Siria, Turchia, l'Occidente "two faced" (EN - IT)

Syria, Turkey, The West & Two Faced Politicians

As we all know the civil war of Syria started some 4-5 years ago. Western countries announced that President Assad was a dictator and he must go! Yes he is a dictator, he always was and so was his father.

So, what happened all the sudden to make the west take action against him?

I think it might have a complicated answer, but it is somewhat related to the natural sources like oil and gas. In the beginning the west (including Turkey) supported "freedom fighters" with weaponry and fuelled the civil war. In a middle eastern country like Syria, it is inevitable that weapons fell into wrong hands in no time. Now we have a new terrorist group called ISIS (originally sponsored by us, the West).

We became aware about Turkey's contribution in January 2014 when Turkish police stopped a few lorries that were going to Syria. When they carried out the search they found a lot of weapons being transported by the undercover Turkish National Intelligence Agency staff. The public prosecutor and the policemen were immediately dismissed (later arrested for treason), and the lorries and the Intelligence Agents were released. Government tried to cover up the incident but they did not succeed. I think there is no way for Turkey to act in this manner without approval from its western allies especially the US.

Turkey and the west are now paying heavy prize for this unlawful support mainly in the form of millions of refugees coming through but also with the act of terrorism in our countries.

I am a true believer that no terrorist organisation can survive without support from a country, and as every country needs an enemy to justify their spending on weapons it may make sense for countries to create those organisations. Whether it is ISIS, Al-Qaeda or PKK all are supported by some countries for some reason. That's why when I listen to politicians talking about terrorism, I do not believe any of the words they are saying.

Having said all these, I would like to say couple of things on the recent Paris attacks. It is hard to see innocent lives being lost in any ruthless act. Even though I like the fact people supporting the French in these difficult times, I think this support became too exaggerated. This incident is part of everyday life in the middle east and these blood thirsty people are the reason for the current refugee crisis. I am one of those that were disappointed by the double standard shown by Facebook, Western states and some people living on those states. When there was a bomb attack in Beirut only 24 hours before Paris or in Ankara about a month earlier, there was almost no reaction from European States, the public or companies like Facebook.

To me the pain I feel for the lost lives does not depend on the victims' identities. While these dirty games are being played in international arena, we - ordinary citizens - can do nothing but #PrayForHumanity

Yurdakul Celebi

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Siria, Turchia, l'Occidente e i politici a due facce

Come tutti sappiamo, la guerra civile siriana è iniziata circa 4-5 anni fa. I paesi occidentali annunciavano che il presidente Assad era un dittatore e che era necessario intervenire! 

Sì, è vero: lui è un dittatore, lo è sempre stato e così era suo padre. Allora, che cosa ha causato l'improvvisa azione dell'occidente contro di lui? La risposta potrebbe essere complessa, ma è in qualche modo collegata alle risorse naturali come petrolio e gas.

In principio i paesi occidentali (compresa la Turchia) hanno sostenuto i cosiddetti ""freedom fighters" con le armi, alimentando la guerra civile. In un paese mediorientale come la Siria, è inevitabile che le armi cadano nelle mani sbagliate in pochissimo tempo. Oggi abbiamo un nuovo gruppo terroristico chiamato ISIS (originariamente sponsorizzato da noi, dall'Occidente).

Siamo venuti a conoscenza del contributo della Turchia nel gennaio 2014, quando la polizia turca ha fermato un paio di camion che andavano in Siria. Effettuati i controlli sono state trovate molte armi trasportate dal personale (sotto copertura) della National Intelligence Agency turca. Il pubblico ministero e i poliziotti sono stati subito licenziati (poi arrestati per tradimento), mentre gli autocarri e gli agenti dei servizi segreti sono stati rilasciati. Il Governo ha cercato di insabbiare l'incidente, ma non ci è riuscito. Penso che non sarebbe stato possibile, per la Turchia, agire in questo modo senza l'approvazione da parte dei suoi alleati occidentali, in particolare gli Stati Uniti.

La Turchia e l'Occidente stanno ora pagando il pesante scotto per questo sostegno illegale, e lo pagano principalmente sotto forma di milioni di profughi che raggiungono l'Europa, ma anche con gli atti terroristici nei nostri paesi.

Credo fortemente che nessuna organizzazione terroristica possa sopravvivere senza il sostegno di un paese, e come ogni paese ha bisogno di un nemico per giustificare la propria spesa per le armi può essere utile per i paesi a creare quelle organizzazioni. Che si tratti di ISIS, Al Qaeda o PKK tutti sono supportati da alcuni paesi per qualche motivo. Ecco perché quando ascolto i politici parlare di terrorismo, non credo a nessuna delle loro parole

Detto tutto questo, vorrei dire alcune cose sui recenti attacchi di Parigi. È difficile assistere alla fine di vite innocenti sotto qualsiasi atto spietato. Anche se apprezzo gli atti di solidarietà verso i francesi in questi tempi così difficili, penso che questo sostegno sia diventato troppo esagerata: questo genere di episodi fa parte della vita di tutti i giorni in Medio Oriente e queste persone assetate di sangue sono la causa della corrente crisi dei rifugiati.

Io sono uno di quelli che sono stati delusi dal doppio standard mostrata da Facebook, gli stati occidentali e alcune persone che vivono in quegli stati. Quando c'era un attentato a Beirut, solo 24 ore prima di Parigi o ad Ankara, circa un mese prima, non c'era quasi nessuna reazione da Stati europei, da parte del pubblico o di soggetti come Facebook.

Per me il dolore che provo per le vite perdute non dipende identità delle vittime.

Mentre questi sporchi giochi vengono giocati in campo internazionale, noi - cittadini comuni - non possiamo fare altro che #PrayForHumanity.

Yurdakul Celebi

Yurdakul Celebi is Turkish. He has been living in the UK for 14 years and currently living and working in London as a Software Test Analyst.

Turkey: one parliament for four parties

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Turkey had a really interesting general election which ended 13 year Ak Party majority government. After this election there will be 4 party represented in the parliament.

AKP (Justice and Development Party) was founded 13 years ago by giving hope to the oppressed people and promising advance democracy, political stability and fair economy, they promised to fight against corruption, poverty and prohibitions. They have delivered some of their promises and won 3 consecutive elections and increased their vote every time. However, as they increased their power in politics, they have become less tolerant to people who do not agree with their policies. As a result, 2 years ago many street protests erupted in the streets of Istanbul and the country. The police state they have created pressured secular people of Turkey. During their rule many journalists were jailed too. In December 2013, a corruption operation carried out by the police uncovered a lot of wrongdoings by 4 ministers as well as the prime minister of the time, Mr Erdogan. $ Ministers had to resign but AKP blocked any trial on the Constitutional Court. AKP accused a Muslim cleric for creating "parallel state" in the police force and justice departments and carrying out this false accusations. After short time, all arrested in the operations (including cabinet ministers' sons) were released and the policemen and public prosecutors who uncovered the corruption were put in jail instead. In August 2014, AKP leader Mr Erdogan was elected as the president by securing 52% of the votes, and former foreign minister replaced him as the new leader.

However, even though according to the Constitution president should be impartial, Mr Erdogan has constantly interfered with the party politics and acted as president, prime minister and the AKP leader. In the last election campaign he organised election rallies on the state budget and actively asked people to vote for AKP. During his campaign he targeted HDP (People's Democratic Party) in particular and he wanted that party to fail getting enough votes to pass election threshold (10%). (This threshold was put in place by the military rule in 1980s and it is the highest threshold in the world.) Mr Erdogan thinks that president does not have enough powers and the parliamentary system should be changed to presidential system and most decisions should be made by the president. On a separate note, president Erdogan had himself a 1150 room very luxury presidential palace built and many people thought it was a big waste of public money while many people suffer with their low incomes. As a result of corruption cover up, luxury life style, unlawful arrests and the discriminatory language used by AKP and the president, people of Turkey withdrew their support to AKP but they remain as the largest political.

The big winner of this election was HDP! (People's Democratic Party) They had a huge hurdle (the threshold) to come over. They have run very active, positive and peaceful campaign. Their manifesto was one of the most democratic manifestos I have ever seen. They tried to reach out to non-Kurdish people and show them their party is not a Kurdish party but Turkey's party. They selected half of their candidates from women. Their party structure is also different from the rest as they have 2 equal leaders a woman and a man. They also had many candidates from different ethnic groups. They claim that they would like to remain part of the country as equal citizens. They say peace is possible within the politics. They kicked off their campaign by addressing Mr Erdogan and telling him "We will not make you the president!", and this statement got them a lot of "lent" votes from CHP (Republican People's Party). Even though many people in Turkey were (and still are) sceptical about HDP because of their ties with Kurdish terrorist organisation PKK, they managed to increase their vote from 6.5% to 13%. They will have 80 MPs in the parliament, including 31 women. I believe they now have a great task of delivering their promises of being everyone's party, helping establish peace and stopping Erdogan becoming president, of course!

Here are some interesting and good facts about this election result and campaign:

1- Opinion Representation in the parliament: 95%

2- Women representation in the parliament: 96 MPs (18%) highest ever!

3- Participation in Election: 85%

4- Collapsed anti democratic threshold.

5- HDP as the party of Turkey's nations and Kurdish representation the parliament.

6- HDP's peaceful messages to everyone.

And the worst thing to see during this campaign was that the division and hatred between different groups of people. I believe this is the result of 13 yearlong AKP ruling and the
irresponsible language they have been using.

Finally here are some information links for the 4 main political parties in Turkey:

1- AKP (Justice and Development Party) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_and_Development_Party_%28Turkey%29 2- CHP (Republican People's Party) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_People%27s_Party_%28Turkey%29 3- MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalist_Movement_Party 4- HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples%27_Democratic_Party_%28Turkey%29

Yurdakul Celebi is Turkish. He has been living in the UK for 14 years and currently living and working in London as a Software Test Analyst.

Turchia, mi si è bloccata la democrazia

Che la comunicazione - soprattutto se virale, velocissima come quella dei social media - faccia paura ai governi che hanno qualcosa da nascondere, non è una novità. Sempre nuova però è la rabbia, anche a chilometri di distanza e conto terzi, per questa grave violazione di libertà. È avvenuto ieri notte, in Turchia. Poco dopo la mezzanotte il governo ha bloccato Twitter, proibendone l'accesso. La mossa era stata minacciata poche ore prima (leggi l'articolo Reuters). 
Sale la tensione, in vista delle elezioni amministrative del 30 marzo, appuntamento rischioso per il partito di Erdogan, dopo il pesante scandalo sulla corruzione e la tensione accumulata a partire dai fatti di Gezi Park. I rumors - ancora da confermare - parlano anche di un ulteriore scandalo che coinvolgerebbe personalmente Erdogan, che pare avrebbe usufruito del Nikāḥ al-Mutʿah, una sorta di matrimonio breve, a termine, per una relazione sessuale. 
Ecco che scatta, allora, la stretta sui media. La ragione? Duplice. Da una parte si tratta di un tentativo (destinato al fallimento) di depotenziare la circolazione massiccia delle notizie - in arrivo in queste ore - su alcuni sviluppi sull'inchiesta per corruzione che ha coinvolto esponenti governativi. Dall'altra, l'obiettivo è quello di alzare la tensione, scatenando nuove proteste e nuovi scontri. Già, perché così Erdogan può, come è avvenuto in passato, presentarsi come tutore dell'ordine contro i cosiddetti "terroristi", in realtà manifestanti ordinari. Guadagnando, ebbene sì, in consensi. Questo il gioco pericoloso del primo ministro turco. E per questo molti, anche dall'opposizione, invitano i cittadini a non scendere in piazza. A non cadere nella trappola.

(Grazie a Yurda, che mi fornisce sempre tante informazioni

- Thanks to Yurda, my turkish friend always providing me with a lot of informations).

Intanto la rete si scatena in una ironia iconografica molto amara: 

Leggi anche:

Berkin

Goodbye, internet freedom
Democratic Emergency in Turkey
Update from Turkey
Gezipark Philarmonic

Berkin

Dopo nove mesi di coma, è morto oggi - martedì 12 marzo - Berkin Elvan. 
Giovanissimo, 15 anni, era stato colpito alla testa da una granata durante gli scontri a Gezi Park, nel giugno 2013. Da allora era diventato il simbolo della lotta contro la spietata repressione del governo Erdogan. 


Read also:
Goodbye, internet freedom
Democratic Emergency in Turkey
Update from Turkey
Gezipark Philarmonic

Goodbye, internet freedom

Turkish police use tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters demonstrating against Internet censorship.

The draft bill, which would enable mass surveillance of internet users, is due to be debated in Turkey's parliament in the coming days.

___

Lacrimogeni e cannoni d'acqua: la polizia turca disperde i manifestanti, in piazza contro la censura della rete.

Il provvedimento - che prevede una sorveglianza sull'utilizzo del web - sarà all'esame del parlamento turco nei prossimi giorni.





Read also:

Democratic Emergency in Turkey
Update from Turkey
Gezipark Philarmonic

Gezipark Philharmonic

Member of many Turkish Orchestras and freelance musicians giving a concert in Gezi Park. 

I publish once again some notes from a Turkish friend of mine, Yurdakul Celebi.

There are many politicians in Turkey who have common sense including President Gul. They have been trying to calm things down. However, they cannot do much because, Mr Erdogan is the absolute leader of his party and the country.

The issue is Mr Erdogan's attitude. He acts like he does not want to calm things down. He has been avoiding to give a simple apology to those who have suffered from the police's treatment. He still insists on demolishing the park. He still accuses protesters as marginals and terrorists. So, nothing changes on his side. It looks like he did not get the message from people at all.

Since the police has withdrawn, Taksim square has become a festival place. A lot of people gather there, they sing together, act together, read together, pray together, share their food with each other.


I must say, I have never seen Taksim this peaceful.

We will see what happens next...

Regards,

Yurdakul