All I'm getting from that brilliant video is a short movie about milk and cookies.

Russia as an ally to Turkey? Is there really a significant number of Turks who feel more warmly towards Russia than the US and the EU?

"His novel pours scorn on the West in passages like one in which Russian and Turkish officers discuss how they will carve up Europe after defeating it:"
Ah! More a sign of ressentiment than anything.

dear bsr,

i fixed the link. should work now. enjoy.

--raf*

raf* -

I'm still just getting the milk and cookies link instead of the daily show thingie.

I remember a documentary a few years ago on Radio France International where they were dealing with mafia activities in Istambul. Part of it was dedicated to Israeli mafia stealing and smuggling organs and selling them to rich Western or Israeli businessmen who needed them. I don't know how important is such a phenomenon - I guess like most criminal activities, statistically insignificant - but RFI is very professional (a la BBC) so its content is quite reliable. I also have no idea of the level of awareness around this phenomenon but it could be what inspired the Gary Busey character. Just a wild guess...

I got the Stewart video earlier, but now I'm getting milk and cookies.

Perhaps a bandwidth issue at their end.

dear all,

i now put the original link (i.e. the site, not the vid feed) in. if it doesn't work - cut/paste this:

http://www.devilducky.com/media/42321

or google "jon stewart valley of the wolves"

cheers,

--raf*

"We keep talking about the 'pious middle' and whether it is modern or traditional"

Sorry - maybe you've explained this before, but how do you define "modern" and "traditional"?

Bulent Arinc (Parliament leader), if I'm not mistaken, said the film represented "the truth". Some also have said that there was no alcohol served during the premier of the film (which is pretty unusual), hence "the Islamist's wet dream" tag on the film.

Being confronted by Abdülhey with "But ... I'm a Kurd" he answers: "Yes, but you're a good one."

I think what he said was "yes, but you're different," not that it matters that much, but I find the phrase more amusing.

What was also pretty funny was that when Sam launches a verbal assault on the retardness of Turkish politics, Rambo sits silently, seemingly and unironically reaffirming that the welfare of state pales in comparison to the shame of hooded soldiers.

an orthodox Jew (with kaftan and payot) who weasels out of a hotel restaurant when "Sam" shows up to confront the movie's heroes without the audience ever learning why there would BE any orthodox Jews in Iraqi Kurdistan to begin with.

In 2004, there was a Seymour Hersh article about Israelis training Kurdish commandos. It caused a stir here...Newspapers in Turkey claimed that one of the "senior Turkish officials" was our FM. Wouldn't you send a Hasidic Jew in full gear to train Kurdish commandos in Iraq? I think that's pretty damn accurate. He probably knows a few dancehall riddims as well, cause Israel's the new Jamaica dem say.

Also the hilarious Scarborough County segment featured in the Daily Show with Donahue and the blogger can be found here.

dear ann,

i personnally are (overly?) careful with these terms. in my view, EVERYone in this world save a few groups in some very isolated places (amazon etc.) lives in modern societies, not in traditional ones. now, within all those modern societies there are (among others) modernists and traditionalists. if you believe in the evolutionary trajectory moving from primitive to developed, from traditional to modern societies that everyone has to go through, then you're probably a modernist. if you think you can and actually want to "restore society" to some imagined "correct" past, then you're probably a traditionalist. but both groups are modern in the sense that their worldview is modern. nobody thinks like people did 200 years ago. al-qa'idah is modern.

all contemporary socio-political movements are modern. they conceptualize the world in a modern way. just think of the islamic republic of iran and them having a parliament and elections and all that ... even the taliban are a modern movement, in the sense that their organisation of society is based on a fundamentally modern understanding of the world - they think in terms of nation-ness, of nation-state borders, etc.

maybe i should've used "modernist/traditionalist" instead of "modern/traditional".

--raf*

Breath and depth and relevance in one entry. I'm lucky to nail one of those.

Raf,

Link works, thanks.

Modernist/traditionalist:
What if someone does not believe that societies have to (with the problematic part being "have to") go from primitive to developed and that one does not want to restore society to some correct past? What would that person be?

"Modernist/traditionalist:
What if someone does not believe that societies have to (with the problematic part being "have to") go from primitive to developed and that one does not want to restore society to some correct past? What would that person be?"

If I understand you correctly, the society's present will become the society's 'correct past' in the future. Unless you are arguing that the society will remain the same forever. Before every primitive society there came a more primitive one.

dear bsr,

that would be someone who doesn't believe in the evolutionary trajectory of history. i can't think of a label for this person right now.

in any case, the point is that there is no "going back to the times of xyz" since nobody today can know what those times were like and hence any representation/imagination of said times is and will be a modern one. and with "modern" i do not mean "contemporary" but i mean that it is based on a modern understanding of the world.

or lets look at it from the (seemingly) opposite point of view: the "new veiling" that is happening in many muslim societies is often decried as "they want to go back to a pre-modern past, the want to turn back time, they want to remove 50 years of progress". well, i'd call the "new veiling" a modern phenomenon since it is caused by other modern phenomena (like a perceived-or-real secularization of society and a perceived-or-real threat of the destruction of a value system that is seen as both "true" and "indigenous"), implemented with modern means of organization, and since many of its "members" are arguing that they are just developing their own kind of "modernity".

i do agree with ali that there seems to be something intrinsic to human-ness that makes human groups/societies to make their lives ever more complex, to attempt to improve their living conditions, etc. note, however, that there ARE examples of societies that did not do that. we're still not sure what exactly moves a group to not accept a certain status quo. last time i checked environmental conditions seem to have played a much greater role than usually thought of - i cannot recommend jared diamond's book "guns, germs, and steel" highly enough.

these days the ideology of "progress", and one where a society is judged on a very "western" check-list whether it is on the right path or not, is prevalent, and maybe even hegemonic.

--raf*

The terminology discussion is so very academic.

I understand, by the way, the utility and importance of course of precision in terms and recognise there are some issues with modern / traditionalist.

At the same time, these kinds of discussions highlight why obsessing about them when 'speaking to the public' can be a bit of precious whanking at times.

From my heathen perspective as someone gainfully employed in the financial sector and long away from academic and journalistic concerns, let me say that while sensitive to unfairly and grossly describing things as 'primative' or 'modern' - there are in practical terms, real benchmarks.

Traditional certainly is a useful term to describe (in economic terms) more-or-less traditionally organised low-added-value socio-economic activities in contrast with higher-added-value socio-economic activities organised along 'rationalised' or impersonal organisational lines.

For someone concerned about issues of economic growth, there are real and important differences.

In society, however, I agree with Raf Bey's point regarding veiling - wearing of hidjabs; decried as being backward, the style and modes of veiling are far from traditional and in fact are modern. Not modern the way say Western feminists like to define modern, but modern.

BTW, I am not sure all political movements are modern - e.g. the Taleban certainly had a strong non-modern component.

dear L and the others,

does NOBODY have anything to say about ... uhhh ... turkey and the turn to islam and things related to the post?

since i seem to have a teacher streak in me i'd be happy to answer "what do you mean when you use the word xyz?" questions but i'd hoped that the comment section wouldn't be almost ENTIRELY focus on that last throwaway line of the post.

dear aegean disclosure,

good to have someone from the dürüm faction on aqoul! and thanks for the correction - i saw the movie a while ago & quoted from memory. what do you think about the movie? have you read the books i mentioned? what do you think of those? do you think there is a shift from looking west to looking east in turkey? does that have anything to do with the discovery that - GASP!!! - the ottoman period wasn't ALL bad? ahhh, i do see a guest post at 'aqoul in the making ...

--raf*

Ali K,

"If I understand you correctly, the society's present will become the society's 'correct past' in the future.Unless you are arguing that the society will remain the same forever."

More that a society can get better (however one defines better) but that it doesn't have to and that it can get a lot worse for a very long time. Progress is not a certainty and its opposite can occur. E.g.: Europe during Rome's apogee was much better than most of the 1000 years that followed. By most accounts, the European 500CE-1000CE period was more primitive than Rome or Athens at their peaks yet Rome and Athens came first. There was no assurance that it was going to get better and no assurance that it would not get worse. Tomorrow and yesterday both need not be better than today though they can be.

Instead of seeing history/progress like a line that goes from A to B (and has to get there, advancing at different paces but always advancing) or a cycle (where you always go through the same thing) I see it more like a pyramid/tower of potentialies (you can build on top of what others have done and what they have done can help you do that) which can crumble in part or in whole. Thus, there can be change but this change need not be positive.

Perhaps it is noteworthy that a lot of the fathers of modernity (not Descartes, at least intentionally, more those from the Enlightenment) saw themselves as wanting to go back to some correct past or at least being greatly inspired by it. Their corrupted present and recent past were the Middle Ages and their idealised correct past was Antiquity.

As for the terms modern and traditional, Tonnies' terms are less slippery and perhaps closer to what we mean ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinschaft_and_Gesselschaft )

Yes, he's a German sociologist but a German philosophy clock can still be right twice a day.

dear bsr,

what exactly do "Gemeinschaft" & "Gesellschaft" have to do with "traditional/modern"? both - Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft - can be either modern or traditional.

i have nothing against german sociologists (although they write way too cumbersomely) but i fail to see where tönnies applies here.

cheers,

--raf*

raf*...it might take me a while to respond to your questions in depth.

In the meantime, for those interested, BBC's Hardtalk recently had a week in Turkey.

Oktay Vural

Ipek Ilkkaracan

Egemen Bagis

Orhan Pamuk

BSR-
I now better understand your argument. My own view in the matter is that there is such a thing as objective and subjective progress. Objective progress is technological in nature and there is no denying that this kind of progress is continuous. Not in a straight line mind you, but if you are familiar with the concept of entropy then it is analogous to that - always increasing, no going back.

Subjective progress on the other hand is the point of contention, for there isn't a consensus on what constitutes non-technological progress. Is it liberalism, traditionalism, human rights, world government, marxism? choose your favourite.
My observation is that, left to their own devices (ie. without outside imposition), societies will oscillate between liberalism and illiberalism depending on their overall environment. In other words, yes, there is always progress, but it might not be to everyone's liking. This adds the condition that when progress veers too much into either limit, discontented factions will try to steer it to the other direction. The deciding factor therefore on whether progress will go either way is these discontented factions themselves, how powerful they are, and how the 'middle' are willing to be taken along for the ride.

What can I say mate, the Homos in MENA thread ended up talking about Maghrebine sexuality.

On Turkey, despite being a Turkophile (family tradition), I have little profound to say. Like Iran, I feel a vague discomfort blithering on when I can't claim insights due to speaking the language and talking to people that Tom Friedman doesn't talk to (or that talentless cretin, Totten).

But good work.

Speaking of anti-Semitism, I haven't seen any 'Aqoul commentary on the Walt/Mearsheimer debate. Of course, that's really American politics, but its obviously related to the Middle East, and with much the same pundits involved.

It would be terribly interesting to hear the views of the writers here on both the report and the
pro/contra debate that followed, and the recent response of the authors.

Anyway, since there's no suggestion box to drop this in, I'll just leave a note here, and see what happens.

Personally I dislike touching the American domestic politics rail, which gets quite enough whanking in blogs, and US discussion of Israeli issues tends to the irrational (as a mirror of MENA).

Perhaps another author will feel differently, but certainly this one is uninterested.

I find Israeli-Palestinian issues tedious (esp in the context of US Foreign Policy), which is why I rarely write about them. I didn't follow this story too closely, so my impressions are superficial at best:

1. Generally speaking, it seems there is a wide and blurry line between criticism of Israeli policy and anti-Semitism. I think there is a reasonable incentive on both sides to keep this area murky and use it as "cover" while sniping at each other, rather than engage in dispassionate discourse. Empty, emotive provocation characterizes much of the debate on I-P issues, even among "intellectuals".

2. Some of the claims in the report did not appear to have much supporting evidence, but were passed off as fact. Other assertions (e.g. the US has a terrorism problem because of its close association with Israel) were more than a bit off-base.

3. Not sure if this was covered in the paper, but I'd like to see a comparison between AIPAC and any other sophisticated sector/issue lobby. Guns, pro-life, defense contractors, farmers, etc. There is nothing particularly scandalous about the fact that lobbies influence domestic and foreign policy, but "X lobby makes Y state act against its national interests" is a very difficult argument to make in general. The difference between "influence" and "distort" is quite subjective.

Hmm. Now you've got me thinking about this.

". . . to hear the views of the writers here on both the report and the
pro/contra debate that followed, and the recent response of the authors."

1) Yawn.
2) Heat trumps light all the time.

amerika gerçeğini sinema yoluyla herkese gösteren başarılı bir filmdir.amerikalılar izleyin canınız sıkılabilir

TURKISH, LEARN, READ, : *)

3liesh n3mlou dirasa turkiya bash ma3ndnash 3leqat bizef b-iletrak? Ou l-ouataniya moumila

Well, went to see it in Beirut. It was at Concorde, which usually gets the second pick of new movies coming into Lebanon (oddly, it was also where Brokeback Mountain showed). It was in the big theater (Cinema 1), but there were maybe 5-10 people tops watching (admittedly, on a Wednesday night a week after it opened). So it hasn't really made a big splash, you couldn't say.

Weird that so much of the dialogue was in English. Also, I thought it was effective how the Sheikh, who had been speaking formal fusha Arabic the whole time, suddenly came over all Sha'abi when he was in negotiating with the kidnappers.