More St. Petersburg shotz

June 26, 2010 Things have been busy in St. Petersburg. I've been going to the archive and library pretty regularly, and in my spare time am trying to finish up on article that I've been working on for a (long) while. I've also been making an effort to go out and have some fun. Last weekend a friend and I went to the Philharmonic to see a concert of Viennese music, and earlier this week I saw a performance of (mostly) Rachmaninoff music in commemoration of June 22--a day of "memory and mourning" in Russia, as this was the day Hitler invaded the USSR in 1941.  On July 2 I have tickets to see Bi-2, a really great band whose music I was first introduced to in the second Brat movie.

The Kurdish Initiative: Designed to Fail?

Sunday, June 20, 2010 There's been some hand-wringing in the media lately over the future of the so-called "Kurdish initiative"--a set of proposals put forth by the government of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to end the rebellion of the pro-independence PKK and create a new set of laws making it easier for Kurdish language and culture to become part of the public sphere in Turkey. This is what Yigal Schleifer writes: As the Turkish press reports today, ten members of a group 34 Kurds who returned to Turkey last October after several years in exile in northern Iraq have been arrested after being charged with supporting the PKK. The group's return (several of them were former PKK members) was one of the first visible signs -- and tests -- of the government's new initiative (sometimes referred to as the "Kurdish opening"). More groups of exiled Kurds were supposed to come after the first one, but the heros' welcome given to the initial group and the fact that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan said they returned at his command, turned the whole thing into something very costly for the government, and plans for further returns were put on hold. I think the "Kurdish initiative can be viewed primarily in two contexts. Firstly, it's part of a larger effort by Erdogan's government to overhaul the system in Turkey. The threat of Kurdish separatism and the threat of Islamist rule have for decades constituted the two bogeymen that Turkish political and civilian rulers have invoked as explanations for defending authoritarian rule. As the leader of a party that is derided by its opponents as "Islamist," Erdogan has systematically worked to undermine a number of the taboos that have formed the basis of Turkish political culture since the 1980s (and earlier, in some cases). Thus we have not only seen a "Kurdish opening" and efforts by Erdogan to create a larger place for Islamic piety in the public sphere, but also an "Armenian opening ," an "opening" towards Arab states in the region like Syria, and--most importantly--a concentrated effort on the part of government-supported authorities to crush the influence of the military in politics through the kangaroo-court process known as Ergenekon. The second context of the "Kurdish initiative" is more prosaic--it's an effort by Erdogan to win the support of Kurdish voters in the conservative southeast who are already inclined to vote for a religious-oriented party like Erdogan's AKP. While the AKP holds a majority in parliament, support for the party has been slipping for some time. Last year, in nationwide municipal elections, the AKP won about 39% of the vote, down from the 47% share they'd won in national parliamentary elections in 2007. One part of the country where the AKP needs to do better if the party is to hold on to power after the next parliamentary elections is the southeast, where the Democratic Society Party (DTP), a party that was associated with the cause of liberalizing laws pertaining to Kurdish culture and language in the public sphere, was particularly strong.  In the municipal elections of March 29, 2009, the DTP received just 5.42 percent of the vote nationally, but scored some important victories in the southeast of Turkey, where they took four important municipalities from the AK Party. The AK Party had tried hard to win Kurdish votes in the southeast, including an attempt by the AK Party governor of the province of Tunceli to distribute more than 5 million Turkish Lira's worth of applicances and electronic goods to voters. Ten days before the elections, Prime Minister Erdogan pledged to set up a Kurdish-language radio station and even spoke Kurdish himself at a campaign rally (something which is against the law in Turkey). A Kurdish-language banner prior to last year's municipal elections.   In December of 2009, the DTP was closed down, ending a legal process which had begun years earlier. In my opinion, the "Kurdish opening" to a large extent constituted an effort by Erdogan to position the AKP to receive Kurdish votes in the southeast in response to the political vacuum that the closure of the DTP has created. As was the case with Turgut Ozal's discussion of his Kurdish roots in the 1980s, however, the "Kurdish opening" has been largely symbolic. Foreigners writing on Turkey and AKP sympathizers in the Turkish media have made a big deal about it, but the "Kurdish opening" never addressed structural challenges to the Kurdish cause that exist on just about every level of society in Turkey. Creating Kurdish-language radio and television were overdue moves, and allowing Kurdish villages to change their names back to the original Kurdish created good press. But it also appears clear that, at the local level, little has changed. People are still harassed by local officials, and even children are brought up on charges for crimes related to Kurdish expression. The "Kurdish initiative" may have struck some people as a harbinger of real change, but to me it seems like a rather cynical ploy to win some people's votes and other people's approval without really changing anything. While the steps that were taken in this initiative were without question welcome, it's hard to see what has really changed in a conflict that continues to tear at the very heart of Turkey.

St. Petersburg Shotz

Monday, June 14, 2010  I spent most of the weekend trying to get set up in my apartment. On Saturday I took some time out to walk around town.  It's hard to believe that it's been seventeen years since my first trip to Russia back in 1993. Back then I spoke no Russian, but still had a great time visiting Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Tver with an Irish woman with whom I was living in Turkey. We took hundreds of photographs, and were fascinated by just about everything we saw. Over the years, I've come back to Russia numerous times. I visited as a tourist again in 1998, when I was still living full-time in Istanbul, and since then have returned on research trips on an almost yearly basis since 2002. Photos from some of those previous trips can be seen here.    Nevskii Prospekt

Getting settled in St. Petersburg

Friday, June 11, 2010 Well, it’s been a pretty wild ten days. I’m in St. Petersburg now, but only a week and a half ago I was still in Montana. Since that time I’ve been in Ann Arbor, Castle Park, Amsterdam and Istanbul. For now, however, I’m staying put for a month, and my bags are unpacked and out of sight. On June 1 I flew from Bozeman to Michigan, where I met up with friends and family. My parents are out on Lake Michigan, so last Friday I rented a car and drove out to see them. Sunday morning started in Castle Park—as the place on Lake Michigan where I grew up spending my summers is called—and then I drove back to Ann Arbor before heading to Detroit to catch my flight to Amsterdam.

More shots from Japan

March 25, 2010 Well, I've had a pretty busy time for me this semester--which is probably clear, given the fact that I've been posting so little lately. Still, I wanted to put up some of the photos I've been taking recently.  First of all, here are some more shots from my trip to Japan in January. Soon after I got back, I posted some photos from Tokyo. Here are some shots from Osaka and Kyoto:    I took the Bullet Train from Tokyo to Osaka. Here's a shot of Mt. Fuji

Japan Photos

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 I got back from Japan two nights ago. It was a great trip, taking me to Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto.  I'd been to Sapporo, Osaka and Kyoto once before, in 2007, but I'd never been to Tokyo. As was the case back then, this trip was made in connection with the Slavic Research Center at the University of Hokkaido.  The folks at the SRC have made an incredible contribution to the study of Islam in Russia, and in addition to running their own symposia over the years they've also formed partnerships with other universities in Japan to hold a number of joint conferences and workshops. I feel incredibly grateful to have been included in this one.

US helping to patrol border inside Iraq

Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 According to the New York Times, the US military is going to begin patrolling the unofficial 'border' which separates the areas of northern Iraq from the rest of Iraq.  This northern front, or “trigger line,” dates to the American invasion in 2003. As Saddam Hussein’s army collapsed, Kurdish forces called the pesh merga pushed from their three provinces in the north [note from Jim: these are Dahuk, Arbil, and Sulaymaniyah] and occupied sections of Nineveh, Kirkuk and Diyala Provinces that the Kurds had historically claimed. They have controlled the areas ever since, despite calls by Iraq’s government and regional Sunni leaders for them to withdraw to the “green line” that established the internal Kurdish boundary before 2003.

Releasing Mehmet Ali Agca

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 Mehmet Ali Agca has been released from prison after serving only ten years of his sentence for killing Turkish journalist Abdi Ipekci in 1979.  Agca released after serving just 10 years Agca (pronounced "Ah-jaa") who is now 52, is better known internationally as the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981. After serving 19 years in a jail in Italy for his assassination attempt on the Pope, Agca was pardon at John Paul II's request and then transferred to a Turkish prison in 2000 in order to serve his punishment for killing Ipekci ("Ee-pek-chi").

Back from Istanbul/Going to Japan

Sunday, January 17, 2010  Happy New Year! I hope you're all doing well.  Things are good with me. As I mentioned in my previous post,  I spent a week in Istanbul over New Year's as part of a project I'm working on for the SSRC's "Teaching Islam in Eurasia" project. It was great to be back in Istanbul, but pretty hectic as well. The weather was often great, and I met up with a lot of friends. But perhaps most important of all, I ate and drank really well.   I bought a lot of stuff in Beşiktaş: two kilims, a Turkish tea pot, a new watchband--many things. But I did not buy any fish.

Winter Travelz

Monday, December 28, 2009 Well, I've finished my first semester as an assistant professor!  Actually, I taught my last class on the eleventh, but the semester didn't officially finish for me until Sunday night of last week, when I submitted my grades.  It's not easy leaving beautiful Bozeman...

On the Kurdish and Armenian initiatives...

Sunday, December 13, 2009 One of the biggest stories to have emerged from Turkey this year was the so-called "Kurdish initiative" (Kürt açılımı, or Kurdish 'opening').  The "Kurdish opening" was announced in the Spring of this year, but has actually been around for a while. On January 1 of 2009, the Turkish government set up TRT 6, a television channel which broadcasts in Kurdish. Then, during the municipal election campaign earlier this year (nationwide municipal elections in Turkey are treated as referenda on the performance of the sitting national government in a manner similar to midterm elections in the United States), Prime Minister Erdoğan went even further in his efforts to woo Kurdish voters to his party. Prior to the March 29 elections, Erdogan not only promised that he would allow Kurdish-language radio, but also spoke Kurdish himself publicly at a campaign rally--something which is actually illegal in Turkey.

Princeton talk & NYC fun

Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009   I spent last weekend in Princeton and NYC, and had a really good time. The point of the trip was that I was giving a brown-bag talk at my old department, Near Eastern Studies. But it was also great to catch up with some old friends.  Everything started with a 5 a.m. wake-up and a snowy and dark drive to the airport, courtesy of my faculty mentor at MSU (I signed up for this mentorship program, which pairs new professors with more senior people in other departments, without knowing how much it would save me in taxi fare. Having a cool mentor is a really good thing). I flew into Newark, then took the train down to Princeton.  Princeton was slushy and rainy and nasty when I arrived. I met up with my friend Farrell, whom I knew back when I was an MA student at Princeton, and who is spending the current semester at the Institute for Advanced Study.  We had dinner and drinks, and even though we had a good time it was difficult to escape the conclusion we'd made so many times nearly a decade ago: no matter what the weather, Princeton is a pretty crummy place to spend an evening.    Princeton's Firestone Library under brighter skies Sunday morning

Yellowstone Shotz

Saturday, November 21, 2009 A couple of weeks ago a friend came out to visit and we went down to Yellowstone Park together. We saw elk, buffalo, deer, wolves, and went swimming in an amazing spot at the confluence of a cold river and a hot spring. It was a really interesting combination of warm and cold, and was kind of like swimming in a giant Irish coffee. The trip was a blast. Here are some of the shotz:   On the ride down to Yellowstone we stayed at a hot spring near Chico. This was the view from our room.

Role reversal in Turkey

Sunday, September 13, 2009 The Doğan (pronounced "Doe-on") Media Group, which is the largest media group in Turkey (controlling Hüriyet, Milliyet, the Turkish Daily News, CNN-Türk, and a number of other media outlets) has been hit with a $2.5 billion tax bill. This penalty could very well put the company out of business, and the Turkey-watching punditry is wondering what this event could mean for freedom of the press in Turkey. Concern regarding the government's motives in assessing the media company stems from the very public personal animosity that has been brewing for over a year between Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and Doğan Group owner and political power-broker Aydin Doğan.  While the Doğan-controlled media actually used to be rather cozy with the AK Party government, this all changed in late 2008. Many people think that this is because of Doğan media outlets aggressively covering the Deniz Feneri corruption scandal, which implicated many people in the AK Party. (In my personal opinion, this reporting was clearly an important step in the feud but who knows what actually kicked it off--I'm sure there's plenty about the AK Party-Doğan Group relationship that we know nothing about).

Ergenekon, the deep state and the crimes that get lost in the shuffle

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 The other day, the Turkish newspaper Taraf ran a story about the efforts of Mesut Elfeti to justice the people responsible for his father's death. The body of Elfeti's father, Abdullah Elfeti, was found two months after he was detained by the local gendarmerie in March of 1995. Elfeti's death is one of twenty-five killings for which Colonel Cemal Temizöz, commander of the gendarmerie for the district of Kayseri, is being questioned. Temizöz is currently being held in a military detention facility.

Genocide and the Borderlands

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 It's been a busy week or so since getting back to Istanbul last Sunday. I'm heading off again for the United States on Thursday of next week, so basically I've been hitting the archives, seeing friends, and trying desperately to finish up some work that I'd really like to complete before leaving Turkey. I hope to spend most of this summer working on a manuscript for a book, so before getting back to Michigan I hope to be able to mail off an article that I've been kicking around for the last few months.

Caucasus Journey XVI: Back in Istanbul

Monday, May 25, 2009 I arrived back in Istanbul yesterday, flying back from Van on Sunday morning. Now that I've had a day or so to get connected again to Istanbul I've put up photos from Kars and Van. The page takes, in some cases, a few minutes to load because I've posted so many photos over the course of this year. All the same, I think a lot of the photos from Kars and Van are really beautiful and invite people to check them out--scroll down about two-thirds down the page to find them more quickly. It's good to be back in Istanbul. Just about wherever I've left over the course of this past week, I've been sorry to leave: Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Kars, and the Turkish southeast were all places where I felt I could have spent at least a little more time. And now that I'm back in Istanbul with less than three weeks until I'm due to return to the US, I'm feeling a proactive sense of longing and sadness that I won't be here this summer.

Caucasus Journey XV: Visiting Van

Saturday, May 23, 2009 During the course of seven years living in Istanbul in the 1990s, I traveled very little to the east of Turkey. Sure, I'd been to Adıyaman in order to visit Nemrut Dağı, but instead of venturing further east had simply turned right and gone south, down to Hatay and İskenderun. Partly it was because of the weather--I worked during the school year and had summers off, and didn't feel like baking in the 100 degree-plus temperatures that can be typical in the southeast in July and August. And frankly I wasn't very enthusiastic about visiting the east, and the southeast in particular, at a time when the PKK was a lot more active than it is today. But mainly I think that, since I was already spending the entire year in Turkey, I liked the idea of going someplace different in the summers. So usually in the summer I'd take my backpack and travel for five or six weeks through the Balkans, Central Europe, the former USSR, the Middle East, or some other place, and then take a quick ten days or so on the Aegean coast somewhere before starting work again at the end of September. Thus, when I started thinking about how to get back to Istanbul this year after researching in Georgia for the past six weeks, it wasn't long before I began contemplating a visit to Kars and Van. Kars was attractive because I've been reading so much about Kars, and people from Kars, in my research over the past couple of years. And Van is a city I've wanted to see since my earliest days in Turkey when, visiting a friend's house, I saw photographs of Lake Van and first heard stories of the bizarre Van Cat, a (frequently) swimmer with one eye that's blue eye and another yellow.   Van Cat in the water (not my photo)

Caucasus Journey XIV: In Kars

Wednesday, May 20, 2009  On Tuesday (yesterday) I took a bus from Artvin to Kars. The trip was long--about six hours--and felt even longer because so much of it was on road that is under construction. Calling the surface washboard-like would really be too diplomatic.

Caucasus Journey XIII: From Tbilisi to Artvin

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 It's been a busy few days. My own fault of course. Rather than doing the sensible thing and flying directly from Tbilisi to Istanbul, I came up with the idea of traveling overland to Van, Turkey, then flying back to Istanbul from Van next Sunday. What can I say? I'm a sucker for stretching things out.  The road back to Istanbul begins here It was a beautiful morning in Tbilisi when I set off Saturday morning for Kutaisi. My landlady, Lalli, who lives in the apartment next door, came by with some snacks for the road, and then I took a taxi to the bus station. The taxi driver was a guy who'd taken me to the archive a few times, and when we arrived at the station he flagged down a marshrutka that was just pulling out. They were heading to Kutaisi, and stopped to pick me up.

Caucasus Journey XII: Last days in Georgia

Friday, May 15, 2009 These are my last days in Georgia, and I can't say I'm very happy about it. As is just about always the case, it's really a bummer to leave. On Friday I spent my last day in the archive. I have to say, the Georgian Central Archives really impressed me. The director of the reading room is an 89 year-old woman named Christina who is about four feet tall, constantly wears a little white beret, and is sharp as a tack. She's stern--one day she really tore into someone (not me) who was secretly taking photos of documents with his camera phone (digital photos of docs cost about $3 per photo, so there's an obvious incentive for people to sneak their own). But she's also very nice. As is often the case in archives in the former Soviet Union, there are dozens of rules that inhibit things--here, for example, you're only allowed to order ten documents a day and the reading room is only open from eleven to four. But I tried to make up for the order limit by balancing requests for big files with small ones, and was lucky enough to receive permission to work from 10:30 to 5, so everything worked out fine. The physical condition of the archive leaves a lot to be desired, even though the reading room was refurbished last August. While the temperature is quite warm on the street (in the low 20s, Celsius/in the 60s Fahrenheit), it's considerably colder in the reading room--that's the magic of Soviet architecture (I'm sure it's broiling hot in the summer, hotter than it is outside). In the mornings, I'd take a taxi to the archive wearing long underwear and a thermal shirt underneath a t-shirt. I'd wrap my computer in a sweater inside my shoulder bag, then break out the sweater after an hour or so inside the reading room. By the end of the day, my fingers would be stiff from the cold, and then I'd leave the archive at 5 and I'd see what a nice, warm, sunny day I'd been missing. By the time I got home (I'd take the subway back), I'd be more than a little sweaty from all of the layers I was wearing.

Borderland Roundup: this week's news and propaganda

Sunday, May 10, 2009 Yesterday, May 9, was a holiday in the countries of the former Soviet Union marking the end of the Second World War. The end of the war in Europe is celebrated on May 8 in western Europe and the United States, but because of time zone differences at the time in which Germany's surrender was concluded, the event is celebrated one day later in the lands of the former USSR.   Tatar veteran at Victory Day celebrations in Kazan

Tensions rising in Tbilisi

May 7, 2009 Six policemen and several protesters were injured in a confrontation which took place outside the headquarters of the Tbilisi police department on Wednesday evening. The protesters had gathered outside the police station to protest the detention of three individuals who had been arrested on Tuesday for having assaulted Nika Avaliani, a news reader on a morning television program. The television studios where Avaliani works is one of three places in Tbilisi--along with the parliament building and the presidential residence--where protesters have been picketing since April 9. Up until this week, the protests were mostly low-key and uneventful. But things seem to be heating up now.

Mutiny reported at base outside Tbilisi

May 5, 2009 A mutiny reportedly took place at a Georgian military base about six miles outside of Tbilisi this morning. According to a report in the New York Times, Georgian forces surrounded a tank that was accused of being part of the plot, with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili entering the base to personally negotiate the unit's surrender. The base commander has apparently been arrested. I'm not sure if this is correct or not, but I heard from a number of people this morning that major roads leading into and out of Tbilisi had been closed.  The mutiny comes just a day before NATO exercises are to begin in Georgia. The exercises will be held from May 6 to June 3, and will include troops from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, Spain, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

Turkish roundup: this week's news and propaganda

Sunday, May 3, 2009 One of the biggest news stories from Turkey this past week was the holding of May Day demonstrations on Taksim Square for the first time since 1978. In 1977, a demonstration drawing tens of thousands of people ended in pandemonium when unknown assailants opened fire on the crowd, killing thirty-six individuals. While public events were held on May 1, 1978 to commemorate the deaths which had occurred the previous year, public demonstrations were banned in Taksim on May Day in 1979 and 1980. After the military takeover of September 12, 1980, May 1 ceased to be an official public holiday in Turkey. Taksim Square: site of one of the most notorious crimes in modern Turkish history, the 1977 massacre of 36 May Day demonstrators

An Obama hand in Turkish-Armenian talks?

April 29, 2009 Hürriyet is reporting that it was a threat from Barack Obama to use the word 'genocide' in his April 24 speech which prompted Turkey to close the deal in agreeing to a 'roadmap' for normalizing relations with Armenia.   According to Hürriyet, during Barack Obama's visit to Turkey in early April of this year, Obama threatened to make good on his campaign pledge to recognize as a 'genocide' the events of 1915, in which at least several hundred thousand (and possibly more than one million) Ottoman Armenians perished. Every year, the president of the United States makes an address on April 24, the day in which these events are commemorated, and every year there is speculation over whether or not the word 'genocide' will be used in the address. In not using the word 'genocide' in his address, Obama was sharply criticized by Armenian groups and others for having 'turned his back' on the pledge.

Caucasus Journey XI: Second week in Tbilisi

April 28, 2009 Things are going pretty well in Tbilisi. In general, I like Georgia a lot. The people here seem very laid back and friendly, and the food is really good. None of this is a surprise after my experiences in Russia with Georgians and Georgian cuisine, but all the same it's nice to have my expectations in these regards confirmed. The archive here has really been a pleasant surprise. When I was first advised by Robert Geraci five years ago to come and research, I had no idea what a great font of information this archive would turn out to be. I'm finding a great amount of material and am really glad that I was lucky enough to get funding to come here. The archive also has a small library, which is open for two hours after the archive reading room closes. Today I worked in the library for the first time, making use of their extensive holdings in late nineteenth century regional government publications.

April 24-25: two days of remembrance

April 26, 2009 April 25 (yesterday) is a holiday in Australia and New Zealand known as Anzac Day (which stands for Australia-New Zealand Army Corps), which commemorates soldiers who died in the British-led invasion of the western Ottoman Empire in 1915. On April 25 of that year, thousands of troops from (mainly) Britain, Australia, and New Zealand began what would become an eight-month siege of Çanakkale ("Cha-nak-ka-le"), on the Gallipoli (Gelibolu, in Turkish) peninsula between the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea. Gallipoli is the entry point to the Dardanelle Straits which lead, through the Sea of Marmara, to Istanbul--the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Sea of Marmara is directly below Istanbul, and is connected to the Aegean (and through the Aegean, the Mediterranean) by the Dardanelle Straits.

Turk-Arm II: A Legacy of Pain and the Turkish-Armenian Rapprochement

April 23, 2009 Like a lot of people, I'm glad to see that the Turkish and Armenian governments have apparently made some progress recently in their relations with one another. As I wrote in a post last week, leaders of the two states have been making quiet steps towards a normalization in their relationship since the fall of 2008. In September of last year, Turkish president Abdullah Gul made a quick trip to Yerevan to attend a soccer game, and since late 2007 delegations from the two countries have been meeting regularly in Geneva in an effort to come up with a means of developing their relations.