Kamil Pasha

From Today’s Zaman

Tags: Deep state/Ergenekon, Politics, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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This blog was originally going to be a commentary about my novels, which are set in 19th century Istanbul, or rather about seeing Istanbul through the eyes of the main character in the series, Kamil Pasha. (click the page above for information about the Kamil Pasha novels.) Before long, my anthropologist/social scientist […]

Tags: Fiction, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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Excerpts from Nicole Pope’s column:
… “This is it. We have really become a Middle Eastern country, jumping from one crisis to the next,” a Turkish friend lamented when she heard the news of the bloody attack [on the US consulate in Istanbul].
The remarkable resilience that Turks have always displayed in the face of difficulties, […]

Tags: Kurds, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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From Today’s Zaman:
Members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) on Tuesday kidnapped three German mountaineers as they were climbing Mt. Agri (Ararat), the governor of the eastern Anatolian province of Agri announced yesterday.
The three Germans were nabbed from a group of 13 mountaineers by five PKK terrorists, who raided their camp at an altitude […]

Tags: Kurds, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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Radikal, May 5, 2008: Cartoon by Piyale Madra http://www.piyalemadra.com/
“There are so many books in their home… books up to the ceilings….even the corridors are full up with books.”
“I know. There’s one of those in our housing development too.”

Tags: Culture, Education, Uncategorized, Women by Jenny White
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Yasemin Congar wrote a hard-hitting Opinion piece in Taraf Daily on the Army General Staff’s Information Support Plan,  dated September 2007, a document unearthed by Taraf Daily that it claims describes a comprehensive plan of action to intervene in politics and civilian life.
From a Todays Zaman article: The plan went into effect in September 2007, according to the document, […]

Tags: AKP closure case, Deep state/Ergenekon, Politics, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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What is Ergenekon?
Over the past few months, the Turkish police have arrested a diverse group of shadowy figures, including former military officers, secret police, prosecutors, and others, accused of plotting to overthrow the Turkish government, preparing to assassinate the Turkish Nobel Laureate writer Orhan Pamuk, and of being involved in the murder of other prominent […]

Tags: Deep state/Ergenekon, Politics, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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A couple of years ago, a young professional woman I met told me the story of how her family lost a parcel of land overlooking the Bosphorus on the Asian side that had been in her family for generations. Men with guns came and threatened to harm them if her father didn’t sign the property […]

Tags: Istanbul, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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I just read Nicholas Carr’s thought-provoking article in The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. It’s not about Turkey (although it does resonate with some of my posts on education), but it’s well worth reading — in its entirety, not just the pre-masticated summary excerpts I offer below to tantalize you.
Anyone who writes, teaches, reads […]

Tags: Education, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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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 […]

Tags: Culture, Education, Politics, Religion, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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