Turkey (Anthropology)

Anthropological studies have paid too little attention to the everyday experience of traffic, a fact all the more striking given the central place that traffic has come to occupy in urban life worldwide. I submit that the daily experience of traffic is a critical and underutilised medium for examining social inequality in a global, urban social order. My analysis invokes the spectrum of inequalities in relation to traffic in Istanbul, mapping both the hierarchies born out in paradigmatic traffic situations and certain extremes – those barred or excused from participating in the traffic scene. I argue that traffic congestion constitutes a unique zone in which cross-class encounters take place. This analytical focus on the daily experience of traffic demonstrates that urban inequality is produced not only through segregated social spaces, but also on the move.

PLEASE SEE http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00141844.2012.714395
OR http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2012.714395

The Muslim population came from Anatolia to Greece by Population Exchange agreement signed on January 30, 1923, which causedneed of housing butalready villages and rural areas had been burnedor destroyed that had further increased the need of housing.To provide this necessity, it has been decided to build sample villages.In this process, one of the sample villages is Manisa / Cobanisa.In this paper, the context of the current situation of the village and the extant examples of the original housing will be studied according to theearlierreleased layout and house types.

30 Ocak 1923 tarihinde imzalanan Mübadele anlaşmasıyla Anadolu’ya Yunanistan’dan gelen Müslüman halk için, kırsal alanda zaten mevcut olan köy ve konut ihtiyacı, yakılan ve tahrip olan köyler sebebiyle daha da artmıştı. Bu amaçla numune köyler yapılmasına karar verilmişti. Bu süreçte yapılan köylerden biri de Manisa/Çobanisa’dır. Çalışmamızda, daha önce yayımlanan yerleşim planı ve ev plan tipleri bağlamında, köyün mevcut durumu ve günümüze ulaşan özgün konut örnekleri üzerinde durulacaktır.

The aim of the current study was to examine Swedish and Turkish teachers’ perspectives on values education. Qualitative interviews with 52 teachers were conducted and analyzed. Values education was mostly about compliance with societal values and norms. The learning goals or values in values education were mainly on how to treat others and on self-responsibility. Teachers did not take a critical approach. A main method of values education reported by the teachers was to be a good role model in everyday interactions with students. Values education was largely described as an everyday practice embedded in the stream of social interactions. Furthermore, an everyday language was used when the teachers described values and values education. There was a lack of professional knowledge in this domain.

Turkey’s journey towards one-man rule and a new political system without checks and balances turned a new corner with the disputed national referendum on 16 April 2017. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won new powers from voters, which confirmed his consistent efforts over years to transform Turkey from a secular Western democratic country into a political Islamist and authoritarian police state. Erdogan once said that democracy, for him, is not the objective but rather a tool, comparing it to a bus within a journey. “Once I get to my stop, I will get off.” Apparently, after highly controversial elections, Erdogan has arrived at his stop, and he has gotten off the democracy bus. Many scholars agree that the secular Republic of Turkey as it has been known does not exist anymore, and it is not coming back under the Erdogan dicta.

As a consequence, the West now has to deal with a political Islamist police state with a large portion of radicalised citizens. The priorities should be set to assist and help the people suffering in Turkey at the hands of Erdogan’s regime, many guilty of nothing more than not supporting the status quo. The West, when dealing with Erdogan, should seriously consider extending their support to the people suffering inside Turkey. Europe has ample leverage against Erdogan, including travel sanctions against individual members of the Turkish government, economic sanctions, refusal to sell arms, and politically pressuring the Erdogan regime. All these tools should be considered to assist the suffering Turks in the name of humanity and for the future bilateral and peaceful relationship between Turkey and Europe after Erdogan’s departure. European countries should also consider taking the allegations against the Turkish president listed in this article to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for the crimes against humanity. Europe must prioritise a sincere approach in order to neutralise threats coming from the Erdogan regime and his supporters and extend their hands to the brave citizens who did not accept becoming part of Erdogan’s dicta. While many Turkish citizens have found refuge in Europe, thousands are still being tortured, raped and even killed in Turkey. The world must find a way to stop this misery before it becomes a tragic loss of life reminiscent of the worst crimes in world history.

http://www.orient-online.com/

http://www.orient-online.com/issues/ORIENT-III/2017

The so-called Islamic State and the (slow but steady) Radicalisation of Turkey. Available from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318066367_The_so-called_Islamic_State_and_the_slow_but_steady_Radicalisation_of_Turkey [accessed Jul 5, 2017].

In this article, I aim to discuss this period during which ‘Dersim’ came out of the shadows, by focusing on a political controversy surrounding an interview given by Hüseyin Aygün, then CHP’s Tunceli MP, to the newspaper Zaman in 2011. I argue that, regarding the Alevi question in Turkey, the growing visibility of Dersim Alevism in Turkish politics was one of the most important developments in the 2000s.
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In the wake of the interview with CHP’s Tunceli MP Hüseyin Aygün, printed in Zaman on 10 November 2011, we witnessed an interesting media debate that is rare in Turkish media history. From 10 November to 29 December, 535 columns in twenty national newspapers addressed the issue of Dersim. Dersim – which, in the words of Dr Şükrü Aslan (2010), remained the ‘secret that everyone knows’ – was not suddenly and extensively talked about, in
line with the political struggles around the opening processes at the time. Through the statements of politicians from almost all political parties and campaigns organised by civic associations, it became apparent that the military operations conducted in Dersim in 1937–382 regained their relevance during the ‘Democratic Openings’ (see Ayata and Hakyemez 2013, Cansun 2013, Dilşa 2020).
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ZIRH, B. C. (2022). DERSIM: THE PARADOX OF DISCLOSING ‘AN OPEN SECRET.’ In D. Özkul & H. Markussen (Eds.), The Alevis in Modern Turkey and the Diaspora: Recognition, Mobilisation and Transformation (pp. 78–100). Edinburgh University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv2dd47dt.10

Based on research about the infertility experiences of women and demand for in vitro fertilisation treatment in Turkey, I observe in this paper the rhetorical strategies employed by childless women to bring meaning to their infertility experience as well as to attain adult gender identity. I also briefly touch on men’s experiences of infertility. I argue that the prevalent references to the almightiness of God do not only indicate religious beliefs. Through the instrumental use of religious discourse, these references can be considered the rhetoric of religious belief.

Human rights are among the most-cited criteria forTurkey’s accession to the European Union. Focusingon how women’s and children’s rights figure ingovernmental reform programs, I explore theinstitutionalization of rights-bearing subjects in theTurkish official realm. Portrayals of women andchildren as innocent, depoliticized victims in needof protection and care are meant to persuade stateofficials to prosecute domestic violence, honorkillings, and child abuse. However, this approachnarrows the category of rights bearers by excludinggroups who do not conform to the image of thehelpless victim. Representations of women andchildren as domesticated rights bearers alsoconsolidate the Turkish state as the locus of “masculinist protection,” reinforcing a moral economy that requires, in return, the grateful obedience of the protected.

In the end, the plot failed. But it leaves plenty of questions—and shows where to tighten security.

By Ahmet S. Yayla
Aug. 9, 2017 7:14 p.m. ET
4 COMMENTS
Islamic State’s plan to blow up a commercial jet out of Sydney last month was “one of the most sophisticated plots that has ever been attempted on Australian soil,” police said last week. For reasons that aren’t yet clear, the terrorists aborted the attack, and police are confident the bomb would not have made it through airport security. Still, terrorists managed to acquire plastic explosives and the components needed to set it off—all shipped by airmail from Turkey. The Australian authorities discovered the plan only when, nearly two weeks later, they received a tip from a foreign intelligence service.

Make no mistake: Islamic State jihadists will continue trying to carry out spectacular terrorist attacks in the West. ISIS has lost control of Mosul, Iraq, where an estimated 30,000 of its fighters were killed. Now it is being pushed out of its putative capital, Raqqa, Syria. As it begins to look less like a traditional state and more like an insurgency, ISIS fighters will try to mobilize sympathizers around the world.

Last month, for instance, ISIS affiliates in Turkey released the “Lone Wolf’s Handbook,” a manual of 60-some pages, with dozens of illustrations, that explains the most efficient way to make a bomb or drive a truck into pedestrians. Such attacks are meant to prove that ISIS still exists and reinforce its bragging rights as the meanest, most fearsome warriors for Islamism. They’re also meant to dominate the news, particularly in the West, to help recruit future jihadists.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/isis-airmail-the-bomb-shipped-from-turkey-to-australia-1502320475

This article introduces the term 'the ethnographic moment', which takes up and 'plays' with the long-disputed 'ethnographic present' in anthropology, as an indicator of changing conditions and requirements for ethnography in the context of mass media and mediation. It argues that event and debate, rather than structure and practice, have become pivotal aspects in thinking and conducting fieldwork that has to deal with the ephemeral. At the same time, it tries to show that an unquestioning acceptance of technological advancement and speed of societal change immunizes us to the thinkable absence of media and obscures analysis of lasting states of injustice and inequality in whose (re-) production they have a stake.

Keywords: anthropology, media contents, social change, technology, time

https://www.westminsterpapers.org/25/volume/9/issue/3/

Turkish-Greek relations are marked by a long trajectory of enmity and tension. This book sets out to explore the ‘other side’ of that history, focusing on initiatives that have promoted contact between the two societies and encouraged rapprochement. Presenting a new critical re-description of Turkish-Greek rapprochement processes over a lengthy time span (1974-2013), Turkish-Greek Relations offers innovative explanations for the emergence of the reconciliation movement.

Instead of lineal continuities, the book explores different routes that these efforts for rapprochement have followed, reflected in the divergent visions for a ‘Turkish-Greek friendship’ pursued by actors as distinct as radical leftists, civil society activists, local government representatives, artists and liberal intellectuals, as well as journalists, politicians and businessmen.

Drawing on political discourse theory and social anthropology, this book employs extensive archival research into Turkish and Greek sources, significant numbers of interviews with pioneers of the rapprochement movement, and an original ethnographic study, to examine the competing claims for ‘Greek-Turkish friendship’. In doing so, it is possible to assess their successes and failures, prospects and predicaments. A valuable addition to existing literature, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of International Relations, Peace and Reconciliation Studies, and Politics.

In keeping with its laicist policies, the Turkish state has tightly regulated religious education.  Religion courses in the public schools and Koran courses at mosques follow state controlled curricula and are taught by civil servants, while independent Koran courses are prohibited by law.  Many conservative, conscientious Muslims find state religious education limited and have established independent “kaçak” (illegal) Koran courses that meet in private homes, away from the gaze of the state.  Based on fieldwork conducted on a “unapproved” Koran course for young women in a famously conservative neighborhood in Ankara, this paper will discuss the participants’ rationale for establishing and participating in the course.  A primary concern of both teachers and students in these courses is that state religious education is inadequate and distorted.  The Turkish state casts Islam as something that is largely a matter of “belief” or “conscience” and individual private activity, whereas many conservative Muslims see non-regulated Islamic activity as belonging also in the public sphere and involved in politics.  This paper will demonstrate how these courses provide a forum through which the participants may articulate their own interpretations of Islam, and serve as platforms for developing alternative religious ideologies that may be broadcast in the rapidly expanding religious media outlets.  Finally, this paper will show how conservative Muslims’ critiques of state religious education cut straight to central conflicts – in Turkey and elsewhere – over the nature of secularism and conceptions of the public sphere.

This article follows a comparative perspective on media narratives and practices pertaining to India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, previously Chief Minister of the Indian State of Gujarat since 2002, and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been in government, first as Prime Minister and now as President, since 2002. I argue that both have attained a current position of nearly opposition-free leadership by buttressing a “people's unity” as a majority of those who believe in the reliability of particular information. Modi has achieved this by successfully avoiding, since the mass-mediated anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat 2002, journalistic and legal investigation into his actions, thereby supporting people's interpretation and their confidence into their own capacity to identify “truth”. Modi's thus generated democratic intangibility becomes obvious when comparing it to Erdoğan who, by contrast, is more vulnerable to democratic opposition because he claims active legal and moral guidance to his supporters against a historically adversarial nationalist-secular media system and critical information about himself. 

Among the worst cases of villainous distortion and hateful misinformation as regards Turkey’s secular identity and secularized Islam is the paranoid and pathetic composition of the Indian, masqueraded American, Fareed Zakaria. Dangerous more than Ossama bin Laden, the purported Muslim emigrant from Bombay pursues an unprecedented and sophisticated policy of subversion that should bring forth disastrous results and far reaching ramifications.
The disguised as moderate Muslim, Indian-born, American represents one of the most serious threats against the United States’ role in the world, against Western Democracy, and against the possibility of de-barbarizing and humanizing today’s deviate, erratic and terrorist Islam. He does so because he got this sort of lectures from his illustrious professor: Samuel Huntington. Fareed Zakaria knows his professor’s plan and acts accordingly.
Published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle, and AfroArticles on 25th May 2007
Republished in Aram Nahrin on the same day

Reference to my narrations about my connections with the Turkish secular-military establishment in the mid 90s, to my rejection of all Greek analysts and 'specialists' on Turkey and the Middle East, and to my interpretations of the Turkish sociopolitical life and elite
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/%CF%8C%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%BD-%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%B9%CE%BB%CE%B9%CF%84%CF%83%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%85-%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%8E%CE%BD%CE%B5%CE%B9-%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD/

It is my distinct honor to present you Mr. M. Orhan Tarhan and publish here his – otherwise unpublished – article ‘The Holy Cow Democracy”. Few have Mr. Tarhan’s knowledge, life experience, perspicacity, and clarity; I believe all will see the current developments in Turkey better through the lines of this excellent paper.

Mr. M. Orhan Tarhan was born in Istanbul, Turkey, where he made his high school education in Turkey’s elite boarding school “Galatasaray”. He won a competitive examination that sent him to his chemical engineering education in Germany between 1937 and 1943. All his professional life he worked for steel industries, as operating engineer in a coke plant in Turkey and after 1953 as research engineer in charge of coke plants in the United States. He published several technical articles, 16 U.S. and foreign patents, and a book titled “Catalytic Reactor Design”. At Bethlehem Steel Corporation, where he worked for a quarter of a century, research engineers were trained continuously in technical report writing. After retiring in 1982, he did several years of consulting and he taught one semester of Catalytic Reactor Design at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA.

He learned French at 9, German at 16, and English at 24.

During his retirement he wrote articles in Turkish-American magazines on Turkey, on Turkish-Americans , and on the United States. At 2002, “The Turkish Times” stopped publication. At the urging of several of his readers, he started a newsletter that he is distributing by e-mail. He likes to hear comments on his articles.

Mr. Tarhan’s father was a class-mate of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk at the previous turn of the century at the General Staff School. They worried about the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire and tried to find out why Europe was flourishing.

They studied European history of the last three centuries and the French writers of the Enlightenment. They concluded, that to become survivable in the modern world, Turkey has to do everything Europe did during the last three centuries. They found also that Islam was part of the problem. After the Republic of Turkey was founded, Ataturk abolished the Caliphate, outlawed the Sharia part of the Koran, emancipated the women and changed the identity of Turkey to a Western nation. Mr. Tarhan lived during the wonderful years of Ataturk’s presidency and saw with his eyes how a backward, ignorant, Islamic nation was converted to a progressive, educated, laic, democratic nation.

Mr. Tarhan is the author of a newsletter titled “The Orhan Tarhan Letter” that is issued twice a month and is distributed by e-mail, The article called “The Holy Cow Democracy” is taken from the letter No.106.

First published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles on 12th December 2010
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Eliminate Fethullah Gulen Now!

A second Islamist party will rise soon in Turkey; it will get full support from both, the US and the EU. It will come to clash with AKP, Erdogan’s party, and it is this project that the Freemasonic and Zionist masters of the Euro-parliamentarian puppets are concerned with. Offering a few dozens of seats at Ankara’s Grand National Assembly to the ignorant, fanatic followers of the vicious yet smiley gangster Fethullah Gulen is tantamount to final dissolution of Turkey. Particularly, when a Kurdish separatist party will also be given a few seats, due to EU illegal money channeling…. 

This is the way the fallacious Freemasonic – Zionist propaganda tool Wikipedia presents the treacherous, uneducated and uncultured pseudo-Muslim – who is not a Sufi –: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BClen

You must be either a Freemason or one of their slaves or puppets to get such support and exposure in the Wikipedia!

Initiated in anti-Islamic, Freemasonic rites, involved in incredible sexual ritualistic orgies, engaged to totally destroy Turkey from distance, and supported by the Luciferian branch of the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge and the Rothschild banking dynasty, Fethullah Gulen is the point where the effort to guarantee Turkey’s future starts.

And the Turkish military must know that this effort must start now; when two abnormal parties, a Kurdish separatist group and an Islamist extremist movement, will emerge because of the ongoing European interference and thanks to EU / US money, Turkey’s political debate will be further radicalized and polarized around two genuinely anti-Turkish discourses. When clashes begin between the two emerging groups that have been under fabrication for decades, it will be too late for the Turkish military to react.

The Turkish Military Comeback

By now, the return in force is not an easy affair for the Turkish military; but it is the only means left to them, if they really want to preserve Turkey’s national integrity, historical identity, and political sovereignty.
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The series aims at launching new research on culture, society and political economy in Turkey from both established and emerging scholars, with the goal of shaping the field. We are looking for original material from the areas of sociology, political science, anthropology, political economy and related fields, with a theoretical and empirical focus. As importantly, the series is also looking for translations from materials this far not accessible to the English-speaking audience.
The series includes edited volumes and monographs, with 90,000-100,000 words, with 3 titles a year.
All manuscripts will undergo rigorous peer review in order to ensure the quality of the series.
Please send your carefully and professionally copy-edited manuscripts to both Isabel David (isabela_davidova@yahoo.com – preferred – or isabel.david@iscsp.ulisboa.pt) and Kumru F. Toktamis (kumru@pratt.edu).

These misconceptions make the Europeans ignore following basic historical truths:
1. Islam, Turkey, and the Ottoman Civilization are inherent part of the European Culture and History.
2. The European Identity was mainly formed on today’s Turkish territory.
3. Europe was civilized because of the expansion of the Ancient Oriental cultures.
4. Modern European preconceived theories and approaches (Greco-Romano-centrism) were composed in times of limited knowledge and scarce sources, and were politically motivated (as form of anti-clericalism).
5. The aforementioned erroneous approaches were not rejected (as they should) after the discoveries of the Orientalists, which were also based on erratic, preconceived, colonial approaches and attitudes.
6. Not only Oriental civilizations’ traits and global impact have been kept unknown to average people but the Classical Greek and Roman civilizations have been presented gravely deformed and viciously distorted.
7. Through the above mentioned historical forgery, nefarious patterns, models and prototypes are selected by the ruling classes and academia of Europe, and projected among the average Europeans with disastrous results.

In the present article, we will complete our brief analysis of the catastrophic patterns, models and prototypes chosen from the ill-perceived, and largely imaginative Classical World of the modern, racist, European Greco-Romano-centric academia and politicians.
First published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle, AfroArticles on 14th January 2008

As Turkey represents the main problem, circles related to an apostate Freemasonic lodge joined forces in an unprecedented support to Islamist extremist premier Erdogan, as they attempt to instrumentalize him against the military, judicial, academic, economic, intellectual and political establishment of Secular Turkey, and help him pull Turkey to the Islamist camp, who would thus – without knowing it – help them trigger the planned disastrous developments.

When Mr. Gul becomes ‘urbane’!
First published in the American Chronicle, AfroArticles, and Buzzle on 28th May 2007
Republished on 31st May 2007 in the blog:
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/05/1721-media-scanner-31-may-2007.html

Turkey went to the polls Sunday to approve an “executive-style presidency,” as well as extraordinary judicial powers and lifetime immunity for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Monday the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) declared the results invalid. “In general, the referendum did not live up to Council of Europe standards,” according to an OSCE press release. “The [Turkish] Electoral Board issued late change to rules which undermined safeguards, went against laws.”

Nonetheless, some Arab states congratulated Mr. Erdogan on his win and not surprisingly, many Salafist Jihadist organizations were all smiles, including Hamas, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jaysh al-Islam. The United States and many Western countries refrained from congratulating Mr. Erdogan, pending the findings of the OSCE election observer team.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/turks-get-off-the-democracy-bus_us_58f4f0f9e4b04cae050dc961

This book examines the development of identity politics amongst the Alevis in Europe and Turkey, which simultaneously provided the movement access to different resources and challenged its unity of action.
While some argue that Aleviness is a religious phenomenon, and others claim it is a cultural or a political trend, this book analyzes the various strategies of claim-making and reconstructions of Aleviness as well as responses to the movement by various Turkish and German actors. Drawing on intensive fieldwork, Elise Massicard suggests that because of activists’ many different definitions of Aleviness, the movement is in this sense an "identity movement without an identity."

The reason for the Western biases against the modern, western, and democratic part of the Turkish establishment is to be found in the strengths of Turkey, a vast country with great periphery (from the Balkans to Central Asia and from the Middle East to Africa) and even greater potentialities.
Originally published in AfroArticles, American Chronicle, and Buzzle on 23rd May 2007
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/western-biases-against-non-extremist-muslims-and-the-west-sinister-end.html

Republished in:
http://womensapparelhub.blogspot.com/2007/08/western-biases-against-non-extremist.html

Reference to my narrations about my connections with the Turkish secular-military establishment in the mid 90s and to my interpretations of the Turkish sociopolitical life.
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/%CE%B7-%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%81%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%B1-%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%BD-%CE%BA%CF%85%CE%B2%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%BD%CE%AC%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%B9-%CE%B1%CF%80%CF%8C-%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD-%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%BF/

As they fight for control of main institutional bodies by allocating their sympathizers to key positions in the bureaucracy and the judiciary, it is clear that both the AKP and the Gülen community have surrendered to an unwritten rule of Turkish politics according to which groups in power feel legitimized to demand sole control of institutions. As this was the way the secularist camp ruled the country for almost ninety years, it is quite ironic that the two forces that had joined to defeat it are now inclined to do the same. While some important steps have been taken by the AKP to acknowledge traditionally oppressed social groups—above all, the Kurdish people—these will prove ephemeral if they are not translated into a real strategy for establishing transparent rules that regulate people's access to basic services, rights, and opportunities for civic participation, both within and outside public institutions.