Excerpts from The Economist article on Turkey (for full article, click here)
… Many see the campaign to topple the AKP as part of a long battle pitting an old guard, used to monopolising wealth and power, against a rising class of pious Anatolians symbolised by the AKP. Others say it is mostly about an army […]
Read Soner Cagaptay’s important critique of the AKP’s social policies in Newsweek (click here for full article)
…The AKP’s stance on social issues also suggests a return to traditional religious values. While it touts its proposal to allow young Muslim women to wear Islamic-style headscarves in universities as a move toward a true freedom of religion, […]
Photo from Today’s Zaman
Fethiye Cetin, a lawyer representing the family of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was assassinated by a young man under the influence of ultranationalism, discusses the status of the case against Dink’s killers, including the involvement of state officials and security forces in the assassination, with possible links to the Ergenekon group, […]
Prospect Magazine has announced that Fethullah Gülen, the leader of an influential Turkey-based global Sufi-oriented Islamic movement, has won the international poll to choose the World’s Most Influential Intellectual. While Gülen and his ideas are widely admired, he also is feared and hated by some in Turkey who see his enormous reach and publishing […]
Excerpts from Newsweek article on Turkey (click for full article):
Turkey’s Constitutional Court recently overruled its National Assembly and declared that two constitutional amendments passed in February were in fact unconstitutional. The Assembly is entitled to amend the Constitution with a 65 percent majority, and the judges conceded that I’s had been dotted and T’s crossed. […]
On April 16, Professor Henri Barkey’s gave the 2008 Campagna-Kerven Lecture on Modern Turkey at Boston University: “Where have Old Friends Gone? US-Turkish Relations Since the Iraq War”. To see a video of his well-received lecture, click here.
From Mustafa Akyol’s column:
[Serif Mardin] argued that, in the past decades, the official ideology of the Republic (i.e., Kemalism) has been overshadowed by the teachings of Islam. Using the “imam” and the “teacher” as symbols for religious morality and secular ethics respectively, he flatly proclaimed: “The imam has won over the teacher.” …
The reason why […]
The deputy head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate insisted yesterday that, despite people’s reference to religious requirements to keep their daughters home, there was no religious reason for not sending girls to school. Rather, Islam demands that every Muslim, men and women, seek knowledge and science from birth to death. Society’s discrimination has forced […]
I couldn’t have said it better!
Soli Ozel’s excellent article in today’s Financial Times (click here)
An excerpt:
Turkey’s constitutional court is considering a case to close the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) and ban 71 of its politicians from politics….
Many voters are offended by this crude attempt to nullify their vote. It is the judicial equivalent […]
Photo by DPA
The German news magazine Spiegel predicts street protests after the expected banning of Turkey’s ruling AK Party around September. Other observers point to the widespread passive acceptance of the closing as a fait accomplis (A coup? “Oh, no, not again!” Shrug.) and the maneuvering that has already begun to get around the closure […]