Regnum, Russia
Oct 8 2005
Relations with Turkish Cyprus to become a headache for Azerbaijan
Read it in Russian
As Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs,
said, creating relations with Northern Cyprus will lead to
prolongation of Azerbaijani connection to `Neighborhood Policy’ of
the European Union. `EU recognizes only the independence of Republic
of Cyprus. And this country express protests against creation of
flight routes between Azerbaijan and North Cyprus, as well as other
relations between Baku and Lefkosha’, said Benita Ferrero-Waldner, as
`Svoboda’ radio station reports.
In her speech in Committee for Foreign Affairs in the European
Parliament in Brussels, Benita Ferrero-Waldner said she had informed
Azerbaijan, that if the country would not change its position, EU
would ally only with Armenia and Georgia. `We hope that Azerbaijan
will settle this problem, but it will take several weeks’, she said.
In his turn, head of MFA Information Department of Azerbaijan Tair
Tagizade said, that he had received no official information about
European cooperation under program `Neighborhood Policy.’
`Azerbaijan is ready to take steps towards the assigned plan. But
plane flights are a commercial initiative, it has nothing to do with
foreign policy of the state,’ said Tair Tagizade.

Zaman, Turkey
Oct 8 2005
‘Secret Services Used Asala Terror as Cover’
By Ercan Gun
Published: Friday, October 07, 2005
zaman.com
It was claimed that some Turkish diplomats assassinated by the
Armenian terror organization, ASALA, were victimized due to the fight
among “secret services”.
In his last book, author Aydogan Vatandas handled the background of
the dark and secret ASALA acts. The book claims that there was a
relation between the assassinations of Turkish diplomats Bora
Suelkan, Ismail Erez and Galip Balkar.
According to the book, these assassinations were the outcomes of
spying activities during the post Cold War period. Vatandas started
his study from an official evaluation paper, which was discussed by
military sources years before it turned into a book. He worked on it
meticulously for ten years. The study will be the cover page of
Aksiyon magazine.
The book reveals how Abdullah Catli and idealist groups were
incorporated in the operations, as it highlights a new point about
the assassination of Bora Suelkan who was the administrative civil
servant in the Burgaz Embassy of Bulgaria. Vatandas divides attacks
towards Turkish diplomats as “Asala acts and Acts Committed under
ASALA’s name” and he claims that Suelkan was killed because he looked
like Mehmet Eymur.”
Eymur was an intelligence officer in Burgaz at the time. His mission
was to follow the Russian and Bulgarian activities in Bulgaria. In
the book, He leaks into the mafia there.
After a while, he understands there is the Russian Intelligence
Service (KGB) behind the pope’s assassination. Eymur makes an
interesting detection. Russians try to leak into Turkey and start a
nationalist movement via the mafia. According to Eymur, Russians try
to bring the idealists face to face with the security officials by
making provocative actions. After Eymur conveyed his analyses to the
National Intelligence Service (MIT) headquarters, trouble starts to
develop and his neighbor Suelkan, who looked like him is killed. It
claims that there is a link between Suelkan’s assassination and that
of Galip Balkar, Turkey’s ambassador to Belgrade on 9 March 1983 by
two terrorists.

RIA Novosti, Russia
Oct 7 2005
Moscow mayor praises cooperation with Armenian capital
16:25 | 07/ 10/ 2005

YEREVAN, October 7 (RIA Novosti, Gamlet Matevosyan) – Moscow Mayor
Yuri Luzhkov said Friday that the program of cooperation between
Moscow and the Armenian capital of Yerevan is one of the largest and
most successful among similar programs with other Eurasian cities.
“We discussed the implementation of the program with Yerevan Mayor
Ervand Zakaryan and concluded that it has been successful so far,”
Luzhkov said at the opening of the Days of Moscow’s Culture in
Yerevan. “We have been closely following its progress and we are
planning to expand it.”
Moscow and Yerevan signed a medium-term agreement in December 2004 on
cooperation between 2005 and 2007, specifying the construction of a
Moscow House in Yerevan and a Yerevan House in Moscow, as well as a
range of bilateral investment projects.

Spiked, UK
Oct 7 2005
Turkish discontent
The EU debate is both anti-Turkish and anti-European.

by Bruno Waterfield
In today’s European Union (EU) the question of what it is to be a
European cannot be taken for granted. One fault line is the question
of Turkey’s EU membership. Large majorities of Europeans are opposed:
over 80 per cent in Austria, over 70 per cent in France and at least
55 per cent in Germany. Are these Europeans simply racists or
Christian bigots? Or is this discontent a skirmish in a culture war
over what makes, and who defines, a European?

Proponents of Turkish membership argue that the EU is not strictly
defined by borders or geography. Instead of shared territory, claims
EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, the question is one of shared
values. ‘I am often asked where Europe’s ultimate borders lie. My
answer is that the map of Europe is defined in the min’, he said
early this year. ‘Geography sets the frame, but fundamentally it is
values that make the borders of Europe. Enlargement is a matter of
extending the zone of European values.’ But what values, and who
defines and enforces them?

Turkey isn’t joining a freewheeling, Enlightenment project of
progressives. By signing-up, Turkey is committing to an ongoing
intensive, intrusive reform process. The nameless EU officials
overseeing the ‘chapters’, the bureaucratic targets that Turkey must
make the grade on to join, will recentre the country’s political life
around the rules-based system that is the embodiment of Rehn’s
‘values’. Turkey – like the countries that went before it – will be
required to embrace sweeping reform, change that will not come from
below but from above, imposed by administrators.

This is bureaucratic decision-making by committees of EU and national
officials: governance without government, perpetual administration
and political process without any of the interruptions of democratic
accountability. Sadly, joining the EU’s bureaucratic network is as
appealing to Turkey’s elite as it is to the rest of Europe’s
political classes. Turkey’s rulers have long run scared of argument
and change driven by the majority of Turks. The criminal offence of
‘openly denigrating the Turkish identity’ is an indication of a
ruling class as frail in its self-belief as the EU elites who today
outlaw free speech for Muslim clerics.

What will change with Turkey’s EU membership will be the
administrative mechanisms. As Europeans know too well, the EU’s
tick-box world of human rights rules is no guarantor of freedom.
Becoming ‘European’ for Turkey will mean embracing a EU world where
everything is tolerated – except intolerance. Turkey will lose the
old authoritarian taboos, such as prohibition on discussion of the
role of the military or the Armenian genocide – but these will be
replaced by the new taboos of modern Western society.

A burgeoning bureaucracy of unelected administrators and officials
will step into the military’s shoes. Turks will soon be able to talk
about the Armenian genocide – no more prosecutions for famous writers
like Orthan Pamuk. In fact, recognition of the historical event is
set to be a compulsory requirement for Turkey’s EU membership, and EU
hate crime laws can no doubt be cited to ensure compliance. Europe’s
culture wars will spill over into Turkey, as Turks are asked to
abandon the past and embrace EU codes of conduct.

Decades ago, NATO members in Europe overlooked Turkey’s military
dictatorships and human rights abuses with the aim of cementing a
Cold War alliance against the Soviet Union. Today, all EU member
governments – even Austria – see Turkey as a bridge between East and
West. And in these post-11 September, 11 March or 7 July days, Turkey
is regarded as a crucial bulwark against terrorism. Cultural
difference and the prospect of a ‘clash of civilisations’ is regarded
as a clear and present danger.

‘Turkey can be a bridge between Europe and the Islamic world. The
world of the twenty-first century is not doomed to a clash of
civilisations, but can be built on dialogue, cooperation and
integration’, Rehn wrote in December 2004. The premise of this view
is that Turkey must join or there will be more terrorism. This scare
story is typically EU in terms of seeking to mobilise irrational
fear. The entirely negative content of such arguments is both
anti-European and anti-Turkish, in the sense of appealing to backward
prejudices rather than a common humanity. This argument can only fuel
mistrust between Europeans and Turks, who are stripped of a proud
secular history to become Muslims.

During grumpy debates last week, European Parliament Socialist leader
Martin Schulz attacked Hans-Gert Poettering after the Christian
Democrat criticised EU ‘double standards’ that ruled Turkey in but
ruled out (at that time) Croatia. ‘Everyone shut their eyes on the
human rights issue in Turkey while Croatia was to be refused the
start of negotiations because a single general – one who was plainly
not even in Croatia – had not yet been delivered up to the Hague war
crimes tribunal’, he said. Schulz retorted that: ‘You don’t want to
have Turkey because it is Islamic and far away. Croatia is closer and
is Catholic. That is the truth of your message. Let us not beat about
the bush. We must apply the same standards to all countries.’

Many Europeans are turned off by EU elites setting down new rules
of life and politics

Schulz may well have a point here about Poettering. But religious
bigotry does not explain why such huge majorities, in France for
example, are against Turkey’s EU entry. In fact, a Marshall Fund
opinion survey last month showed that 59 per cent of Europeans do not
think Turkey’s ‘Muslim’ status is a reason against EU membership. The
religion issue, upholding a Christian Europe in opposition to the
Islamic East, in the style of the 1683 Siege of Vienna, is irrelevant
to most Europeans. Most Europeans are secular and turned off from the
Catholic Church or organised Christianity. In fact, it is the EU
elites who bring up religion as an argument, to avoid a ‘clash of
civilisations’, and to tutor Europeans (as well as Turks) in the joys
of ‘inter-cultural dialogue’.

By 2008, Turkey will be moiled in membership negotiations and the EU
will be entering a ‘European year of intercultural dialogue’. The
premise of the therapeutic theme is the inability of Europeans, and
Turks, to deal with the modern world. Launching the event this week,
EU culture commissioner Jan Figel explained that Europe’s citizens
were just not up to it. ‘Over the past few years, Europe has seen
major changes resulting from successive enlargements of the EU,
greater mobility in the single market, and increased travel to and
trade with the rest of the world’, he said. ‘This has resulted in
interaction between Europeans and the different cultures, languages,
ethnic groups and religions on the continent and elsewhere. Dialogue
between cultures would therefore appear to be an essential tool in
forging closer links both between European peoples themselves and
between their respective cultures.’

Commission documents claim the ‘real challenge is to move from a
“multicultural” society to an “inter-cultural” one’. But the message
is clear: the problem is interaction between Europeans. ‘It is
essential to ensure that [the] diversity [of an enlarged EU] becomes
a source of richness rather than a source of confrontation… the
peoples of the EU are increasingly made up of a mosaic of cultures,
languages, traditions, origins and religions. The social fabric of
the EU is threatened by rampant racism and xenophobia…. One is afraid
of what one does not know. In this context, it is essential to
promote dialogue between religious and ethnic communities’, states a
Brussels work document.

For Europe’s elites and bureaucrats, those who are opposed to Turkish
entry are mired in backward-looking national or religious communities
that must be ditched in today’s globalised world. Turks and Europeans
who exhibit reservations about the EU will be enlisted in the
‘intercultural’ game. ‘We should get to know Turkey better and Turkey
should… get to know European values better. The commission is
preparing proposals on how we can promote the dialogue, bringing
people together from EU member states and Turkey’, Rehn said
recently. This shows the isolated bureaucratic process that estranges
EU elites from Europeans.

Opposition to Turkish EU membership in Austria, France, Germany and
elsewhere is far wider than isolated groups of racists or chauvinist
rumps. Many Europeans are turned off by EU elites setting down new
rules of life and politics.

EU ideologues Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens are sniffy about what
they see as ‘an emotional return to the apparent safe haven of the
nation’. In the new world of globalisation, they argue, nations are
enhanced by international networks. ‘Let us start to think of the EU
not as an ‘unfinished nation’ or an ‘incomplete federal state’, but
instead as a new type of cosmopolitan project’, they wrote in the UK
Guardian on 4 October. But the ‘cosmopolitanism’ of Beck or Giddens,
or the EU elite, is empty. Cosmopolitanism cannot be built on nothing
more than isolated bureaucratic castes. Elites that themselves share
little more than their contempt for Europeans.

The idea of ‘intercultural dialogue’, which fears the interaction of
Europeans new and old, shows up elites’ pseudo-cosmopolitanism. All
the EU elites actually share are the prejudiced assumptions of a
minority pitted against the majority – and only those who sign up to
this debased worldview may join the club. The real dynamic behind the
row over EU membership is nothing to with Turkey or Europe as such,
but is the issue of how European identities should be ordered.
Europeans should oppose all attempts to bureaucratically impose the
dead ‘cosmopolitanism’ of the EU elites.

Bruno Waterfield is editor of the Brussels-based website Eupolitix
and Parliament magazine.

IcelandReview, Iceland
Oct 7 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
Iceland and Lebanon…Together at Last

Last night over dinner, I finally convinced a couple of friends to
sign on to a shamelessly geeky scheme called, for lack of something
more creative, Country of the Month. The idea sprung from a
conversation about the Russian Revolution – or watching BBC food. Not
sure. Either way, something made me think it was high time to do
something about the gaping holes in my understanding of world
history. The rough idea is to take a country and study its food,
literature, art, and history for a month with a few friends. (I’m
getting embarrassed, so I’m not going to go on.) Needless to say, it
was not met with much initial enthusiasm.
Iceland and Lebanon – I’m getting there. Last night, my plan gained
legitimacy when we chose two countries: Turkey and Armenia. Given
that Turkey will likely be one of the next countries to be welcomed
into the ever growing fold of the EU, the neighbors were a natural
choice. Let the Turkish coffee flow.
Meanwhile, Iceland remains unconvinced. And, as it turns out, so does
Lebanon. Lebanon has recently been wooed by the EU, which has pledged
its support for the small nation’s recent political and economic
reforms along with 10 million Euros. Much like Turkey, Lebanon is
probably seen as gateway into the Muslim world for Western countries,
including the United States.
But like Iceland, Lebanon is not jumping up and down to join. So this
week, academics from the two countries met at a university in Beirut
to talk about what a small nation on the edge of a growing political
alliance is to do. The difference, as Lebanon’s Daily Star points
out, is that Iceland has economic reasons for not joining, while
Lebabnon is divided on whether it thinks of itself as part of the
European world, or part of the Arab one.
Anyway, interesting to see a how growing political force forms
alliances between smaller ones. Maybe Lebanon should be next on my
list.
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Huffington Post, NY
Oct 7 2005
Salman Rushdie: Inside the Mind of Jihadists (3 comments )

It goes on and on. Bali was hit last week by suicide bombers. George
Bush upped the ante once again in “the global war on terror” with his
October 6 speech. The New York subway is on a high terror alert. What
is going on in the minds of the jihadists? What is the best way to
challenge the “Islamo-fascists?” I recently spoke to Salman Rushdie,
author of “The Satanic Verses” and, most recently, “Shalimar the
Clown”, about these issues:
Nathan Gardels: It happened again last week in Bali, this time with
suicide bombers. Before this there was London, Madrid and 9/11. There
was the murder Theo Van Gogh on the street in Amsterdam and the
brutal beheading of Danny Pearl in Karachi. In your newest novel,
“Shalimar the Clown,” you’ve imagined what is inside the minds of
jihadists. Is there a common motivation for these different acts. Is
it the “absolutism of the pure” striking out against the hybrid
impurities of cosmopolitan culture, as you’ve often written?
Salman Rushdie: In their minds at least, it is not a very theoretical
or intellectual thing except for a few at the top of these terror
networks.
The most essential characteristic of the person who commits terror of
this kind is the idea of dishonored manhood. I try to show this in my
novel. The character Shalimar picks up the gun not just because his
heart gets broken, but because his pride and honor get broken by
losing the woman he loves to a worldly man of greater consequence and
power. Somehow he has to rebuild his sense of manliness. That is what
leads him down the path to slashing an American ambassador’s throat.
Living in the West, where there is no “honor culture,” it is easy to
underestimate its power.
Judeo-Christian culture has to do with guilt and redemption. In
Eastern cultures, with no concept of original sin, the idea of
redemption from it doesn’t make sense. Instead, the moral poles of
the culture have to do with honor and shame.
The idea of dishonor, of some kind of real or perceived humiliation,
can drive people to desperate acts.
Interestingly, in researching Shalimar, one of the things I
discovered was a kind of bizarre class differential between the
warriors and the suicide bombers. Strapping on a suicide belt is
looked down upon by some who think it is more manly to kill face to
face with a knife. Fighting is manly. Suicide bombing is cheap.
Those drawn into the act of suicide are malleable personalities.
Hezbollah, for example, has developed a quite detailed psychological
profile of the kind of person who can be persuaded to be a suicide
bomber. You have to be a weak personality to be a suicide bomber. You
have to accept the abnegation of the self. If your father or sister
needs a medical operation, the handlers will say, “You do this, and
we’ll take care of that.” There are a whole range of appeals, few of
which have to do with ideology.
Gardels: Certainly, though, what drives the jihadist movement is the
perception of collective humiliation and dishonor of Islamic culture
at the hands of the West. As V.S. Naipaul has written, they blame
their failure on the success of another civilization.
Rushdie: The birth of Islamic radicalism is relatively new. Fifty
years ago, during decolonization and the early post-colonial days,
Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt or the (National Liberation) Front in
Algeria, for example, were completely non-religious phenomena. Some
movements were led by Marxists. The cause was national liberation
from imperialism.
In time, leaders of many of those movements turned into corrupt fat
cats, and the Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, could
present themselves as the clean, virtuous alternative to secularism.
That gave them a big rhetorical advantage. The nationalists often
used the language of the Islamists, though they didn’t mean it,
because it offered a legitimizing rhetoric for the decolonizing
period. However, by giving away their own tongues, they laid the
groundwork for those who came behind them, who really did mean what
they said. That is how Islamist radicalism grew.
But it grew differently in different places. In Iran, Khomeini was,
in effect, a creation of the Shah because the Shah had killed all the
other political voices. It wasn’t like that in Kashmir. The presence
of the Indian army for so long created a great deal of general
unhappiness, the fertile soil from which radicalism could spring,
even though it was alien to the Kashmiri spirit. Then, when the
jihadists starting coming in from Pakistan, they targeted moderate
Muslim voices because they wanted a polarized situation. The
Kashmiris themselves were squeezed between two forces, neither for
which they had much affinity for.
There is a tendency to look at the jihadist movement as a monolith
globally. The only really global idea they have is this laughable
fantasy of “the return of the Caliphate.” Inevitably they are
disappointed that this doesn’t happen, and thus there is more
resentment.
The whole phenomenon is much more comprehensible when you look at
local sources. Suicide bombing in the Middle East is not the same as
suicide bombing in London.
Gardels: The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy argues that,
despite the considerable diversion of Iraq, the center of Islamic
radicalism is moving east to Asia, where most Muslims live. He argues
that “Kashmir is the new Palestine.” Do you agree?
Rushdie: He says this because he is concerned about Pakistan. What he
is right about is that, behind General Musharraf, there is the
possibility of a really terrible situation where radical Islamists
get control of nuclear weapons. If that happens, it would dwarf any
other problem in the world. If Musharraf is assassinated and some
radical from the Pakistani intelligence services take over, then you
essentially have the Taliban with the bomb.
Gardels: After the London bombings, Iqbal Sacranie, the head of the
Muslim Council of Britain, condemned the acts of “our children” and
said they presented a “profound challenge” to local Muslims. Yet he
also had professed sympathy for the fatwa against you, saying “Death
is perhaps too easy” for the author of “The Satanic Verses.” Isn’t
that double standard precisely what created the space for the
children of the Muslim community in Europe to commit acts of
terrorism in their own homeland?
Rushdie: Yes. I think so. (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair is
making a real mistake believing that these ultra-conservative,
ultra-orthodox, non-modernizing – non-terrorist, to be fair – voices
like Sacranie are in some way representative of British Muslims. You
don’t fight radical conservatism with not-quite-so radical
conservatism. Blair has put Sacranie’s main deputy, who is on record
denying the Holocaust, on some committee supposedly fighting Islamic
radicalism!
These are not the people to get in bed with. Unfortunately, Blair’s
own faith-based instincts lead him toward other people of faith as
being the solution.
One problem is that there is no truly representative institution for
British Muslims. Most Muslims in England are not ghettoized, or
particularly Muslim. They deal with their faith in a much lighter
way. They are citizens first and Muslims second or maybe seventeenth.
The conventional wisdom of Blair’s government seems to be that
everyone is a Muslim first and must be dealt with on that basis.
The question is how you persuade this majority to organize. Given the
demonization about what I’m supposed to be, I’m certainly the wrong
person for this job. But still, the job needs to be done. At least I
can talk about it.
Gardels: Tariq Ramadan, the controversial Geneva-based scholar who is
a leading voice of European Muslims, says something similar. He says
the problem is the narrow teaching of the Koran by imams in the
closed communities of big European cities who are trained in the Arab
world. They tell alienated youth they should be ashamed of not being
good Muslims because they are contaminated by the “un-Islamic
environment” in which they live.
Yet, most Muslims, he argues, are engaged in a “‘silent revolution’
led substantially by women, who have committed themselves to
democracy, freedom of conscience and worship and diversity. They are
both citizens of the West and look to Islam for their meaning in
life. This silent revolution is the real enemy of the London bombers
because it refuses to accept the ‘us vs. them’ worldview.”
Do you agree?
Rushdie: Oddly, because it comes form Tariq Ramadan, I more or less
agree with that. The central issue here is interpretation, or
itjihad. Conservative Muslims say that only Islamic scholars, ulema,
can interpret the Koran. The religious power elite thus maintains
control because theirs is the only interpretation that is acceptable.
And because they have a literalist reading of the Koran, they never
question first principles. It is from this kind of interpretive
process that so many atrocities are committed, like the one in India
recently where a woman was told she had to leave her husband because
she was “unclean” after being raped by her father-in-law!
One of the reasons my name is Rushdie is that my father was an
admirer of Ibn Rush’d, the 12th century Arab philosopher known as
Averroes in the West. In his time, he was making the non-literalist
case for interpreting the Koran.
One argument of his with which I’ve also had sympathy is this: In the
Judeo-Christian idea, God created man in his own image and,
therefore, they share some characteristics. By contrast, the Koran
says God has no human characteristics. It would be demeaning God to
say that. We are merely human. He is God.
Ibn Rush’d and others in his time argued that language, too, is a
human characteristic. Therefore it is improper – in Koranic terms –
to argue that God speaks Arabic or any other language. That God would
speak at all would mean he has a mouth and human form. So, Ibn Rush’d
said, if God doesn’t use human language, then the writing down of the
Koran, as received in the human mind from the Angel Gabriel, is
itself an act of interpretation. The original text is itself an act
of interpretation. If that is so, then further interpretation of the
Koran according to historical context, rather than literally, is
quite legitimate.
In the 12th century, this argument was defeated. It needs to raised
again in the 21st century. The sad thing, as I discovered in my
research for “The Satanic Verses” and other books, is that so much
scholarship was already done on the Koran in past centuries,
including on the dating of verses and the order they are placed. When
you read the Koran as a writer, you immediately notice places where
the subject changes radically in the middle of a verse and then picks
up several passages later. Obviously, in this “sacred” text, an
editor’s hand was at work.
Today, in a lot of the Muslim world, such historical study is
prohibited. That is why the place to start today is with a new
Islamic scholarship.
I have called for an Islamic Reformation, but that may give the wrong
connotation because of Martin Luther’s puritanical cast.
Enlightenment might be a better term. The point is, Islam has to
change. The dead hand of literalism is what is giving power to the
conservatives and the radicals. If you want to take that away from
them, you must start with the issue of interpretation and insist that
all ideas, even sacred ones, must adapt to new realities.
All other major religions have gone through this process of
questioning, but remain standing. An Islamic questioning might well
undermine the radicals, but it won’t undermine Islam.
Gardels: From where will the impulse of this Islamic enlightenment
come? >From the “silent revolution” of Western Muslims? From Asia?
Problematically, the “dead hand of literalism” reigns most severely
in the Arab world, the cradle of Islam.
Rushdie: It is very improbable that it would come from the
Arab-speaking world. It is more likely to come form the diaspora
where Muslims in the West or India have lived with secularism.
Muslims are well integrated in India, having long known the
secularism to which they adhere protects them and their faith from
the dictatorship of the Hindu majority.
In Europe, integration has been held up as a bad word by
multiculturalists, but I don’t see any necessary conflict. After all,
we don’t want to create countries of little apartheids. No
enlightenment will come from multicultural appeasement. This is very
evident today in Holland, for example. Contrast that with the French
model of secular integration. The headscarf controversy of a year ago
is now a non-issue because a broad agreement emerged there across the
spectrum that secularism is the best for everyone – from Muslims to
Le Pen.
Gardels: Those who favor Turkey’s accession to the European Union
argue it is critical for bridging the gap with Muslim civilization.
But Muslim leaders like (former Malaysian prime minister) Mohamad
Mahathir say Turkey cannot be a model for the Muslim world precisely
because it is committed to European secularism. What would it mean
for better West-Muslim relations if Turkey joined Europe?
Rushdie: Not much. It is a mistake to make it such a big symbol.
Turkish secularism also seems a little rocky right now, though still
holding. But they have big problems they haven’t begun to address,
starting with a penal code that is used against writers and
publishers – some 14 or 15 who are up for trial right now. Orhan
Pamuk, the novelist, has been charged for merely saying there is
something to the Ottoman massacre of Armenians. The power of the
Islamists is still far too great.
So, skepticism is warranted about Turkey in Europe. If Turkey wants
to join Europe, it will have to become a European country, and that
might take a long time.

Varsity, Canada (The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper)
Oct 7 2005
The Persian pleasure principle
Incoming U of T human rights professor Michael Ignatieff needs to put
down his romance novels and focus on the injustices in modern-day
Iran, argues Samira Mohyeddin
“What the historian says will, however careful he may be to use
purely descriptive language, sooner or later convey his attitude.
Detachment is itself a moral position. The use of neutral language
(‘Himmler caused many persons to be asphyxiated’) conveys its own
ethical tone.” -Isaiah Berlin, “Introduction” to Four Essays on
Liberty (1969).
Michael Ignatieff-Canadian author, journalist, and director of the
Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government-was recently invited to Iran by an Iranian NGO known as
the Cultural Research Bureau to lecture on human rights and
democracy. On July 17, 2005, Ignatieff wrote a lengthy editorial
about his experiences in Iran, entitled “Iranian Lessons,” for the
New York Times Magazine.
Ignatieff notes early on that, due to the recent victory of noted
hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Iranian presidential elections,
the speaker had to alter his planned lecture. Instead of asking,
“What do democracy and human rights mean in an Islamic society?”,
Ignatieff asked, “Can democracy and human rights make any headway at
all in a society deeply divided between the rich and the poor,
included and excluded, educated and uneducated?”
Initially, one thinks that Ignatieff is speaking to the necessity of
equating socio-economic rights with universal human rights, a project
that Canadian Louise Arbour-currently the United Nations’ High
Commissioner for Human Rights-is advocating and developing.
Ignatieff, however, does not speak to the constituents whom he
attempts so poorly to champion. Instead, he chooses to give voice to
the enfranchised upper echelons of Tehran’s society.
Although his article begins in southern Tehran, with a detailed
description of a walled cemetery dedicated to those who senselessly
perished in the first Gulf War, Ignatieff does not address the
concerns of the more than forty per cent of Tehran’s population who
live below the poverty line in the city’s south end.
Why would Ignatieff choose to not have a single conversation with
anyone in southern Tehran? After all, it was this exact constituency
that brought a divisive figure like Ahmadinejad to power in response
to promises of practical aid. The same constituency that made Michael
Ignatieff alter the topic of his lecture. Other than an overblown and
prosaic description of the walled cemetery, complete with Persian
poetry and tea-drinking mourners, Ignatieff does not offer much
insight about the population and its challenges, and leaves southern
Tehran to its impoverished mourning.
Referring to something that he coins as “Persian pleasure,” Ignatieff
paints a charming picture of present-day Isfahan, a UNESCO heritage
city in central Iran: “I spent a night wandering along the
exquisitely lighted vaulted bridges, watching men, not necessarily
gay, strolling hand in hand, singing to each other, and dancing
beneath the arches….I came away from a night in Isfahan believing
that Persian pleasure, in the long run, would outlast Shiite
Puritanism.” Never bothering to define what “Persian pleasure” is,
Ignatieff disregards Iran’s multicultural, multilingual, and
multi-ethnic reality, and instead chooses to paint a little miniature
of boys and men frolicking with one another-but who are not
necessarily gay-and just leaves it there.
Ignatieff also trivializes women’s issues by making repeated
references to women’s dress, make-up, and hair. Yet, Ignatieff fails
to mention that the covering of women’s hair, however miniscule an
issue it may seem these days, is mandatory for women in Iran, and
failure to do so carries the penalty of 102 lashes.
After lamenting the fact that “young Iranians are so hostile to
clerical rule,” Ignatieff goes on to make an audacious suggestion to
the female students that he speaks to in the university, telling them
not to reject Sharia law outright but to “reform Sharia from within.”
Irrespective of Ignatieff’s deluded prescription, what was heartening
was the answer that those female students gave to Ignatieff’s
suggestion: “You are too nice to Sharia law. It must be abolished. It
cannot be changed.”
Early on in the article, Ignatieff describes how he came upon the
scene of a small student-led demonstration regarding the elections in
Iran and was witness to a secret police officer attempting to abduct
one of the students and push him into the back of an unmarked
vehicle. Ignatieff goes on to describe how some of the demonstrators
came to the aid of the student by punching and kicking the officer.
Ignatieff’s next assertion regarding what he had just seen is quite
puzzling and disappointing.
Referring to the student-who had managed to wrangle himself
free-Ignatieff posits, “In a more genuinely fearful police state, he
would have gone quietly.” Is he suggesting that Iran is not a police
state? Although Ignatieff does recognize that the Iranian government
does not give much credence to the concept of human rights, he fails
to offer any critical assessment of the situation of human rights in
Iran.
This convenient disregard for the facts is unfortunately not
restricted to Ignatieff alone. In 1985 the United States Congress
tried to pass a resolution officially recognizing the massacre of
more than a million Armenians, specifically referring to the
“genocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923.” Sixty-nine
historians sent a letter to Congress disputing this resolution,
writing, “As for the charge of ‘genocide,’ no signatory of this
statement wishes to minimize the scope of Armenian suffering. We are
likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the
suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region….But
much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to
sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent, and
to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or
removal of large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population,
Christian and Muslim alike.”
One of the 69 historians was well known Orientalist and Islamic
scholar, Bernard Lewis. Although the New York Times reported in 1915
that Armenian and Greek Christians were “being systemically uprooted
from their homes en masse…and given the choice between immediate
acceptance of Islam or death by the sword or starvation” (“Turks are
Evicting Native Christians,” New York Times, July 11, 1915), Lewis
declared in a 1993 interview with Le Monde magazine in France that
what happened should not be considered genocide. In a second
interview a few months later, he referred to “an Armenian betrayal”
in the “context of a struggle, no doubt unequal, but for material
stakes….There is no serious proof of a plan of the Ottoman
government aimed at the extermination of the Armenian nation.”
Although Lewis is not a human rights or genocide scholar, he is a
historian and, like Ignatieff, who purports to be a human rights
champion extraordinaire, he has a certain responsibility. I am not
suggesting that Ignatieff’s self-induced myopia regarding the abysmal
human rights record of the Islamic Republic of Iran is on par with
genocide denial. I am arguing, however, that we all make choices.
Lewis made a choice during the Le Monde interview when he referred to
the genocide of the Armenians as “their version of history.”
Ignatieff also makes a choice when he praises Iran on “the
achievements of the revolution,” and continually fetishizes Persian
culture throughout his article.
On July 19, 2005, two days after Ignatieff’s piece was published,
Amnesty International reported that two youths, both under the age of
18, were executed in the Iranian province of Mashad for reportedly
having sexual relations with one another and sexually assaulting a
13-year-old boy. Prior to their execution, both were given 228 lashes
for theft, consuming alcohol, and disturbing the peace. Unlike
Ignatieff’s idyllic miniature of late-night Isfahan, these boys are
“necessarily gay,” and were hung for being so, in true medieval
fashion.
This is where his dreamy and congenial romance with Persian pleasure
falls apart. Ignatieff’s self-induced myopia regarding the
socio-political situation of Iranians, particularly the young, is the
specific reason why his article on Iran reads more like the account
of a political-economist-turned-harlequin-romance-writer than that of
a human rights scholar.
85/news/2005/10/06/Feature/The-Persian.Pleasure.Pr inciple-1012725.shtml

Financial Times, UK
Oct 7 2005
Court sentences Turkish editor for insulting the state
By Vincent Boland in Ankara
Published: October 7 2005 16:35 | Last updated: October 7 2005 16:35
A Turkish court yesterday sentenced the editor of an
Armenian-language newspaper in Istanbul to six months in prison after
finding him guilty of insulting the state in a series of articles he
published last year.

The sentence was announced three days after Turkey began accession
negotiations to join the European Union. Olli Rehn, the EU’s
enlargement commissioner, said earlier this week that Turkey had to
work hard to improve its human rights record.
The court found Hrant Dink, editor of the bilingual Turkish- and
Armenian-language weekly Agos, guilty of `insulting and weakening
Turkish identity in the media’.
The sentence was suspended, so he will not have to serve time in jail
unless he repeats the offence. Mr Dink, who is a Turkish citizen and
who denied the charge, said he would appeal to a higher court and, if
necessary, to the European Court of Human Rights.
Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most acclaimed novelist, faces a similar charge
in a case due to come to court in December. He has criticised
Turkey’s stance on the mass killings of Armenians 90 years ago, and
faces up to three years in prison if he is convicted. The Armenian
diaspora claims this was an act of genocide, which Turkey denies.
Mr Dink said his articles argued that the Armenians had allowed the
genocide claim to `poison the blood’, and that he had not insulted or
denigrated Turkey in any way. The court, however, said Mr Dink
`intended to be insulting and offensive’ to Turkey.
It has long been a criminal offence in Turkey to slander the state or
to argue publicly against the official position on certain matters of
political or historical sensitivity. Armenia is one; other areas
that have attracted official opprobrium include discussion of
Turkey’s role in Cyprus or the position of the Kurdish minority in
Turkish society.
Revisions to Turkey’s penal code, made at the request of the EU, are
in theory supposed to have reduced the gravity of the offence of
insulting the state, although they have not abolished it. Some
prosecutors, acting independently of the government, still seek to
pursue these cases in deference to nationalist opinion.

Turkish Press
Oct 7 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
Press Review
CUMHURIYET
EP DELEGATION: `WILL THE `GENOCIDE’ BE RECOGNIZED?’
Members of the European Parliament Human Rights Subcommittee led by
Helene Flautre yesterday paid a visit to the Turkish Parliament.
During the meeting, delegation members called on Ankara to recognize
the Armenian genocide claims and consider the issue of education in
Kurdish. Polish members of the delegation noted that Poland had to
acknowledge its part in the Jewish holocaust and asked when Turkey
would face up to its own history. Afterwards, Ozlem Cercioglu of the
Republican People’s Party (CHP) said, `There were losses on both
sides during the war. Although Turkey has opened up all of its
archives, Armenia still refuses to open theirs.’ /Cumhuriyet/

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) 630 Second
Avenue, New York, NY 10016Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of
Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 60; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: {}
October 6, 2005
ACYOA HOSTS PAN NORTH AMERICAN RETREAT AT ARARAT CENTER
Even in today’s fast-paced, iPod-Xbox-TiVo culture, the ancient
rhythms of the Armenian Church still have a place and value.
“Baptism: Finding Modern Meaning in Ancient Rites” was the theme of
the first Pan North American Youth Retreat organized by the Armenian
Church Youth Organization of America (ACYOA) on September 23 to 25,
2005.
“This retreat was a very enriching experience that went deep into
the rituals and meaning of baptism and how it is a true blessing,”
said Angelraven Tevan, 20, a parishioner at the St. James Church of
Watertown, MA. “Learning how to appreciate the importance of baptism
is so important.”
The weekend brought together 50 young people from the Eastern,
Western, and Canadian dioceses for lecture presentations, worship,
small group Bible study, creative self-expression, and interactive
sessions. The weekend activities ended appropriately enough with the
Divine Liturgy, celebrated by Fr. Bedros Kadehjian.
“For me, the retreat was the epitome of all that encompasses both
the spiritual and social aspects of the ACYO,” said Gregory
Kalayjian, 31, a participant from the Canadian Diocese. “The only
negative comment I have is that this spiritual journey had to come to
an end.”
The ACYOA Central Council hosted the weekend at the Eastern
Diocese’s Ararat Center in upstate New York after leaders met last
year at the request of the three North American primates —
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, and Bishop
Bagrat Galstanyan.
The three Diocesan leaders wanted young people to get together in
order to discuss common concerns and challenges related to youth
involvement in the church. Each primate made a financial pledge to
make this unique retreat affordable to the participants.
“While we may have some geographical differences, hearing the same
viewpoints and priorities directly from our brothers and sisters from
the West Coast and Canada only further motivated us, as the Central
Council, to continue in our common mission,” said Maria Derderian,
ACYOA Central Council Chair. “It was an exciting gathering and could
have only taken place with the support — both moral and financial —
of our respective primates. We are very grateful for their
leadership.”
Next year’s retreat will be hosted by the ACYO of the Western
Diocese at their campgrounds in California. A joint Habitat for
Humanity trip to Armenia is also being explored by organizers.
“There are many similarities and differences between our three
regions, and we need to bridge the gap to take advantage of what we
all have to offer,” said Johnny El Chemmas, a member of the ACYOA
Central Council of the Eastern Diocese. “We have much to learn and
gain from each other,”
Leading presentations and discussions at this year’s inaugural
gathering were clergy and Diocesan staff including: Fr. Stepanos
Doudoukjian, pastor of the St. Peter Church of Watervliet, NY, and
director of vocations and youth for St. Nersess Seminary; Fr. Aren
Jebejian, pastor of the St. Gregory Church of Chicago, IL; Fr. Bedros
Kadehjian, interim mission parish coordinator for the Diocese; Nancy
Basmajian, ACYOA executive secretary; Jason Demerjian, college
ministry facilitator for the Eastern Diocese; Jennifer Morris, the
Eastern Diocese’s youth outreach coordinator; and Daron Bolat, an
intern with the Eastern Diocese’s Department of Youth and Education.
This was the first such program involving youth from all three North
American cioceses since
1989 when the Western Diocese hosted a joint retreat with the
Eastern Diocese in Las Vegas.
“The ACYO members feel at home in the Armenian Church. Many are
driven by a passionate concern and care to reach out to other young
people who are lost sheep, while many feel a strong desire to serve
the church,”
Fr. Doudoukjian said. “I encouraged all those young men and women to
think and pray about a life in the church, either as a priest, deacon,
lay leader, or youth leader, and to consider attending St. Nersess to
study as a seminarian. My prayer is that these same young people will
be our priests and leaders to advance the faithful of our Armenian
Church well into the 21st century.”
For many of the participants, the theological discussions were just
a part of the weekend, which was highlighted by getting to know other
young Armenians from across the continent who share the same
commitment to the Armenian faith.
“It was so wonderful to get connected with our Western and Canadian
counterparts, and to know that we are all together working towards
the same goal to: bring Armenian youth into a stronger relationship
with Christ for a better future for our Armenian Church,” said Talar
Topjian, an ACYOA member form the St. Mary Church of Washington, DC.
— 10/6/05
E-mail photos available on request. Photos also viewable in the News
and Events section of the Eastern Diocese’s website,
{}.
PHOTO CAPTION (1): At the first Pan North American Youth Retreat, 50
young people from the Eastern, Western, and Canadian Dioceses gathered
at the Eastern Diocese’s Ararat Center.
PHOTO CAPTION (2): Young participants in the Pan North American
Youth Retreat discuss the Armenian faith and its connection to modern
life at the Eastern Diocese’s Ararat Center.
PHOTO CAPTION (3): Participants in the Pan North American Youth
Retreat, which ran from September 23 to 25, 2005, took part in a
series of workshops, discussions, and services. Here they are
renouncing Satan, which is done at the beginning of a Baptismal
service.
PHOTO CAPTION (4): From left, Fr. Stepanos Doudoukjian, Fr. Aren
Jebejian, and Fr. Bedros Kadehjian anoint the foreheads of
participants during a discussion on baptism during the Pan North
American Youth Retreat, organized by the ACYOA, which ran from
September 23 to 25, 2005, at the Eastern Diocese’s Ararat Center.
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