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I have not hidden the fact that I LOVE Scotland: http://actoker.blogspot.com.tr/search/label/scotland Reading Ulysses, which is set just before Irish home rule, all the independence process feels very familiar. I hope Scotland's story ends similar to Ireland.  Just like Björk says for Grönland: Declare independence! Don't let them do that to you! Declare independence! Don't let them do that to you! Damn colonists Ignore their patronizing Tear off their blindfolds Open their eyes DECLARE INDEPENDENCE!

Hatay'da emperyalist oyunlar oynanıyor ( link ). Bu sefer figüran değil, sahne arkasındayız. Nedense Bob Dylan'ın Highway 61 Revisited şarkısının sözleri aklıma geldi: Bir sonraki Dünya Savaşı'nı çıkarmaya çalışan Gezgin kumarbaz çok sıkılmıştı, "Daha önce böyle birşeye kalkışmadım" diyen Tertipçisi önce koltuğundan düşüyordu, "61. Otobanda, beyazlatıcıları güneşe yaydık mı, Hallederiz kolayca bu işi de!"

When the name of the great Mexican Revolutionary Zapata is the name of the production company that promotes a once-popular Turkish Schlager- arabesque singer.

Turkey's dynamic and to be honest visionary foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu boasted the new Turkish foreign policy doctrine in this Foreign Policy article . I am quoting from the article: The second methodological principle is to base Turkish foreign policy on a "consistent and systematic" framework around the world. Turkey's vision for the Middle East is not in opposition to its approach in Central Asia or in the Balkans; our approach to Africa is no different from our approach to Asia. Turkey is also actively trying to improve relations with nearby countries like Greece, Iraq, the Russian Federation, and Syria. Prime Minister Erdogan made a brave speech during the meeting of his parliamentary group. I hope his call for a tougher approach to Israel's violent and reckless approach to the Middle East problem will bring a change to the response of the international community. I am not optimistic about this, since Obama is in a real hard position to open up yet an...

Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored He was tryin' to create a next world war He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before But yes I think it can be very easily done We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun And have it on Highway 61. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 - 1965

The biggest farce in the modern history, Copenhagen, also showed how little strength Europe has in the international arena. French/American International Economics professor has published a piece in Project Syndicate , which describes my point about European-Turkish relations very nicely. He argues that Europe needs Turkey, in order to be heard once more in the international stage. This article matches very well with this article published by Von Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of liberal wing in the European Parliament. He argued in his piece, again in the aftermath of Copenhagen, that Europe is bound to become the Switzerland of the world, if it continues on the track that it is going now.

This New Scientist article , which summarizes the meeting of the American Ecological Society of America, gives a rather exaggerated, yet realistic analogy. When one places some number of bacteria in a confined environment, and give them enough food, they reproduce without any end, finish all the food, and drown in their own waste. The moral of the analogy is that there is no built-in mechanisms in organisms to harness their urge to reproduce and conqueror. Humans are no exceptions. This is another evidence to my hypothesis, that "greed" is retrospective most of the time. We only feel greedy, and regret our actions, after we feel the consequences. The article goes onto discuss, how the culture of consumerism, endorsed by the American government after the World War II to increase the internal demand, is feeding on top of the inherent greed of humans, and how this may lead to collapse of civilization. It is easy to take an anti-American, or anti-Capitalist stance, but I think th...

Neredesin ezilen halklarin yilmaz savunucusu? Ankara'da agirladigin etnik temizlikci Sudan Baskani'nin en yakin dostlarindan Cin'e karsi neden sessizsin? Ayni dili konustugun, ayni türkülere agladigin insanlar öldürülürken neden sessizsin? Biz neden sessiziz? "Ahirida isimizde khalghini dusmenlirimzning sozi emes, belki dustlirimizning jimturghanlighidur." "Ahirette aklimizda kalan dusmanlarimizin sözleri degil, dostlarimizin suskunlugudur." Marthin Luther King

I am a political anarchist, and do not like the idea of a state. Authoritarian states are the ones I abhor the most. The Islamic Republic of Iran, with its populist president, and medieval mullahs is probably the state that I would like to see gone the most. Even though I am not optimistic about the outcome of the unrest in Iran, I would love them to see inflict as much damage as possible to the regime, which in the 21th century still persecutes homosexuals, forces on the people their understanding of a religion. What I don't get however, is the way the people outside Iran show their support to the protesters. Signing on-line petitions, joining Facebook groups, changing status messages, or Twitter'ing will DO NO GOOD. Mullahs and Regime Guardians do not read Facebook messages. They ban them. So here is a practical proposal from me, to people outside Iran who wish dearly to help the protester. Go to your local gas station and ask if the petrol they buy from the refineries includ...

Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Hukumeti'nin resmi konuk olarak agirladigi, Ata'nin hatira defterini basinda kapsonuyla bir sekreterine imzalatan, on yilimizin savas suclusu Sudan Vahsetbaskani, olum sacan Janjaweed gerillalarinin komutani, dunyada zulum goren kim varsa onun yaninda olan son Osmanli padisahi Recep Tayyip Erdogan'in yakin dostu, Omar Al Bashir hakkinda Uluslararasi Savac Suclari Mahkemesince tutuklama emri cikti. Post modern retorige yaslanan bazilari eminim, Avrupa merkezli bir mahkeme once kendi savas suclarini temizlesin diyeceklerdir. Ya da komplo teorilerini sadece best seller olarak okumaktan daha ote dunyaya baktiklari gozluk yapan bazilari herseyin Avrupa/Amerika/Yahudi lobisinin petrol zengini Sudan'i isgal etmek icin planladigi bir planin parcasi oldugunu soyleyeceklerdir. Dunya'yi akilla, mantikla, bilimle algilamayi birakmis, kendilerini herseyin dogru olabilecegine inandirmis baskalari da yok canim, Sudan'da soykirim olmamistir diyeceklerdir. On...

The leaders of a country tell a lot about a country. This is true for my beloved country too, and there is not point in hiding the truth. Prime Minister Erdogan, not only reflects the mentality of his voters, but also the country in general. In my humble opinion, Turkey is still trying to come in terms with the trauma of the First World War. After seeing themselves in a giants mirror for hundreds of years, the Turkish people had to come in terms with losing a war, even after winning many battles, losing millions of sons. This came after almost a hundred years of losing territory, in the aftermath of the birth of nation states. There is a deeply rooted view in the Turkish society, that Turkey is "a giant sedated by the outsiders" and would be unstoppable once she wakes up. This results in a high level of distrust towards "others" whether or not this "other" are foreign countries, minorities, or simply people who are different. This has got to do with the fe...

I am feeling extremely disillusioned about democracy in the shadow of the incomprehensible suffering in the Gazza Strip. Though neither of the sides can be called democratic, -Israel is not secular, and Hamas has only won an election, which is just one tiny component of democracy to make it a democratic government- the workings of democracy play an important role in the escalation. There are elections in Israel, which promotes populist, yet short sighted and cruel display of military power. On the other side a religious terrorist organization who fires rockets at will, won the elections riding on the resentment towards the peace-seeking, yet corrupt government. On the other side of the Atlantic, the country whose political system is the most democratic on the world is staying silent. Yesterday in the subway, I found an answer to my disillusion, in the words of Leonard Cohen. I shouldn't have assumed that Democracy had already arrived in any part of the world. Not even USA: Democrac...

I am watching CNN with absolute horror, disbelief, anger, confusion. My emotions are way too raw, and fierce for me to reflect on the events themselves. Do we ever learn anything from history? Do we really ever make "progress"? Or are we as humans suffer from extreme short memory spans of maximum 10 years? I am reading Dostoevsky's "Karamazov Brother's." 129 years gone, and people suffer from the same ills and delusions, fight the same problems, make the same mistakes and lose in the end. This is terrifying me. The other day, I read a quotation from Jose Luis Borges On the back of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment": "Discovering Dostoevsky is as important as seeing the sea for the first time in ones life. This usually happens in the youth, we prefer more soothing books when we get older. I read Crime and Punishment in 1915 in Geneve. This book, whose heroes were a murderer and a whore, seemed more destructive than the war surrounding me....

Daniella, a friend of mine who is a PHD student on democracy promotion, had told me about the work of 20th century Italian philosopher and political scientist Gramsci . His reading of the modern history, lead him to formulate the concept of Cultural Hegemony, in which a ruling class maintains control over the ruled class, simply by hijacking the ruling class' self understanding. That is when the ruled class believes that the norms of the ruling class are the correct norms, they live their lives accordingly, which ossifies the hegemony. I was puzzled to see my friends on Facebook, from different countries, dedicate their personal messages to Obama. This is making a political statement, and thus a result of self understanding. Taken to an international level this is an example of cultural hegemony. Apart from that I am relieved that Mc Cain did not win, which would give a crazy religious woman who believes that Jesus will return after Armageddon in her lifetime a realistic chance of ...

Thinking on the current state of affairs in the international politics, I came to the conclusion that there are fundamentally two approaches one can take in making a case. First approach is to concede that the states are not bound to the ethical obligations of the individuals, and must follow their interests, how ever they are defined inside the state, no matter what the moral results are. Those who favor this view however, loose their right to criticize the actions of other states, as any action can be matched to these state interests. Furthermore, they are obliged -in my opinion- to present a model, in which this type of behavior of individual states can sustain a world in which the dignity of individuals are not hurt by the immoral relations between the states. Second approach assumes that the states by definition composed of ethical individuals, and being so subject to such obligations by definition. Of course there will be cheaters. I think the more people take the second approach...

This Financial Times article sums up nicely the current situation in Turkish politics very well. It might be of interest to the non-Turkish readers of this blog.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the greatest visionary, leader and the transformer in the history of Turkey. Apart from pulling out the miracle of creating a modern state - more modern then European states back then, there were 15 women in the parliment when the women could not vote in Europe- from the mess of a theocratic Ottoman Empire, he was also a very humane leader, and put his belief in the children. It was in his presidency that the celebrations of the gathering of the first Turkish Grand Assembly were used to gather money for the orphans and other kids with disadvantages. It was then established as a tradition that all the seats of power would be replaced by a child for a few minutes on 23 April. This tradition evolved further, and now we celebrate 23 April as National Sovereignty and Childrens' Day in Turkey. Children -mostly dance groups- come from all over the world and stay with Turkish families. We hosted a girl from Finland and one from Thailand, which was so much fun when...

Idiomag is the best thing I found on the net after Google and Last.fm . If you are not familiar with Last.fm, it is a service that tracks the mp3s that you listen on your computer -and ipod, my new mp3 player doesn’t unfortunately support it- and gives you recommendations on music, events you might like, and lets you meet people of the same music taste. Idiomag basically gets this information and prepares you a daily online journal from news about your favorite music artists. I admit this kills the inherent treasure hunt feeling associated with listening to music, but it is a very helpful service. I came across this song that Bright Eyes did 3 years ago when George W. Bush was the most “evil” person in the media, which is one of the sharpest protest songs that I listened to so far. It coincided with The Economist’s briefing this week on the possible -or impossible- changes in US foreign policy. Summarized, don’t expect the winds to change direction, America has a tradition of bi-part...

are happening in Turkey and in Germany... Turkey is recovering slowly from the trauma caused by the surge of attacks by the Kurdish-separatist terrorist who call themselves, PKK, Kurdistan Workers Party. For those outside Turkey, and following the news from international news conglomerates, the name is an intended oxymoron. PKK is a "party" in the same sense that Nazis were a National Socialist party. In the very last attack, in which they killed 16 Turkish soldiers -in their spare time they stop village buses and kill dozens of civilians just because they do not support them -, PKK took 8 Turkish soldiers as hostage. They were freed after involvement of certain members of the Parliament who have active links to this terrorist organization. In an unexpected move the 8 soldiers were arrested by the Military Court... The events are rich with speculation possibilities, and have to be clarified to the public. 8 Soldiers were used as a justification for a possible incursion to the...

is, in my humble opinion, the asymmetry between the sizes of the electorate that mandates executive power to a government, and the electorate on which this particular government exercises this executive power. A prime example to this anomaly is the mass media-manipulation campaign going on in USA about the strategy in Iraq. I was watching a global show on BBC World in which people from all round the globe express their opinions on current issues. It was revelatory and shocking to watch BBC asking the Americans about the condition in Iraq! In the end it will be their vote which will decide the fate of Iraqis, whom they have never seen or met. So the question to be answered deals with the fates of millions of Iraqis. They are the electorate on which the executive power is being exercised. The government who exercises this power is voted, however thousands of miles away in the USA. This is the asymmetry I am talking about. Now as the electorate in US, does not live in Iraq, they receive i...