Notes following the holidays

This year, an excuse has been found for this bloody ritual which has nothing to do with religious precepts of sacrificing animals for Allah to mark the end of Hajj. The European Union delegation coming over to monitor animal sacrificing was responded as "Look at yourself" for whaling incidents.

What a relief it was for them. Mr. Know-it-All-Except-Environmental-Matters, Environment Minister Veysel Eroğlu being at top, no one made any effort to recognize the EU’s labors to stop whaling and that no EU country is actually whaling except non-EU members Iceland, Japan and Norway.

PM’s tough dealing with the economy
The AKP won the July 22 general elections for mainly economic reasons, but they are focusing on ideological reasoning in order not to jeopardize the March 2009 local elections. The Prime Minister’s "fear of economy" is understandable. But if he had known that he won the last polls thanks to a good economy, Erdoğan would have been more realistic about the local elections, taken immediate preventive measures and applied a full blown communication strategy regarding the economic crisis.

His current faltering attitude and insistence on overseeing the seriousness of the economic crisis indicate that Erdoğan relies on constituents who are blindly following the AKP ideology. Although his calculation may work a little on March 29, the AKP government will have to manage many crises in the aftermath and face the risk of being crushed under all. The AKP is being trapped today. Its own political choice of pro-status quo plays a big role in it. But as it is cornering itself, AKP also is blocking Turkey’s way. The danger is that the AKP had no choice but to turn into a statist party irreversibly, transforming thereby the reformist period into a long-term restoration period.

On Turks’ migration
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ data show citizens of Turkey ranked as the ninth on the list, with 220,000 refuges, according to world asylum statistics. The figure is not huge but crucial for giving hints of how Turkey treats its citizens and what kind hardship refugees endure before leaving their countries. Citizens of EU member countries and candidate countries are rare among refugees. That means we are taking a different route.

Turkish Airlines’ Skylife magazine
The Skylife magazine is the first information tool for a foreign visitor onboard to Turkey. One should not be surprised by its name in a country where English words are the darlings of especially the new rich. Information should not be exaggerated, however. In the December issue, two Anatolian towns are introduced in the Skylife. One is Kula and the other is Harput. Kula is a town where considerable number of Greeks lived before the population exchange with Greece. In fact, in the article Greek houses are introduced proudly. But this is not the case for Harput. The article is written by someone who cannot even pronounce the name "Armenian" like in a previous article in which he claimed the Ani Ruins are in fact Anı (Souvenir) Ruins and recalled the King Gagik without being able to write Armenian before his name. Harput is a critical Armenian settlement. The word "Armenian" is never uttered in the article on Harput. So forget a minute about what happened to Armenians, even pronouncing the name is not possible in this country. What are you talking about?

Situation in the Foreign Ministry
Senior foreign ministry officials say that the ministry has not been in such difficult situation since the coalition government of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP and the National Welfare Party, or MSP, formed in 1974. There are no appointments. Ambassadors who are returning from duty are waiting at the corridors and are feeling down. And the famous "central country," Turkey, with its demoralized bureaucracy is rolling up sleeves to bring peace into world. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on the other hand is running around without being able to accomplish a single task properly as he is overburdened with countless tasks. But never in the world he would give up on being the chief negotiator for EU talks!