Archive for November 5th, 2009
Next in line for Nobel Peace Prize: Erdogan, Turkey’s PM
In December 18, 2004 I wrote “Turkey: A Regional Power in the Making “. In February 4, 2009 I updated my article “A Regional Power out of hibernation in the Near East“. Another update is required because Turkey seems to vigorously and quickly act everywhere.
Turkey forgot the Islamic world for over 60 years since the dictator Ataturk snatched power after WWI. Turkey relied on its military to impose a secular state and emulate the Western culture in alphabet characters and in dress codes.
Basically, Turkey of Ataturk and the successive governments considered that protecting the “Republic” is first in priority, far ahead of human rights…
Ataturk wanted to shed away the image of backward Ottoman Empire that lost an Empire, extending from Hungry to Iraq to Arabic Peninsula, the Near East, Egypt and all Northern Africa. The other Empire to the east was the Persian Safafid Dynasty that extended to Pakistan. The Safafid Empire was founded by another Turkish leader and opted to adopt the Shiaa Moslem sect as the religion of his Empire.
Turkey is part of NATO (this year is its turn to lead the NATO forces in Afghanistan), thanks to the cold war against the defunct neighbor of Soviet Union: Turkey was the main effective ally to the US in the region during the cold war. Turkey was denied full membership in the European Union after the Soviet Union disintegrated into “independent States” recognized by the UN.
France and Germany offered a rational for their refusal on the ground of Turkey not satisfying the basic social and political requirement of a homogenous member. For 60 years Turkey had turned its back to the Arab problems, and decided to be allied to the USA, the State of Israel, and the Shah of Iran.
Things are changing fast after the horrors of Gaza and the tearing down of the mask of the Zionist ideology of terror, expansion, and apartheid. Turkey was playing the fair mediator between Syria and Israel in order for the return of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Turkey was mediating between Israel and the Palestinians to render the life of the Palestinians under occupation more bearable during the peace negotiations for a separate Palestinian State. Israel Olmert PM lied to the Turkish PM Erdogan before the barbaric re-incursion into Gaza.
Erdogan, Turkey’s PM is undeniably the most powerful leader criticizing the Zionist State for its genocide in Gaza. He canceled a joint military maneuver with the US and Israel. The US has nobody else to conduct military maneuvers but Israel in this region; the latest naval one is to last two weeks with objective to save Israel of mass missile attack!
Turkey, under Erdogan, is currently more powerful than the whole of Europe in the Near East for establishing peace, stability and equitable political resolutions. Turkey is a self-sufficient, independent Nation and has ruled the whole Middle East for four centuries. Turkey has awakened from a long hibernation and decided to be a major regional power broker.
Turkey is demanding and acting as the main power broker in the Near East because it has interest in the stability of its south-eastern borders with Syria, Iran, and Iraq. So far, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq were peons for the larger policies of the US, Europe, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.
Turkey’s current policies beg to differ: “no more war zones at my borders and in my back yards“. The US and Israel must have understood the message clearly and loudly. The so-called “moderate” Arab States of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are cowering down and are taken by surprise to the emergence of the new revitalized Turkey siding with the underdogs.
We are not hearing anymore about the Turkish war on the Kurdish self-autonomous movement. I wholeheartedly wish that negotiations are secretly and seriously underway with the Kurdish Workers’ Party for a peaceful resolution. The Kurdish problem was used by the USA and Israel to blackmail Turkey.
I have a feeling that the Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran appreciate the new directions of Erdogan’s government and would find in Erdogan a viable interlocutor and would cooperate with Turkey to lighten up this heavy burden of a useless and fruitless civil war. The new policy in Turkey is to open peaceful negotiations with the opposition Kurds; around 200 Kurdish leaders in the resistance movement have turned themselves in and all indicates that a resolution is palpable.
Turkey will be asked to exercise its beneficial influence in restoring peace, stability and economic prosperity in the region. It will inevitably join the European Union with the unavoidable important changes that Turkey will have to accept and undergo in matters of democracy, liberty, human rights, social and economical constraints.
This transformation of a powerful neighbor will transcend into a drastic transformation of the societies surrounding Turkey. The benefits are already materializing in closer ties with Syria, pressures on Israel to agree on a Palestinian State, and greater normalization with Iran.
Turkey is obviously the main power that can provide autonomy to the Kurdish nationalism spreading among Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Turkey is the main power that can efficiently check US omnipotence in the Middle East and any resurgence of Russia militarism. Turkey prevented Bush Junior to invade Iraq through its territory; the US air base in Interlink was prohibited to launch air raids on Iraq. I have great hope in this new power amongst us, especially that the current Turkish government has proven to be far-sighted and confident in its power and role in this region.
For a couple of years after Europe shut off the door for Turkey entering the Union, Turkey felt the need to crawl in a cave and hibernate. Turkey shook off its lethargic attitude and is now in the driving seat and operating a strategy that befits its power in the Middle East. It has surmounted tough obstacles in economic difficulties, human rights issues that are frequently re-emerging, and demonstrations that are occasionally broken by brute force. Turkey is no longer allowed to relax.
Turkey is quickly learning that it has to keep pace with the culture of Europe and to fight harder to catch up with lost time. Its dialogue with Syria has brought fruits: no visas are needed to cross joint borders, seasonal water resource shortages are frequently revised, and the western world had come to term that it can no longer circumvent Syria in this volatile region with Turkey’s backing.
Europe must be appreciating the decision of Turkey to play a major role in the Near East, but the US is very wary because it refuses to share pre-eminence in the Middle East. Turkey active diplomacy and clear policies should weight heavier in the decision process for joining the European Union. The frustrations of Turkey with the EU must have given it a clear hint of what its policies should be based on and where its focus should be directed to.
Turkey is the new pivotal power in the Middle East in the coming decades. It is the cornerstone for new emerging Northern Middle East Block with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. This strategic block in formation is inevitable after the US troops leave Iraq and would constitute the best guarantee for this volatile region to peace and security.
Erdogan should have received the Nobel Award for Peace instead of Barak Obama who has no active records to show for earning this prize (Read my post “What that! Nobel Prize for Passivity?” Erdogan has already executed peace treaties with his archenemies: Syria, Armenia, the Kurds, soon with Cyprus, and has definitely sided with the Palestinians against apartheid Israel.
Normally, Erdogan should be in line for the peace prize. Judging from the trend, the cynical Nobel Committee never feels comfortable awarding Peace Prizes to Middle Eastern leaders unless it is shared with the devils such as Began and Peres. Erdogan got my highest prize and we all feel much more optimist in our future.
Note 1: Political events have accelerated since I published this article, and I changed my mind: Erdogan is not supposed to be considered for Peace Nobel award, unless the US administration wants to push his nomination forward! Turkey has changed policies to accommodate drastic mass uprising in the Arab States. The Kurds are being persecuted by mass military interventions…
Turkey is kind of demonstrating that it is acting in full cooperation with the US administration. Turkey has resumed military activities against the Kurds, within Iraq boundaries. Turkey is alienating Syria by showing off as the neighboring Big Brother with suggestions and tacit threats. The Arab States are becoming more worried of this close cooperation between Turkey and the US…
Islamist Erdogan has not demonstrated that he will turn over power, if he ever lost an election, a rule that has been in its tenth year and going stronger…
Note 2: Last week in May, 2013, the Kurdish Workers’ Party agreed to leave Turkey and move its military forces to Iraq. Turkey is in cohort with Israel for bombing Damascus and wrecking havoc in Syria…
Note 3: This May 2013, Turkish people mass demonstrated in Taksim Square (Istanbul) to prevent the erasing of a popular park to build yet another Mall. Over 1,000 were arrested, 4 died when tanks run them over and the police forces were ordered to retreat when faced with steadfast obstruction.
Modern Europe: Re-defines Christianity
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 5, 2009
Modern Europe re-defines Christianity; (Nov. 5, 2009)
A few years ago, the European Parliament was considering attaching a clause in the Constitution that Christianity is the foundation of Europe’s civilization. It didn’t pass and Europe saved its modern identity as promoter of human rights and human dignity. How could a religion (one of the many in Europe), one of the various attributes in the vast matrix of a civilization be the exclusive characteristics of Europe? Europe is a heterogeneous society of Nordic, Slavic, and Mediterranean climate and cultures and was dominated intermittently by several Empires.
Modern Europe has extended to its citizens a minimum of human rights. This respect to human dignity was not the case until late in the 20th century. Respect of man did not evolve historically as a continuum but in bounds. Retrospective historical studies tend to discover just the illusion of human respect for rights and dignity.
Europeans claiming Christianity to be the foundation for Europe’s new trend for “mercy, forgiveness, and kindness” (trying to attach these attribute to Europeans) forget that for many centuries the strongest faith in Europe was the taste for violence such as in the Inquisition, the chasing out of the Moslems and Jews from Spain, the Crusading campaigns, the conquest of overseas lands with the benediction of Papal Rome, the division of the conquered lands among the European monarchs by Papal decrees, the religious mass massacres among the Christian sects and factions with Papal consent, the so many wars in Europe where the Catholic Church was an integral party, and the worst of all the Dark Age in Europe that lasted from 400 to the 15th century because the central religious power in Rome was apprehensive of rational thinking and forbade the influx of scientific works that might rob it of its temporal power.
There are Europeans claiming that it was Christianity that set the foundation of the individualistic character in Europe, a non-conformist attitude to the collective norms, rituals, and traditions, the will for self-realization rather than clinging to the behavior of rank and file; these chauvinistic Europeans are also relying on entrenched illusions. The Christian Church was the personification of harassing free thinkers and burning who defied the Christian central dogma for many centuries. Once baptized as a Christian at birth, you had no other alternatives but to obey the Christian laws. Christianity was the most exclusive religion among all religions: It coerced colonized people by force into Christianity. As “Saint” Augustine wrote “It does not matter the faith of a new convert; what counts is what time and rituals will produce in the long run on him and his descendents.” This is exactly the tactics of western globalization “Promote the consumerism of technological gadgets and the world will acquire faith in the superiority of western civilization”
It is paganism that disseminated liberal thinking of individuality. A pagan could worship any other idol in foreign lands (with different name but with the same potency in his mind) and he was never persecuted. A pagan could switch idols that suited his interest of the period and his community would not persecute him or ex-communicate him on his God’s preferences.
The modern principle of universality (which means that individuals of all genders, races, colors, and origins have the same mental potentials and capabilities as human and that the differences reside in societies) was never a Christian dogma. Christianity never had this meaning of universality in its dictionary of laws; a slave was a slave by birth and should accept his condition and offers his miseries and plights as sacrifices to God Jesus who suffered for the entire humanity and forgiveness of the “original sin” that never existed. The discovery by the Europeans of the universality of mankind was due to the de-colonization process, an implicit discourse on the role of society during the 20th century.
How could equality and fraternity have emerged from Christianity in order to claim that Europe’s roots are Christian? Lactance in 314 wrote “People are born equal. In societies where people are not considered equal then justice is not served. Yes, within the Christian communities there are rich and poor, masters and slaves by the flesh but they are equal in the spirit.” How sweet! Lactance was repeating St. Paul’s ejaculation that added oil to the machinery of the caste system. Gregory “the Great” considered charity what was offered to nobles reduced to poverty because of the huge suffering they felt of being considered within the rank of the poor classes; thus, the true poor people by birth were so used to their way of life that they didn’t need much charity to survive.
The Western Christian Churches (Catholic and Protestants) supported and maintained the caste system of nobility and the “others” non-noble classes. The feudal lord had the right to crush his vassals with all the might he possessed as a father had the rights over his kids.
There are many Europeans who claim that it was Christianity that promoted the separation of the spiritual off the temporal power on the basis of Jesus saying “Give to Caesar what is due to Caesar and to God was is due to God”; this is total nonsense. Most of the wars in Europe were launched by monarchs against the temporal influence of Papal Rome in state matters. Neither the Catholic Church not the various Protestant sects relinquished their temporal “rights”.
Protestantism had this indirect advantage that it weakened the central power of Papal Rome; thus, Islam scientific manuscripts were permitted to enter Europe; this new openness to rational discovery was the main catalyst for the Renaissance period and the qualitative jump into modernity. It does not mean that the previous sentence of Jesus had no influence in the mind of modern Europe; it does not mean also that Christianity willingly relinquished its temporal influence based on that sentence. The Prophet Mohammad also urged Moslems to acquire knowledge even from China; it worked for four centuries; it does not mean that Moslems remembered that encouragement most of the time.
There are Europeans, when pressed to give an identity (other than their State), they might opt for their religious denomination (with utmost reluctance in Europe) and thus, when a European says that he is Christian it is sort of family name, the latest in heritage, as cathedrals, old churches, and the paintings, sculptures, and music of the Renaissance period. Christianity cannot be used as identification because it won’t do: most of the US citizens also claim to be Christians, as is the case with Latin Americans; does this means that they could also be considered Europeans or European civilization roots?
Modern Europe is democratic, secular, with laws guaranteeing free religious beliefs, free speech, gathering, and opinions, human rights, sexual liberty, welfare states, open borders and travel. Modern Europe is anathema to the principles and practices of Christian Churches. Christianity must be glad that the modern European civilization is giving it not just a mere face lift but a totally different identity.
Note 1: This topic was inspired by the last chapter in the French book “When the world became Christian” by late Paul Veyne.
Note 2: Ten years a go, Europe was the scene of large genocide; not just between “Christians and Moslems” but among Christians of Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox on the basis of “ethnic cleansing” in former Yugoslavia.
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