The Last Great Romantic Poster

By Jack Vettriano.

'Foreign votes'

Today's Turkish Daily News run a column of a Turkish-Finn, or Finnish-Turk; Reeta Cevik.
What she writes is interesting and can be said for most N.W. Europeans, as for other Europeans as well. Turkey is still a young and a fragile democracy but it is maturing quickly.
Emre already wrote about her on his blog. Here is the integral one:

Turkish elections through a Finnish lens

Friday, July 20, 2007

REETA ÇEVİK

Differences and similarities

Observing Turkish politics from a Finnish perspective is always an adventure. In Finland, consensus and compromise are the rules of the political game. Finnish politicians consider it inappropriate to blame their rivals or to focus on irreconcilable ideological differences. In Turkey, on the other hand, political parties tend to give prominence to negative criticism, sometimes at the expense of developing and explaining their own positive policies.
The second difference is the role of women in politics. In Turkey, women comprise a rather small minority in Parliament, despite having won full political rights before their sisters in many other European countries. In Finland, women hold 42 percent of the seats. The consequences are clear. Policies created by both genders find a deeper resonance in society as a whole, whereas policies created solely by one gender are often unsuccessful. Such policies simply lack the complementary wisdom and insight that only the female half of the population could contribute.
The third difference is in the use of rhetoric.Agitated and aggressive gestures are considered uncivilized in Finnish political etiquette. The shouting matches (and worse) that occasionally echo in the Turkish Parliament could not even be imagined in Finland.
However, despite all these differences, Turkey and Finland also share a wealth of common experiences and common values.

Continue reading here.

No Debate?

In a column of July 9, 2007, I stated that Turkish political communication atmosphere is top-down. No real discussion possible. Why is there no live-debate between the main party leaders? Are they afraid to lose their temper as some months ago...

The person down on the right, Deniz Baykal, celebrates today his birthday, for your information.

Election predictions II

My friend Erkan put on his blog an interesting poll.
Still, I am convinced that people will change their minds at the last moment and a lot of protest votes will come out: votes for anti-establishment parties.
And still I think that the CHP will do worse than the opinion polls show.

In the last weeks I spoke with many people who normally would vote for the CHP. Now they are looking at other parties. Some say: GP, some choose to vote for an independent candidate, some admit that - unlike AK party roots from political Islam - they will vote for them. Of the 15 people who used to vote for CHP, only one will vote for them again. And one of the other 14 will vote for MHP.

I am still pondering my head while the 'Turkish Diaspora' (6 million people) are only able to vote when they come over to Turkey as Yasemin stated in her post. Are the Turkish diplomats able to vote abroad?

There was a small poll in the Netherlands among the 500.000 Turkish people living there. Most of them support the AK party and only some would vote for independent candidates of the DTP if they were able to vote in the Netherlands. MHP was the third party. It was strange to see that there is almost no support for the CHP in Hollanda...

First Dutch sweet shop opened in Istanbul

This month a shop opened in Bagdat Caddesi: a Dutch sweet shop. I don't think that many people know that the Dutch are famous for their cookies, candies, chocolates, cakes and licorice (see picture above). In fact, I got all kinds of funny jokes about the Dutch cuisine, but may I remind my Turkish, Italian and Greek friends that after the USA and France, the Netherlands is the third largest producer of food in the world..)) With only 600.000 people working in agriculture...

Here are some chocolate samples of Droste.


Although not sweets, below a picture of some of the hundreds of different cheeses the Netherlands produces. Dutch cheese, together with Indo-Dutch food and Mustard sauce, I miss the most since I left the Netherlands 8 years ago. Beer? In Czech republic you have pretty good beer, the USA is Heineken and Amstel minded, and Turkey has its Efes Extra, which beats even Belgian beer..)

Election time

Comparing the Dutch elections with the Turkish one is comparing like the Kentucky Derby, the 2 most exciting minutes in sports, with a turtle race.
Dutch elections are dull, and it's all about 'intellectual stuff', whilst the Turkish elections are overheated once in a while, but for sure full of surprises. And I have to admit: 'I love it'...
For a turtle race you can go to Costa Rica, where they organize such a race from there to the Galapagos Islands. Or to a restaurant in Key West, Florida. That is a nice place to stay for a week or so.

Turkey attacks Kurdish positions in N. Iraq

As I have witnessed over and over again, in general, Turkish media are slow.
When T. Erdogan made the statement that he will not return as the leader of Ak Party if he fails to establish a single party government, it was all over the news in Europe.
It took 36 hours for Turkish journalists to announce that what he said was true.

Yesterday a bomb attack in front of an AK office, and more interestingly:

'Turkish Army' bombed several cities in 'Northern Iraq'. I asked my Turkish wife to check all the news channels, but since there is censorship, they can not broadcast it. Only if there is some kind of 'victory'.
Read your newspapers on Friday, then you will read more...))

Paintings of Iman Maleki of Iran - Exhibition in Catalonia

Studying



Sunlight...



Omens-of-Hafez



Secret meeting: making music



Girl by the window

More information about Iman Maleki soon.

FIFA ranking by July the 18th 2007..

Where is Turkey..)) Where are England and Greece, the European Champions of Euro 2004?
But there is still the Netherlands..)

1. Brazil
2. Argentina
3. Italy
4. France
5. Germany
6. The Netherlands
7. Croatia
8. Portugal
9. Spain
10. Mexico

The insignificant citizens of Turkey

Who are they? Of course us, the ones that live in other countries. We are many, I guess, but we cannot vote in the coming elections unless we travel to Turkey between 25th of June and 22nd of July. Many countries let their citizens vote by post or at their embassies/consulates, but we, the Turkish citizens, are not given this right. Why??

Al-Qaeda and the USA

According to the National Intelligence Estimate, the group of all 16 'intelligence' agencies such as the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc., Al-Qaeda-Iraq, established after the USA-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, became more and more a threat to their Homeland = USA.
So the second goal of the invasion is also a disaster...it took them 4 years to come to this conclusion. Is this a joke?

First post from Florence

Hello all. Hans has been kind enough to introduce me. I should correct just one thing: I am not that fluent in German; although I have studied it for 6 years as my second foreign language I have never practiced it. I use it only in my occasional trips to Germany to talk to waiters at the cafes and restaurants, and for communicating with shop assistants. Yet, I should admit that it was great help in learning Norwegian since their grammars are alike and there are quite a few similar words.

I don't think I will be posting as often as Hans, I don't even manage posting to my own blog very often, but I will definitely continue editing his posts and helping him technically whenever he needs my help.

An excellent polemic

Burak Bekdil wrote today an excellent column as a reply to Mustafa Akyol's column of last week. This is an excellent polemic, where the journalists are not insulting, not becoming personal but give their opinions from their points of view, and share them with their audience of TDN.
Now it's waiting on a reply of Mustafa. Excellent writing by the both of them.

Here is the column of Burak:

The sum of all secular fears – a reply
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Last week, my ‘column neighbor’ Mustafa Akyol drew a very realistic typology: The secular Turk. That typology is so real, but does not explain Turkey as a whole. Hoping to make the picture more complete, I shall draw my typology: The Islamist/pragmatist Turk.

My “column neighbor” Mustafa Akyol wrote an excellent article titled, “The sum of all secular fears,” (Turkish Daily News, July 12, 2007) that was witty yet realistic; perfectly describing, in one virtual character that was the “secular Turk” coming home from a trip to “the West” with his girlfriend with fake blond hair, the superficiality of the “white Turk.” Mr. Akyol's account of the “secular Turk” in stylish jeans and t-shirt could not possibly be more accurate.
Allow me to remind you of Mr. Akyol's hero, the secular Turk, who takes a vacation to visit some place in Europe or North America: He is the boyfriend of the elegant girl with fake blond hair; he gets offended when the “indigenous westerner” he chats with during the flight believes all Turks wear fez or turbans; he believes in the Kemalist revolution “which worked really hard to wipe off anything Oriental from Turkish society;” he comes across terribly unpleasant scenes at Istanbul's Ataturk airport upon his return from the days of pilgrimage to the temples of modernity: Men with beards who prefer mosques to nightclubs and women with headscarves who as their role model take Prophet Mohammed's daughters and not Britney Spears; he calls these devout Muslims “cockroaches.”

Continue reading here.

Update

Made same changes on my blog:
The most important one is that Yasemin Yalcinkaya will be a co-author of this blog.
She is Turkish and speaks several foreign languages fluently: English, Norwegian, German, Italian and of course her native language Turkish. No, she doesn't speak Dutch and French, I do...but together we can be a news wire..))
For the past 17 years she is studying, living and working abroad e.g. Norway and Italy. Married to an Italian, and now living happily ever after near Florence with her husband and two children.
She has a PhD. in computer science, and can talk and write about the interesting developments in both Turkey and Europe.
Hey, what do you want more: a really inter cultural multi-lingual blog?!
She is looking for a job now, in Italy, Italia, Firenze preferibile, signori, but she feels comfortable to be my unpaid editor for the time being...help her!

Carnaval in Fatih, Istanbul

As some of you already know, my favorite district of Istanbul is Fatih. Not because of the 'modern Islamistic dressed women' (...) but because it's the place where my friends of the Foreign police have their headquarters and where I can buy a residency. The trip is always exciting, especially when my wife drives me and she drives from Macka to Mecidiyekoy to Fatih...quite a longer way than direct from Macka to Taksim and so into Fatih. Enfin: it was again a freaky hot day, and when you wear a suite like me, you will not be unseen in this area.

But my mood became cheerful seeing all the flags. Even some in our Dutch national color Orange...thousands and thousands there in Fatih. Looks like they are ready for carnival a la Rio instead of elections. I think they how know to party, in a different way than I used to do, but a la, everybody has his or her taste. As you can see in the picture below, one girl made her (although completely unrecognized) entry and danced on the street as we do in Rio..)



The way back was an interesting tour as well. As my wife (Call her O. or I. but I think her surname is more important..)) still doesn't know the ways in Istanbul although born and raised here and lived here all her life (with the exception of wasting 6 years abroad...) this time - the shortest in her opinion - was first 20 km in the direction of Edirne, from there a turn around to Ataturk airport, and then finally back to Macka. Quite an interesting tour. If she was a taxi driver I was already with her in a police station..))

And do I have my papers now? No, one more trip to Fatih, this time by taxi tomorrow, which takes 10 minutes one way, instead of twice 1 hour...
Pictures I made out of a shaking car..))

You have to keep in mind, my O. or I. sometimes stops on the highway when she has to make an decision: shall I take this Exit or not? Even for the Turkish drivers she is a pain in the ass. For me, I don't know better: she is only not allowed to drive when we are on holiday...

For more info call the Hot line of Turkish suicide drivers..)) It starts with an 9...

The Turkish and Dutch politics..

...are for sure not compatible. First of all we don't have a threshold, and second the Dutch politics are all about consensus, compromise and negotiations: what the parties promised can only be realized if they are part of the government, and willing to negotiate about which promises they can fulfil and which not. It's an interesting game but the government in the end represents the majority of the voters. A minority cabinet with the support of individual members of other parties are a rarity in Dutch history.
In 1992, for the first time ever, the moderate right liberal party, the VVD, together with the moderate socialist of the PvdA - and as binding factor the social liberal D66 - formed a government without any of the Christian parties. This cabinet lasted for 8 years, surviving one election. And it was the first time that none of the Christian parties were represented in the government. It was called the Third Way, (I don't agree that Mussolini was a represent of the Third Way, but wikipedia is an open source) together with Blair's policies by then and Clinton's views about how the world can be governed. The 9/11 attacks destroyed the hope for another world, and the radicalisation within some Muslim communities until today, broke the last stray.
Today Turkey is making itself up for the next elections, and suddenly I found myself surrounded by information about Baskin Oran. Exactly one of the persons of this Third Way.
Read here an interesting overview about his pragmatic views. And here is his web site.
He can make the difference.
At least, his ideas are not radical comparing with contemporary Turkish political parties.

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A really great ad of Canon.

Not in English....

But the picture speaks for itself...

1977 and today...

In 1977, late French President Francois Mitterand, then opposition leader, told a French magazine: "One has to be careful not to turn the common market into a mere free trade zone. Neither Greece nor Spain is in a position to join the (European) Community. Accession is neither in their interest nor is it in our interest. Interim steps are desirable."

Four years later, Mitterand was elected president of France. By the time he left the presidency in 1995, Greece, Spain and Portugal had been EU members for more than a decade, negotiations were completed with Austria, Finland and Sweden, and the first steps had been taken towards the admission of post-communist Central and Eastern Europe.

It means that Turkey has a very long way to go and that the pace of reforms should not slow down. On the contrary, no matter what the political benefit, Ankara should give emphasis to political and economic reform and even the staunchest European political opponent to Turkey's membership would have to change their mind.

Turkey must change from a military republic into a democratic republic a Turkish professor told yesterday.

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Today's post

Several Turkish newspapers are interesting to read.
Some of them I follow closely, for example TDN.
In today's TDN Elif Safak writes about 'the life of a Turk is so difficult'.
I disagree with her. Turks, knowing the European cultures, the Middle Eastern ones and having knowledge of Central Asia, have a Golden key in their hands, which card they don't show in their negotiations with the EU.