Saturday, November 24, 2012 |
Berlin photo essay
Turkey-Syria Conflict
Thursday, October 11, 2012 The events from last week hardly constitute Turkey’s first involvement in the ongoing conflict in Syria. In June of this year, Syria shot down a Turkish jet, claiming it had violated Syrian airspace. The incident, which resulted in the death of the two Turkish pilots flying the plane, led to a round of recriminations between Ankara and Damascus, as well as between Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party and the opposition Republican People’s Party, which has sharply criticized Erdogan’s handling of the crisis that has been unfolding to the south of Turkey’s border over the past eighteen months. Garnering fewer headlines, meanwhile, has been Turkey’s support for Syria’s opposition. Since fighting broke out in Syria last year, Istanbul has emerged as a hub for Syrian opposition figures as well as for British and American officials funneling aid to them. |
Shelling games: Turkey and Syria
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Ne zaman? Bo-zaman! Photos from Bozeman
Monday, June 4, 2012 |
Erdogan and abortion, part deux
Caesarean births also seem quite common in Turkey. The attitude among the middle class people I knew--men and women--struck me as interesting when I first started living in Istanbul. Having a c-section, whether it was medically necessary or not, appeared to be a lot more accepted and normal-seeming than it was in the US. That's the way it seemed, at any rate, based on the attitudes of the people I knew. I taught private lessons to practically an entire (and entirely male) test-tube baby team at the German Hospital back in the 1990s, and it was interesting hearing their attitudes regarding c-sections. As was the case with the moms and single women I knew, the doctors talked about scheduling c-sections in terms of their predictability. In a city with Istanbul's traffic, people tell me, it would be too dangerous to leave things to chance. What if you got caught in rush hour traffic? |
Erdogan: abortion is murder
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 "Nobody should have the right to allow this. You either kill a baby in mother's womb or you kill it after birth. There's no difference." In Turkey, abortion is legal during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The woman's consent is required but if the woman is married, the husband's consent is also required.The New York Times also covered this story, going into some more detail:
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Coups, Constitutions and the 27th of May
Sunday, May 27, 2012 |
Remember Ergenekon?
Saturday, May 26, 2012 I saw something about Ergenekon in the Turkish Daily Tattler yesterday. It seemed so quaint: so people are still talking about Ergenekon! TDT: Your study also suggests that there is also a negative consequence of Ergenekon case.Gürsoy: It leads to polarization. When you investigate which groups believe the Ergenekon terrorist organization exists, you can see a sharp difference between political party supporters. Those who voted for the AKP [Justice and Development Party] in the 2011 elections overwhelmingly think that the Ergenekon terror organization exists. Most of those who voted CHP [Republican People’s Party] think that Ergenekon does not exist and that the case rests on fabricated evidence. There is a sharp polarization between CHP and AKP supporters.Read the whole interview for context, but I found it interesting that the "negative" potential of Ergenekon was that it leads to "polarization!" |
Menderes thesis: still around today
Monday, April 16, 2012 Speaking of hard drives getting blasted, that is exactly what happened to me one evening back in Azerbaijan in 2004. On my computer that night were a number of files--including my Princeton MA Thesis--which were never completely recovered, despite the best efforts of the crack team of computer forensics experts I assembled over there. Fast-forward to a snowy morning in Bozeman, Montana not too long ago. The hard copy of my thesis is unearthed from storage while I'm looking for something else. It sits around on the bed in my guest bedroom for a few weeks before I decide to take it into the office, where I scanned it onto a pdf file. The thesis is about the political rehabilitation of Adnan Menderes in the 1980s. Menderes had been Prime Minister of Turkey from 1950 to 1960, before he was removed in a coup on May 27th, 1960. He was executed a year later, following a brief imprisonment and trial on İmralı Island, in the Marmara Sea. |
A new article: "The Economics of Muslim Cultural Reform"
Friday, March 9, 2012 The article is about the issue of Muslim educational reform in late imperial Russia, a topic that is generally treated within the realm of ideas. Rather than look at 'debates' or 'arguments' about reforms, I zero in on a subject close to the heart of all teachers: cold hard cash. |
Borderland ski report
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Finally, though, we had a good dumping of snow on Monday and Tuesday. I was itching to hit the slopes. Unfortunately, time would be tight. I had a meeting in the morning and would be participating on a panel in the evening. Nevertheless, I managed a quick drive up to Bridger. I skied Alpine, the easiest slope, which is still sunny in the early afternoon (parts of Bridger get dark a bit early). True confession: I'd always considered skiing a bit decadent. A bit like golf. Yes, you're in the great outdoors but you're getting in a car and driving in order to go down a hill they've developed. Expensive gear is important. I get it. But I'd skied as a kid, and have fond memories of ending a day at Boyne Mountain in northern Michigan, following my Dad down an empty tree-lined trail back to the hotel. I think this is one reason why I like skiing the Alpine lift at Bridger. |
Losing the liberal autocrat
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
One point that I was looking to see brought up was what might transpire if Putin were to be driven out of power at some point. My sense is that most people in the US think that this would be a good thing. Without question, Putin is an autocrat. But while his background is that of the KGB, it's also that of St. Petersburg and late-era Soviet liberalism. While Putin is hardly cuddly and nice, he was by no means the most odious political figure to emerge in Russia in the 1990s. Is Putin a liberal? Not really, under most people's definition of the term. But he's an institutional man, a complete non-populist. He's like David Stern today or Mintemir Shaimiev circa 2000, someone who's been around so long that he's mostly interested in preserving the status quo at this point. Staying in power. Increasingly predictable. In other words: Putin might not care much about little Central Asian girls getting beaten up in St. Petersburg, but he's no fascist. No radical. But that old guard is slipping away. First Rakhimov. Then Shaimiev. And then?
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