Saturday, December 11, 2004
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Of Mice and MenSome pro-Turkey Italians have said in the recent past that if Turkey is not admitted it will be in danger of sliding into Islamic fundamentalism. Erdogan et al have refrained from criticizing those who are in favor of Turkey, but I think doing so with clarity in this case would have won him some character points in general. He should have said something like, "Fear-mongering by those who are opposed to Turkey should not be met with fear-mongering by those who are in favor." Too bad.
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The Old Hitler Argument
This is always the best way to win a lost cause. Woody Allen, in one of his older movies (Bananas?), put it pretty well when he said, "Why the hell should I be a leader? Hitler was a leader, you know." The AKP nowadays wants to implement the presidential two-party system used by the Americans; and it's trying to get it approved by parliament. What could have been a legitmate discussion began to morph into sheer stupidity as usual. The Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Ali Topuz accused Erdogan of power-grabbing. He called the law professor and Parliament Constitution Commission Chairman in favor of it "naive," and followed by saying: "Hitler came to power under such a system. It would be incompatible with the realities of Turkey." Well, a progessive democracy is probably incompatible with "the realities of Turkey" when you follow such a weighted phrase to its logical conclusion.
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Slowly but Surely
Yusuf Kanli:
"If Turkey wants to be in the EU, it has to realize that the Cyprus ship left to port long ago. A day will soon come when Turkey will have nothing left but to acknowledge the bitter reality that we have lost the Cyprus struggle, [and that we have to] abandon the Turkish Cypriot people and extend recognition to the Greek Cypriot state."
