22 May 2007

1. "Turkey sacks special envoy for struggle against Kurdish rebels", Turkey on Monday sacked a special envoy tasked with coordinating the fight against armed Kurdish rebels after he said that the consultation process with the United States was not working.

2. "Turkey's AK Party struggles to hold center ground", Turkey's ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party hopes to project a moderate image by fielding more women and entrepreneurs as candidates in July's election, but it may struggle to retain the support of urban middle class voters.

3. "A Rumble Is Heard in Ataturk’s Grave", today, Turkey is poised to join Europe — if the continent will have it — in what would be the fulfillment of Ataturk’s vision. But in an irony of history, it is a group of politicians who value Islam who are hoisting Turkey up toward the club, which Ataturk’s secular contemporaries never were able to do.

4. "Too Much Skin on Istanbul Billboards?", a debate is raging in Istanbul about just how much skin advertising billboards should be allowed to show. The dispute highlights the deep divisions between Muslims and secularists in the country. And it may become an election issue.

5. "Nation and Islam in modern Turkey", empirically, "democratization" in Turkey after Atatürk was linked to (re-)Sunnitization and slow-pace religious cleansing, though it was hardly an organized action but an accidental outcome - of what? Perhaps, simply the fact that in Turkish the terms nation and millet, though absolutely incompatible as regards content, are considered synonyms.

6. "More Trials Under Article 301", the trial of three writers of the leftist "Ülkede Özgür Gündem" newspaper continues. Journalist Hozatli insists on his right to criticise the state. Another trial under Article 301 has ended in acquittal.

1. - AFP - "Turkey sacks special envoy for struggle against Kurdish rebels":

ANKARA / 21 May 2007

Turkey on Monday sacked a special envoy tasked with coordinating the fight against armed Kurdish rebels after he said that the consultation process with the United States was not working.

Retired general Edip Baser was removed because some of his recent statements could "adversely affect" the joint US-Turkish struggle to stamp out rebel bases in northern Iraq, the prime minister's press office said in a statement.

"Turkey is pursuing with utmost importance," joint efforts with the United States and Iraq aimed at curbing the activities of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and cutting off support to the group, the statement said.

Baser had been replaced with Ambassador Rafet Akgunay, the deputy undersecretary of the foreign ministry, it added.

Baser was appointed last year as counterpart to retired US general Joseph W. Ralston, Washington's envoy for the coordinated effort against the thousands of PKK rebels holed up in northern Iraq.

In remarks published in the mass-selling Sabah daily Monday, Baser said that he and Ralston had made progress in their efforts against the PKK.

Ankara charges that Iraqi Kurds controlling the north of the country tolerate, and even support, the rebels, who enjoy unrestricted movement and are able to obtain arms and explosives there for attacks across the border.

Last month, Turkish army chief called for a military incursion into neighbouring Iraq to hunt down PKK rebels.

In response, Washington urged Ankara to refrain from such a move and to pursue negotiations to resolve the issue.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK picked up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the country's southeastern corner.

2. - Reuters - "Turkey's AK Party struggles to hold center ground":

21 May 2007 / by Gareth Jones

Turkey's ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party hopes to project a moderate image by fielding more women and entrepreneurs as candidates in July's election, but it may struggle to retain the support of urban middle class voters.

The AK Party's recent handling of a presidential election has exposed deep divisions over the role of religion in this Muslim but secular state.

Put under pressure by mass public rallies, the army and a court ruling, the government was forced to withdraw its presidential candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, an ex-Islamist, and to call early parliamentary polls to avert a full-blown political crisis.

"This will be the most important election we've had for decades. And it is taking place in a very polarizing situation," said Suat Kiniklioglu, head of the Ankara-based German Marshall Fund of the United States.

"The AK Party has realized it has not become as accepted or as mainstream as it thought it had. They know they need to make an extra effort now to win over middle-of-the-road voters."

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's centre-right AK Party has delivered nearly five years of stable one-party government, stellar economic growth, tumbling inflation, surging foreign investment and the start of European Union membership talks.

But Turkey's secular elite, including army generals and top judges, distrust the party's Islamist past and accuse it of wanting to erode the separation of state and religion.

The distrust goes beyond the elite. Millions of middle class Turks joined the rallies in major cities over the past month in favor of secularism and against what they see as the creeping influence of Islam in daily life and the state bureaucracy.

The AK Party springs from a banned Islamist party. Erdogan and other party leaders are pious Muslims whose wives wear the Islamic headscarf. But the AK Party denies any Islamist agenda and says it is a democratic party that reflects the diversity of modern Turkey.

Many middle class urban Turks voted for the party in 2002, because they saw no alternative to the discredited political elite at the time.

The AK Party again needs this vote if it wants to secure another term in office as a single party, opinion polls show.

While some analysts say a coalition government headed by the AK Party could make reforms difficult, others believe such a setup could ease tensions with the secular establishment.

A BROAD CHURCH

The AK Party's core supporters are religious conservatives in provincial Turkey.

"The AK Party has many devout believers, many liberals too, and people of different religions," said AK party lawmaker Egemen Bagis, an adviser to Erdogan .

"We want more women representing our party in parliament. We want more people from business. We want to attract people from right and left so we can be more representative of this nation. We are at the centre of the political spectrum," Bagis said.

All political parties must submit their lists of candidates for the July 22 poll to the Election Commission in early June.

But some analysts question whether the AK Party really favors more democracy.

"It could be just a facade. The selection of candidates will be done in a centralized, top-down manner, by Erdogan himself. But the other parties are no better in this respect. There is little intra-party democracy," said Wolfango Piccoli, a Turkey expert at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

The AK Party, complacent after years of economic success and no serious political opposition, overplayed its hand in the presidential election, analysts say, believing it could just impose its candidate on parliament.

Ignoring the warning signs from the army and elsewhere, it then reacted to failure by trying to rewrite the constitution and have the president elected by voters instead of by MPs.

The fate of these sweeping constitutional reforms, approved by parliament on a first reading with minimal debate, remains unclear. Many expect President Ahmet Necdet Sezer -- his own mandate extended by the crisis -- to veto them this week on the grounds they have not been properly thought through or debated.

The AK Party needs to show more humility, some analysts say.

"The AK Party was supported by only one in four voters in the 2002 election, though our system of vote allocation meant they ended up with more than 60 percent of parliamentary seats," said Dogu Ergil, a professor at Ankara University.

"They should heed a little more the views of the three quarters of voters who did not vote for them."

3. - The New York Times - "A Rumble Is Heard in Ataturk’s Grave":

ISTANBUL / 20 May 2007 / by Sabrina Tavernise

SURVEYING the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920’s, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk saw an impoverished peasant society that was 90 percent illiterate, whose primary exports were tobacco and dried fruit.

An autocrat, a drinker and a brilliant nation builder, Ataturk set about assembling a state meant to wrench his countrymen out of their backwardness.

Today, Turkey is poised to join Europe — if the continent will have it — in what would be the fulfillment of Ataturk’s vision. But in an irony of history, it is a group of politicians who value Islam who are hoisting Turkey up toward the club, which Ataturk’s secular contemporaries never were able to do. So a look to Turkey’s past is useful to understand its complicated present.

The model for a new Turkish state, Ataturk believed, was to be found in the nations of Europe and the West, where modern thought and reason had made the societies rich. Religion, he concluded, was a major hindrance to becoming modern.

“My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science,” a well-known quotation of his goes. “Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men.”

Andrew Mango, author of “Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey,” said that Ataturk “accepted religion as a social fact, but he had no time for it.”

So Ataturk instituted radical secular reforms. Changing the alphabet, replacing Shariah with the Swiss civil code, criminalizing the wearing of the fez and traditional dress, and discouraging the veil were intended to protect the state from religion, not just separate the two. And the approach was not unusual in Ataturk’s day.

Revolutionaries in Mexico and Russia also linked the concepts of modernization and anticlericalism. A few years later, in Iran, Reza Shah would copy Ataturk’s approach wholesale.

Over the next eight decades, the system Ataturk built settled deeply into Turkish society. It brought Turkey up to levels of economic and social development on par with Europe. The secular establishment produced wealthy families who established generously endowed private universities and museums. Turkey became largely literate and acquired a growing middle class.

But politically it remained frozen in time.

While Europe redefined its ideas of modernity in ways that emphasized democracy, tolerance and human rights, Turkey’s leaders continued down a path of rigid, corrupt and sometimes harshly repressive rule. The military remained the central guardian of Ataturk’s legacy, ousting four elected governments in the last four decades of the 20th century. A period of economic openness in the 1980s was the one sustained break in the pattern of state control.

So the political group who claim to defend Ataturk’s legacy became the ones offering the least in the way of new ideas. “They defend secularism in a religious, dogmatic way,” said Akif Emre, a columnist for Yeni Safak, a conservative newspaper here.

A turning point came in 2002, when voters rebelled against a spectacular display of corruption and incompetence by the secular parties and elected instead the party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan — a former mayor of Istanbul whose party, despite its Islamic roots, had proved adaptable to the rules of democracy while holding municipal power.

In the last four years, as the dominant power in the national Parliament, it has drawn more Turks into the political process and adopted as its major goal membership in the European Union. It has passed more than 800 laws to make Turkish laws and standards match those in Europe. It has scrapped the death penalty. It has removed military representatives from several layers of Turkey’s civilian government.

Its domestic audience remains fearful of where any party with Islamist roots might one day lead Turkey; thousands of Turks have rallied in at least three major cities in the past month to express those concerns. “If Ataturk came back today, he would say ‘I’m afraid I need to erase this and start all over again,’ ” said Guldal Okutucu, the head of the women’s branch of the main secular opposition party. “He would have told his nation to wake up.”

But a number of foreign experts and officials have concluded that Turkey’s new leaders seem committed to the kind of dynamic, pluralist society that Europeans might welcome into their club.

“They opened up a system that had to be opened up to get into the E.U.,” said Joost Lagendijk, a member of the European Parliament who heads a committee on Turkish issues. If the parties of the secular elites “had remained in the government it would have been impossible to start E.U. negotiations,” he said.

Israel, which developed a military partnership with Turkey in the 1990s and might have been expected to be suspicious of the new government, has instead expressed enthusiasm. “We are at the highest moment in relations with Turkey ever,” said Pinhas Avivi, Israel’s ambassador to Turkey. “No prophet could have seen it in advance.” Trade with Israel is now $2.5 billion, double what it was before Mr. Erdogan came to power, he said.

But some important Europeans remain skeptical. Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s new president, put opposition to Turkey’s membership in the European Union into his campaign platform, arguing that the country is neither culturally nor geographically part of Europe — a stance that Mr. Erdogan took issue with last week. “Mr. Sarkozy has to overcome these prejudices,” he said. “If we are going to integrate civilizations inside the European Union, and say that the European Union is not a Christian club, Sarkozy has to look at his thoughts once more.”

What would Ataturk think?

Mr. Mango said that the nation builder had no feeling of inferiority when dealing with Europeans. If he were to encounter Mr. Sarkozy today, he said, “he wouldn’t have felt that this just shows how civilized people hate us; it would just mean that Sarkozy is not a very civilized man.”

4. - Der Spiegel Online - "Too Much Skin on Istanbul Billboards?":

Bikini Dispute in Turkey

ISTANBUL / 21 May 2007 / by Annette Grossbongardt

A debate is raging in Istanbul about just how much skin advertising billboards should be allowed to show. The dispute highlights the deep divisions between Muslims and secularists in the country. And it may become an election issue.

The model, wearing a scanty bathing suit, leans back against sun-baked stones, her hip jutting playfully to the side. In one photo she even spreads her legs slightly -- suggestively. In a Europe where photos of half naked models staring alluringly out at passers-by are simply part of the cityscape, such a billboard would hardly rate a second glance. But in Turkey, the swimwear ads are far from mainstream, and they have triggered a dispute that offers a taste of just what the upcoming general election campaign might be like.

Ahead of the snap general elections -- moved up from November to July 22 due to the failed presidential candidacy of current Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül -- the issues this summer are clear. On the one side stands the Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and to which Gül also belongs. Many secularists in Turkey, particularly the military, view the party's roots in political Islam with suspicion despite Erdogan's insistence that his party is committed to the country's constitution. On the other side are the left-leaning, strict-secularist nationalists who fill public squares each weekend with massive, anti-AKP demonstrations accusing the party of wanting to transform Turkey into a theocracy.

Land of the Mullahs?

Enter, the "Bikini Dispute," as the daily paper Vatan has called it. The primary target in the fight between the two camps is the Istanbul municipal government, led by Kadir Topas, the mayor and a member of the AKP. Some swimwear manufacturers have complained that city officials have banned certain revealing advertising posters for bikinis and bathing suits for "moral reasons."

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The manufacturers call it censorship and restriction of entrepreneurial freedom. One company says it was told that the city refused to approve its billboards because the particularly salacious images would increase the risk of traffic accidents. The newspapers immediately began printing alarming reports. "Will this become a land of the mullahs, like Iran?" the liberal daily Vatan asked.

For opponents of Erdogan and the AKP, the criticism being leveled by the bathing suit manufacturers offers welcome evidence of the AKP's presumed Islamist goals. According to the Turkish press, a total of four companies were denied permits for advertising space. This, crowed Cumhuriyet, a combative, secular paper established under modern Turkey's father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was evidence the AKP merely pays lip service to the concept of the secular state.

In an opinion piece in the liberal paper Milliyet, titled "From the Bathing Suit to the Black Full-body Veil," the author even claims, in all seriousness, that the bikini ad ban has made Istanbul a "sister city of Tehran." According to Sunset, a swimwear manufacturer, the city refused to approve some of its billboards last year. Milliyet prints an example of this supposedly offensive advertising: a photo of a relatively conservative bathing suit that barely reveals the beginnings of cleavage. Sabah, a tabloid, printed a photo of a model wearing a tiger-print bikini that featured a strip of material between the top and bottom that even covered the navel. "Prohibited," the caption read accusingly.

Atatürk in a Bathing Suit

"The agency informed us that we could save ourselves the trouble of submitting these kinds of pictures," explained Sunset CEO Kemal Günes in newspaper interviews, adding that they had been told that the photos were incompatible with Turkey's general moral principles. This prompted the company to submit new pictures of conservative-looking models showing relatively little skin. The new shots were approved, said Günes.

"We display our posters in 20 countries, so why isn't it ok here in Turkey?" says Zeki Baseskioglu, head of the company Zeki Trio. "Am I doing something that is objectionable?" The problems, says Baseskioglu, began in the late 1990s, when current Prime Minister Erdogan was still mayor of Istanbul. To protest what many perceived as censorship, one company even produced a poster of Atatürk in a bathing suit.

The Istanbul city government rejects these accusations. "There were never restrictions on this kind of advertising," Mayor Topas stated in New York, where he was attended a conference on climate change. In a press release, his office attacks critics and explains that most of the companies that had complained about the alleged policies had never even filed applications. It is "unacceptable," the document continues, for these companies to claim that they had known in advance that they would be rejected.

According to city officials, many companies have used posters to advertise their swimwear in Istanbul in recent years. They insist that Sunset's photos were approved, both this year and last, but according to the companies this only applies to the photos of the "correct" models.

Propaganda War

To support the accusations, the paper Milliyet printed excerpts from a rejection notice. The city administration, not to be outdone, released its most recent approval notice for Sunset, in which it refers to advertising rules banning depictions that glorify violence, are racist or discriminatory or problematic in other ways, as well as to compatibility with "general ethical moral rules."

Interestingly enough, the most recent advertising permit for Sunset is dated May 17, the day the accusations appeared in the press. The paper Sabah even contends that the affair could spell trouble for Prime Minister Erdogan. According to its report, the accusations have already been included in a dossier the public prosecutor's office has submitted to the country's highest court. The file apparently contains information investigators have been gathering for some time about cases in which the AKP has violated the country's fundamental secular principles. There are rumors in Ankara, Sabah writes that the investigation could even lead to proceedings to ban the AKP -- a dream for their opponents, perhaps, but not likely to ever happen.

* Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

5. - Turquie Européenne - "Nation and Islam in modern Turkey":

19 May 2007 / by Hans-Peter Geissen

Already last year (at the occasion of demonstrations following the "court-shooting" in Ankara) I insisted that, though the occasion may have been manipulated by certain "dark forces", the adherents of marginal ideologies and profiteers of state- or rent-capitalism by definition cannot make for such a large crowd and that, thus, there are (were) definitely sincere concerns behind that event.

- Hans-Peter Geissen lives in Koblenz (Germany), at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers. Interested in all what concerns faunistics (data about animal species) of the Midrhine region, he is the author of many scientific publications on these issues. He bent on the Turkish issue with a very specific approach so as "to prevent a self-definition of Europe on the grounds of historical or religious mythologies."

At that point, the most obvious concerns I could make out were related to women’s rights, which I guess was similarly obvious in the recent Istanbul rally. In fact, however, this is not the only theme.

There are so many fundamental problems that it’s hard to find a key or a systematic of it, though, or because, they’re all interconnected.
Millet or nation ?

From one angle, the key problem seems to be with the nation. Is it a millet ? This would be a religious community designed to obey to a spiritual authority (a religious class designed to support autocratic rule, or some sort of theocracy - depending on interpretation and real power-relations). There are deep historical grounds for this I do not intend to touch here further than the general fact that Turkey was de facto meant as a last strongholt of the "dominant (nominally "Muslim", in fact Sunni) millet" of the Ottoman Empire (for quite acceptable reasons, see for instance McCarthy 1996, below).

Or is it a nation? This would mean that it is designed to be a collective sovereign of a state, implying that no definition by religion is possible as the member of the nation is sovereign to chose or change belief and world view at any given moment. Democracy is closely linked to the concept of nation.

Empirically, "democratization" in Turkey after Atatürk was linked to (re-)Sunnitization and slow-pace religious cleansing, though it was hardly an organized action but an accidental outcome - of what? Perhaps, simply the fact that in Turkish the terms nation and millet, though absolutely incompatible as regards content, are considered synonyms.

This however is by no means a merely Islamist misunderstanding. It goes through the bureaucratic and centralist tradition of Ottoman-Turkish authoritarian rule as well. After all, the "millet" is subject to both a religious and a worldly version of obedience. The "secular"-positivist version is now known as "Kemalism", then we have Islamism, and third, the national-religious "synthesis" - each of them non- or even anti-democratic and authoritarian.

Everybody may use the term in any meaning, so it’s difficult to know what is meant. Perceived content depends on a variety of connotations, giving immense room for suspicions of various sorts.

Veiling issue

Another ground suspicions dwell on is the traditional Islamic obsession with veiling. Perhaps more significant than hijab- or headscarf-issues is the so-called interest-free banking, which of course is not interest-free but veiling interest so as to let it appear like trade gains. This may of course be related to various issues.

Whereas we are constantly told that female veiling is a matter of free choice, we have innumerable witnessed examples that it is frequently not, including the case of Ermine Erdogan herself. Of course, you may suppose that everybody, and especially every woman, knows that. Even more unfortunate, this veil is a tool defending "honour", a term which in traditional gender relations carries connotations of submission and obedience and the most horrible kind of murder and threat - a nominally moral duty veiling the absence of moral values. (Basically, this "honour" is a measure of market value of a group’s (tribe’s, family’s) girls.)

Germany-Turkish girls petitioned to German authorities not to allow veiled teachers, because this tissue, once placed in an authoritative position, would increase already existing pressures on them to veil themselves. These pressures are told to have included veiled and barely veiled threats of killing. In Germany, such threats are connected to the very same "Milli Görüs" which is the origin of many AKP leaders, including Gül and Erdogan. Of course, MG defends the "freedom of choice", though we have yet to see a case in which they defend the freedom not to veil. And Gül? I have yet to become aware of any sign that he is not happy with the practice in Saudi-Arabia, for instance. Though this may appear as a reasonable behaviour of a foreign minister, I remember their cartoon politics; he didn’t hesitate to attack Denmark and freedom of the press in a concerted diplomatic action with Saudi-Arabia - so igniting a major crisis which he then demonstratively helped to contain. Impressive, but by no means convincing, as far as I am concerned. We may well guess that the insistence of the AKP to place "a headscarf" in Cankaya is not innocent, but an informal way of pressure..

On the other hand, we are enlightened about the religious tolerance of the so-called millet system of the Ottoman Empire. The idea was indeed progressive in medieval and early modern times, despite the fact that it was finally proven less attractive for the non-Muslims if compared with the idea of national sovereignty. Nonetheless, historically it was also an inspiration for the development of European secularism, and we may find it inspiring today as an example of multiculturalism. So far, it must be considered a valuable contribution to European mental evolution. But it has a certain backyard.

Let’s listen to Ebusuud, the eminent seyhülislam of Suleiman the lawgiver, who besides giving law about interests is quoted with the following legal advice:

"... If they retain their believes, their heresy is confirmed, and thus they must be killed. ... Of course, the mass-wise killing of the Kizilbash is allowed by our religion. It is the greatest and holiest war... ... those godless, perverted traitors. ... it is necessary to eradicate all redheads irrespective of age, and their towns (or sites?, hpg) and deeds with them. Those who doubt their godlessness become godless themselves ..." (quoted from Gümüs 2001)

It not only recalls the Inquisition or Counter-Reformation of Christian Europe. To battle the "redheads", the Ottomans relied on troops from Christian Balkan peoples. It wouldn’t probably have been wise for the Ottomans to be intolerant against these very sources of their own power. Though in turn they could also be quite tolerant towards "heterodox" Muslims if they intended to use them as raider troops against the Christian borderlands in SE Europe. In their own ranks, the Ottomans obviously preferred a gradual proceeding: They co-opted non-Muslims in a quite liberal manner if necessary, even as near-equals, but once in the Ottoman ranks they were supposed to become Muslims or lose their positions sooner or later. While this feature seems to accompagny the Ottoman dynasty from the beginnings, their society seems to have (been) slowly changed from more egalitarian to more hierarchical constellations - see Lowry 2003 and other sources quoted below).

My aim is not to judge history here, but to assess some current sermons about history. And to recall that there still are people both in Anatolia and Thrace whose identity is linked to the memory of the "backyard" mentioned. They tend to interpret the history of democracy in Turkey as a history of increasing Sunnitization, which may include all the heirs of the "Democratic Party" and the "National View".

So far, I’ve mentioned some reasons why it may be reasonable to be suspicious about the goals of the AKP and worried about their increasing power in state institutions. Unfortunately, the fact that they hitherto did not openly attempt to impose their ideas on the general public is inconclusive. They may simply wait until they are in control of the military. With support of the European Union? (The EU institutions will of course oppose such a move. But it might be too late when they realize the threat.)
Democratization or sunnitization ?

The question remaining is wether a policy of democratization may, under these circumstances, be distinguished from one of Sunnitization.

Systematically, it depends on the discussion and proper definition of what is meant with the terms of a (Turkish) nation, of secularism, of sovereignty and of democracy (representation), and about their interdependence. Naturally, this cannot be restricted to the AK-party, but relates to the state itself and any political force.

Pragmatically, it is not possible to decide about which is the ultimate goal by using anything related to Sunni traditions. To allow for "Islamic" headscarfs in universities and all the more in the parliament may well be a necessity of democracy, but also a means of Sunnitization. (I think that both is the case.) But one may use anything that is related to "heterodox" traditions. So, a policy which effectively promotes equal rights of Alevis and Alevism is in all probability democratizing, whereas a policy which falls short of this feature probably is not.

A similar criterion is gender policy. Promoting gender equality both symbolically and in daily practice, a political force is engaged in democratization, whereas a lack thereof must be regarded as a sign that we may have to do with something different.

So far, Turkey’s political scene lacks an unequivocally democratic force, which I think is reason enough for anybody to be scared and/or angry.

And indeed, the most obvious handicap is the lack of an authentic Social-Democratic party (as the AKP may, while it still is not fully, become the corresponding democratic center-right party - I really don’t think that they’re irreparably Islamist).

To finally mention a strategical problem relating to the definition of the nation : the most basic features of a nation are that a population (a) assumes to be the sovereign (b) of a state (c) with a defined territory (d). "a" is basically defined by the state territory, but in order to be its single sovereign the many must agree to be virtually united. As any agreement, this one, too, depends on negotiations among the (major) segments of the population. Though they finally cannot replace the state and territory as the measure to define the nation, there are certain possible facilitators of unity, such as a common language/ethnicity or a common religion (or a railway net, etc.) which determine a common social and historic space. It may even be a symbolic royal family who represents this historic space. It depends on specific conditions which feature may work, and when, in a given country.

In religiously and politically divided Germany, it was language/ethnicity that worked best, especially when the Habsburg empire was excluded from what remained of the "Holy Roman" Empire. This was even more pronounced in the Balkans, because the hierarchy of millets prevented the equality needed for successful negotiations about shared sovereignty (in the empire, which moreover may have been too big and too diverse with its large Arab block), while religion was bound to autocratic rule, and at the outset there were no defined territories either. Thus, the only political capital to start with was ethnicity, as shared language and customs define a certain social and historical space, too..

In Turkey, one segment has special importance for the connection of territory and nation: the Kurds. As they are an ethnicity (or rather two) different from Turks, in the absence of a negotiated agreement with the ethnic Turks about the terms of their shared sovereignty ethnicity becomes a dividing force. Moreover, common religion becomes a surrogate of common sovereignty.

In the end, religion cannot replace a basic political agreement defining a sovereign nation, and thus, it cannot replace political negotiations. But in these conditions (the absence of political negotiations) the population may remain a millet, which in turn requires a spiritual authority - it may be more theocratic or more autocratic, but the social "glue" will in fact be religion and an effective democracy is excluded. So far, Kemalist anti-Kurdism is supporting and legitimating Islamism, probably a case of unintentional or rather counter-intentional consequences. In turn, it may itself be a consequence as well as a cause of incorrect definition of what makes a possible nation an actual nation. So, one may well be suspicious, but hardly fully convinced, wether the "Kemalist" (or the military’s) insistence on a non-political solution for the Kurdish "issue" is a self-serving strategy of autocratic rule.

At any rate, from an operational viewpoint the Kurdish "issue" may be the "Archimedian" point. Was it this what Kenan Evren finally had understood ?

- Some sources concerning related Ottoman history :

AYDIN, Mahmut (2001): Religious pluralism: A challenge for Muslims – A theological evaluation. – Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38: 330-352. Philadelphia, Pa.

BALIVET, Michel (1995): Islam mystique et révolution armée dans les Balkans Ottomanes. Vie du Cheikh Bedreddin, le « Hallaj des Turcs » (1358/9-1416). – 175 S., Istanbul (Les Éditions Isis)

GÖCEK, Fatma Müge (1996): Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire. – 220 S., New York, N.Y. (Oxford University Press)

GOFFMAN, Daniel (2002): The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. – 273 S.. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press; New approaches to European History 24)

GÜMÜS, Burak (2001): Türkische Aleviten vom Osmanischen Reich bis zur heutigen Türkei. - 262 S., Konstanz (Hartung-Gorre) (Konstanz University)

KARAMUSTAFA, Ahmet T. (1994): God’s unruly friends. Dervish groups in the Islamic later middle period 1200-1550. – 159 S., Salt Lake City (University of Utah Press)

KITROMILIDES, Paschalis M. (2003) : An Enlightenment perspective on Balkan cultural pluralism : the republican vision of Rhigas Velestinlis. – History of Political Thought 24 (3): 465-481. Thorverton.

KREISER, Klaus & Christoph K. NEUMANN (2002): Kleine Geschichte der Türkei. – 519 S., Stuttgart (Reclam)

LOWRY, Heath W. (2003): The Nature of the Early Ottoman State. – 197 S., Albany (State University of New York Press).

McCARTHY, Justin (1996): Death and Exile. The ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims 1821-1922. - 368 S., Princeton, New Jersey (The Darwin Press).

PEIRCE, Leslie P. (1993) : The Imperial Harem. Women and sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. – 374 S., Oxford, New York (Oxford University press).

QUATAERT, Donald (2005): The Ottoman Empire 1700-1922. – 212 S., 2nd ed., Cambridge (Cambridge University Press; New approaches to European History 34).

6. - Bianet - "More Trials Under Article 301":

The trial of three writers of the leftist "Ülkede Özgür Gündem" newspaper continues. Journalist Hozatli insists on his right to criticise the state. Another trial under Article 301 has ended in acquittal.

ISTANBUL / 21 May 2007 / by Erol Onderoglu

The trial of journalist and editor Umur Hozatli, who is in court for two articles written in the leftist, pro-Kurdish "Ülkede Özgür Gündem" newspaper, continued on 16 May.

Hozatli, the former editor-in-chief Irfan Ucar and the journalist Sinan Kara are being prosecuted in five cases, all under the controversial Article 301. Awaiting questioning of the newspaper's owner, Hasan Bayar, the case has been postponed until 29 September.

In another case, the President of the Father Christmas Foundation, Muammer Karabulut, has been acquitted. He was tried under Article 301 for claiming that the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate was being controlled by the court and by the Regional Directorate of Foundations.

Right to criticise

Attending the hearing of his case at a penal court in Istanbul, journalist Hozatli explained that he was being accused of degrading the Turkish Armed Forces and the Turkish Police Force.

He said, "It is my right to criticize a state institution which makes blatant mistakes and which uses double standards in its treatment of citizens, and I will continue to criticize. This is a responsibility of humanity and conscience."

Journalist Uçar is being tried for his article "Number 301" which was published in "Ülkede Özgür Gündem" in 2005. In the article, Uçar had criticised the prosecution of Aram Publications for a book that discusses the disappearance of journalist Nazim Babaoglu.

Meanwhile, journalist Kara is facing court for writing articles titled "Cadre of Killers" and "The Party of the Barracks" in 2006.

Acquittal for Karabulut

The President of the Father Christmas Foundation, which had been closed by court order, has been acquitted. A sentence of up to three years imprisonment had been demanded for Karabulut.