Imagine you were Pınar Selek

First, the reason I have been away for a while: I was working on a longer piece. Since I started keeping this blog, I have had the feeling that I should put everything I write here for the sake of completeness. It's hard to get over this self-imposed obligation. But that piece is too long, so I will keep it to myself for the time being. But of course, it's just a step along the way. There will be a next step, which is this post.

But then I thought, my previous post was the perfect ending to this blog. "There's no happy ending - mutlu son yok." The only child wakes up to the reality that life is not easy, and it's not enough to do less than what she needs to do just because. She's not entitled to anything more than everyone else. The purpose of the stars and people is not to align themselves so as to make her wishes come true there and then. Sometimes she should align herself. Sulking because "this or that should have been easier" doesn't make it easier. Actually, taking good care of and nurturing anything takes hard work. And nobody is an exception. And so I thought, I have matured a little bit since I've started writing here. This is a good point to end.

But then, there's no happy ending and no absolute wisdom. I keep getting new ideas. For example, I've had this dream where I actually remember saying to myself, "these are two really good ideas, I should write them!" In the dream I was sure I would remember them, but of course I don't remember them. Maybe all they were was the happy dream, the idea of a good idea. Then this morning I came up with a new idea but then completely forgot about it.

And I keep seeing new examples of what I've written about before. At first, out of laziness disguised by a noble sense of originality, I say: "I've written about this before, I shouldn't repeat myself!" But the injustice is going on. As long as the injustice is going on, we shouldn't content ourselves with having said something once. We should say the truth, we should speak our minds as many times as the truth is overlooked and the justice is violated, at the expense of repeating ourselves and boring people. It's the obligation of those who are aware.

This story I wrote. It's more a diary than a story. Again, out of laziness disguised by a noble sense of sincerity, I haven't been able to write any fiction so far. I say to myself, I am not able to feel strongly (the emotional energy mentioned in the Golden Notebook) about anything that doesn't personally touch me. So I consider myself unable to imagine what someone else could be going through, feeling, imagining worlds. I feel like truth and sincerity would escape me if I were to talk about someone else, I could never forget myself.

Performing vs. feeling. In What Philosophers Think, one of the philosophers made this distinction. Being too aware of your feelings drains the truth out of them. The philosopher there gave the example of becoming aware that you are feeling sorry for someone, and then thinking, "how noble of me to feel sorry!" This isn't putting yourself in that person's shoes and genuinely feeling sorry for them. This is staying squarely in your own shoes.

If you are doing something, if you are somewhere, when your heart is somewhere else, you are actively and consciously performing. Sometimes when the plane lands you hear the voice of the flight attendant, and it sounds more like a performance than someone really speaking. (Or you get the impression that a voice that exudes that much self-importance cannot be real. She must be kidding us!)

You get the point. I'm afraid of this performing seeping into and infecting what I write. Pretending I care about something when in fact I only like the idea of caring about it, I like being that kind of person, who cares about such things. That would be forcing it. I don't want to force anything. So far I've only gotten feelings and ideas out of the world. Will I be able to create worlds out of feelings and ideas? Go from someone feeling sorry for someone suffering to someone understanding and feeling what suffering is like? Maybe I don't have what it takes, and I should suck it up.

Anyway, as I was thinking about these things, I came across J.K. Rowling's Commencement Speech at Harvard University. (The things I get out of people's profiles in the Facebook! Social networking will speed up the development of humankind.) She says:

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I have been reading a lot about Pınar Selek in Radikal lately. She is a Turkish sociologist who tried to imagine when she could have had a very comfortable, respectable life had she chosen to look over these things. She imagined what it would be like to be a transvestite, a child living on the streets, a young boy (or older boy) doing his military service, and a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). She advocated pacifism and women's rights. She put her money where her mouth is and talked to these people, lived with them. She tried to grasp their truth.

Because of her stance, her attitude, because of her choosing to be who she is rather than denying herself, she was accused of being involved in a 1998 explosion in the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul. After spending two and a half years in jail she was acquitted, but the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned this decision. To this day it is not clear whether the explosion was due to a LPG container or a bomb, but now she's being charged again. The prosecutor demands a life sentence. Radikal columnist Yıldırım Türker writes on 13 April:

Pınar Selek’le bir keresinde hapishaneden çıktığında buluşmuştuk. O sıralar 29 yaşındaydı. Hayalî bombacı olarak iki buçuk yılını Ümraniye Cezaevi’nde geçirmiş, kanlı bir ‘Hayata Dönüş’ operasyonu ertesi tahliye edilmişti. Çok şey görmüş, çok yaradan yaralanmıştı. Ama kendi olma, kendi kalma mücadelesini sürdürmeye yeminliydi.

Güneşli bir sabah Pınar Selek’le iki ajan gibi buluştuğumuzu hatırlıyorum. Ardındaki gazeteci ve diğer meraklıları atlatarak randevu yerine geldi. Kendimize bir sığınak bulup uzun uzun konuştuk. Beni en çok şaşırtan, hiç acılaşmamış olmasıydı. Coşkusundan, iyi bir dünyalı olma hevesinden hiçbir şey kaybetmemişti. İnsana şu dünyada durduğu yeri zindan ediveren içtenliği hiç yara almamıştı. Önce ondan sonra kendinizden kuşku duyar hale geliyor, bu gencecik insanın inceliği, yumuşaklığı, sevecenliği karşısında kilitlenip kalıyordunuz. Kendi hakkında bir şey anlatırken mahçup olan, tutuklandığında yaşadığı işkenceden bahsetmeyi uygun bulmayan, mağduriyet dilinin refahına bir an olsun sığınmayan Pınar, kendini mümkünse unutturmak istiyordu. Kahramanlığa, önde durmaya yatkın değildi, dünyayla yüzleşme yordamı.

Yıllar önce daha gencecik bir kızken sokak çocuklarının arasında onlardan biri olarak dünyaya tutunma çabasına tanık olmuştum. Sonra Ülker sokaktan üstlerine şanlı bayraklar sallanarak kovulan travestilerle birlikte, aynı kuytuda sabahladığına tanık olmuştum.

Pınar Selek hakkındaki duygularım hiç değişmedi.

Militarist vahşilerinki de.

Onlar, bu genç kadının bombalardan daha güçlü olduğunu erken fark ettiler.

Her acıdan, her zulümden yüzünde aynı ışıklı gülümseme, aynı tevazuuyla çıkışı besbelli onları deli etti. Onu benzetemediler. Pınar, etrafına mutluluk ve güç saçarak kendi seçmiş olduğu hayatı, kendi seçmiş olduğu hayatın müttefikleriyle birlikte sürdürüyor çünkü.

Kadının özgürleşmesinden, heteroseksizme karşı direnmekten, barışın önemli bir tetikleyicisi olan vicdani redden dem vuruyor çünkü. ‘Barışamadık’ kitabının bir bölümüne epigraf olarak Gandhi’nin bir sözünü koymuş: “Barışçıl mücadelede en ufak bir kuşku başarısızlık için yeterlidir. Sonuna kadar başarılı olmanın yolu saflık ve dürüstlüktür.”

Onun yıllarını çalan, işkencecileri üstüne salıp canını yakan, anasını alan, hayatı ona zehretmeye çalışanlara rağmen hep saf ve dürüst kaldı."

Recently I stepped out of Waitrose with bags in my hand. A dark lady, with dark hair and eyes (saçları, gözü kara) caught my eye. She stopped me and started explaining her cause, she was a member of the Iran Liberty Association. Apparently Iran is putting pressure on Iraq to return the residents of Camp Ashraf, who are members of the Iranian opposition party. I tried to escape, I have never made a donation on the street before. She said her brother was killed, and she had the choice between going on with her life in the US, where her daughter is, and coming to the UK to take part in this campaign. "We all come to this world for a reason," she said. I said I didn't know whether my contribution would be going towards a good cause, and she said she "wouldn't be standing there for 10 hours every day if she didn't believe that it was." Maybe it was a mistake I donated without doing due diligence of who is right. Maybe it is not possible to know who is right. A few days later I received a receipt by post, as she had promised.

Today a Tamil group was protesting in front of the US Embassy. During our two-hour wait we listened to them chanting "Obama-Obama" and their drum beat.

I might have been annoyed had they been a Kurdish group protesting against Turkey.

But we should all work on our imaginations to grasp the truth.

mutlu son yok

insan hep bir şeylerin peşinde, sanki o olursa hayatımız mutlu, mesut, güven içinde, rayında ve tıkırında devam edecekmiş, huzura kavuşacakmışız gibi. sorulan sorulara en iyi cevaplar verilmiş, artık yeni sorular sorulmayacakmış gibi. iş bulmak, ev bulmak, birini bulmak, birini elde etmek, tek taş yüzük almak, evlenmek, ev döşemek, çocuk doğurmak, bir fikri gerçekleştirmek, bir projeyi bitirmek, kitap yazmak, kitap bastırmak, hayranlık, ödül kazanmak, bir sınavı vermek, mezun olmak, iyileşmek, atlatmak, kurtulmak, unutmak, barışmak, ikna etmek, tatile gitmek, vize almak, yeni bir şehre taşınmak, bir yere gitmek, bir yere dönmek... ben artık, sonunda, umarım anladım ki mutlu son yok. yaşamın kolay ve eğlenceli bir şey olması gerektiği fikrini de atmalıyım kafamdan. bu çaba, bu huzursuzluk, tatminsizlik, özlemler, endişeler, korkular, şüpheler hep sürecek. arada bir nefes gibi, teneffüs gibi mutlu, anlamlı (anlamlı olup olmadığını düşünmek akla gelmeyecek kadar anlamlı) anlar, zamanlar olacak. insanlar, yerler olacak. böylece devam edebileceğiz huzursuz yaşamımıza.

yoksa mutlu son yok. iyi ki de yok. bu yolculuğa anlam verebilecek bizden başka kimse de yok. o yüzden artık bir şeylerin olmasını beklemeyi, bir şeylerden, birilerinden medet ummayı bırakmak gerek. hayatta en önemli şey insanın tek başına, sağlam durabilmesi.

benden şimdilik bu kadar.

Big ideas, bad ideas

This week I went to see Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket with a good friend. The movie reminded me of a post I wrote long ago: "It must be so sad to realize that what you dedicated your life for is actually wrong, or unimportant. Maybe there is a point of no return, you can't accept the unimportance of something after you spend a certain number of years working for it. After that point, you just keep doing what you have done for years, and you try to convince a world that doesn't care that your story has a point to it."

Assuming you know the best for someone other than yourself is a formula that was proven wrong over and over. We are trying to add depth and meaning to our lives, but at what cost? Are ideas more important than people? (Assuming it's really naive idealism that's driving us.) How to make peace with the arbitrariness of loss and misery? Should fortune come with responsibility? Is it possible to change anything?

I don't know. I wish I found a way to sustainably forget about all this.

Political risk

Maybe you know that I work in a political risk research and consulting company. Political risks lead to economically inefficient market outcomes. Legislation passed under the influence of an interest group or selective, untransparent and unfair implementation of rules and regulations create political risk. In an environment with high political risk, the outcome of an endeavour depends not only on your talent and effort, but also on the whims and wishes of the people in the system within which you are operating. To reach the outcome you'd like, you have to factor political risk into your equation (and pay us). This is what we do our research and consult our clients on. Too bad, but real world.

The events of the past week made me realize that political risk is present in all systems, in all organizations, including ours. We all have to work around relationships, the hierarchy, egos and pure human drama to get the outcomes we want. And sometimes, all these things won't allow us to get the outcomes we want.

One more thing that must have been obvious to all but myself.

What you thought you knew (but didn't actually know) about Turkey - 3

• The dynamics of ethnic seperatism, Islamism and neo-nationalism

This is not the first time I'm writing about the Kurdish issue. But after reading Cornell and Karaveli's article, I became aware of some important factors that contributed to the formation of the problem as we have it today. I would like to note them here.

Kurds are organized around a tribal and feudal structure, and belong to the more Orthodox Shafi'i school of Islam. Right-wing parties have courted tribal leaders to win Kurds' support. Kurdish tribal leaders continue to play an important role in Turkish politics. However, their influential role does not necessarily translate into more education and economic development in the region. These leaders have an interest in keeping Kurds' loyalties exclusively to themselves.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) first emerged as a revolt against the feudal structure of the Kurdish society. The movement soon realized that the Turkish state protected the status quo, and turned to Kurdish nationalism as its driving ideology following the collapse of communism. Now its survival depends on its domination of Kurdish politics, and its interest lies in the continuation of the violent conflict. This attitude in turn provokes Turkish nationalism.

The authors call the Kurdish question the main failure of Kemalism, as it cast doubt on the credibility of the whole thought system. Along with secularism, it was built upon nationalism, theoretically replacing religious solidarity with loyalty to the nation state (although in practice, religious minorities were often discriminated against.) The AKP, at first, won Kurds' support by shifting the emphasis back to religious solidarity. However, the party itself is now moving towards a more nationalistic position. Actually, this tendency is not new. It is the legacy of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis idea following the 1980 coup. Gülen schools in African and Central Asian countries seem to promote Turkish culture more than Islamic values.

Meanwhile, mixed signals from the EU, the ideological confusion created by the Western support for Islamic conservatism and the reluctance of the US to uproot the PKK from northern Iraq have irritated secular nationalists and fuelled their suspicions about the motivations of the EU and the US. These now brand themselves as neo-nationalists.

With awe (and admittedly, some annoyance) the authors say:

Just as they have appealed to the right as well as to the left with liberal economic policies coupled with generous welfare subsidies, the Islamic conservatives manage to simultaneously canalize Turkish nationalism and Kurdish aspirations.

The local elections next Sunday will show whether this is still true.

Democratization and the AKP

Since I couldn't get my point across in the office today, I decided to write it here. This was supposed to be the introduction of a report we were writing in the office, most of which was later omitted.

This is largely based on two articles written by Menderes Çınar from Başkent University, which I highly recommend. The first one is Turkey's Transformation Under the AKP Rule, The Muslim World, Volume 96, Number 3, July 2006 , pp. 469-486(18).

The second one is Çınar's chapter from Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party, edited by Ümit Cizre and published in 2007. The chapter is called the Justice and Development Party and the Kemalist Establishment.

"When the Justice and Development Party (AKP) first came to power in Turkey in 2002, many saw the party as a political force that could make Turkish society more democratic. The AKP appealed to the right as well as to the left of the political spectrum by advocating liberal economic policies alongside the country’s Europeanization. Taking a more moderate line allowed the AKP to become the trustee of center right politics in Turkey following a decade of poor economic performance and corruption scandals that destroyed the credibility of the mainstream non-Islamist center-right parties.

The performance of the AKP, however, especially in its second term in office following the 2007 general elections, raises the question of whether the AKP leadership has truly internalized liberal democratic values. The AKP has used the EU as the main instrument to introduce democratic reforms in the face of opposition from the state elite. However, the stalling of the negotiation process amid mixed signals from the EU powers exposed the AKP’s limited understanding of democracy and lack of a democratization strategy independent of the EU membership drive.

The AKP’s main goal seems to be strengthening elected political class vis-à-vis the establishment dominated state. As such, the AKP overlooks the power relations between classes, genders, religious and ethnic groups within the Turkish society and these groups’ grievances, reproducing Kemalism’s distaste for politicization of different interests, and constrains its definiton of democracy to rejecting the state’s domination over political class. The party’s recent reduction of the Kurdish cause to an armed conflict and its harsh response to 1 May demonstrations illustrate this point. Naturally, one exception is the rights and liberties of Islamic identity.

The AKP’s real trouble with a state-dominated political class does not result from the undemocratic and unaccountable nature of the relationship. The AKP appears to be more concerned with who is controlling the state. Instead of increasing transparency and accountability in state institutions and bureaucracy, the party is replacing the incumbent state elite with its own supporters. It is following the same strategy of community-creating and personalizing politics as the Kemalist state establishment, displaying distrust to individuals outside its own community."

What you thought you knew (but didn't actually know) about Turkey - 2

• How democratic is the AKP?

Western policy makers once thought that the AKP would lead to a more democratic society, and Turkey would then demonstrate the compatibility of Islam and democracy for other Muslim countries in the Middle East. (Of course, one of the purposes of our lives is to play guinea pigs in western experiments.) Turkey's liberal intelligentsia thought the displacement of the old elite in power would bring about a liberal democracy. So far, this elite seems to have been replaced by a new elite, and the AKP supporters seem to have penetrated and dominated state institutions, instead of making them more transparent and accountable. The same power game is being played, simply by a new player.

Let's take a step back first, and question whether the AKP leadership has really internalized liberal democratic values. The authors say, "Islamic conservatism is not yet at peace with an understanding of secularism that calls for the withdrawal of religion from public realm, which in turn is a prerequisite for liberal democracy." They remind us Erdogan's words, "democracy is a street car, from which we jump off after we reach our destination."

More recently, Erdogan said, "we only took the immorality of the West, not its science." The authors respond, "The Turkish intellectual debate has been haunted by the same expectation since westernization started in the 19th century, namely that it would somehow reveal itself to be possible to acquire the science and technology of the west without having to import western freedom of the mind, specifically the freedom to inquire about and question religious beliefs." The latest incident in TUBITAK (where one of the AKP-appointed administrators censored the stories about Darwin in the TUBITAK magazine, Bilim-Teknik) demonstrates this point vividly.

If you put different pieces of the story together, the picture is quite striking. AKP appoints its supporters to state institutions based on their political loyalty, not merit or competence. (Let's say they pick from a sub-set of supporters, rather than all the possible candidates for the job.) They award government contracts to supporters (ranging from local constructors, who build roads, to Çalık Holding, who will build the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline, if the pipeline ever gets built). The same Çalık Holding only paid $150 million of the $1.25 billion for Sabah-ATV media group, which it won as the sole bidder in the privatization tender. The rest of the money came from state banks and a Gulf investment fund. Just so that the government can control one more piece of the media. And for the chunk of media they don't control, they start huge tax investigations.

Now everybody knows about the Deniz Feneri scandal. AKP affiliates, after having founded the charitable foundation of the same name in Turkey in 1998, decided to open one in Germany to tap the resources there - the good-hearted Turkish immigrants. They then proceeded to funnel some of the donations to their own companies, and German affiliates of Islamist media, like Yeni Şafak and Kanal 7, and couriered some of it to Turkey. According to the German indictment, Zahid Akman, the current chairman of the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) was an active member of the operation. Akman, who belongs to the same Iskenderpaşa lodge of the Nakşibendi religious brotherhood as Erdogan, remains RTUK chairman.

Ergenekon. The investigation could have been a chance to eliminate criminal elements within the state. It could be the first step of a wholesale effort to bring to justice those responsible for the assassinations of Hrant Dink and Uğur Mumcu, the attack to the Council of State (Danıştay) in 2006, the extra-judicial killings of Kurds in the south east. I am not saying all these crimes were committed by a single organization, but Ergenekon could be the first step in a series of investigations, it could be the first spark. The investigators, however, framed the investigation around the assumption that the whole purpose was to overthrow the government. This gave them the pretext to intimidate and weaken those who oppose the AKP.

A public relations campaign is carried out in pro-government media outlets alongside the investigation. There seems to be an archive of tapped phone conversations and confidential documents, from which the most relevant ones are leaked to pro-government press at opportune times. Law 5397, which was adopted on 3.7.2005, extended the scope of legal phone tapping by allowing police chiefs, gendarmarie commanders and the National Intelligence Organization to issue a phone tapping order, subject to the approval of the judges of Heavy Punishment Courts within 24 hours. These tappings are carried out to “prevent” crimes such as organized drug trafficking and “violent attempts to overthrow the government.” There seems to be no mechanism to supervise these tappings to make sure that they remain confidential.

Given that the AKP's definition of democracy is limited to electoral success, it is no surprise that the government's main priority has been the local elections since the Constitutional Court verdict that saved them from dissolution in July. Erdogan himself picked most of the AKP candidates in the local elections. Within the party, Erdogan is surrounded by a circle of loyal supporters, and he has to have the last word before a piece of legislation is submitted to the parliament. There must be a mountain of law proposals in the "Prime Ministry," which are waiting to get the final seal of approval. Very often a law proposal that made the headlines in newspapers is forgotten after it is lost in the prime minister's office.

For someone who doesn't have a personal interest in Turkey, all this may seem like details. This kind of thing happens in every emerging market, one may say. But I am happy that I am able to care enough to feel angry at this. This is not just any subject matter for me, I actually care about it. And I am deeply disappointed. I thought it would be shame not to speak up about it when I have an opinion about it.

İnanç

Bugün ofiste, inanma kavramını düşündüm. İnanç nedir? Birine ya da bir şeye, bir şeyin inandığımız gibi olduğuna neden, nasıl inanırız? Sonra dedim ki, inanç, aslında bilmediğin bir şeyi bildiğini düşünmektir. İnsan bir kez bir şeye inanınca, sanki onu biliyormuş sanır kendini. Görmeyi, düşünmeyi bırakır. Gerçeğin bir adım ötesinde, hızlı hızlı yürümeye başlar, kendi davulunu çalarak, gerçek arkasından yetişmeye çalışır, omzunu dürter ama nafile. Sonra birden durur insan yolun ortasında. Acaba der, pili bitmiş ayıcıklar gibi. Emin olamaz, tokmağı tutan eli havada. Arkasına döner, ama gerçeği göremez. Döner, döner ama gerçek hiç bir yerde yoktur. Kimseye soramaz, o kadar zaman görmezlikten geldiği anlaşılacak diye.

Geriye kalan sadece şüphe.

What you thought you knew (but didn't actually know) about Turkey - 1

I read an article called "Prospects for a 'torn' Turkey: A secular and unitary future?" by Svante E. Cornell and Halil Magnus Karaveli of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Silk Road Studies Program. Their arguments were very refreshing. They made me realize that most accounts of what's going on in Turkey (especially Western perceptions, including some of my 'received opinions') are hopelessly simplistic. So I decided to note some of their points here in a series of posts.

• Islamic ascendancy was the "irresistable reclaim by a supposedly essential popular culture of a terrain that had been occupied by an alien secularism imposed from above by the state."

In fact, successive secular governments have accommodated Islam since Turkey became a multi-party democracy in 1950. Under the watch of center-right governments Sunni Islam came to dominate the school system and private schools funded by Islamic fraternities and orders found fertile ground.

Ironically, it was the military rule following the 1980 coup that encouraged Islamist politics as an alternative to radical left. With the ingenious "Turkish-Islamic synthesis," the generals attempted to blend right-wing nationalism and Islam. The "Religious Culture and Ethics" class made its way into elementary school curriculum (and the consitution), clerical high schools expanded and a new Islamic intelligentsia was born. The liberalization of the economy created a new middle class with more conservative values, while simultaneously increasing income disparities in the society, fuelling support for Islamic conservatism.

Just as it is simplistic to claim that the state bureaucracy and military are homogenously secularist, it is also simplistic to think that secularism does not have any popular legitimacy. The 2007 Republican demonstrations displayed the popular secularist sentiment (although now the Ergenekon indictment claims that they were an attempt to overthrow the government and put state security at risk.) Although I don't think the organizers of those demonstrations are particularly bright, the democratic right of the participants to express their views is not less important than that of the Islamist conservatives.

Finally, an inherent deficiency of secularism contributed to its decline. As Şerif Mardin put it, "the republic has not given the question of what is good, right and aesthetic any deeper consideration. That is the deficiency of Kemalism." The authors go on to say: "Kemalism was not unsuccessful because it has been applied with vigor and insensitivity to popularly held beliefs, but because republican ideology remained philosophically arid, insufficienty connected to and fecundated by the heritage of the Enlightenment." This goes back to the state policy of accommodating religion while "appearing" secular.

Next up:

• The prospects of an Islamic reconciliation with liberal values - how democratic is the AKP?
• The dynamics of ethnic seperatism, Islamism and neo-nationalism.

Religious defamation

Last week at the LSE Literary Weekend there was a lecture about religious defamation. It got me thinking, so I decided to write a few words about it. When the Danish cartoon crisis broke out three years ago, I was quite angry at the Danish. I didn't see the use in publishing those cartoons at all, to me, its only effect was insulting people's culture and identity, provoking even the most moderate Muslims.

There is another side to the story. Religious people think they know the absolute answer to some questions: questions about how our existence came about, how we should conduct our worldly affairs, what will happen after life. They refuse to engage in a debate, and even posing these questions is sometimes enough to offend them. Sometimes they think the other side is not looking for the answer, but simply trying to offend them.

Being around people who get easily offended can be tiresome. It forces one to self-censorship, and this is sort of a defeat. You tacitly accept their version of the truth because you don't want to deal with the fall out. And as one of the speakers in the panel rightly pointed out, this is an impediment to the pursuit of truth. If we keep considering all the ways in which everyone could get offended, we would never speak. (Next time I look offended, remind me this please. And what you just said probably had some truth in it if I look offended. If it was really wrong, I would just be jumping up and down trying to correct you.)

It goes without saying, however, that provoking people is not the only way to get them thinking. There may be better ways.

The Class

This week my friend and I wound up seeing the Class, French director Laurent Cantet's film about a French language and literature teacher struggling to inspire his high school class in the Parisian suburbia. The continuous noise of the class, with its immaturely opinionated and easily offended students, the liberal teacher who loses his cool, the teacher's less idealistic colleagues who view the students as nothing but the subject matter... It was all very realistic. Although my high school was much more homogenous in terms of the students' backgrounds, I remember the continuous chatter, the rebels who would always argue with the teachers, and how sad and unusually quiet an empty classroom looks.

There are a couple of things that lingered on in my mind after the movie. How to win respect? Simply being more senior (in terms of age or experience), having the power to fire, hire or suspend someone, or knowing more is not enough to win someone's genuine respect. Genuine respect is something closer to affection and admiration than to fear, and it only comes with time. A person would earn respect by caring about the people around them, by treating them kindly and showing genuine interest in them, by listening to them, rather than assuming they are better and respectable by default. And a genuinely respectable person would not need to impose their respectability on others, but instead allow them to decide for themselves. Many teachers and bosses are too consumed by their supposed power to consider these things.

And I thought about what all that chatter in a classroom or a teachers' room meant. How the most important things (inequality between classes and cultures or the fate of a student) are spoken alongside the most mundane, like the price of coffee and football stars. And every day, the most important and unimportant things are spoken everywhere with miniscule intervals. And sometimes, the most important things are spoken of as if they are not important, without consideration, and the most mundane are spoken of as if they are the most important things in the world, with great passion. All this is a mystery to me.

(bir kaç gün önce yazdım bunu)

bağımsızlık

İnsan ne zaman birinden bir şey saklamış olur? Onu ilgilendiren bir şeyi anlatmadığında mı? Halbuki sevdiklerimize, daha da doğrusu bizi sevenlere gerçekten aklımızdan geçenleri bütün doğruluğuyla ve açıklığıyla anlatmak ne kadar zor. Biz anlatabilsek, anlattığımızı sansak bile, onların anlayabilmeleri ne kadar zor. Sanki her tanıdığımızla farklı bir dil konuşuyoruz, gerçeğin onların kaldırabileceğini (ya da duymak istediğini) düşündüğümüz kadarını anlatıyoruz.

Peki bir de anlatan netleştikçe anlattıkça, dinleyen bulanıyorsa, anlatan genişledikçe, dinleyen küçülüyorsa, anlatan kuralları koydukça, dinleyen bunları kabulleniyorsa? Anlatan ilerledikçe, dinleyen geri çekiliyorsa?

Eskiden de kafam yeterince karışıktı, şimdi hepten karıştı. Sanki ateşkes zamanı, yıkılan duvarları yeniden yapmak için. Ama eskiye dönmenin de imkanı yok, çoktan yapısı değişti zerrelerin. Ama zaten kurtuluş değil aradığım, bağımsızlık.

Sanki bağımsızlığın tek yolu var. Hiç geri çekilmeden, dinledikçe düşünmek, düşündükçe yazmak, hiç durmadan, pes etmeden topu alıp ileri sürmek. Değişsek bile küçülmemek, hep var olmak. Bu toplar hiç susmayacak, fenerler hep yanacak.

Belki bir yanım isterdi ki ateşkes yapalım, daha az yorucu olurdu belki zayıflık. Ama asıl istediğim savaşmak.

I'm indebted to Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Lecture.

Happiness

Over the past week, I got so confused, and I didn't know why, my brain felt like a knot, made with several innumerable thick ropes. Sometimes I came up with an idea, like a string in one of the ropes, which felt like if I pulled it, the whole thing would untie and leave me at peace. But I didn't have time to put it down on paper (or here), and none of those small strings were strong enough to untie my knot, they turned out to be false promises. In the meantime, I kept adding new things, food, exhibitions, concerts, work, and felt literally poisoned by too much taking, too much consumption, indigestion. I was taking in things but they didn't settle. I wished I was smooth and at ease with myself, with my job, with people. I wasn't. I knew I had gotten emotional because my parents were around, so I thought it was normal and I even wrote about it and figured it out before, so writing the same thing wouldn't solve it. Something else was wrong.

Then my parents and I were sitting at the court of the British Museum, and whatever we were talking about (that there's a leak in my downstairs neighbor's flat and my bathroom will suffer some meddling on Monday and the safety of all this) prompted me to say, "this is not important. What's important is, I can't see what's ahead of me." Now, my mom and dad, I discount them for looking over important things (intentionally?) and obsess about small problems (they claim they'll make big problems if left undealt - maybe they are unimportant for me because my parents have already taken care of them) took on my problem with ease, like the answer was obvious, and my mom said, "You can't be certain of anything. The only thing you can be certain of is yourself. The only thing you can be certain of is how you will react to the things that come up." A large thick rope was pulled off, untangling part of the knot. I couldn't believe how it calmed me down.

We walked around the Shah 'Abbas exhibition, so beautiful, familiar, sometimes unnerving with the weight of history and imperfection. Later that evening, as we were having dinner, my dad said: "You know those mystical stories... How the dervish travels through so many places to find the happiness in himself..." I was going to be the same. I remembered my friend's words from a year and a half ago. I wasn't there yet. But I realized that the reason my parents didn't talk about important things wasn't because they didn't think about them. Some of them, they had already solved in themselves. Others, now I'm sure, were on their mind. They didn't face up to them constantly, sometimes they attempted to forget about them, like we all do. They tried to keep themselves occupied with other things, like we all do. But they were aware of the important things.

The biggest sin one can commit is to act against one's nature. And I stand by my previous proposition that life's goal is happiness. And, I must say, there is nothing wrong with that. A truly happy person should be respected and admired, because they must have been through so much, worked so hard. The only nuance is about looking for, finding out and pursuing those things that make one happy. Orhan Pamuk's books are full of characters who thrive in being "(allegedly) intelligent and unhappy." They tangle things, make knots and don't attempt to untangle them. This is laziness, cynicism. Just like it is lazy to settle with a lesser happiness because one lacks the courage to strive for the real things that make one happy. It is unwise to judge from outside, without knowing the person.

break

I'll go work on a longer piece for a while.

"...Frege dreamt of a perfect language in which such difficulties could never arise. There'd be no ambiguity, no vagueness, no need for any interpretation. Well that's a dream. We don't have such a language and I don't think we could have such a language. But that doesn't inhibit the communication of thoughts. It just requires communication to engage the intelligence of the hearer as well as the speaker." Michael Dummett, What Philosophers Think, page 221

twist in my sobriety

When I was in high school, we would read books and plays in class for English - we read Lord of the Flies, the Diary of Anne Frank, Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth. Our teachers would explain what the authors meant, when they had in mind when they wrote a certain passage or dialogue. There would be such intricate details, such hidden meanings that we would find them incredulous, we wouldn't believe that the author really could have thought of that when he wrote that. There was something magical, though, in the fact that it could be understood that way, it contained the possibility to actually mean that (and still remain consistent with the broader story).

Although it is sometimes frustrating not being able to know the truth and nothing but the truth, I like the fact that language is a fluid, free thing with varying consistency. There are different ways of telling the truth (and concealing it, for that matter). Language can simply be the bearer of the truth, or it can bend it or veil it as it pleases. Then it is up to the hearer's or reader's knowledge of circumstances and intelligence to guess. If you know the author well enough to see what the symbols mean, if you literally speak their language, then you might be able to see the thought in their head. In its purity. If you don't, you will be wrong. But then, sometimes misunderstandings are more beautiful than the truth, while they last.

If you insist on knowing the truth in a timely manner, it is important to attend, then, as Iris Murdoch once said. Life is not simple or easy. Nor should be people, thoughts, words and sentences.

poker

ofiste poker oynamayı öğreniyoruz. ben hep sanki herkesin bildiği, benim bilmediğim kurallar varmış sanıyorum. herkes bunlara vakıfmış, bir ben değilmişim gibi. onların bildiği bir sırrı ben bilmiyormuşum gibi. ya da daha kötüsü biliyor da beceremiyormuşum gibi.

birbirini uzun süredir tanıyan ve seven insanların yanında da böyle hissediyorum bazen... hem sevgilerini çok hakediyor, hem haketmiyor gibi. hem onları tanıyor, hem tanımıyor gibi. sanki bilmediğim, öğrenmem gereken çok şey varmış gibi. kaçırdığım bir yaşam parçacığı varmış gibi.

ama ofis direktörümüz dedi ki, aslında kimse bilmiyor.

çok sıkıldım kendimden.

I watched the Revolutionary Road tonight.

the system

"All those rules," my friend pondered, "waiting in line to see someone, getting tickets from a machine, going from one office to another... so many obstacles are raised in our way each day, limiting our lives in so many ways..."

I found this thought very refreshing. But then I thought, these rules are there for a reason, right? They are the result of years and generations of experience and hard thought, negotiation, common sense. People built this system over hundreds of years. This is what they came up with after hundreds of years of conquest for happiness, freedom, security. And all the consensi (I assume this is the plural of consensus?) in between. Will revisiting it, trying to go against it make us any happier than everyone else? Trying to swim against the current?

This is the best we can get. The best consensus. The equation with the optimal outcome. We are not completely happy, free or secure, but each of us are in a happy medium with enough of each to get by. Because too much of one wouldn't leave enough room for the others. And we want them all. We need a little bit of each.

We might as well go with it. Close the book on all the questions our forefathers found answers to. Like an exam you already passed. This is the answer.

"When in doubt, conform," said another friend. Even if you're not totally convinced, conform. Even if you don't see the point. Even if you think you could be happier if you did things another way. Just believe that this is the best way of doing things, even if you can't get your mind around it. Know that you couldn't be better off any other way. Get on with what you have to do.

People are not stupid. You are just a bit slow.

"Those who are quiet, those who don't know how to tell, who can't make themselves listened to, who don't seem important, those who are mute, those who always think of the good answer at home, those whose stories people aren't curious about - aren't their faces more meaningful, more full? As if the letters of the stories they can't tell mingle on these faces, as if they hold signs of silence, bruise, even defeat." Black Book, page 263 (Turkish edition), Orhan Pamuk

slow

The pilot I spoke of in the previous post. Don't misunderstand me. I spent hours watching survivors' and witnesses' accounts of him landing on the Hudson (and I didn't like watching Gazan hospitals, so the criticism was directed at myself). I admire this guy so much. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to be so quick and decisive if I were in his place (and even with his experience!).

Yesterday I went to watch Slumdog Millionaire with a good friend of mine in Haymarket Cineworld. We didn't have assigned seats, so people sat wherever they found. A couple (with huge muscles) sat in front of us. I think muscle volume takes away from brains, and soon I was proven right. A guy who was clearly sick and had difficulty walking stopped by their row, asking if he could take the seat next to the couple. This asshole's precious backpack occupied the seat, and he pointed at the seat right in front, asking "what's wrong with this one?" The guy said he had neck problems. Frowning and hissing, the asshole finally moved to move his backpack, but by then the sick guy said, "Don't worry, I'll find another seat," and climbed back the stairs. My friend and I were shocked, the asshole's other half was clearly embarassed, looking back to see where the guy went. And although I was the closest bystander, I didn't do anything. A moment later I thought, "I should have given him my seat and move next to this asshole, obliging him to sit with his backpack on his lap!" But it was too late. I played the scene in my head over and over, how I would spare the sick guy the trouble of finding another seat, how I would face down the asshole and ask kindly but firmly, "Sir, have you paid for this seat?" Then I briefly thought to clear myself, "but the sick guy should have gotten a disabled seat!" We need regulations to protect the weak from assholes, right?

But I didn't do anything, and the moment passed. One of the indications of a person's value is how they react to a situation in very short notice. Of course experience helps, but if you pass your chance, another moment may never come again. And I really think we shouldn't let assholes like this prevail if we have any respect for ourselves.

Leading uneasy lives

An LSE academic (whose name I'll refrain from mentioning here, as it was a private meeting) visited our office last week, and provided us with an interesting description of the world today. He said that a paradigm shift in hard sciences occur when scientists discover internal contradictions in their theories. For a paradigm shift in social sciences to come about, an external shock is necessary. An external shock tells us that the truth about the world is no longer what we thought it was. For the western world, that external shock was September 11th.

It became apparent that the "modern" worldview, which explained the world in terms of "states and failed states" and which was shared by both the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, no longer sufficed to explain what is truly going on in the world today and why. However, the objective truth of the modern world was not replaced by a new objective truth.

Now we are left with post-modernist "accounts," subjective opinions of self-appointed experts, because we often lack hard data about the nature or severity the problems we face. Policy makers and states now use the "precautionary principle," (thanks to the Bush administration) which presupposes that you don't have to wait for conclusive hard evidence to act against a perceived threat. The way "experts" frame the problems, or "questions" at hand, determines our response to these problems. The academic gave the example of HIV/AIDS. Is it a developmental problem or a security problem? The answer we give to this question will determine which actors will tackle it, what they will do to solve it, and what resources will be spent on it. We can think of many other examples. Take terrorism or climate change.

Although we often don't have hard evidence and easy answers, it is still important to try to understand the actors we are dealing with. For example, the West perceives China as a rising power, a competitive force so competitive precisely because it does not respect the rules. But it is difficult for Westerners to convince China that complying with international labor and environmental standards, reining in on corruption and crime, and refusing to deal with the likes of Hassan al-Bashir will be good for the Chinese in the long-term. China needs high economic growth in the short-term to maintain social peace.

Something this academic said about conflicted regions in the world was interesting. He said some problems are "wicked problems," just when you think you find a solution to them, they transform themselves. We think that parties in an armed conflict want the resolution of a conflict, they are ready to put down arms if their demands are met. The conflict is just the means to an end. In other words, we assume that the reason these conflicts last is that conflicting demands cannot be met. Our guest said that the actors in these conflicts often see the conflict as an end in itself. They derive their power from the conflict, the costs of continuing the war is low (as opposed to state actors) and criminal activities sponsor the war. Their stated goals and demands are then just a front.

Here, I'd like to make a broad point about our conscience. We like clear cause-effect relationships to explain the injustices in this world, we like to hold people responsible for the misfortunes that befall them. We (or westerners) say, "Israel is bombing Gaza because Hamas fired rockets at Israel. Gazan civilians elected terrorists, who could not possibly ensure their security. Hamas does not have its constituents' safety at heart, it is simply a pawn in a grand geopolitical game." Having analysed this disturbing issue, we can get on with our lives, feel happy about a pilot masterfully landing 150 Americans on Hudson River. A story we can identify with more easily.

We cannot close the file on these questions with neat explanations. Having born in one part of the world as opposed to another is merely fate, it does not entitle us to more valuable lives. I read in a book philosopher Richard Swinburne's attempt at reconciling the existence of evil and God. God allowed evil to exist in order to give us the choice of not letting it happen. So some people are created merely to present those more powerful the choice of sparing them? If we have any claim at leading meaningful lives, we should at least recognize and be bothered by this randomness, this injustice.

To be fair, our minds are not completely free of trouble. Even if sufferings of innocent civilians far away does not suffice, we are bothered by things we cannot understand and control. We are less worried about natural disasters and illness thanks to scientific progress. But we are scared of what our fellow human beings might do to us. We are scared of terrorist attacks. We are afraid of immigrants. We are wary of the troubles of a financial system that gained a life of its own.

These are the new forces of nature in a post-modern world.

Alice

It's dreamy weather we're on
You waved your crooked wand
Along an icy pond with a frozen moon
A murder of silhouette crows I saw
And the tears on my face
And the skates on the pond
They spell Alice

I disappear in your name
But you must wait for me
Somewhere across the sea
There's a wreck of a ship
Your hair is like meadow grass on the tide
And the raindrops on my window
And the ice in my drink
Baby all I can think of is Alice

Arithmetic arithmetock
Turn the hands back on the clock
How does the ocean rock the boat?
How did the razor find my throat?
The only strings that hold me here
Are tangled up around the pier

And so a secret kiss
Brings madness with the bliss
And I will think of this
When I'm dead in my grave
Set me adrift and I'm lost over there
And I must be insane
To go skating on your name
And by tracing it twice
I fell through the ice
Of Alice

And so a secret kiss
Brings madness with the bliss
And I will think of this
When I'm dead in my grave
Set me adrift and I'm lost over there
And I must be insane
To go skating on your name
And by tracing it twice
I fell through the ice
Of Alice

There's only Alice

Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan

For readers who don't speak Turkish, this post is about the following book chapter, which I highly recommend:

"How to Protect Human Dignity from Science," Daniel C. Dennett, March 2008.

Ruhlar ve makineler


Lisedeyken okuduğum Sofi'nin Dünyası'nda hiç unutamadığım bir cümle var. "Eğer beynimiz bizim anlayabileceğimiz kadar basit olsaydı, bizim onu anlayamayacak kadar aptal olmamız gerekirdi." Dün Newsweek Türkiye'nin eski bir sayısında korku, öfke, aşk, mutluluk ve inanç gibi "duygu"ların beynin hangi bölümlerinde oluştuğunu açıklayan bir yazı okudum. Yazının başında haklı olarak şu soru soruluyordu: Acaba duygularımızın, tepkilerimizin ve başarısızlıklarımızın biyolojik açıklamalarını öğrenmek, bunları değiştiremeyeceğimizi düşünmemize yol açar, bizi ahlaki tembelliğe iter mi? Dergi şöyle cevap veriyor:

"Aslında gerçekten her şeyi bize beynimiz yaptırıyor. Ama yine de bunun anlamlı hayatlar yaşamamız ve ahlaki seçimler yapmamızla ilgili tutarlı bir yanı var. Bu yılın başında filozof Daniel Dennett, ABD Başkanlık Biyoetik Konseyi için hazırladığı bir yazıda, zihinsel hayatımızın biyolojisiyle ilgili bilgi sahibi olmanın bize avantaj sağlayacağını söylüyor. Filozofa göre, bu durum karar alma mekanizmalarımızı ve hatta ahlâki kararlarımızı bile geliştirebilir. Dennett, böylece insan türünün hayatta kalma şansının da artacağını belirtiyor."

Tabii bu yanıtın içini doldurmak için öncelikle Dennett'ın yazısını okumak gerekiyor. Arada sırada yaşadığım ve beni şaşırtan tecrübe ise şu: Beni mantıksız, "anormal" davranmaya iten bir duyguyu yaşarken bunun biyolojik nedenleri olduğunu sezmek, ancak yine de o duygudan kurtulamamak. Örneğin yorgunluğun getirdiği sabırsızlık ve alınganlık ya da kahve içtiğimde hissettiğim iyimserlik ve enerji. Bazı günler işlere kolayca yoğunlaşabilirken, enerji doluyken, bazı günler kapıldığım anlamsızlık hissi.

Birinci elden yaşadığımız bu tecrübeler, kaçınılmaz olarak akla şu soruları getiriyor: Duygu, düşünce ve davranışlarımızın ne kadarı bizim kontrolümüzde? Biz ne kadar özgürüz, seçimlerimiz ne kadar anlamlı? Yetenek ve başarılarımızın ne kadarı sahiden bizim? Uyuşturucu etkisi altındayken bir sanat eseri yaratan sanatçı, o eserin üzerinde ne kadar hak iddia edebilir? Bir suçlunun akli dengesinin yerinde olup olmadığı, bir suçu "bilerek ve isteyerek" işleyip işlemediği, bir kurbanın ruhsal sağlığının bozulup bozulmadığı hangi kriterlere göre belirlenebilir? Yapışık ikizler, beyninin içinde ikizinin ayağını taşıyan çocuk, "hamile erkek" gibi "anomalilerin" farkında olmak, insan hayatının anlamı, değeri ve ona bu anlamı veren varsayımlarımız hakkında şüpheye düşmemize yol açıyor. İnsan hayatını çevreleyen anlam halesi ve ahlaki tabular ortadan kalktığında ise, vücutlarımız değeri belirlenebilir birer "ürün" (commodity) haline gelmiyor mu?

Dennett'ın yazısı gerçekten çok ilginç. Bilimin "açıklayabildiği" her yeni şey, eski inançlarımızı sorgulamamıza yol açıyor. İnanç sistemimizdeki her değişiklik ise, toplumsal ve kişisel hayatımızda büyük ve geri dönülmez değişimleri beraberinde getiriyor. Dennett, yatırımcıların beklentileri değiştiği için birden bire değeri düşen bir para birimini, hak-hukuk ve güvenlik sağlaması beklenmediği için iflas eden bir devleti, ya da bir kasabanın birden kendilerini tehlikede gördükleri için kapılarını kilitlemeye başlayan sakinlerini örnek gösteriyor. Ona göre, bilimin açıklamaları ışığında birden her davranışımızı biyolojik nedenlere bağlamamız, inanç sistemlerimizde tehlikeli değişimlere yol açabilir.

Dennett, inanç sistemimizin bazı yönlerini, bilimin getirdiği şüpheciliğe karşı korumamız gerektiğini düşünüyor. Bunu tutarlı bir şekilde yapmanın yolu da, inançlarımızın gerçeklere dayandığını, doğruluklarının kanıtlanabileceğini iddia etmektense (çünkü bilimin ortaya çıkardığı gerçekler karşısında bu iddiaların ikna kabiliyeti azaldı), inançlarımızın ve değerlerimizin sonuçlarına bakmaktan geçiyor. (Hatice'ye değil neticeye bak.) Burada Dennett, ehliyet alma yaşını örnek gösteriyor. Herkesin on altı ya da on sekiz yaşında araba kullanmaya hazır olduğunu bilimsel olarak kanıtlayamayacağımız gibi, insanların araba kullanmaya hazır hale gelebilmesi için geçmesi gereken belirli bir olgunluk eşiğinin varolduğunu bile iddia edemeyiz. Ancak ehliyet alma yaşı toplumdaki bir belirsizliği giderir ve trafiğin güvenliğini artırır. Ehliyet yaşının "bilimsel" olarak tamamen mantıklı olup olmadığını tartışmaya açmak, zaman ve enerji kaybından başka bir işe yaramaz.

Dennett'a göre, geleceğe dair beklenti oluşturabilmek ve plan yapabilmek için, herkesin kabul ettiği inanç ve değerlere sahip olmamız gerekiyor. Örneğin demokratik rejimlerin devam edeceğini varsayabilmek için, demokratik rejimlerin Churchill'in dediği gibi alternatiflerinden daha iyi olduğuna inanmamız gerekir. Para biriktirebilmek için paranın değerinin düşmeyeceğine, yatırım yapmak için hukuk düzeninin doğruluğuna ve değişmezliğine inanmak zorundayız.

Filozof, bu değer ve inançların varlığını sürdürebilmek için bazen kendi kendimize yalan söylemek zorunda olduğumuzu kabul ediyor. Burada psikiyatrist George Anslie'nin Breakdown of Will (İradenin Çöküşü) kitabından alıntılar yapıyor. Bu değer ve inançları kaybetmemek adına gerçeği arama ve gerçeği gösterme güdümüze ters düşen şeyler yapıyoruz, gerçeği bazen görmezden geliyoruz. Buna örnek olarak ise, Dennett etnik eşitliğe inancı korumak adına, değişik ırklara mensup kişilerin biyolojik farklılıklarına ilişkin yararlı sonuçlar doğurabilecek araştırmaların görmezden gelinmesini gösteriyor.

"İnançların stratejik korunması"nın hayatımızda yakından bildiğimiz pek çok örneği var. Dennett'in Anslie'nin kitabından alıntıladığı bu bölümü tam olarak çevirmezsem olmaz:

"Hesaplayarak ya da ondan bir medet umarak gösterdiğimizde mahvolan çabanın değerli kalmasını istiyorsak, hilebazlıktan vazgeçmemeliyiz. Örneğin, seks ya da 'sevilmek' için gösterilen romantizm, para için yaptığımız mesleğimiz, insanlardaki etkisini görmek için yapılan bir sanat performansı kabalık olarak görülür. Seks, sevgi, para ya da alkışın motive edici etkisinin çok fazla farkında olmak gösterilen çabayı mahveder, üstelik sırf etrafımızdaki insanların gözünü açtığı için değil. Çabalarımızın asıl kıymetiyle ilgili inançlarımız, bu inançların doğruluğundan daha değerlidir, çünkü bu inançlar gerekli olan hilebazlığı sağlar."

Ne için gerekli olan? Gösterilen çabanın, ortaya çıkan ürünün değerli olması için gerekli olan. Yani ortaya çıkan ürünün gerçekten değerli olmasını istiyorsak, onu hesapsızca, saflıkla, samimiyetle, "onun için ve yalnızca onun için" yaptığımıza önce kendi kendimizi inandırmamız gerekir. Yani saf olmasak da bir an için saflığı yakalamak, kendimizi saf sanmak. İnançlarımızı korurken de, onlara gerçekten inanabilmek istiyorsak, şüphelerimizi unutmak zorundayız. Yani bazen en mantıklısı mantığı elden bırakmak.

pazardan önceki pazar

ben ilkokuldayken, belki ortaokulun başlarında da, anneannemin Bandırma'daki evine giderdik sömestre tatillerinde. teyzemler de gelirdi. tatil tam iki hafta sürerdi, bir cumartesiden bir sonraki pazara. ilk hafta çok güzel geçerdi. ama tam bir hafta sonra, cumartesiden sonra, gideceğimiz pazardan önceki pazar benim içim daralmaya başlardı. bilirdim ki tam bir hafta sonra eve, okula dönüş var. ikinci hafta hep gün sayarak geçerdi. ikinci hafta boyunca ara ara düşünürdüm tam bir hafta sonra orda olmayacağımı.

şimdi de haftaya dizileri seyredemeyeceğimi düşünüyorum. biliyorum ki gidince alışacağım, kaç kere alıştım. yoksa o kadar zaman geçmezdi kolay kolay. ama her kış moralim bozuluyor.

Candles

My dad found out what Hanukkah candles mean, and how the ritual goes. He told me the story, but I didn't find it very cute for some reason. I said I didn't believe in religion because it's a way of dominating people. Finding meaning in common stories and symbols bind people together - so do common enemies. I gave women's rights as an example of a fundamental flaw in religions. If religions were the real thing, they would have pointed to universal truths, truths that stand the test of time.

But then I thought, if God gave us all the right answers, S/he would be insulting our intelligence.

truth and dare

I know at the end of this entry you'll think "so what?" but I still want to share my discovery.

Once I thought that I could only love myself if someone loves me. And I have mistaken the fear of loss for love. Need for love.

The two years since have taught me that this is not love. They taught me that I'm valuable even if noone takes notice. They have also taught me to take notice when I see someone valuable. They have taught me that my value doesn't depend on someone's opinion of me, it depends on whether I can still respect myself. They have taught me that it's important to be my own person and be interested in things. And if I run across someone who also cares about things, that's good. If they care about me, even better.

"The Dark Pool" ve Masumiyet Müzesi

Janet Cardiff, George Bures Miller @ Modern Art Oxford, 18 Ocak 2009'a dek

Dün Oxford Modern Sanat Müzesi'nde Janet Cardiff ile George Bures Miller'ın sergisine gittik. Sergide the Dark Pool diye bir eser vardı. Loş ve dağınık bir odanın içinde eski kitaplar (hep bir sayfaları açılıp tutturulmuş, astroloji -yengeç burcu-, çay fincanı falı, açılmış duran sayfası bir elma ağacını tarif eden bir hikaye kitabı, yüz okuma kitabı -stability-), tabakların içinde ekmek, çörek kalıntıları, değişik boylarda megafonlar, hoparlörler, gramofonlar, içine baktığınızda üç boyutlu bir resim görünen dürbünler -dedem Hac'dan getirmişti bunlardan-, çay fincanı okuma kitabının yanında açılmış çay fincanları, askılardan sarkan elbiseler, gecelikler, kullanım tarifiyle birlikte bir dilek tutma makinesi, su dolu bir tankın içinde batık bir nesne, sanki Orta Amerika'dan bir göl manzarası maketi -No Country for Old Men-, minik heykelcikler. Dolaşıp nesnelere baktıkça yanlarındaki hoparlörler uyanıyordu, bir müzik ya da dialog duyuluyordu. Meğer bu, her bir nesneye bakıldığında canlanan anıları simgeliyormuş. Bir antika dükkanı gibiydi, içinde çok yoğun yaşanmış, toplanmasına vakit kalmamış... ya da her yaşananı saklayıp göstermesi istenen bir oda gibi.

Tabii müze gezerin aklına o anıları getiremez bu nesneler, hepsi yeni. Olsa olsa birer işaret olabilirler, görmek isteyene. Ama bir şey söylemek için çok erken.

omg I'm not special!

While having company in misery feels good (so that one can feel normal), having company in considering yourself special, enlightened, liberal, artsy, intellectual, authentic etc. doesn't feel so good (unless you know and hang out with an exclusive group of special people - that might actually have a compounding effect on your self-importance)... In fact, I feel like my life has lost plenty of meaning since I started reading this blog. It's quite funny still - and as always, its value lies in its truth.

An end to "if you're special and you know it clap your hands!"

P.S. I would like to add "self-depreciating self-aware reflection" to stuff white people like.

yeni şeyler

Şu aralar mümkün olduğunca yeni şey görmeye, çok şey dinlemeye, çok şey okumaya çalışıyorum. Yeni, heyecanlı bir şeyler duyduğumda, gördüğümde sanki beynimde bir pencere açılıyor, püfür püfür temiz hava doluyor içeri. Yoksa hep aynı şeyleri düşünmenin hep aynı sakızı çiğnemekten farkı yok. Beynim de o zaman suyu mu, yağı mı eksik olduğundan nedir, çekmeyen bir motor gibi oluyor, zincirler boşa dönüyor, ağlar sarıyor her yanı. Amelie filminde vardı değil mi o söz, ya kız oğlana, ya oğlan kıza "sen olmasaydın duygularım bir zamanlar hissettiklerimin kabuğundan ibaret olurdu" diyordu. Hayatımızda yeni şeyler, yeni insanlar olmasa, ya da bildiğimizi sandıklarımızın yeni yönlerini keşfetmesek, şaşırmasak, hep eski duygularımıza, eski düşüncelerimize, varsayımlarımıza yeniden, yeniden katlanmak zorunda kalırdık. Yeni şeyler bizi değiştirmese, bize bilmediğimiz taraflarımızı göstermese, biz de inatla hep aynı hataları yapar, katlanılmaz olurduk.

Uzun zamandır afişlerini metroda görüp, gitmek isteyip de tembellikten gitmediğim bir kaç sergiye gittim. Önce geçen Pazar Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque sergisine gittim. Bu dört sanatçının hepsi de Paris'teki Maeght galerisinde eserlerini sergilemiş, ama tarzları birbirinden çok farklı. Miró bir çocuk gibi, kalın ama yumuşak çizgiler, yuvarlaklar çiziyor, cart kırmızı, sarı, yeşil çizgiler. Calder demir tellerden, levhalardan cisimler yapıp birbirlerine bağlıyor, havaya asıyor, ağaçlar, yeni güneş sistemleri, kuşlar, uçaklar yapıyor - her şey birbirine bağlı, dengede duruyor. Braque karanlık kırların, mitolojik hikayelerin, kendi içindeki karanlığın, umudun resimlerini yapıyor, hep koyu renklerde. Ben ama en çok Giacometti'nin heykellerini, çizimlerini sevdim. İnce ince incecik kadınlar, adamlar, köpekler yapıyor. Sanki kopacak gibi, kırılacak gibi, sanki eriyor gibiler. Çizimleri ise bir kaç kara çizgiden ibaret - çünkü bir kaç çizgiden kalın değiller, ama yine de anlaşılıyor kim oldukları, bir bütünler. Meğer Giacometti bir modele bakarak yapıyormuş heykellerini, o modelin aslında ne kadar kırılgan olduğunu görüyor, aslında ne görüyorsa onun heykelini yapıyormuş.

Sonra dün Rothko sergisine gittim Tate Modern'da. İki sergiye giriş bileti neredeyse daha ucuza geldiğinden, bir de Cildo Meireles sergisine bilet aldım, aklımda hiç olmadığı, sanatçının adını ilk dün duyduğum halde. Giacometti'nin heykelleri nasıl ince, kırılgansa, Rothko'nun kanvasları o kadar sağlam, güçlü, derin. Katman katman renkler sanki üçüncü bir boyut kazanmış, kanvasın dışına yükseliyor. Aslında sanırım Rothko, renklerin resmini yapıyor. Kırmızının, siyahın, grinin, kahverenginin resmini, onların gücünün, birlikteliğinin resmini.

Asıl sürpriz ise girizgahtan çıkarabileceğiniz gibi, Cildo Meireles. Brezilyalı sanatçının eserleri çok zekice. Burada eser, Meireles'in kafasındaki fikrin, gözlemlediği, anlatmak istediği şeyin dünyadaki elçisi. Burada hem fikrin kendisi, hem de eserin o fikri ne kadar iyi temsil ettiği önemli. Meireles, "bence sanat objesi, her şeye rağmen, anında baştan çıkarıcı olmalıdır" diyor. Çünkü güzel bir fikrin çekici olması için zekice anlatılması gerekir. İzleyiciyi kendilerine davet eden, izleyici onlara gittiğindeyse sözlerini tutan, izleyiciyi rahat ettiren, ona ilginç şeyler söyleyen eserler bunlar.

Bu birbirinden farklı üç sergi, bana bir sanat eserine değerini veren şeyin ne olduğunu düşündürdü. Bence bu, onun yeniliği, benzersizliği ve samimiyetidir. Ya hikaye, ya üslup, ya her ikisi de - yeni, benzersiz ve samimi olmalıdır. Bilen gözler bir Miró ya da Braque resminin kime ait olduğunu seçebilir. Ancak her bir Miró eseri de, sanatçının diğer eserleriyle üslup yönünden tutarlı olmakla birlikte (ne de olsa aynı sanatçı, samimiyetle yaratıyor bu eserleri) yeni bir hikaye anlatmalıdır. Her yeni şey anlamlı olacak diye bir kural yok. Ancak bize anlamlı gelen, bizi heyecanlandıran pek çok şey, yeni ve benzersizdir.

Greek antiquity, Roman law, the conflict between the Pope and the German Kaiser in the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, all these that give Europe its specific character. Friedbert Pflüger, CDU

Christianity is understood not so much as a belief system or a theology but as a civilizational idea, political culture and lifestyle. As such, for example, it is believed that the cultural roots of some fundamental secular European values, such as the separation of spiritual and worldly affairs, the separation between the public and the private spheres, the idea of natural rights protecting the individual against the state, and, following Max Weber, the culture of capitalism, all have their roots in Europe's Christian heritage. Hakan Yilmaz, Turkish identity on the road to the EU: basic elements of French and German oppositional discourses, page 298.

We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world – and I can identify with them easily – succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West – a world with which I can identify with the same ease – nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid. Orhan Pamuk, in his Nobel lecture


Laiklik


Peki bu Avrupalıların yaşayıp da bizim yaşamadığımız nedir? Ticaretle zenginleşen, bilimle aydınlanan burjuva sınıfının, artık kendilerini yönetme yetkisini Tanrı'dan aldığını iddia eden aristokrasinin masallarına kanmaması mı? Biz ise kendimiz keşfetmedik bunu. Kitaplardan okuyanlarımız, dışarda görenlerimiz ise herkese anlatmak istediler, ancak bazı şeyler anlatılmakla, çabucak öğrenilmiyor. İnsanların ilerlemesini geri gördükleri şeyleri yasaklayarak sağlayabileceklerini umdular. Hem Avrupalılardan farklı olabilir (çünkü bir ulus devlettik ve Avrupalılar bize düşmandı) hem de onları kendi oyunlarında yenebilirdik. Oysa insanların değerleri, alışkanlıkları halının altına süpürülerek yok olmuyor. İnsanlar sizin anlattığınız hikayeye inanamıyorlar hemen. Kendileri ikna olmaları gerek. Bu da zaman alıyor.

O yüzden mi acaba bizim muhafazakarlarımız, Avrupalıların muhafazakarlarından daha korkutucu? O yüzden mi biz dini değerlerin yaşamlarımıza empoze edilebileceğinden (hatta şimdiden edilmekte olduğundan) korkuyoruz?

Around that track

Long ago, I wrote that people draw their strengths from others' weaknesses. A position of power is only possible if one has subordinates. And usually, these little luxuries are gained after years of hard work. That's why people have little incentives to help newcomers or outsiders. People want to enjoy some exclusivity, because they paid the price for it.


Over the past couple of days, I have been reading about an argument I completely overlooked before. Up to now, I dismissed the argument that Turkey and the European Union are incompatible, because they belong to different value systems. I thought this was fatalistic, I thought it robbed Turkey (and other countries who are admittedly behind) the chance to reform their ways. I thought countries should be allowed to climb the world's civilization ladder if they are willing to do so. It was the only way the EU would have a meaning and future greater than itself, the only way forward. That's why arguments emphasizing the irreconcilable differences in identity and values seemed lazy to me (just like it is lazy for Turkish nationalists to argue that we are too different.) I rallied against the fact that Turkish accession would have to be approved in popular referenda even if it met all accession criteria. Europeans raised hurdles like the Cyprus issue just to discourage Turkey from pursuing membership. They weren't honest, they didn't act in good faith.

After a couple of days' worth of reading, now I see how identities and values matter for European people (like everyone else), and how they may feel like the enlargement process is imposing upon them something they shouldn't have to endure.

Researchers group people's and countries' "attitudes" towards the enlargement issue in three categories. The first one is a rational cost-benefit analysis, where people weigh potential socio-economic and security benefits against potential costs. The second one is identity considerations, where people look at whether Turkey's values are compatible with European values. The third one is "post-nationalism," which permits accession as long as Turkey internalizes the common values the EU is built upon, democracy and human rights being the foremost. In other words, Turkey should be allowed in if it fulfills all the accession criteria.

Member states' attitude towards enlargement is largely determined by the kind of future they envision for the EU, and we go back to the "enlargement" versus "deepening" dichotomy. Countries like the UK and Sweden argue for a loose union. They believe there is no reason to push for commitment where it is too costly. The EU is already quite large, and it unavoidably involves members with different foreign policy and economic interests. They would follow a rational, post-national attitude. Even if irreconcilable differences between value systems exist, they would claim that this is beside the point as long as each member state respects the common values of democracy and human rights.

The right wing in countries like France, Germany and Austria, on the other hand, believes that the EU can be a powerful player only as a stronger political union, and homogeneity is required for it to become one. Here are some voices from this camp, taken from Hakan Yilmaz's article Turkish identity on the road to the EU: basic elements of French and German oppositional discourses (Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, December 2007).

"A political union needs something like a we-feeling. This we-feeling is something more than a commitment to democracy and human rights. It has to do with a centuries-old shared history: Greek antiquity, Roman law, the conflict between the Pope and the German Kaiser in the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, all these that give Europe its specific character." Friedbert Pflüger, CDU

"Christianity is understood not so much as a belief system or a theology but as a civilizational idea, political culture and lifestyle. As such, for example, it is believed that the cultural roots of some fundamental secular European values, such as the separation of spiritual and worldly affairs, the separation between the public and the private spheres, the idea of natural rights protecting the individual against the state, and, following Max Weber, the culture of capitalism, all have their roots in Europe's Christian heritage." Hakan Yilmaz, page 298.

"In principle, a non-Western and non-Christian country like Turkey can adopt Western values, without sharing Christianity and Western history. However, this westernization will take a very long time and it will not be completed in ten to fifteen years. A long time is necessary." Professor Heinrich August Winkler, Humboldt University

"By underestimating the concrete difficulties our societies have to properly integrate Muslims already living in our communities, [if we admit Turkey into the EU] we could in the end be increasing the risk of a 'clash of civilizations' within Europe, instead of avoiding it." Sylvie Goulard.

There is yet another question. Would Turkey's cultural and religious heritage, its history prevent it from internalizing democratic values in the timeframe envisioned for possible accession (10-15 years), tying the hands of even post-nationalist supporters of accession?

"Even the long-standing secular tradition of Muslim Turkey does not make it any more 'integrateable' to Europe, because it is generally believed that Turkish secularism is fake, it is artificial, it has been assimilated by a small Westernized elite, it has not submerged into the 'cultural genes' of the larger Turkish society, and it has been protected only by the force of arms." Hakan Yilmaz

I have to accept that these views are correct in this moment in history. However, they reflect a static view of history, they reflect conservatism. What I call for is not tolerance for values and practices that cannot be tolerated. What I call for is faith in that values and practices that should be reformed can be reformed - in due course. Because idealism is necessary to work for something better. Especially if you don't happen to be a European citizen.

Look!

You know, when you see something beautiful on the side of the road, when you discover something exciting, you want to poke the person next to you and make them see. Make them see. I knew more when I was sixteen. I forgot, I have to think through all the questions again. Each and every one of them. It's painful, I like knowing and giving answers. Making them see - that I know. Because you couldn't tell looking at me.

Once again I know. But this time I won't tell.

something I wrote in April 2006 to enter the Sander Thoenes prize of the Financial Times. I'm omitting last names because my sources didn't give me permission to be quoted here.

---

Women in the Middle East
STEPPING OUT OF THE LOOP

“After getting married, Galip discovered that there was a secret, mysterious and slippery territory in the life of the anonymous person that the statistics called a ‘housewife.’ This forbidden territory was the common topic and target of all the soap and detergent commercials, photo romances, the latest news translated from foreign magazines, radio shows and colorful newspaper sections, but it was also way beyond them and much more secretive.
…

During their three-year marriage, Rüya was the one who seemed discontent with having missed the joy and fun of an undefined life in an undefined place, not Galip,” wrote Turkish author Orhan Pamuk in his Black Book.


Middle Eastern women are equally well educated with their counterparts in other developing regions of the world, according to a recent World Bank report[1]. Given their education and productivity levels, one would expect that more of them would work. Then why do they defy expectations, what holds them back?

Understanding incentives might be key to understanding the phenomenon. When making the decision to enter the labor market, a Middle Eastern woman has to take more into consideration than her counterparts in other parts of the world.

“Decision to go to work will be driven by opportunity costs,” the professor tells to his Topics in the Economic Development of the Middle East[2] class at Georgetown University. “Maybe a woman has a higher reservation wage, one that is driven not only by her education, but also by [the] values of [the society.]”

The story is actually quite simple: Speaking in strictly economic terms, a woman will decide to look for a job, if her expected gains exceed her expected costs. Her gains are determined by her wage and the likelihood of her finding a job. She cannot expect tax and employment benefits, because these are limited to the “heads of the household,” who are usually men.

Of course, we can add the fulfillment of a fruitful career and social interactions into the equation, but Middle Eastern women might value these intangibles differently.

“In the US, there’s an expectation that everybody should live up to his potential,” says Kristen. “What the society expects of you makes a big difference.”

What the Middle Eastern societies expect of women is to fulfill their role in the patriarchal society as “home-makers” and “caregivers,” while men are the sole breadwinners. The media promotes these traditional roles.

“The husband’s responsibility to provide for the family confers rights and authority on him -reinforced through a host of laws, policies, and institutions- that he retains even if he does not or cannot provide fully for his family,” the World Bank report reads, “As a result, women become financially, legally, and socially dependent on men.”

Again, Middle Eastern women may view the patriarchal contract differently than westerners do. Melissa gives the example of a young woman she met when she was in Tunis. This woman saw the patriarchal contract as “team work, not dependency. It’s not dominance [of men over women], it’s support.”

Melissa’s friend thought the society allowed women to retain control over their families. “She’s 22 years old,” she says, describing her friend, “she’s working to get a PhD, she wants to get married and have children and be taken care of.”

In many countries in the region, a woman needs her husband’s permission to work and travel. When a woman decides to enter the labor force despite her husband’s disapproval, she runs the risk of divorce, losing her husband’s financial support and the custody of her children. Interaction of sexes in the workplace has also been a consideration for both women and their husbands.

The professor points out that the patriarchal family has been the most important social safety net for individuals who do not earn their own incomes. He says states can alter the incentive structure only by offering pensions, family assistance, and welfare nets to eliminate women’s vulnerability and dependence on men.

Not only does the patriarchal structure influence the labor supply, but it also shrinks the labor demand, by making women less desirable for the private sector. The oil boom of the 1970s and the subsequent bust in the 80s only served to strengthen this effect: During the boom, the real wages were high enough that women did not need to work. During the bust, women wanted to work, but there were not enough jobs for them, as the shrinking work opportunities were offered to men.

Due to affirmative action policies and generous maternity benefits, women are widely employed in the public sector. As the share of public sector employment shrinks in the economy, private sector will have to absorb more of the female labor supply.

“Education rates are on the rise but there are not enough job opportunities available to women,” says Shirin. The professor agrees, and asks: “Why should women jump into a labor market where unemployment rates are so high?”

Indeed, so many women in the region choose not to work, and instead, they enter into the patriarchal contract. In her recent study[3], Jennifer C. Olmsted examines what the contract means for women at later stages in life: “[A]ging parents generally live in extended family households, with one or more of their sons. Most women are economically supported first by their fathers, then by their husbands, and eventually by their sons.” In the lack of other safety nets, women who remain unmarried or childless become extremely vulnerable.

Once they are in the patriarchic system, women have incentives to maintain it, because they gain power over younger members of the family as they age. “They may have more powerful voices than younger men and women,” Olmsted writes. According to her study, Palestinian women advise their sons to marry less-educated girls, so they can exert more influence on their daughter-in-laws.

Because parents expect that their sons will be taking care of them once they get old, and their daughters will marry out, they have every incentive to invest in their sons’ education, and not in their daughters’. This further reduces women’s future chances of entering the labor market, and the patriarchic contract becomes self-reinforcing.

The incentive structure is built upon and strongly supported by a system of values. In these circumstances, women voluntarily choose not to work. There needs to be an exogenous factor that will open a crack in this loop by creating safety nets, and changing the laws and regulations that hold women back.

“Change will need to be led from the top and supported by the grassroots,” the World Bank report reads. “The two main agents for these changes will be women’s advocacy and the state.”

According to the World Bank report, low female participation in the work force holds back Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries’ economic performance. If female participation rates had been at predicted levels, the report goes, per capita GDP growth rates might have been 0.7 percent higher during the 1990s.

It seems improbable that large numbers of women will become more active in the public sphere on their own any time soon, largely due to the same factors explained above. But the state has an interest in providing options to women. If not for anything else, then for the sake of the whole region’s economic well being.

[1] Gender and Development in the Middle East and North Africa: Women and the Public Sphere, 34963, 2006.

[2] All quotes taken from the class meeting on April 4, 2006, unless otherwise indicated.
[3] Gender, Aging, and the Evolving Arab Patriarchal Contract, Jennifer C. Olmsted, 2005.

1. You came to me this morning
And you handled me like meat.
You´d have to live alone to know
How good that feels, how sweet.
My mirror twin, my next of kin,
I´d know you in my sleep.
And who but you would take me in
A thousand kisses deep?

2. I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat.
I´m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet,
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second-hand physique -
With all he is, and all he was
A thousand kisses deep.

3. All soaked in sex, and pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
We made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet -
And then consented to be wrecked
A thousand kisses deep.

4. I know you had to lie to me,
I know you had to cheat.
But the Means no longer guarantee
The Virtue in Deceit.
That truth is bent, that beauty spent,
That style is obsolete -
Ever since the Holy Spirit went
A thousand kisses deep.

5. (So what about this Inner Light
That´s boundless and unique?
I´m slouching through another night
A thousand kisses deep.)

6. I´m turning tricks;
I´m getting fixed,
I´m back on Boogie Street.
I tried to quit the business -
Hey, I´m lazy and I´m weak.
But sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go
A thousand kisses deep.

7. (And fragrant is the thought of you,
The file on you complete -
Except what we forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep.)

8. The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it´s done -
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it´s real
A thousand kisses deep.

9. (I jammed with Diz and Dante -
I did not have their sweep -
But once or twice, they let me play
A thousand kisses deep.)

10. And I´m still working with the wine,
Still dancing cheek to cheek.
The band is playing "Auld Lang Syne" -
The heart will not retreat.
And maybe I had miles to drive,
And promises to keep -
You ditch it all to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep.

11. And now you are the Angel Death
And now the Paraclete;
And now you are the Savior's Breath
And now the Belsen heap.
No turning from the threat of love,
No transcendental leap -
As witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep.

September 21, 1998

Leonard Cohen

Continued from Cynicism and Naivete. And again - with gratitude to this post.

The break of innocence

This concert ticket, the theme of the sitcom that is my life for the past month, exploded in my hands. But it was all worth it. It was so beautiful. So beautiful. Beautifully written, beautifully arranged, beautifully played and beautifully sung. He actually sang Famous Blue Raincoat, and when he sang "and yes - thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes - I thought it was there for good - so I never tried" the whole audience sang with him. It was something that rang true, something sincere, to all those people. All his poems, if you open yourself and listen carefully, are beautiful.

When did "coolness" become cool? It grew out of the humanity's disillusionment and sorrow? After centuries of disappointment we finally built up our immune system and found the power in ourselves to not care? To forget? To hurt those who are naive and innocent, who haven't reached this wisdom yet? They have to learn too, right? This is the real world.

Let me tell you something. I will continue giving people the benefit of the doubt not because I don't know better, but because I choose to. They can feel free to prove me wrong or actually live up to their promise.

If you shield yourself so much from pain and disillusionment, you will end up missing out. You have to leave a crack open. So everything good and bad can seep in.

a little happiness

When nothing matters now and you're not sure if it ever did
When life is grey or black or whatever color it is
When the sound of his voice screaming in your ears
Melts with the television the noise disappears

You're letting him back in
To break you once again
You're crawling in your skin
You're forgiving him
You hold it in

Her mascara draws his picture on her face
And all these pictures that he's framed take up his space
These awkward elevator moments of happiness
Just keep her open to the cycles of viciousness

Letting him back in
To break you once again
You're crawling in your skin
You're forgiving him
You hold it in

Letting him back in
To break you once again
You're crawling in your skin
You're forgiving him
You hold it in
Holding on

For a little happiness
Holding on
For a little happiness

(Aimee Allen)

a theory about why values matter

Yesterday I met up with some friends to discuss things that we are all interested in. One of our friends talked about different value systems, and said that the thing that ties most people to a value system (and not another) is not rational choice, but habit and emotion. He said societies should have serious debates about "morality", what is right and what is wrong. I decided to think through this idea and its implications.

First of all, why is there a need to have a public discussion about moral issues? Because value systems do not stay contained within one individual's life or one clearly-defined group. The value system of a policy maker will bear on his policy choices and affect all groups in the society.

Secondly, what is a "value system"? My definiton of a value is "the best way of doing something or solving a problem" for an individual, and a value system is a network of (ideally) mutually consistent and enforcing values. At the core of all these values is one or more assumptions. The validity of these assumptions is often not tested (or by nature cannot be tested). However, they provide answers to big fundamental questions. The system, then, gives answers to all the smaller questions based on the big answer at the core.

I will give an example from my own value system first. Let's say the question is, "should I drink wine?" My core assumption is that my actions should not harm myself or anyone, because that's bad, useless and troublesome. Then the answer is a simple "yes, but in moderation!" Let's take a devout Muslim. When faced with this question, he will go back to his core assumption: That God is the creator of universe and Hz. Muhammed is His prophet, and the best way to live life is to follow the rules prescribed by the Kur'an. Drinking wine is a sin according to the Kur'an. Moreover, if this person has never seen their family or friends drink wine, he will view a sudden change of habit as betrayal to his heritage. If he breaks one rule, would he lose his anchor, would his life lose its consistence, coherence and meaning?

Now let's see how this person's value system would affect his policy making. He sees people drinking wine in restaurants and bars, and they seem a little too happy and annoying. They might go out and drive and commit indecencies. Even if he realizes that wine drinkers do not harm him directly, he might simply take upon himself to spread the good in the society. Then our policymaker would adopt policies that limit wine drinking.

This theory can be applied to other social issues such as religious rights, abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage and women's rights. More significantly, policymakers may impose their value systems on the youth through the education curriculum and the media. Debates over the teaching of "intelligent design" versus "evolutionary theory" in the US is a good example.

But the remit of value systems is not limited to social issues, and assumptions are not always religious (although they demonstrate "religious" qualities). Economic policy is influenced by its own value systems. For example, neoliberalism was the most popular value system until the most recent crisis. Its core assumption, that market forces will allocate resources more efficiently, and regulation should be minimal, was considered almost as a law of nature by its proponents. The latest crisis demonstrated that this assumption was not tested in all circumstances. Communism was its own value system, and it didn't stand the test of time.

Another example can be national security and freedoms. Civil servants in Turkey, for example, typically belong to one value system. The core assumption of this system is that "the unity of the Turkish territory and nation should be protected against divisive ethnic and religious forces at all cost". Now, the validity and effectiveness of this assumption is open to question, but because of it, national security takes precedence over individual freedoms.

Having blind faith in the truth of a value system may be comfortable, but what if your assumptions are wrong? What if there are better options out there? What if evolution makes more sense than intelligent design (or visa versa)? Wouldn't we be closing ourselves to other possibilities, turning a blind eye on lessons learned from experience and research, limiting our potential for growth?

What matters is what you learn after you know it all.

In some areas, a society of free-thinking individuals would converge to value systems whose truth stands the test of time. In other instances, it may decide that some issues are personal, and the society should have no bearing on an individual's choice. But we should be open to listening to each other and changing our minds, however difficult and disconcerting it is. This is the only way forward.

The Kurdish issue

I grew up with news of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attacks in the South East and East Turkey. Soldiers, teachers, doctors (most of them sent to the South East from other parts of the country) would be killed. I wrote a while ago that as more people die for a cause, the more difficult it is to find a solution acceptable to both sides. (If it's not acceptable to both sides, it is not a solution anyway.) I have never travelled to those regions. I don't see how I can claim that they are part of my country when I'm not able to travel there out of fear.

Now, our military could keep on destroying PKK cells and kill terrorists and carry on with their air raids and even carry out another cross-border operation into northern Iraq. Our judges could start investigations against pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) deputies as much as they want. The Constitutional Court can shut down the party. Turks all over the world can start nationalist groups in the Facebook. With all their capabilities, they could not eliminate the PKK or the DTP in the past twenty-four years. You might say "it's foreign countries helping PKK and DTP!" It's not the Dutch or the Syrians fighting on behalf of PKK. They are recruiting Kurdish youth, and the local population obviously sympathizes with the PKK and DTP.

But their support is not blind. Back in 2005, Erdogan was hailed during a visit to Diyarbakir as the first Turkish prime minister to recognize the “Kurdish issue” and acknowledge the responsibility of the state in the problem. Although the reform momentum stalled considerably after the negotiations with the EU started in October 2005, the AKP took some steps to relax bans on Kurdish education and broadcasting. The party won many votes at the expense of the DTP in the general elections in July 2007, branding itself as the only party capable of reaching out to Kurdish communities.

However, support among the Kurds for the party started to wane as the government gave the military free rein in its operations into northern Iraq. Although the government unveiled a $ 18-billion investment programme in May to revive the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP), which will involve the building of new dams, expansion of irrigation networks and loans for entrepreneurs, the local populace seems far from impressed.

Moreover, the AKP, which narrowly escaped closure by the Constitutional Court in July, has remained silent about the closure case facing the DTP. The DTP, meanwhile, has adopted a harsher rhetoric as it views its closure imminent, and tries to secure support for its successor party in its last remaining strongholds in the region, such as Diyarbakir, Batman and Tunceli in the local elections in March. The protests they organized during Erdogan's 21 October visit to Diyarbakir drew large crowds, many of them children, and many shop-owners closed their shops either in support of the cause or in fear of violence. Support for the PKK and the DTP has never been so visible since the 1990s.

The AKP seems to lack a genuine interest in improving the democratic rights of the Kurds, and merely follows a pragmatic approach: Trying to secure the support of the Kurdish communities while avoiding discontent among Turkish nationalists. By not seeking a genuine solution in good faith, it is actually playing into the hands of the PKK and DTP, who derive their power from the continuation of the conflict. By not talking to them, we are speaking their language.