer simpson.

then again, the mundane east coast that sandwiches homer's america moved to put them out of business in new hampshire. in grass roots america, obama and huck finn both represented the same outlook, ditto the global american party hillary and mccain represent.


my vote is for hillary (you do not expect me to back the republicans after dubya, do you?), not because i do not like barack obama but because he is too green to tackle this world where simple solutions are likelier to complicate the problems, rather than solve them. the two clintons are provenly abler to ride the buffalo.


the sad party is, if huckleberry finn -plus chuck norris who probably will then become secretary for the department of utter paranoia, a.k.a. homeland security- and/or obama win, everybody in the civilized world will bear the brunt of an unsuccessfully introverted america - reminiscent of when pres. wilson lost after world war I.


if (preferably) the clintons or senator mccain win, the global competitivity of grass roots america is likely to experience a boost as well as the global quarter, which, in practice, commands most of the world's economic activity.

dubya the (sitting) duck

i'd be surprised if dubya and his crew were to do anything right after (especially) iraq but why in tarnation did he have to wait until he was a sitting duck before visiting palestine (and of course, israel)?

was it an overload of intelligence for the neo-cons to realize that all problems in the near east funnel through the israeli - arab conflict and until that is resolved, none of the issues washington claims to be attending - violence, al qaida (?), iraq ethnicities etc., even pakistan - are simply impossible to solve? it is not garfucius alone who holds that position, many students of world politics from noam chomsky to howard zinn have argued the point to anyone who reads or listens.

that is not because the israeli - arab conflict is the ultimate confrontation in the world but it is a battleground where all weapons and tactics are used by all parties to secure non-solution in this actual frontier of modernity with non-modernity.

if the israeli - arab issue is resolved, not only will iran (maybe i should say ahmadinajad-ism) and other forces of darkness will l0se a sublime cause for self-justification, the festered rules of desert despots all over arab states will have to shake camel dung from the hems of their jallabiya and strut toward civilization.

unless they are going to be crushed under the economic output of emerging nations like chindia, the comparably richer near east arabs have to get fast to a level where they can export more than oil and so called "terrorism".

why was dubya so late? was he hoping for a rift among palestinians? not likely; if he had such clairvoyance (or the means to induce such clairvoyance!), he could have seen the big picture, too.

maybe the near east is the fade out gate for presidents moving out of office.

if hillary wins, it may turn into a blast-in porte for the clintons, though... bill had almost made a watershed headway before he left. a final victory will instate him/them as the last royal couple in world politics... even if it may cause hillary a second term.

shop to open again

hello, i am sure you have missed me. had to close shop for medical reasons. will be back soon but need to warm up a little first.

look at what's been happening since that i could not put in my two bits' worth of wisdom: muslim pakistan snuffed out the last and sole remaining candle of hope on its hopeless trek toward civilization, while relatively, its arch enemy godless india has taken off already...

americans are so happy with almost a decade of running about as a global superpower as coherent as a headless chicken that they almost decided to replace dubya with dubious, more commonly recognized as barack obama (*), possibly just because they want to maintain oval as oval instead of oral, as far as white house offices are concerned...

the u.s. fed has put the brakes on globalization - the way we used to when we were young, riding bicycles that did not have working brakes, i.e., wearing out the soles of our shoes...

meanwhile chindia (**) have become the scourge of capitalism, now that oil has topped $100 a barrel. a new world war is expected to gain control of petroleum producing areas. however since wars are expensive enterprises as even dubya is learning, when prices of cheap chindian goods hit celestial levels because of oil procured at the end of oil wars, they will have to sell their merchandise in world markets at the end of bayonets...

well, i've been out on my back three weeks or so but the world is as crazy and absurd as ever.

thank heavens and their consumers...

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(*) one of turkey's supposedly top tv anchormen, mehmed ali birand apparently cannot pronounce obama, he kept calling the candidate "barak omaba" in a number one fm radio commentary. i have to admit though, that the man's name sounds more african than american. (**) china and india are more than emerging markets in some eyes, they are emerging powers, too - among which some also add russia. such illusions always happen to those who view the world as a playing field of nations and their states rather than deeper forces: after the opec oil embargo in the 1970s, everyone was weary and reverent of the arabs and the 1990s were supposed to be the decade japan would finally rule the world, etc., etc. so, i turned the emerging powers into a merging concept.

of men and norms

one of last week's most bizarre incidents was the death of a motorcycle rider who hit a standing truck wearing no helmet.

so far, ordinary is it not? by law, motorcycle helmets are compulsory in turkey, and to my knowledge, all european states. here, especially in summer, the mandatory condition tends to evaporate with the heat, to the degree where even mounted cops ride wearing only a baseball cap, because some genious desk-jockey has not included the helmet as part of their hot weather uniform! in america, some states require it and some leave it to the rider. in many parts of the u.s., there exist sizable movements to repeal the helmet requirement on grounds that "protecting my life is my own privilege and concern, not a domain of intervention by the state". ok buddy. you free to croak... jes don't do it in, on, under or over my vehicle... drôle, drôle, drôle...

but our guy in question had just left a conference -which he had joined on his own free will - extolling the virtues of safe motorcycle riding with full protective gear, helmet, boots, knee pads and so on...

events like this raise the question of the relationship between men and rules.

excluding such accidents of political history, as saudi arabia, iran or pakistan etc., where rules exist to keep -often naturally submissive- peoples subdued and supplicant; and are, more often than not, arbitrarily enforced, just as they are arbitrarily made, norms serve to establish some sort of an order over impersonal social relations. in general, legal structures favor extant power structures and serve the interests of power wielders. still, there can be no societal order, even in saudia, where the normative structure does not also answer some needs, albeit at the most basic, of the general public - there is your basic gramsci for you.

as power becomes more diffused, so that society can maintain some effective control over the state and its political machine, norms begin to order social life in an inevitably "reasoned" (*) manner, that is more instrumental in serving the interests of almost everyone concerned. as reason wins over rulers' whim, although qualitatively more efficient, norms become fewer in number. even in the european union, there (probably) exist laws that favor big business, but there are also quite live rules that protect the common consumer. every ordinance is rationally designed to best avoid violating third party concerns, while solving problems for -hopefully- the entire populace.

drawn under such rational systematics and methodology, also open to alterations or even abolition, through equally rational and methodical criticism, such normative structures create a collective intelligence and collective wisdom that not only orders but also facilitates social organization and cohesion. a german or a dane refrains from diving into a one way road from the reverse direction, not because he is not stupid but because he recognizes that if that becomes a habit, he will end up losing far more hours than the few minutes he can gain. the "ever-clever" turk (or, still, the mezzogiornian) who tries to cut a corner eventually gets to block a whole road, a whole junction, a whole traffic flow and still sits on his horn in total indignation.

in short, individuals' control and sway over their social life-domain arms them with an armor of collective wisdom, so that they do not even have to be clever. in the third and a half world, however, a quasi-clever band of malfed nincompoops forever perpetuate a guagmire of total collective idiocy continously pissing into it.

no wonder such pathological personality manifestations occur, where one attends a meeting that propagates safe riding bike and on his exit, bangs his bike barehead into the back of a garbage truck.

like getting out of an alcoholics anonymous meeting and hopping into the first watering hole next door.

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(*) inevitably reasoned because otherwise the social machine will not function and be wrecked.

do not take sarko seriously

m. nicholas sarkozy, le president de la republique de france has reportedly placed a stumbling block on turkey's supposed path of accession to the european union.

of course that is not truly the whole case: turkey's current situation concerning the eu is, directly, pacta non sum servanda, promise unkept! we simply have no sincere intention of becoming european; of not parking on sidewalks, of not shutting dow parties, of observing traffic lights, of respecting the law and others' rights, of living together without screwing each other, etc., etc... relax, i am not going to harp on turkey's impossible road to europe, not today at least.

the consensus about sarko's motive is that he is pushing turkey into a sub-pact of the countries of the mediterranean basin, which, he hopes, france will be leading.

nothing new here, it is an ambition inherited from napoleon, whose clumsy invasion of egypt in 1800 forever settled the anglo-saxons in the mare internum. france re-tried in 1956, together with the new imperial loser, the not-anymore-so-great britain and israel but barely got away before america gave them all a good slap on the wrist.

france, since losing algeria has had its eye on becoming the political pilot of the mediterranean nations but especially since the 1990s, was challenged by italy, too, which harbored similar ambitions but of a lesser tenor. the barcelona process of 1992 expired without creating a spirit of unity but squeezing fry the "soul" of the mediterranean, in part because of that rivalry.

and of course, like it or not, the mediterranean is actually an american lake since the world war II; and unless a serious challenge is in place, no continental contender will be allowed to put on too much brawn to contest the u.s.. they cannot, anyway... not with wahisngton's lackey, britain in their midst, breatihnig down europe's neck as a transatlantic fifth column - general charles de gaulle was apparently right in vetoing the pommies off the eec (what the hell are they really doing in the eu anyway? they are an island as remote to europe as japan. they do not even drive on the right side of the road or use intelligible measures! even turkey is more european!).

so, as far as the med is concerned, france is in the position of the married man lusting after somebody else's mistress. sarko le presidente tries to slip one over the americans sometimes and plays the game of france france über alles... that's all there is to the imaginary french primacy in the mediterranean...

in the aftermath of ww II, britain, still nurturing the illusion that it was still a world power (why do brits have that knack of deluding themselves that what pleases them not, in actual fact, actually, is not. really?) had shunned turkey off nato that ankara wanted to join to the price of thousands of troops killed in korea. britain was hoping to use turkey as a cornerstone in a chimerical mediterranean pact, which london would be leading - hence, controling the passage to india and the oil flow to europe and the world. not only america and the soviets but also even the arabs proved too clever for such that english ploy. the sixth fleet ended up dominating the bluest sea in the world, turkey (for whatever its worth) became a nato member and britain since, is america's lastest star even if it is not not spangling the banner.

so forget france or sarkozy, turkey's fate vis-a-vis the eu is only and only a function of its real integration with world capitalism which has proved a far stronger force of nature than either. and the first rule of capitalism is democracy that is a sine qua non of european/eurogenic rationality.

there is no need for stumbling blocks to place before turkey when it comes to rationality and democracy; we trip over our own toes treading toward that direction.

stately anomaly

oh lord! sunday i wrote how the stately governor uzun of isparta, commented on the route of the crashed atlas jet, speaking as a quasi-aviation authority that high state service seemingly injects through occupational osmosis. therefore, more often than not, any turkish state (definitely not civil) servant by the nature of his office, is privy to everything.

akşam reported tuesday that the governor was the first (and by then only) person to mark how the plane had veered of its course!

repeat, the governor, who by no means is an air traffic connoisseur (unless he is a private flyer, which is darn unlikely), happens to be the first and only, repeat, first and only, official who could say the aircraft was apparently flying on a wrong bearing, according to the paper!

the news here is that the paper completely misses the anomaly in that situation...

unless the might of the august state incites some to do with their tongues things tongues are not supposed to do...

stately agony

agonize freely: the governor of isparta, some şemsettin uzun, flew over in a chopper where the atlasjet crashed, in order to to inspect the wreckage and reportedly declared "the zone is not in the flight route of the aircraft, it should not be where it is".

as obvious to anyone interested, in turkey the state is the ultimate in everything. therefore, it has to have a hand in everything. unlike in democratic practice , governors in turkey, for instance, are appointed "state officials", a term preferred over "civil servants" because the state is there to be (*), not to serve .

so, a governor, representing the high authority of the state in some province, is the ultimate authority on everything by the unspoken of bibles of officialdom. the ultimate arbiter...

hence, his excellency gov. uzun, after inspecting the site of the incident by air, according to newspaper reports, has expertly rendered his opinion as the speaking voice of the state. behold how his knowledge of aviation is so obvious in his recount of the event: "we flew over the wreck in a helicopter. all ambulances are there. it is impossible to fathom how the plane landed (**) there. it crashed on the other side of the ridge. it is a wooded and somewhat rocky area. the aircraft is a mess. we (***) are sorry. that area is not included in the plane's fly-over zone. they informed that connnection with the aircraft was lost at 0300 hours. the tower sighted the craft. they even gave (relayed) the meteorological reports. (the runway was) reported clear to land. the plane was suupposed to make a turn over burdur. there was a break of communication" (****).

can you doubt his official authority and his word that the plane was where it should not be and forthwith crashed?

so, having been enlightened by his excellency, hürriyet's inspired headline to the governor story: "curious statement about the crash".

going on with the "curious" statement, or more of the sophia of state: “the fuselage is there, the wings are not so much. half the fuselage. there are scattered parts right and left. we shall go to the site by land to be with the citizens. we are very sad". tthen comes the governor as a human: "i have not seen anything like this".

whence goeth all the sophistic expertise?..

oh lords of ignorance, glory of eternal triumph is yours!.. may you forever ban promethean lights lest they may shine lucifer's torches on your endless swamps of hebetude...

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(*) try to imagine a nightmarish versioon oof the existentialist dasein...
(**) direct translation from hürriyet's report.
(**) the much apppropriate royal we.
(***) the statement in turkish, as reported in hürriyet: “enkazın üzerinde helikopterle uçtuk. bütün ambulanslar orada. uçak oraya nasıl indi anlamak mümkün değil. sırtın öbür tarafına düşmüş. ağaçlık ve biraz kayalık bir bölge. uçak perişan vaziyette. üzüntülüyüz. o bölge uçağın geçiş alanında değil. uçakla irtibatın kesildiğini 03.00'te haber verdiler. uçağı kuleden görmüşler. hatta hava raporlarını vermişler. iniş için müsait denilmiş. burdur üzerinden dönüş yapacaktı. orada bir irtibatsızlık oldu.”
Gövde var, kanatlar pek yok. Yarım gövde. Gövdenin ön tarafı var. Sağa sola serpilmiş parçalar var. Olay yerine kara yoluyla gidip vatandaşlarla beraber olacağız. Çok üzüldük. Ben böyle bir şey görmedim” diye konuştu.

adding insult to agony

the plane crash in isparta gave the media the field day they have been craving since the bogus war fervor of a few weeks ago. a horde of scandalous ignoramuses now roam mountainsides, fly over the wreckage, "peruse" security cameras for a drollop of sensation to jolt us readers and viewers; most of whom are glued to the news-that-is-not, oscilllating between the joys of having survived a far away accident and the vicarious lethal reminders of how fragile we are.

some "news" hyenas, as if their papers and stations on "normal days" do not represent a dormitory of information employees, brag that they were the first on the scene - to do what? shoot a few tons of torn metal debris among autumn foliage? they do not even have the gall to make public bloood and gore!

the only news that matters comes from two sources in air crash incidents: lists of passengers that airlines make known, and the cause of the accident which the civil aviation authority discloses after an arduous study, if the black box is found. the rest, including the commentary by so called aviation experts, is speculation where it is not taurean excreta.

pretending to do something that cannot be done, the media, this once, have invested in an imaginary enigma of "sabotage" theories, having found out that some top turkish physicists were among the casualties. yet other reporters for the public and virtual grapevine, further blamed nuclear energy proponents for having the scientists blown apart...

when intelligence so dramaticallly drains from public experience that even common sense becomes a scarce commodity, reason and decency, too, ebb from social relationships. just as any member of the great driving unwashed can bust unannounced and unwelcome into your lane at any intersection, another mindless half-life form (with an unfortunately long half-life) extracts is/her kicks from what is grief to you.

adding insult to agony; chiefly, the agony of having to suffer so much human effluent.

kill women instead of men?

a court in izmir sentenced a man to 30 years for killing his son in law and his father while wounding her sister. the court reduced a life sentence to 30 years because the judges ruled there were extenuating circumstances: the man committed the crime under heavy provocation when his son in law declared "i have used your daughter for five months and here is ytl 750 as her rent".

turkish courts seem to be rather lenient in murder cases - in recent months, many men who murdered women "under provocation" received radically reduced sentences due to mitigating conditions- one killer for instance is expected to get out in eight years or so.

yes, it is true that the tally of the angry father in izmir is bigger, two dead, one badly wounded - but i cannot stop myself from wondering whether killing men draws heaveir punishment almost instinctively.

turkey speaking for al qaida?

i read it in radikal last sunday and waited for some follow-up denial or confirmation from the government or the newspaper itself which did not come. i still am not sure how true it is but reportedly, tayyib efendi, who mustered his party's mp's for a weekend camp in kızılcahamam some 40 miles off ankara, told them at a closed session that unless the u.s. and western europe accept the pkk as a terrorist organization and act accordingly, turkey will not refer to al qaida as terrorist either but as a resistance organization.

this report came after he defended turkey's developing ties with iran in spite of america as "sound, realistic diplomacy that looks after turkey's best interests"... mainly, that there is trade between the two neighbors.

recently, i wrote about how tayyib efendi & co. & rosy have collectively turned turkey into a spokesnation for iran but even i, in my eternal pessimism, had not fathomed that our neo (or moderate) islamist global function as mouthpiece of evil could have extended to serve al qaida.

i am still hesitant to comment, because an iota of commonsense logic still whispers in my ear that even tayyib efendi, who undergoes an undying love affair with his own voice and his rhetorical abilities could loosen his verbal reins so far that his tongue runs amok.

if so though, turkey, whose world policy has been mainly decided according to the words and deeds of two persons in the last four decades, namely, mr. rauf denktaş of cyprus and abdullah öcalan, recently of the imralı island, is launching on a new course far more dangerous and harmful than the one that has placed it as 84th among 117 nations as regards human development (according to the undp's classification).

let us hope for bad journalism on part of radikal but if you ask me, the sole fact that nobody can off-hand refute and disregard the probability that turkey has become a mouthpiece for al qaida, something even ahmadinajad's iran has not dared, under the "rule" of tayyib efendi & co. & rosy is bad enough in itself.

ask me about istanbul, oh how i hate it!

i hate istanbul. i never loved nor liked it. istanbul always was, to me, a plethora of villages heaped on top and beside each other. its layout, its structure, its organization but most importantly, its soul, only add up to a dirty, messy, noisy, disorderly, uncouth travesty of urbanity, stomping on reason and civilization.

and please do not refer to the classic lie of istanbul's imported role as some sort of a carrier of a quasi-urban "high culture", emanating toward the provinces: colonial or semi colonial (ex)capitals love to delude themselves, pretending that affecting an order of add-on, thoughtless mannerisms, borrowed from colonizers, can pass for civility. the only "real" (1) civilization this land enjoyed and savored until the istanbul-ankara uni-central axis tromped on it, was in the aegean, the quintessence of the mediterranean.

semi-colonial economies are wont to colonize their own territories. likewise, greedy istanbul, hand in hand with ankara, the obsessive seat of political power and control, colonized the aegean, too. in an inevitable process of integrating with the world markets (2), as an agency of globalization, it subjugated the lifelines, exploited the vitality and sucked the fortunes of the entire country, only to channel the booty abroad... after taking its (however meager) commission, of course.

during the process of colonialization by the istanbul-ankara axis that devastated the aegean, too, izmir, the only city that really deserved the epithet since the ottomans was the first casualty. traditionally, the first source of both original and adapted novelty in turkish civil and social life, izmir's prominence in a resourceful region allowed a self subsistence and sufficiency that was the legacy and the earmark of the ancient "polis". its historic aloofness and freedom from the "center", afforded izmir an almost natural autonomy from the central authority of the axis. that autonomy was quite pronounced until the mid 1950s but began to come under the spell of a nationalizing central economy steered by the axis from then on.

the jacobin, despotic, centralist axis could not easily brook any form of autonomy that might threaten to get out from under its comprehensive political control. therefore it also preferred its business to stay under its thumb, rather than let a fairly independent local bourgeoisie flourish. the empire suffered and tolerated izmir because the aegean meant revenue from agricultural exports - likewise did the republic for a while (3).

slowly, the relative autonomy of first izmir, the beating heart of the region, then of peripheral "paradises" like kuşadası or bodrum were destroyed. their local economies, indigenous, idiosyncratic and particular means of physical and intellectual subsistence were thoroughly dried. from the commandeering of the marketplace to architectural destruction, abusive exploitation and avaricious commodification of nature and history, often in the form of real estate marketing, killed almost every single originality. gradually, standardized styles of existence that plagued the "modernist charade" of istanbul and ankara, pervaded and shrouded all aspects of aegean originality, with its packaged and mediocre commonplace culture.

istanbul's role in this chapter of turkey's history, was to spread throughout the land the disease it itself caught a hundred and fifty years ago. the de-culturization that captivated the populace in a frenzy of getting richer without actually getting rich, simply aggravated when a barely fledgling economy got inevitably dragged into the throes of globalization as of the last quarter of the 20th century - just as it once had in the mid 19th century.

the loss is actually far bigger than can fit few paragraphs: the only hope backward economies as turkey, mexico, india etc., whose cultural accumulation has also proved mostly uneconomic and un-saleable on a universal scale, could only hope to win a proper seat on the bandwagon to globality to the extent they could merchandize the originalities that shape and distinguish their methodologies of life from other societies'. such originalities are mainly cultural goods that may be adopted, adapted or interpreted for the global market in tastes and ideas. döner kabab, though quite pedestrian, is a sample. on the other hand, the paintings of yavuz tanyeli, for instance are (4), an example of universalizing the arcadian of the highest quality.

some call this process "glocalization", i believe glocality is a more appropriate expression.


turkey significantly lost its claims to the international market in glocal goods too. through political manipulation, istanbul's subordinated, externally imposed, second (if not third) hand, foreign designed and foreign dependent, inferior political-economy that evolved from import substitution, turned into the national focus and locus of economic activity. this so called "development", illuminated by the eggregious lack of sight typical of the istanbul-ankara axis (5), subjugated all forces of production and with its control over the markets, usurped the corollary power of piloting consumption, which in underdeveloped political economies, often also serves as a motivator of mentalities.


in the end, while the rest of country, including the historically productive aegean and the mediterranean, became graduallly necrous; istanbul, fatally sucking their infected blood and dead tissue and social effluents, turned into a swirling cesspool. however, through its global links, it succeeded in remaining the main vent by which some oxygen could penetrate the guagmire.

istanbul could create such a colony out of a dead empire and a fairly large nation state by the standardization of uncouth masses that re-conquered it and became the customers of its second hand, second rate merchandize, ruralized physical environment and increasingly lumpen culture. originality in everything but most significantly, in taste, was abandoned to mere availability. curiously, even function was seconded to it. the contagious poor taste that began to define istanbul spread like a plague everywhere, causing havoc with thousand years of historic, archaelogical, cultural and architectural accumulus in aesthetics, as well as social know-how. the most visible effects were in architecture; as a history of imperial aesthesia was demolished, "skyscrapers" that are but dwarf by world criteria, soaring next to criminally ugly cubic housing projects and mudbrick slums, began to compete with ancient istanbul's two millennia old skyline.

istanbul's self defeating and self destructive mental attitude still reeks like a rank odor issuing from a body dosed with deodorant instead of taking a bath. istanbul badly failed in becoming the urbane and mundane "city that civilizes by being civic". it had no authentic urban culture to offer or impose on immigrating hordes except its affected manners, and whatever existed of the urban way of mind was flushed into the growing cesspool, as the invading, or re-conquering (6) peasant masses flooded the city (and all could-be cities) with their rural habits of thinking and living.

then what the hell am i doing here?

first of all, i am a prisoner of war: the aegean having fallen, i was dragged here by circumstance. second, the process i extrapolated above has left bodrum and the aegean as such barren mental landscapes that bore me terribly after a while... third, i have trained myself so in mya captivity, that my hate and disdain of istanbul do not prevent me from enjoying what it still has left to offer (6). in some sort of a revanche, i am exploiting the last remaining joys of istanbul.

i almost never express an affective stance to objects and subjects i know little about and istanbul; well ask me about it... yes, i do hate istanbul but that does not mean i do not appreciate it. i admire its historicity. i explore, experience and cherish what is left that i can access of the heritage of two millennia, trying to place the new occupants of yesteryear's plush capital on a map of time-and-space. i greatly dig getting lost in the old town behind the walls; riding in and out of nondescript alleys that pass as streets, watching women languishing on front porches of now derelict houses of once posh districts, kids kicking balls in the dust as slothful, swarthy, somber, stubbled men uselessly slump in coffee shops.

when i feel like i am in a land invaded by aliens, i simply escape...

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(1) whether in the old glorious days of the empire or the post westernization contention between renovators and traditionalists, the manners of the palace were hardly a model for the being and behavior of the masses. basic modes of existence were divorced from the military imperialism of the palace and went about in the vein of the mediterranean urb structured in the millennia of phoenician-greco-roman maritime glory. it was this "civil" and civic nature that central authority stomped on from mid 19th century on and especiallly during the process of building a nation.

(2) "market" should not be viewed as a narrow, economic concept but in an anthropological sense as a meeting place of people and their communicated ideas and messages that establishes the "market" as a nucleus force in society, as well as and above a venue of tradeable goods.

(3) izmir created its own bourgeoisie that threatened to develope into a social force to challenge the authoritarian absolutism of the center. the ankara-istanbul axis eventually pressured izmir into submission in the 1980s, by swallowing its economy into the swirl of globalism. izmir's budding capitalism was hardly given a chance, even the yaşar group was swept under. today, izmir's basic economic worth is reduced (back) to manufactural level. however, the town's insistent rejection of intellectual self-development, embracing of parochialism and provincialism were also quite effective in its downfall. izmir or the entire aegean were never articulate about the existential virtues of being mediterranean, because intellect as a treasure was never appreciated until too late.

(4) some works of yavuz are currently on exhibition at the art fair in istanbul modern. what yavuz tanyeli needs to become an effective global cultural force is to find a savvy, mundane, capable art dealer who can market his art all over the world.

(5) in the way of empirical support, suffice it to recount that not one square inch of metropolitan istanbul is properly planned. another sample that pertains to the cultural: the city's mayor in the 1980s, who tore down maybe more than 500 hundred century old buildings and landfilled half of the bosporus and the marmara coast to build new roads, mr. bedreddin dalan, himself an engineer with no interest in history except banal references to a glorious and islamic flavored past, declared the dolmabahçe palace an unimportant building with little historical significance, made by a mediocre architect. dolmabahçe was designed and built by master balyan, the imperial architect of armenian extraction. not only did it take topkapı's place as the house of sultans, it was the place where atatürk died. even those facts are enough to qualify the invaluability of dolmabahçe as a historic and historical monument. why, then, did dalan make that unfortunately ignorant remark? because -after his mentor turgut özal- he too, wanted to assign the gardens of the palace to build the swiss hôtel. result? the sewers of the hotel still often flood into the basement of the palace.

(6) the reconquest of istanbul is the spiel of prof. necmeddin erbakan, the guru of political islam in turkey, the mentor to president abdullah gül and p.m. tayyib erdoğan (his son is named after him). of course, the allusion is to true muslims deciding the fate of the city again.

rosy sequel

when rosy of the tayyib efendi & co. & rosy made president of turkey, i was rather loath to accept him for reasons of public poor taste: his compulsive and maybe also revanchist yearn to climb to çankaya sort of left his cohorts on the wrong footing - contrepied, as the french would say... then, he instantly broke his promise to encompass and embrace all citizens etc., etc... all those, although unpleasant, were natural if you consider his political roots and inclinations and did not fully deduct from his (well earned) political right to be elected.

the aesthetics i was (and am) piqued by, pertain to his political attitude and in my judgment, jeopardize the authority of the station he occupies: i remember abdullah gül as a member in his mentor's cabinet, that of the islamist necmettin erbakan formed with the now (thank heavens) politically deceased ms. tansu çiller(1). i remember him in the pose of the supplicant, erbakan's stance identical, too, his head bowed slightly to one side and his hands tied before him, being tongue lashed by the strongman moammar qaddafy in the latter's tent during a state visit to libya.

therefore, his icky, uncalled for and unheard-of-in-state-protocol rush to the visiting saudi (so-called) king' s hotel suite in ankara, to me was and is not a surprise but a sequel with more to come.

ring-around-the-rosy?

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(1) ms. çiller, unfortunately, is preparing for resurrection, her candidacy for leader of the democrat party is in question. the misfortune here is not in ms. çiller's chances of a comeback (less than nil) but the utter plight (plague?) of the so-called opposition in turkey's pathetic politics.

is turkey the spokesnation of iran?

turkey initiated a potentially significant political raprochement between simon peres and mahmoud abbas bringing them together in ankarato address the turkish parliament. one would imagine more bells would ring in the western press but online issues of the ny times, washington post and the guardian did not carry the ankara rapport this morning.

bad journalism or turkey's perennial incompetence in currying the appropriate public relations for its good deeds? this is the only nation that accepted hundreds of thousands of fleeing kurds from iraq during the gulf war of 1991 but was reflected in the (western) world media with shots and footage of a frightened buck private beating an onslaught of zillion refugees into order with the stock of his rifle.

now, the israeli-palestine leaders' meeting is being swept under the carpet, probably for the sheer reason of ankara's wishy-washy attitude in the matter of iran, neither denouncing ahmadinajad's regime, nor endorsing it. thus as iran's universal prestige slides lower and lower, turkey somehow clings on to the sinking body.

simon peres said after meeting with abdullah gül that the only point they could not aggree on in otherwise "very favorable" talks was the turkish president's bias toward iran.

american apprehensions over turkey also touch upon the increasing ties between ankara and teheran. tayyib efendi goes to washington and finds it upon himself to mumble in defense of iran's nuclear "energy" program.

turkey and its diplomatic machinery are busy giving the impression that they are slowly beginning to assume the role of a mouthpiece for iran.

why? chiefly of course, because of tayyib efendi & co. & rosy's reluctance to relinquish their obsession with making something of turkey's (predominantly) islamic population. as they simply melt in front of a so called "king" of oil rich desert nomads; they cannot realize that ahmadinajad's islamic republic is less a source of diplomatic-political credit than an anathema.

then, it is quite probable that their religiously tainted narrow weltanschauung causes them to establish false linkages: they try to trump american unwillingness to crush the pkk with a turco-iranian gas deal and go on to advocate iran's very dubious and possibly devious cock and bull "right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes", although the mullahs do not even know what to do with their oil and gas and iran certainly has an energy surplus. again, they may be assuming quite incorrectly that supporting that spiel will "punish" israel for not sufficiently mobilizing the jewish lobby to block the armenian genocide bill in the u.s. congress. that is also why they are still undecided whether hamas is a militant off-shoot of iranian aggressiveness or the "legitimate" representation of palestine.

tayyib efendi & co. & rosy are not intellectually equipped to realize that -unless you are a vacuous pretender to a role of superpower like russia- speaking for the devil often gets you tied to the stake. the problem is, you go mostly unheard, and you do not make news unless you go up in flames.

who's carrying whose flag now?

i just watched a singers' contest on bbc-prime "conducted" by the legend, placido domingo himself.

the contestants were all in their 20s, young up and coming stars. it was a visual feast for my ears. the second and third prizes were ties, and shared respectively by a chinese soprano and a russian tenor and a russian speaking tenor and bass.

the first prize went to soprano isabel bayrakdarian...

somehow, i missed under what flag ms. bayrakdarian sang, though i doubt it is armenia and certainly not turkey!.. miz isabel is definitely of turkish-armenian stock: "bayrakdarian" means the "child (son, actually) of the flag (standard) bearer" in turkish. the obvious conclusion is that her family were quite trusted servants of the ottoman political (perhaps also military) hierarchy. a surmise is, the family had to leave turkey after the tragedies of 1915; the "genocide" according to many and the "armenian uprisal, forced migration and killings" according to turkey.

whatever happened or why, history hardly ever favoring one side alone in a controversy, however sad or cruel, i deeply regret this very moment that regardless who was right, turkey, an independent, relatively powerful and greater state, never came up with the political flexibility and the ideological, cultural, psychological suppleness to work out the ways and methodoology of leaving the tragic incident and its time weary traces behind as another dark page in history - which, in this part of the world, are far more than glorious white ones.

isabel bayrakdarian could now have been crowned as a turkish (*) singer. she would have once again hoisted the flag her forefathers used to carry with honor, her voice gracing ears, minds and hearts, her charm adding gloss to her glory.

isabel bayrakdarian won, what a loss for turkey's universal presence not to share in her victory!..

today, a hürriyet columnist wrote that the "only other belligerent nation in the world after america is turkey"; so that the world has come to identify us with war.

how many times can one lose the flag carrier, over and over? sad, apparently, may be a choice where the wise becomes invisible to the mind in search of resplendence.

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(*) not as an ethnic but historio-geographical reference, i could as easily say "a singer from turkey".

gone and unfortunately not known enough to be forgotten, even...

mübeccel kıray has passed away. she was probably the brightest, most insightful, enlightening turkish scholar, who, unlike muzafer sherif, the renowned psychologist, for instance, chose not to break her ties with the country.

kıray was born in izmir, the year the republic was declared. she studied anthropology, a brand new social science, at the then newly founded ankara university; taught sociology and social anthropology at the middle east technical university (metu), london school of economics, istanbul technical university, marmara university and university of texas, austin.

kıray contributed to theories of modernization and social change by pointing out to the very significant (especially as developing societies are concerned) phenomenon that modernity is not an accoutrement that is linearly attained by emulating the same forms as the capitalist western societies. she proposed that intermediary forms and buffer mechanisms/institutions occur which mediate the passage from one social structure to another. such institutions are, by themselves, neither modern/capitalist nor premodern (feudal) or agrarian. they belong to the period of the passage, to be left behind as progression to another stage is complete.

kıray's theoretical contribution was a blow to the development theories and policies of the 60s and 70s, which constituted the cultural - political aspect of american hegemony and maintained that the formation of western institutions in the third (and third-and-a-half) world would ensure their transition to modernity. when the theory failed, u.s. backed colonels' coups and authoritarian regimes erupted all over...

every turn of turkey's - or possibly, chile's or pakistan's - history of cultural transformations provides a plethora of events that corroborate kıray's theory; from instituting educational establishments that teach more hype than knowledge and science, to strange interpretations of modern-ized legal systems so that gabriel garcia marquez's story of south america, red monday, is reenacted in batman, eastern turkey; or perrennial messes in traffic that result from a collective idiocy that institutionalizes the ignorance of organizational norms.

today, i asked my class to name turkish football players in foreign leagues. they counted at least six.

none of them knew who mübeccel kıray was...

the traffic of anti-americanism

anti-americanism in turkey is like the traffic problem in istanbul (1): it is a serious problem because there is nothing serious about it! and i'm not musing either, this is a very serious statement.

traffic is a disaster in istanbul because, instead of adopting and abiding by universally standard rules and signs designating how roads are to be used as public property, every driver, every pedestrian, every traffic administrator, every planner, every infrastructure builder and even every onlooker is guided by one sole canon: expedience...

there simply is no detectable reason to question and improve. nobody stops to wonder if my expedience is expedient for you, too; and if it is not, whether your expedient presence in the off-side quadrangle of a junction may very inexpediently blocking my way.

actually, that causal sequence is called logic and it is observable in some lower species as cart drawing horses and even oxen.

hence, everything in istanbul traffic is a mess. the sole motivation is that of rushing spermatazoa in a race to impregnate some - and in this case, unavalilable - ovum. the turk that is the most to hurry and harry, the first honker when the light turns green, is often the one who will bolt to the coffee shop to sit doing nothing except maybe play a card game with chips instead of a deck- more expedient than cards because you don't have to hold them in your hand while you're chain smoking...

hating america is expedient, too. it leaves no time for auto-critique and/or self loathing that is corollary to an inflated collective ego when bruised - which again, happens often. it is also very easy : at the current phase (since 2000) the u.s. of a. boasts the most conveniently hate-able and hate-attracting western leader this side of 1945. dubya is a global hate magnet (totally mis)managing a worldwide (2) establishmentthat is america .

hating and blaming america is easier than sending your daughters to school, respecting the rights of the man crossing the street or acquiring a profession for your livelihood instead of going about as a born-expert on every matter from driving to army commanding and to state administration. it certainly is safer than bickering with your "rulers", too.

the friction between turkey and the u.s. is caused far less by confrontation than the utter ignorance and incompetence dubya and his neo-cons have displayed in their pathetic grasp of the world. unless an equal ignoramus wins in 2008 - which is why i am praying for hilarious to win, so that billy boy can handle the world and its beauties with his peculiar aplomb again -, a world wary and personable president can mend the fences in two weeks. remember how clinton had his nose squeezed by a slimy kid in the quake zone and at that point, could easily be elected turkey's next head of state (3)?

so you see, these are serious matters only because if ever attended seriously, they will vanish instantly. traffic is a matter of optimizing the use of available public volumes, not of usurping and vandalizing them. corrective punishment will suffice to bring the bedlam to reasonable ordder. international or cross-national sympathies or antipathies are simpletons' surrogates for contemplation of interest optimizing and are subject to instant change if the right sentiments are harped on. something even dubya can do (4).

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(1) istanbul is symbolic here because it is the extreme case. all turkey is afflicted with the same mental and behavioral disease of maniacal vehicle handling. for example, the republic day weekend, at bodrum's deadly torba junction, within the space of two minutes, three cars and a truck raced through the intersection with no chance of stopping in case of obstruction. the crossroads are lit ss ugly as a cheap sailors' brothel but worse, stupidly misleading in the ways they are placed and in their garish colors that completely baffle an unaccustomed driver. meanwhile, there exist no traffic lights. the reason cited: traffic lights will cause accidents because nobody will obey them anyway. the significance of the torba junction among thousand similar others in turkey is that a young pop star/actor tragically died there past july when crushed by a truck charging through. entire turkey shed tears over him and cursed mad drivers and every single body, from retired traffic cops to my barber, suggested remedies to make the intersection safe. still, everyone sppeeds through it because the junction is at the bottom of a downhill stretch that extends to a (rather mild) climb that is more expediently challenged if one hits it fast!
(2) the exact word would be catholic but is prone to confusion with the ecclesiastic usage
(3) in fact, he was going out, and turkey was trying to name a president, who turned out to be a. necdet sezer. some writers, i recall, did jocularly suggest, despite his fling with monica, that bill clinton should be given the job. i still do! he's fun at least.
(4) some turkish football teams are playing for high stakes in european tournaments. if i am aware of that, the political secretary of the embassy in ankara should, too... here is my bet: a little timely cognizance from george bush le fils, supporting one (or all) of those teams; or a team-colored baseball cap he wears in case one can make it to the top, will be enough to stop, if not turn the evil tide.

making sense to kurds

no science, no art, no philosophy, no literature, no environment, no democrats, no finesse... issues i and a number of other left-outs have always complained about as huge gaps of knowledge in the turkish modes of mentally constructing the world.

now, we are facing as a nation, a gross ramification of thinking with our guns instead of our minds. our democrat-free democracy has long created an ogre that has gnawed on turkish society for years and now threatens to mangle it: a feud between turks and kurds, that is mutually suicidal rather than fratricidal!

ten years ago, a division of the country might have been hypothetically possible without destroying the essential make-up of either ethnic community. now, even on paper, such separation can be but fatal for both. since the 1990s, millions of kurds have spread into the country, which is also their country, so that ethnic strife can only devastate both entities that constitute one nation. however, not only rampant turkish nationalism but also the cultural customs of kurds and their particular articulation with their turkish compatriots can at present be listed as psychological distances that belie physical proximity.

what do we know about this anthropological - sociological and pychological phenomenon that bears so much dormant risk to our vey existence? nil? most possibly... why? because in our denial of a kurdish entity, in our despisal of academic inquiry, we simply ignored the study of the kurdish way of mind and life. worse, we jailed anyone who dared to study the kurds as a specific social actuality. i know many young scholars who have researched kurdish life and culture in situ but all as affiliates of universities abroad. i doubt any turkish academic institution has any worthwhile and reliable data, studies or publications on a matter that directly pertains to the country's life-lines.

how are we going to live with people to whose minds, souls and praxes we are so indifferent? how are we going to communicate with them? whether on the north or the south of our borders, how are we going to reach out to them and make sense to them as partners in life? certainly a reference to a millenium of shared geography and politics is not so satisfactory any longer.

instead of science, learning and thought, we have tried to ensure political unity only with our guts and guns, since the 1821 uprising in the peleponessus. it seems there has occurred no change in our grasp of the world ever since, wielding nietzche's hammer all the time, we see all problems as nails.

hope we do not bang it on our thumb this once...

washington post colonialism

last night, erkan (see link to erkan's field diary above) and i had a rendez vous with a reporter from the washington post visiting istanbul to investigate the surge of anti americanism in turkey. we were supposed to have dinner together and chat, so we went to a favorite taverna with erkan to wait for him.

the fellow stood us up with no prior or posterior notice of regret.

furthermore, i understood he also stood up haluk şahin, another bilgi professor and went to talk with soli özel (1), still another bilgi university instructor who also scribes for the post on occasion.

big deal... who in a sane mind can hope for proper conduct from a journalist?

yet, primary school etiquette tells you that if your are not going to be able to abide by a promise, keep a date etc., the civilized act is to call, write, whatever and apologize. that is because the human interfacce of modernity dictates that we are all equal (even journalists, unfortunately). our time is equally important and precious, and to keep somebody waiting is stealing from their time, i.e., their life.

it was the colonialists who usurped the time and lives of their vassals in the old days of imperialism.

what cheek! so like a puny pukka sahib, this discourteous fellow from the washington post has the arrogance, the impunity, the audacity, the ill-mannered, uncivil rudeness to impose himself into our schedules, also abusing the credit we accord a beloved colleague; impinges on our time and has the gall to be so impolite as not to apologize for disrupting the flow of our lives, as if we are pariah!

and in total blindness of this pretentious, grandiose, colonialist attitude displayed in its name by one of its employees, a major american newspaper inquires into rising anti americanism in the rest of the world, after they dispatch this boorish would-be colonialist to do their investigation as if they have no other person to send

then, in absolute hebetitude, they do wonder why anti americanism has become a global tide!..

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(1) soli is a right person to see. this commentary no way implicates him but the rude and purpose defeating demeanor of the post reporter, some amar bakshi.