Interesting

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If you are interested in why I decided to come to Turkey, this article does an impressive job of outlining the reasons why I find modern Turkey so fascinating:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/world/europe/14turkey.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

It's especially interesting being at my university, because it is extremely political. Boğaziçi was the only university in the country that chose to break the law (which disbars headscarved women from entering University campuses) and allow women with headscarves onto campus, thanks to the former Dean's insistence that Boğaziçi was a place where people could feel free to express and be themselves. The school has a new Dean this year, however, and at the beginning of the semester there was a big controversy when, on the first day of class, women with headscarves were turned away. It was in Today's Zaman and other news outlets. The headscarved women staged protests by walking through the gates in large groups with their religious and non-religious friends so that the guards were unable to stop all of them. Posters were placed all around the school--"Because of my beliefs?," "Because of my thought?" Eventually a compromise was reached: headscarves were allowed as long as they were covered by hats (wtf, right?)--a practice that the guards have already let people get away without doing for weeks--and as long as everyone who entered wearing a headscarf signed a form declaring that they did not hold the University responsible for the consequences of their actions. No consequences have materialized, and headscarved girls are a common sight. Really strong secularists in Turkey really, genuinely think that allowing this is going to compromise the Republic and lead to it becoming an "Islamo-fascist" (bullshit term I hate using) state. It's very interesting talking about it to Eda and other Turks I know, who tend to be very secular--I have a very American idea of civil liberties, they have a more...Turkish one, are more willing to believe that they know what's better for these women than the women do themselves.

Very very interesting.

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Comments

[john doe]

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is the genocide going on in Iraq a consequence of this so called american idea of civil liberties? I would rather prefer the "Turkish one". At least they don`t massacre these women just because they are Muslims.

[Samuelhgarfield]

Could you please elaborate as to the definition of genocide which you are using? As far as I understand, it does not qualify under a strict legal definition--not that I'm much of one to take legal definitions as valuable on the face of it. I get tired of people who accept legality almost as a proxy for morality, which is a depressingly common phenomenon. Anyway, whatever is happening or has happened in Iraq, it is not very related to the American concept of civil liberties. I denounce the invasion and subsequent occupation as almost entirely immoral and corrupt. The people who have shaped policy in Iraq are not everyday Americans--who, I would contest, have a generally different outlook on the world from the policymaking elites--whose conception of civil liberties I referred to. What I meant in this context is that (everyday) Americans tend, at least more than individuals from other Western nations on average, to reject every aspect of "positive" freedoms, ie the idea that any ruling authority should take it upon itself to deem what is in the populace's truest and best interests, and to institute policies--even ones that limit individual freedom--for the cause of cultivating those interests. Americans tend to have a lot of faith in the public sphere, the public discourse and debate on the issues on the public agenda at any given time, to sort out what is the "right" course of action for a given society, without the intentional intervention of the state or any other authority. Regarding what has happened in Iraq, this is a more complex phenomenon than I am ready to take the time to outline at the moment. Regardless, do you think or know that women are killed in Iraq because they are Muslim on any large scale (by which I mean a scale that can be attributed to more than the whims of a single low-level individual acting on their own)? If so, do you have empirical evidence of this? How is this related to different conceptions of civil liberties, specifically related to religiosity?

[john doe]

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the people in Iraq, in general(not just the women), are killed just because they are Muslims. What is going on in Iraq is more of a psychological war than being a struggle to control the oil prices or having military bases though these are not unrelated as well. I don`t have empirical evidence to prove the civilians are killed in Iraq, you can google it, but I have empirical evidence that most Americans think that what they are fighting against in Iraq is nothing but Islam. That is the reason why the Americans voted for Bush the second time, because they approve this war on Islam. I know so many Americans who think that they should nuke the ME and kill all the Muslims, some will say this explicitly, some will not, but that`s what the majority of the people want, and I have never seen an American who got labeled as terrorist and jailed in the torture base of guantanamo because they want to nuke the ME. As I said this is a psychological war and the foremost purpose is to fulfill the sick fantasies of these people to kill as many Muslims as possible. as for the civil liberties, it`s funny how you consider, what your government is doing outside of the American soil, to be unrelated to the "American way". You think so because you think that the human rights exist only for Americans, and you think that if it`s done outside America, it`s fine. That`s why the Guantanamo jail is not in the States but Guantanamo,but what you don`t want to understand is both Guantanamo and Abu Guraib are as much American as any jail you have in America.

[Samuelhgarfield]

Please don't tell me what I believe personally. I find America's exceptionalism and inconsistency regarding human rights literally disgusting. What I meant is that, if the war in Iraq is a genocide, it is not consistent with the values of the average American, and that much of American policy, especially foreign policy, is related far more to the values and interests of the policymaking elite than the average American. While I think Americans are often misled or ignorant, they do not value genocide or killing muslims for the sake of muslims. Of course, there are people who do, but unless you show me some evidence beyond your limited personal experience that most Americans think that way, I cannot believe that most Americans think that way. They did not vote for George W. Bush so he would kill all the muslims, they voted for him because they were tricked into thinking the Al-Qaeda boogey man is waiting in the shadows to attack America, and because his proposed domestic policies and (more importantly) personal views were more consistent with the (particularly Evangelical Christian) moral values of a large number of them. Poll after poll showed these to be the decisive factors that elected George Bush again in 2004.