Dead

On Sunday the retired first islamic prime minister of Turkey, Necmettin Erbakan, died in Ankara. The actual Turkish PM will return earlier from Germany for the funerals of his mentor. The head of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal,  will attend the funeral too.

Erbakan was forced in 1997 to step back as PM by the army. Later he was convicted to prison because of fraud (but let’s remember, that people like Helmut Kohl or Otto Graf Lambsdorff hided millions too), then pardoned by our actual President, Abdullah Gül.

Lies

Our PM said about Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt, they should step down listening to the voices of their people. He did not say the same to Muammar Gaddafi of Libya though. Are these the special ties established between Turkey and Libya since Erbakan was PM? (Additionaly PM Erdoğan spoke against sanctions imposed to Libya).

Which of these statements is sincere, which not?

But, funny, Arabs stil hate the Turcs. And not for nothing, I suppose. “We will not leave our country to Italians or Turcs”, said Gaddafi on Television.

Turkish dreams of “Turkishness”, dreamed by our nationalists, have come to an end in Middle-Asia too. In fact Turkey opened schools everywhere in the southern split-away countries of the former Sovjet-Union, but when they turned out to be religious, the mostly secularist presidents there closed them again…..

http://en.cumhuriyet.com/?hn=220716

In the army now

Armies seem to play a new role in the recent Arab turmoils. Usually with the governments or the powerful, they suddenly switch to the protesters against tyrants. In Egypt they took over after Mubarak stepped back, in Libya they are in parts “with the people”. What about armies in other countries?

Human Rights

“Return the Gadhafi Human Rights Award immediately. The slaughter continuing in Libya will be on our heads as long as this prize remains to stay on the shelves of the Prime Ministry.”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkish-ngo-asks-pm-to-return-gaddafi-award-2011-02-20

Bloodshed

Today police responded violently to the protesters in Libya. It seems, the whole country is on fire. At least 200 people have been shot, as sources say. How important is it, that news spread out. The whole protests would be nearly for nothing without media (and more and more the internet is getting important).
Big petrol reserves are situated just in these countries “on fire”. The prize fort he barrel knew new heights today. What will “the west” do? Are we not very relaying on eastern petrol? Though we have to support the tyrants there?.
I would like it to be a real revolution in all those countries (Morocco reached the crowd of “protesters” today). What will it turn out? I dont want new religious regimes like in Iran there…..
Foreigners fled out of Libya today. I saw an airplane to İstanbul on Euronews today. We worked for a Turkish-Arab Company, someone said. This company is not existing anymore. From the government in Ankara: no reaction. Not a word.

Numbers

Interresting: the number of people published by media. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya (Bahrain is of course a dwarf among the countries) it was said "hundreds of people...", sometimes "thousands..". Ok, at last there were one million. But if in Turkey 5 million protest against the regime, nobody reports it......

Pax Americana - Empire - Al Jazeera English

Pax Americana - Empire - Al Jazeera English

The winter of Arab discontent

"The winter of Arab discontent": This title is used by journalist Lahcen Haddad to describe the uprising in most countries of Mahgreb and Middle East
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=the-winter-of-arab-discontent-2011-02-16.
Meanwhile the protests spread out even to İraq's southern town of Basra.
In Bahrain several people have been shot. Interresting there: The powerful Emirs are linked with Saudi-Arabia and the Sunni, the majority of people are Shiites.
Will the same things happen in Saudi-Arabia too? The powerful class there is very old (the king passed the eighties), the age level in the country is 19 years! Jobs are mainly hold by strangers, many people are jobless and without a perspective. Will there be a revolution too? For the moment a well known blogger from Saudi-Arabia says: no!
http://saudijeans.org/
But let's wait and see. Let's wait and see in Turkey too.

Press Freedom

"In the World Press Freedom Index issued by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, Turkey ranked 138 out of 178 countries. Nearly 50 journalists are imprisoned in the country and more than 500 face judicial prosecution for their news coverage."
from:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkey-criticizes-us-ambassador-2011-02-17

Arab moods

Now we hear about protests in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen (what about Algeria and Jordany?) Is it an all-Arab revolution? To hope: to civil rights and not to religious establishments.....

About Bahrain see:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=riot-police-storm-bahrain-camp-4-reported-dead-2011-02-17

Doubts

 "According to conventional wisdom, Turkey has become the template of our times: a large Muslim-majority country that has moved from military domination to civilian rule in a few years, spearheaded by a popular democratically elected government trumpeting its EU membership ambitions...."
read more here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/13/egypt-doubt-turkish-model-democracy

OdaTV

OdaTV, a prominent Turkish website, was raided by police yesterday, closed and their prominent people taken into custody. In same time there were news on the site,explaining, how much the "proves" on the Ergenekon-case were faked. Turkish press freedom?

http://en.cumhuriyet.com/?hn=217168

Nice wordgame

Syndicalists demonstrated in Ankara. They shouted: "Başbakanın sonu Mübarek olsun!". Translated it means: "May the end of our Primeminister be like Mubarak's". In same time "mübarek olsun" is a good wish :-))

Arguments

Berlusconi, Italy's Primeminister, will soon be given to court. He is suspicious of having had sex with a minor girl and, while freeing her from jail, having abused of his powers. Well, this is just a part of the never ending story of him and young girls and parties and so on..... His actual Minister for Equal Opportunity Mara Carfagna
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_Carfagna
(Carfagna has been called "the most beautiful minister in the world") is a former model and beauty-queen, often she posed topless for the fotografers, it was said, that in the whole election campaign she only used two arguments.......
Berlusconi told her in front of TV-cameras, he would marry her at once.....

Needs

During the turmoil in Egypt, among others (Obama) the EU-"Foreign Minister" Ashton constantly asked for significant changes there: free press, free elections, transparency of government, no corruption, independent justice. Why dont they ask it for the European Union and the members of the NATO? In Turkey, for example, none of these demands is fulfilled. This proves once more the double faced western policy.......