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Undoing March 1
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For the very important inhabitants of Washington D.C., "Turkey season" opened some time ago, when George J. Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy, arrived in the Turkish capital, matured when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the same site, and eventually crowned with the presence of President Obama himself.
I am not going to repeat what we have all been reading prior to President Obama’s visit and cite the all too known reasons why Turkey season opened.
Naturally, there has been an unusual load of Turkey news in the international media, and Obama news in the Turkish Ğ along with a record number of open letters to Obama by appealing Turkish columnists. Disappointingly, Hürriyet’s front page headline looked like that of a state-sponsored newspaper in a lackey banana republic: Welcome Mr President!
Most Turkey news was accurate/informative reading. But there were a couple of amusing exceptions. For example, www.cnn.com/europe portrayed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a way an ordinary Turk could have thought the CNN’s newsroom must have confused Erdoğan the Almighty with one of his namesakes: "Éa childhood lived in a working class neighborhood where Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, son of a sailor, sold bread and water to pay for school booksÉ"
Having wiped away the tears in my eyes for that dramatically struggling past of our prime minister and making sure CNN was really talking about Erdoğan the Almighty, I first made an observation and then a decision about a career move.
Judging from the wealth boasted by the Erdoğan household, I calculated that during his childhood he must have sold loaves of bread sufficient for a whole continent. And naturally, I have decided to quit journalism and begin selling bread on the street.
In another article, Jack Miles in the LA Times was arguing that Turkey’s political system has been anti-religious in the Soviet manner: "Éwomen, for example, may not wear headscarves in government-run schools and public offices, and men may not wear the traditional fez." Yes, the fez! The traditional fez! I was not aware the fez was the traditional Turkish headwear, nor was I aware wearing the fez had anything to do with Koranic teachings or religious freedoms. All the same, I took the lighter side of Mr. Miles’s line and tried to visualize Erdoğan with a fez. Sounds nice.
But Miles’s April 4 article titled, "Talking to Turkey, but Islam is listening," contained more serious mistakes. Readers of the Times learned from Miles that the Constitutional Court ruled the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, constitutional.
Sorry Miles, you can always claim the fez is the traditional headwear but the supreme court declared the AKP unconstitutional with 10 votes out of its 11 members.
Finally, I remember having read a nice little line from an AKP bigwig, Suat Kınıklıoğlu, on his own Web site. Kınıklıoğlu, a member of Parliament and the AKP’s vice president for foreign relations, claimed that the March 29 election results would mean a referendum on the government’s foreign policy since 2007.
I must give credit to Kınıklıoğlu here, not only because he is the spokesman of the Turkish Parliament’s foreign relations committee, but also because he formerly headed the Ankara office of the prestigious German Marshall Fund. He is not a man who would speak crap. Too bad, the AKP won only 39 percent, and in that case the referendum ended in a national disapproval of AKP’s foreign policy since 2007.
But all of these are things of no importance. What matters is that Turkey season has reopened and damage when it had ended March 1, 2003 luckily will have been undone. Many people think the reason for the Turkish smiles is the Obama effect. Partly, yes. But more than that it’s the Bush (bad) effect. Turks are almost ready to embrace anyone after their disappointment with two terms of Republican rule.
As much as there are chances that March 1, 2003 will be undone there are also chances that there may be new March 1s. The key to avoiding new diplomatic disasters will be the Americans’ ability to understand a difficult-to-understand country. As a starter, I should remind that the U.S. president visited a country where:
Seventy-three percent of the people think foreigners should not buy property on their soil; 46 percent say they would nod to a military coup if necessary; 69 percent think women should get their husbands’ permission in order to work; 57 percent say the female members of their household never went out with a sleeveless blouse; 70 percent declare they did not read any books in the last three months; and 39 percent support the ruling party.
Ah, by the way in this country in the year 2009 still a dozen people died and hundreds got injured in election day violence. A belated welcome to Turkey, President Obama!
Naturally, there has been an unusual load of Turkey news in the international media, and Obama news in the Turkish Ğ along with a record number of open letters to Obama by appealing Turkish columnists. Disappointingly, Hürriyet’s front page headline looked like that of a state-sponsored newspaper in a lackey banana republic: Welcome Mr President!
Most Turkey news was accurate/informative reading. But there were a couple of amusing exceptions. For example, www.cnn.com/europe portrayed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a way an ordinary Turk could have thought the CNN’s newsroom must have confused Erdoğan the Almighty with one of his namesakes: "Éa childhood lived in a working class neighborhood where Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, son of a sailor, sold bread and water to pay for school booksÉ"
Having wiped away the tears in my eyes for that dramatically struggling past of our prime minister and making sure CNN was really talking about Erdoğan the Almighty, I first made an observation and then a decision about a career move.
Judging from the wealth boasted by the Erdoğan household, I calculated that during his childhood he must have sold loaves of bread sufficient for a whole continent. And naturally, I have decided to quit journalism and begin selling bread on the street.
In another article, Jack Miles in the LA Times was arguing that Turkey’s political system has been anti-religious in the Soviet manner: "Éwomen, for example, may not wear headscarves in government-run schools and public offices, and men may not wear the traditional fez." Yes, the fez! The traditional fez! I was not aware the fez was the traditional Turkish headwear, nor was I aware wearing the fez had anything to do with Koranic teachings or religious freedoms. All the same, I took the lighter side of Mr. Miles’s line and tried to visualize Erdoğan with a fez. Sounds nice.
But Miles’s April 4 article titled, "Talking to Turkey, but Islam is listening," contained more serious mistakes. Readers of the Times learned from Miles that the Constitutional Court ruled the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, constitutional.
Sorry Miles, you can always claim the fez is the traditional headwear but the supreme court declared the AKP unconstitutional with 10 votes out of its 11 members.
Finally, I remember having read a nice little line from an AKP bigwig, Suat Kınıklıoğlu, on his own Web site. Kınıklıoğlu, a member of Parliament and the AKP’s vice president for foreign relations, claimed that the March 29 election results would mean a referendum on the government’s foreign policy since 2007.
I must give credit to Kınıklıoğlu here, not only because he is the spokesman of the Turkish Parliament’s foreign relations committee, but also because he formerly headed the Ankara office of the prestigious German Marshall Fund. He is not a man who would speak crap. Too bad, the AKP won only 39 percent, and in that case the referendum ended in a national disapproval of AKP’s foreign policy since 2007.
But all of these are things of no importance. What matters is that Turkey season has reopened and damage when it had ended March 1, 2003 luckily will have been undone. Many people think the reason for the Turkish smiles is the Obama effect. Partly, yes. But more than that it’s the Bush (bad) effect. Turks are almost ready to embrace anyone after their disappointment with two terms of Republican rule.
As much as there are chances that March 1, 2003 will be undone there are also chances that there may be new March 1s. The key to avoiding new diplomatic disasters will be the Americans’ ability to understand a difficult-to-understand country. As a starter, I should remind that the U.S. president visited a country where:
Seventy-three percent of the people think foreigners should not buy property on their soil; 46 percent say they would nod to a military coup if necessary; 69 percent think women should get their husbands’ permission in order to work; 57 percent say the female members of their household never went out with a sleeveless blouse; 70 percent declare they did not read any books in the last three months; and 39 percent support the ruling party.
Ah, by the way in this country in the year 2009 still a dozen people died and hundreds got injured in election day violence. A belated welcome to Turkey, President Obama!
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