Turkey

Into the past with pain...XXVII

SCENE…..XXVII
Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao ( Retired)

( M K Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru are seen sitting in a room that is poorly lit and furnished. Atmosphere is grim and both appear to be serious. In the corner of the room a she goat is tied and it is found bleating occasionally)

Jawaharlal. Bapu. Why have you tied the goat here?

Gandhi. Look! I need goat’s milk in the morning. I milk it myself. So it is here.

Jawaharlal. Ohf. What type person you are!

Gandhi. Jawaharlal. Leave the goat now. You know! Last week I met General Washington in New York. He was telling that Pakistan was likely to fall to Taliban and Al-Qaida.

Jawaharlal. Oh God Great Scots! The inevitable is finally happening

Gandhi. How sad and how dangerous now for India!

Jawaharlal. True

This mornings Stratfor Podcast is titled "Erdovan's Davos Walkout Lays Down the Marker". I haven't heard it yet (hoping to, on the exercise machine), but just from that title, you can see one thing: the recognition of Israel has been anathema in the Muslim world, but if you had wondered if any good could ever come out of recognizing them, this is it. The fact that Turkey is seen in the Western World as a "moderate" Muslim state and has respect for being one of very few Muslim states to recognize Israel gives Erdogan's action much more weight than, say, a Pakistani or Indonesian leader doing the same. I am not saying Pakistan should up and recognize Israel, but it's something for Pakistanis to think about in the debate of whether and when to think about "normalizing" relations.

From http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/10689630.asp?gid=244:

Created by one of Turkey's most stylish designers, Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu, the Şakirin Mosque, on the Asian side of Istanbul at the entrance to the city's largest cemetery, will soon welcome believers to a space of not just traditional faith but also contemporary aesthetics.

Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu is a Turkish designer known for creating some of the most stylish lounges and nightclubs in Istanbul. As a winner of the Andrew Martin International Designer of the Year award, her fame, and that of her husband, restaurateur Meto, has gone beyond Turkey.

The Guardian has a good story today about the numerous death threats being received by Turkish writers who dare to challenge the nationalist myths of the country, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. I'm used to hearing of similar death threats being made in places like Bangladesh and Pakistan, but this is quite different in that the extremist ideology is question is Turkish nationalism rather than the more familiar Islamist religious ideology.