Non-Reformist but Non-Cleric

No sure if this came on Chowkis` radar.

Emerging from Cyberspace, Chowk Publishes `Imagine`
http://www.pakistanlink.com/Community/2005/Aug05/26/07.HTM

C.

Re: # 52 urs
//Oh Lord! Help us free ourselves from the shackles of vassalage of these heartless criminals....Send us the Messiah who would pull us from this misery and humiliation...//

Lord will some day hear your prayers ..... But before that - would you first stop dancing in the streets every time the heartless criminals take over your country?? That will help a lot.

This is a thought provoking analysis. However, it makes me wonder how democracies in Turkey and Iran compare with Western equivalents. I am specifically referring to the role of opposition in Turkey and Iran. If we look at the bigger picture the oppostion in both of these countries is so positioned that it strives to dismantle the ruling ideology. In Turkey an Islamic opposition seeks to dismantle the Secular ideology that rules the country and in Iran a Secular opposition strives to dismental the Islamic ideology. There is no compromise in either case. The opposition and the ruling ideology are mutually exclusive in both cases. In comparison in Western democracies the opposition and the ruling party agree on the ideology and are not mutually exclusive. Whether they are Republicans and Democrats or Torries and Liberals they are just two sides of the same coin.

I think this difference has more to do with the Social Contract or the constitution and how they were designed and implemented in either countries than the differeing ideologies. A constitution is not a perfect document but it is a living document. It depends how the power sharing agreement was reached to formulate that document. In both Iran and Turkey opposition was kept absolutely out of the process of formulating the constitution with the power of gun. In both countries the existing constitutions were imposed by torture, intimidation and murder. This is an un-natural arrangement. A sort of fascism exists in both countries.

In comparison Pakistan did tremendously better in the formulation and evolution of its constitution of 1973. Now the only opposition that seeks to destroy it or corrupt it is the military - and it has done so not once but twice. But even with all the guns, tanks, missiles, and F-16s, which they have liberally used against their own people since 1950s, which have resulted in the tragedies like East pakistan, Baluchistan, Wanna, civil war in Karachi and Sindh, they never could dismantle it. The reason is that this constition was the solemn social contract that took place among the people of Pakistan without fear and intimidation. The opposition, the nationalists, the centralists, the federalists, the confederalists, the Islamists, the atheists, the fornicators, the child molesters, the modernists and the traditionalists, Muslims and non-Muslims all took an active participation in formulating it. It is the one biggest achievement of Pakistanis that pales every other example in Muslim world.

Unfortunately, this pride has been taken away from the Pakistani people by a corrupt military mafia. The propaganda machinery inculcates the idea in the minds of people, day in and day out that this constitution was not workable. But the fact remains as evident as the bright sun on a sunny day that whenever this constitution was violated by military, there was never a constitutional issue that forced it to do so. Today a Pakistani stands absolutely disenfranchised in the world. He is an object of ridicule in the community of world. His country has been stolen away from him by gun totting thugs and criminals. Pakistani was never inadequate or incompetent but the mean ugly men who bear nothing but contempt for a Pakistani had guns. Today we stand as a subjugated, conquered, humiliated, and disrespected nation. Because of the lawlessness of few the whole nation is considered corrupt, idiot, extremist, and inept.

Oh Lord! Help us free ourselves from the shackles of vassalage of these heartless criminals. Send us the Messiah who would pull us from this misery and humiliation.

#49 by Mantolives on August 31, 2005 1:36pm PT


Turkish Republic is just the form and it is completely secular thank god... but the evolution is of the people ... how a 99.6% Muslim nation has accepted secularism.


They`ve accepted secularism just like pakis have accepted that the war on terrorism involves bombing paki civilians on paki soil...they haven`t but are going along because they have no choice..

so don`t thank god....thank Colt, Lockheed Martin...and of course, thank uncle $am...

but you`re right in one thing..if more muslim countries(hint saudi and pakiland) were like Turkey, the world would be better off...

Ally:

``Although his AK party has Islamist roots Mr Erdogan insists that it is committed to secularism.``

We`ll see just how strong his committment is if, after the generals go away, his party still behaves secularly.

Hamidm,

Thanks for the compliment... needless to say.. coming from you it means a lot ... will definitely send this article to Ferguson.

Ijaz Gul,

Where did I suggest that the Turkish revolution was a form of Islamic political evolution? On the contrary I am suggesting if you look closely that the era of Republic in Iran is actually a political evolution which will ultimately- not any time soon- lead to secular democracy.

Turkish Republic is just the form and it is completely secular thank god... but the evolution is of the people ... how a 99.6% Muslim nation has accepted secularism... to hark back to Ranjit`s post... Ziya Gokalp`s contribution to Turkish revolution is well known and accepted..

-YLH

Fuzair #36: Turkish military folks are the wierdest I have ever come across. I haven`t met too many of them, but there are some who are regularly on long term military assignments in Pakistan, and vice-versa. There are actually Turkish F-16 pilot(s) flying in Pakistani squadrons. As well as other pilots.

The ones I ran into went out of their way to act American. More gora than the gora. Yet like the Pakistanis, who can`t pull this off, they were terrible at it, also. In fact, much worse. They did the whole routine - ridiculing Islam, drinking, stories of trips to USA, etc. But they had one problem: they could not speak English, well enough. So one would end up listening to this guy, who tried to act like he was from New York or Chicago, yet one couldn`t understand a word he said.

There was one Turkish flying instructor who thought all Pakistani procedures were useless. So he used to teach like he had learnt in Turkey. On top of this, none of the Pakistani students could understand anything he said in English. So they all disliked flying with the guy. He couldn`t keep a single student........

Having said that, he was probably the most experienced pilot in the squadron. And the Turkish air force does fly an impressive fleet of aircraft. Though I could never adjust to their fake Westernisms, however.......... It is interesting to see that they now have maulvis in power. While maulvis always struggle in Pakistan........

Iranis were the same. We had a huge batch of them training with us. Interestingly we had a huge batch of Iraqis training with us, also. They would get trained together in Pakistan, in the same place, play on the same soccer teams, and then go fight each other in the Iran-Iraq War!

These two were another group of indivduals who were quite useless. Unlike the Turks who were professionally sound but socially fake, these guys were both professionally useless and socially kind of fake, also. Iraqis far more than the Iranis (Iranis on the whole, on the civilian side, are quite ok). We used to call all of them, ``Baddoos.``

And I don`t even want to talk about the Libyans, who were there also.........

None of these guys could compete with the Pakistanis (the Turks could, at a professional level, but they had other issues). The only group that I was impressed with were the Sri Lankans. We had a few of them, and they went toe to toe with all of us Pakistanis....

So I am quite convinced that if Pakistan can ever get rid of the Benazirs, Nawaz Sharifs, Qazi Hussains and their chamchas, there is a lot of potential (if it cannot, then it`s screwed). I am not sure whether it makes sense to be looking at Turkey and Iran. We were quite a bit ahead of them in the 60s, and would have been way ahead had Bhutto not nationalized. A better country to look at would be Malaysia (or Korea or Canada) etc........

#44 by ijaz_gul on August 31, 2005 8:54am PT


The fact that Yasir too subscribes


YLH doesn`t subscribe to any theory...

The subtext of the jinnah worship and all his articles is simple : ``Please please can pakiland be like Turkey so my daddy can call himself a muslim``

Re: # 45
Shishapa,
Sorry! I don`t know Chinese. Apparently it is a Chinese word. :)

The name Turk was first used by the Chinese in the 6th cent. to designate a nomadic people who had established a large empire stretching from Mongolia to the Black Sea. This empire, which was divided into two independent parts, was forced to accept Chinese sovereignty in the 7th cent. The northern empire regained its independence in 682, and the oldest known Turkic inscriptions (see under Orkhon) are related to it. In succeeding centuries control of the area passed from the Oghuz Turks to the Uigurs and to the Kyrgyz, who were the last Turkic peoples to reside in Mongolia. They, like their predecessors, migrated to the south and west after they were expelled (924) by the Kitai. Other Turkic peoples, notably the Khazars, Cumans, and Pechenegs, played important roles in the medieval history of S Russia and SE Europe. The Turkish groups of the greatest import in the history of Europe and W Asia were, however, the Seljuks and the Osmanli or Ottoman Turks, both members of the Oghuz confederations. The Arab annexation of the area of ancient Sogdiana in the 7th cent. brought the Oghuz Turks into direct contact with the Abbasid caliphate and later with the Persian Empire. The Turks embraced the Sunni Muslim faith and began to migrate to the Middle East. At first they were used as mercenaries by the Abbasids, but soon the Turks became the actual rulers of the empire.``}

Salim

Re: # 43

Mannuji,

No, No, No, what I meant is does Turkiye or Toork has any meaning?
Like Sindhu means sea, Bhaarat was named after King Bharat, Pakistan means Pure Land.
Like that.

I agree that the US tanks are more into framing colored and biased theories to serve the establishment. Berlin airlift, Missile and Bomber gaps are theories that pushed the world into a Cold War in a quest for dominance. So is the paper on civilisations et al.

I dont think, The Turkish Republic by any empiricism can be compared to any form of Islamic political evolution. The fact that Yasir too subscribes that the two exist on the opposites belies the contradiction in his theory. Moreover, the Turk model has nothing to do with Sunni Islam. Exclusion of religion from every activity of the state is well pronounced and demonstrated in Turkey. Its a case of run away and run for.

As for the hardliners back in power, I feel that US hate has served to bring them back in.

Cheerios

Re: # 38

Shishapa,
Turkiye is Turkish for Turkey. :)
Pronounced toorkeeyay.

Turk is pronounced toork.
Salim

Re: # 33

Mohar,
That is an excellent question. The Turkish Army, even from the days of Ataturk, is there primarily to make sure that extremists don`t pull the nation into a civil war, as almost happened when the Sultanate was abolished.
Democracy is one thing, but when a party wants to win an election only to preclude any future ones, there has to be a watchdog. That is exactly what Pakistan needs - a watchdog. But one that is content with the bones it gets, and not the master`s steak!

Salim

Who`s in charge on Turkish team: coach or Islam?
As Turkey prepares to face Brazil Tuesday, a national debate swirls in the country over role of Islam on team.

By Nicholas Birch | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

ISTANBUL, TURKEY - Has Turkey, with its embattled economy and its bedridden prime minister, finally found a panacea in football? Judging by the scenes on Saturday following the Turkish team`s first-ever qualification for the World Cup semifinals – yes. In Ankara and Istanbul, sleep was nearly impossible as thousands of jubilant fans danced all night in the streets.

In packed bars, discussion mainly centered on Turkish striker Hakan Sukur`s dreadful form. But the papers have been full of a controversy characteristic of the tensions between Turkey`s secular elite and overwhelmingly Muslim population. Even football, it seems, is not enough to neutralize one of Turkey`s most perennial bugbears: the fear of political Islam.

In two articles in the popular daily Milliyet, sports columnist Tuncay Ozkan accused the Turkish team of ``suffering from the return of a disease that has plagued Turkish sport in general – the equation of professionalism with piety, prayer given precedence over skill.`` Turkey`s soccer players, he claims, have fallen into the hands of a tarikat, or Islamic sect, led by Hakan Sukur. In the absence of a team manager who can control them, it is Mr. Sukur`s group who decides who is sent home and who stays, who plays and who doesn`t. Ozkan even suggested that the team doesn`t pass the ball to players who don`t pray.

Reaction to the articles was immediate and harsh. Ozkan wrote to say that angry readers had denounced him as a heretic. Writing in the liberal newspaper Radikal last Tuesday, Ahmet Cakir was more temperate. ``The absurdity of this whole affair is that the only evidence produced for these claims is a group of players going to Friday prayers,`` he writes. ``Yet the whole issue is portrayed as if they were caught fornicating and engaged in all sorts of debauchery.``

For Rusen Cakir, journalist and author of several books on political Islam, this tendency to see all religious activity as fundamentalist is another kind of fundamentalism. ``The Brazilian players are religious too,`` he says. ``Does their press have discussions like this?`` Because of such debates, he says that ``the relationship between religion and society in Turkey is lived as a perpetual crisis.``

Following the rapid rise of the Islamic Refah Party in the 1980s and `90s, rumors of political Islam`s increasing influence on sport were taken seriously by Turkey`s secularist establishment and press.

``Islam`s first target was Turkey`s traditionally rural and religious wrestling team,`` says Hincal Uluc, soccer commentator for daily Sabah. The next was Galatasaray, Turkey`s most successful soccer club, of which Sukur was a member. ``Florya, the team`s headquarters, became an Islamic center,`` says Mr. Uluc. ``While players insisted they should be allowed to fast during Ramadan, the management argued they couldn`t, because it would affect their form.``

Then, as now, Sukur was the most controversial figure. His role in the ongoing controversy puts a spotlight on one of Turkey`s essential dilemmas: Although it`s often described as being the only Muslim country to have a secular constitution, there are many here who believe that its particular brand of secularism needs an overhaul. ``Turkish secularism is not, as is usually the case in Western Europe, a case of `a free church in a free state,` `` says Mustafa Erdogan, of the Association for Liberal Thinking. Religion here is emphatically in state hands.

Ultimately, the soccer tarikat dispute has its roots in the foundation of the republic in 1923. While the last sultans tried to hold their crumbling domains together by calling on Muslim unity, says Mr. Cakir, ``Republicans preferred other national values to gather Turks together.`` Islam came to be seen as an obstacle to modernization. The tarikats, with their influential networks of social solidarity, were seen as rivals of central authority and repressed, but never totally eradicated.

``Both sides of the divide have to stop looking at each other down the wrong end of their telescopes,`` says Cuneyt Ulsever, a columnist for Hurriyet.

#36 Fuzair

from the BBC website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1022222.stm

Prime minister: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Mr Erdogan, leader of the Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AK), became prime minister several months after his party`s landslide election victory in November 2002.

He had been barred from standing in those elections because of a previous criminal conviction for reading an Islamist poem at a political rally, an action deemed to amount to Islamist sedition and for which he served several months in jail.

In Turkey the prime minister must also be a member of parliament. AK deputy leader Abdullah Gul took on the premiership in the months following the elections, but with Mr Erdogan playing a prominent role, particularly in foreign visits.

Soon after the elections changes to the constitution paved the way for Mr Erdogan to run for parliament in a by-election. He was elected an MP in March 2003. Within days Mr Gul resigned, leaving the way clear for Mr Erdogan to become prime minister.

For many poor Turks, he is something of a working class hero although critics are dismissive of what they see as his populism. From a poor background, he worked as a street seller to help pay for an education. He attended Koranic school before studying economics at university.

As mayor of Istanbul in the mid 1990s he banned alcohol in official muncipal buildings and won popularity for improving services.

Although his AK party has Islamist roots Mr Erdogan insists that it is committed to secularism.

He has identified EU entry as a top priority and has introduced reforms designed to bring Turkey more closely into line with entry requirements. Mr Erdogan has predicted that Turkey could join in 2012 if these reforms are carried through.

He may have Islamic roots but he knows what is good for his country, Turkey is progressing its ppl know that, and they want progression not regression, they have seen what `Her zaman Islam Islam` (Islam Islam all the time) has done to other countries.

I think Turkey is one of the most secure in their Islam `Islamic` countries around, but thats best left for another day...