NYT Op Ed & My reply

You'll want to read Roger Cohen's "Turkey Steps Out." Here's my reply that (I hope) will be approved and posted at the site:

I understand the rage of Armenians and Kurds...my great-grandmother, a Maronite Christian, starved to death in the final years of the Ottoman Empire (along with many Muslim neighbors, I'll add, as food to the cities ran out). But the suffering of those past and present cannot alter the realpolitick of the region.

The West needs Turkey, and the question is, does Turkey need us? I hope so. The talks of further amendments to Turkey's constitution terrify me. The last thing the West--or Armenians in the diaspora or Kurds in the East--need would be an Islamic Republic with Sharia law on Europe's eastern borders. In my trips to Istanbul and Anakara, I've wondered at the frenetic and vibrant night life there. The young people who benefit most from the 7% growth of the economy party, even as they attended universities gated to protect them from kidnapping. But I imagine their counterparts did in Tehran in the 70s. Meanwhile, other young people of modest means listen to the call of the muezzins.

The triple game played by Syria, Iran, and Turkey should also matter more than what has been discussed in many of the comments here. Iraq is likely to collapse into civil war not long after the last US forces leave. How could that disaster end otherwise?

I could see Syria occupying the Sunni triangle in the west, with its probable oil reserves, Iran "stabilizing" the Basra region to gain access to its oil, and Turkey cowing the north into something like Finland during the Cold War. Those Kurds might shut down the PKK havens in exchange for a sweet deal of autonomy and pipeline access to the Mediterranean for all the oil in the north of Iraq.

The only question in that scenario would be how the Saudis, not the West, would respond.

Welcome to the new normal in a Post-American world.

Elif Shafak's Istanbul

After the professor's vitriol about Istanbul, a city he loathes in Bliss, it may do us well to revisit the metropolis with our guide, Elif Shafak.

She focuses on Ortaköy, perhaps my favorite neighborhood (so far) in the vast city.

Embedding the video is not permitted by YouTube, so here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXTmEgb5M2A&sns=em

The 1960s British-spy-show music is rater hilarious, but it's not Orientalist. Well, in a Post-American century, as other nations grow and rival for global attention, perhaps Istanbul will be the next hot spot, as "Swinging London" was in the 1960s during the British Invasion?

Shafak's tour gives me hope that the voices of intolerance and ignorance in Turkey--and at home--won't sound loudest. Having just had a great conversation with an Indian-American I.T. manager about his cosmopolitan travels, I feel confident today that narrow-mindedness will not win out. There's a diverse world out there to explore. Perhaps the type of gloom we see from Livaneli's Irfan may be his perspective and not a prediction for the future of Turkey or the West.

And in Turkey, there's rapid economic growth now. Perhaps it's their hour to shine.

Attacking the AKP

In looking for reactions by Turkish Islamic groups to the Sivas attack of 1993 (described by Jeremy Seal) I came across the Web site for the Center for Islamic Pluralism. The site appears to be sponsored by the Alevi sect of Shi'a Islam.

They have an article critical of the AKP and PM Erdoğan. As with any site with a political agenda, read with a critical and academic eye.