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Here are some responses to the stories about Turkey,
secularism and Che Guevara:
This Is Not That Simple,
By Altay Unaltay (Istanbul), the editor of Yarin
magazine:
M K Bhadrakumar’s vision <
http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Contributor69.htm
> has to be corrected.
Although the AKP is of Islamist origin in its very core, they had proclaimed
that they “gave up” Islamism. Prime Minister Erdogan and President Gul (both
from AKP, of Islamist origin) went so far that they've said, “Islam's ban on
usury is obsolete now, and interest is vital for the economy.” [Otherwise,
they’d have to ban Western banks – ISH]
AKP leaders often announce that they “are a liberal-conservative party, not an
Islamist one”, dedicated to Turkey's ties and alliances with the West.
In its second term elections of 2007, AKP got rid of its rebel Islamist MPs (who
voted against allowing the American troops to use Turkish territory for the Iraq
invasion), by not putting their names on the election list for a second term.
Now, what is the lawsuit against AKP? A very good question. I had a quarrel on
this point with a Kemalist friend, who participated in the “banner
demonstrations” in Turkey against the AKP rule before AKP's second term
elections. These demonstrators were mainly Kemalists, and they were worried that
AKP could “sell Turkey to the West, while Mustafa Kemal fought against the
West”! (This is important to understand, how complicated the Turkish case is!)
So who sells Turkey to the West? I would say: both parties! The Turkish voters
on both sides (the Kemalist left, and nationalist Kemalists vs. the
Islamic-conservative right) are very sceptic toward the West (both EU and US) -
(83% of Turks are anti-US in today's opinion polls:
http://nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17502 ), and so, the political
elites of both sides are forced to proclaim anti-westernism and independence in
their election campaigns and media releases. However, behind the closed doors
things are quite different!
http://nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17502
I replied to my Kemalist friend: “you say, the army is Kemalist and against the
AKP. Although I’m a democrat by soul, I would this time back a coup against the
AKP government; because AKP’s policies are rather pro-Western, and EU supports
AKP. So, such a coup would mean an independent move against policy of
dependence. But my friend, I know “like I know my name” (a Turkish idiom, means
“I know it for certain”), the army wouldn't do it. Why? Because no one is
independent in my country, both parties apply pro-Western policies! So, I don't
need to take sides in this fight as an independence-loving Turk.”
So why do they fight? They argue who will rule, and so who will be the business
partner of the West!
What made Erdogan and Gul, one-time Islamists, change so much? Not only they,
but a whole generation of politicians have changed! I don't have a clear answer
for this; all I can tell that the matter reminds of an old Chinese tale:
In old times there was a small village in a forgotten part of china. That
village had a big problem with a monster living in the neighboring mountains.
The monster was regularly coming and robbing the village, taking all the food
and material for livelihood. The peasants were very poor and desperate.
From time to time young heroes were appearing in the village, who took their
arms and went to kill the monster. No one came back.
One day a new young man said, he will go and kill the monster for sure. The
elders of the village tried to persuade him, that this was a suicide mission. No
one could do it, so better give up. He was such a good boy, he would, please,
save his own life, and not go there! But the young man was firmly decided.
He took his sword and bread, went to the mountains. After some search, he
discovered the monster's cave. Without hesitation, he went in with his sword in
hand. His eyes were adapted to the dark of the cave, when he heard the horrible
roar of the monster.
The young man fought bravely. He again and again inflicted with his sword deadly
wounds at the monster's body. The monster roared and roared until it was dead.
The young man proclaimed his victory and he happily started to examine the cave.
He discovered a huge treasury of looted gold, silver and jewellery; and he
discovered many bones, supposedly bones of the monster's victims. But something
was strange with these bones: they were too big, too big to be the bones of the
previously fallen comrades of our hero. Bones big enough to be other monsters’
bones, fought and eaten by this monster probably.
There he started to shake tremendously. He saw coarse and long hairs cover his
arms, he saw his hands turning into a monster's claws, he tried to scream; but a
monster's horrible roar came out of his throat. He himself became the monster!
so much for now from turkey; the fight goes on, but whoever wins, turns into a
monster.
best
Altay
From Come Carpentier, Delhi
Well said! Turkey may then experience the violence that has
affected Algeria since it refused to honour the results of the elections that
would have brought the FIS to power. When electoral processes are ignored, the
disenfranchied tend to resort to terrorism.
From: Djenane Kamil, Cairo
Dear Israel,
Computers do not agree with me, or maybe I am
just too old to learn it all, but I could not find another place to reply to
your mail. I apologise if writing to you directly is not done!
As usual, you wrote an excellent article, by
answering Mr. Hillel, and I am proud of you! Keep up the good work. I have a
question though, for in your response you spoke mostly of Judaism and
Christianity. Being a Muslim and living in an Egypt far different from the one
I grew up in, I am very concerned with the rising influence of religion. Too
many Egyptians are ignorant, and they will believe anything anyone wearing a
turban will tell them. That goes for the other Muslim countries, I fear.
Religion is fine, but interpreting it for your political and social benefits, or
as though we still lived in the seventh century, is definitely NOT fine.
Egyptians are, as everyone coming here attests, compassionate by nature, but
they could do with some more pride, and some more secularism!! Does secular
necessarily mean non-religious? I don't think so.
Again, I apologize for replying directly, and
address a big thank you to you, for this mail, as well as for all the ones you
sent before. Many regards!
Djenane Kamil, Cairo/Egypt
Shamir replied:
Dear Djenane,
it is perfectly ok to write to me this way or any other way.
I understand your position. The problem is that your feeling (a bit more
secularism, a bit less religion) is mainly (not exclusively) an attitude of
relatively wealthy and educated classes. We do not hear it from the
underprivileged ones. Let us be frank, it could be seen as an expression of
egoism. A man wants to have "less religion" when he wants to share less with
other less fortunate members of his community.
Poor people go back to Islam because the wealthy and educated
classes had moved to egoistic neo-liberal mode and undid socialism. The choice
is entirely yours and of other well-off Egyptians: express more solidarity with
your poor fellahin, share with them of your wealth and your knowledge, and their
immediate need for religious compensation will become less urgent. More
socialism and more equality - and you'll get less religious shackles.
In Europe, the church was undermined by the socialists
because they promised (and delivered) more wealth-sharing than the church. If
your Islamic zakat or the Christian tithes are like 10 pc, socialists fixed the
taxes at 40 pc. Afterwards the neo-liberals came in and eliminated the welfare
state done by the socialists, but the Europeans could not go back to Church they
deserted long time ago. For the Egyptians, not that long time passed from
Nasser’s reforms, and they still can go back to the Ulema of Azhar.
From John Spritzler
Re: secularism
Secularism is not the opposite of religion; it is the
religion of capitalism. Two people may each be an atheist, but one a
believer in the religion of capitalism and the other not. Their atheism is not
what defines them; their choice to worship the strange god of capitalism or not
is what defines them. Religions that have their origin in pre-capitalist
society, like Christianity, have aspects that are anti-capitalist or at least
non-capitalist, and these aspects provide people struggling against the
onslaught of capitalism a foundation of legitimacy for their struggle. Some
people use the old religions for this purpose. But others use the old religions
to control people for bad ends. The Neturei Karta orthodox Jews, for example,
use Judaism's Torah to oppose Zionism, while the orthodox settlers use Judaism
to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine. Anti-Zionist
atheists and anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews have more in common with each other than
with either secularist Zionist atheists or non-secularist Zionist orthodox Jews.
I therefore think that a discussion focused on "secularism versus religion"
entirely misses the important issue. --John
Re: Che Guevara
From Bradley Smith, Mexico
Che Guevara in Saigon
http://www.codoh.com/newsite/asevietnam.html
… It was a recent issue of Ramparts, the one with Che
Guevara’s portrait on the cover painted in flaming reds and he in a beret
looking rakish and heroic. It was the issue where Ramparts published Guevara’s
“Letter to the Bolivian People.”
The Letter to the Bolivian People recounted a feat of arms
Guevara had directed where his guerrilla group had ambushed a Bolivian army
patrol and bushwhacked four of its members. The letter was a sensitive apology
to the mothers of the four dead soldiers and an explanation of why it had been
necessary that he, Guevara, shoot their sons. It was a touching letter. There
was a certain generosity to it.
Guevara empathized with the pain and loss he understood the
four mothers were experiencing. He wrote that he had no personal grievance
against their sons and had shot them not as individuals but as representatives
of the Bolivian State under General Baronets. Guevara then spoke to all the
mothers of Bolivia, explaining that he would soon begin shooting their sons too,
and it was necessary for all Bolivian mothers to prepare to bear the pain he was
going to bring them in order to set them free.
Uncertainly at first, then with the growing understanding of
an avalanche, I saw that the revolution Guevara was making in Bolivia belonged
to him, not the mothers he was addressing. The mothers hadn’t asked him for it.
He hadn’t asked the mothers if they wanted it. Guevara wanted it himself however
and he was going to give it to the Bolivian mothers whether they wanted it or
not. He was ready to kill every mother’s son in Bolivia who got in his way.
That’s how dedicated Guevara was to his imagination. That’s where his revolution
began, in his imagination, and for him that would be the only place where it
could end. The people he had already killed and all those he planned to kill
when he could make the right arrangements for it would be dedicated to the
turnings of his imagination.
Inwardly I began arguing with him. Inwardly I shouted: “Why
don’t you start at the top you asshole? Why are you starting at the bottom
again? Why don’t you keep it among your own kind, you shit? Those who have a
passion to use others for their own ends? Eh? You don’t like the way Bolivia is
ruled,” I yelled inwardly? “Kill the ruler you fucking intellectual. What is it
about you people? You always kill the people the tyrant rules, never the tyrant?
Kill the generals, not the soldiers. Kill the politicos, not the citizens. When
will you ever understand?"
More at
http://www.codoh.com/newsite/asevietnam.html
From Ian Buckley
Six Che speeches in a zip file:
http://www.che-lives.com/home/downloads/speechesrm.zip
From Adib Kawar:
Che Guevara talking on ONU about the imperialism
1 min -
Che Guevara talking on ONU about the imperialism Che
Guevara em um discurso da ONU falando do Imperialismo e suas mazelas
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-7216403428777358118
 Watch
video here
The Che
and poetry
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=2338768254146072261
Recommendation:
Read this review by our friend Bill Bowles, who runs a site
www.creative-i.info
 Book Review: ‘Deer
Hunting With Jesus - Dispatches from America’s Class War’ By Joe Bageant
This book is a witty, insightful and sympathetic portrait of
a world most of us are only aware of through cliché or stereotype. Who are we
talking about? The so-called American Redneck. Talking about poor white, working
class America in the white-owned mass media is pretty well verboten. As far as
the MSM is concerned, only Blacks are poor in America, everyone else is middle
class. Well we know this isn’t true (or we should do) but to talk of many
millions of white working people living on the breadline (or below) might
disturb the calm waters the so-called liberal intelligentsia swim in. Yet, as
Bageant points out,
“… slightly over half of all poor people in the United States
are white. Poor whites outnumber all minorities combined. Black poverty consumes
a larger percentage of black society, to be sure. But that does not negate the
fact that there are at least 19 million poor and working class whites and their
numbers are growing.”
‘Dear Hunting With Jesus’ goes where few dare to tread, into
the heartland of white, working class USA and we’re talking here about 1/3rd of
the US population, almost seventy-five million people, that’s a heck of a lot of
rosy necks.
Read on
http://www.creative-i.info/?p=263
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