The Circumcision Debate – To snip or not to snip?

An intriguing debate is raging in Germany after a district court in the Rhineland city of Cologne (Köln) ruled in May that a doctor who performed a circumcision operation on a four-year-old boy, had committed an assault, despite the fact that the mother had given her consent. The court went on to acquit the doctor on the grounds that the legal situation vis-a-vis circumcision is somewhat unclear. Nevertheless, a local event escalated into an international storm involving German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli President Shimon Peres and other high-level political leaders, with implications reaching far beyond the narrow boundaries of the original case. Most Jews and Muslims see circumcision as an important cultural rite of passage for their male offspring. With respect to Jews, Germany has a fair swag of historical guilt to live down, without aggravating matters by seeming to renew discrimination. Muslims are a significant and growing minority in the population, with Turks forming the largest group (four to five percent).

Political leaders like Merkel have a difficult row to hoe in Western Europe these days with the rise of popular fears focusing on immigration from poorer countries, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, public perception that their own culture and traditions are under threat, coupled with deteriorating economic conditions in the European Union. Voter interest in extreme right-wing parties appears to be growing at the same time as minority groups are expressing frustration with what they perceive as local resentment and intolerance.

Prejudice undoubtedly exists, fuelled by the usual problems associated with an influx of immigrants from different cultural backgrounds. The situation is, of course, not clear-cut. Far right politicians are playing to a significant sector of public opinion. A majority of Germans apparently favour a ban on the practice of circumcision for religious purposes. Their government rarely permits dual citizenship for immigrants from outside the EU. The Swiss have imposed a ban on the construction of minarets on mosques. At the same time, Muslims, Turks especially, are playing increasingly high-profile roles in their adopted homes – French, German and Swiss national football teams, for example, are happy to welcome players with Islamic roots.

In addition, the circumcision issue is further complicated by questions relating to the rights of children. When two apparently inalienable human rights conflict, resolution is not easy to find. In this case, we have the right of a group to continue a religious or cultural practice, versus the right of a child to retain its God-given bodily integrity without suffering physical harm. Drafting a law which will satisfy proponents of both positions is the problem currently facing German legislators.

But of course, it’s not just a German problem. On the microcosmic level, one of the most important decisions facing parents-to-be in many Western countries is what to do about the little chap’s foreskin, should they happen to produce a boy-child. Surgical removal is not common in European countries, but widely carried out in the USA – though statistics show a decline since the 1970s. In Jewish and Islamic communities, there’s not much to discuss. Societal pressure makes the decision, and the prepuce comes off.

The Circumcision of Christ

How does it come off? Well, in Jewish circles, I gather, there is a trained person (mohel) who stretches the foreskin of the eight-day-old baby and quickly slices off as much as he can without damaging the rest of the little fellow’s procreative equipment. Islamic tradition prefers waiting until the boy is older – somewhere between seven and ten years of age, and the method is similar. These days, there is a tendency towards hospital circumcision at birth, or performing the operation in a clinic with anaesthetic if done when the lad is older. In Western countries, the preference is for circumcising within a few days of birth, and involves a lengthier operation with more surgical tools. Generally, anaesthetic is used, but most sources I read suggest that parents should request this, because some doctors don’t bother.

It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? Obvious questions arise here, in particular: why would you cut off a normal part of a healthy baby’s (or child’s, or man’s) anatomy? Especially in such a sensitive area of the body, crucial for the survival of the species. Where did the practice originate?

Well, it seems the origins of circumcision are lost in the mists of time, but most authorities agree that the earliest recorded foreskin removal ceremonies were conducted by the ancient Egyptians. Interestingly, the operation often seems to have been associated with some kind of religious ritual or initiation rite, and to have been fairly public. Egyptian paintings show grown men undergoing the procedure, and as far as can be surmised, the purpose was a test of manhood, demonstrating one’s ability to endure pain. OK, that’s one reason, then – and perhaps, in a primitive warrior society, there is a case to be made for such tests. However, there must be more to it than that, to have justified the continuation of circumcision down to the present day.

As far as Jews are concerned, the practice goes back to Father Abraham’s covenant with God, way back when. God pretty much promised Abraham the Earth, but for his side of the bargain, Abraham had to have his foreskin removed – harsh treatment for a 99-year-old guy! Anyway, you can find it all there (the story, not the foreskin), in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, Chapter 17, Verses 10-14: ‘he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you’, your own kids, relatives, servants, slaves, the lot; ‘and the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people.’

The Islamic position is a little less clear, since there is, apparently, no instruction about it in the Quran. However, Muslims tend to accept most of the Old Testament teachings, and certainly regard Abraham as a Prophet of God, so by and large they go along with it. From a societal point of view, such practices tend to forge a sense of belonging to a group, and also serve to distinguish members from non-members, so again, you can see the rationale. By extension, that probably explains a reason sometimes put forward by modern-day parents: all the other male members of the family had their male members trimmed, and we don’t want the little fellow feeling that there’s something wrong with him. Islamic scholars, however, seem to be of the opinion that conversion to the faith does not absolutely require surgical modification of the male sex organ.

Anyway, let’s move on to consider other justifications offered in more recent times for the continued practice, especially in the absence of religious or long-standing cultural tradition. Towards the end of the 19^th century, a time when sex had acquired something of a negative reputation, particularly in Britain and the United States, members of the medical profession were recommending circumcision as a cure for ‘masturbatory insanity’. Individuals so cured, it was said, would be healthier, live longer and be more energetic and productive. Interestingly, proponents of this argument also favoured female circumcision (clitoridectomy) for much the same reasons. As an example of this line of thinking, I have to share this quotation with you. The speaker is Dr John Harvey Kellogg (of Corn Flakes fame), who considered his commercial breakfast cereal effective in preventing masturbation. In addition:

"Covering the organs with a cage has been practiced with entire success. A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision . . . The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”

I have an early memory of being bathed by my mother – I must have been around three years old – and I guess I was experimentally examining my little doodle. ‘Don’t touch it,’ warned my mum, and she told me the cautionary tale of a young lad in the neighbourhood who played with his appendage and it had to be cut off. The lesson was effective, at least for a while, and it was some years before I summoned the courage for further experimentation. In mum’s favour, I have to thank her that she refrained from having me punitively circumcised – though perhaps my father must share the gratitude, since he had also retained his manhood intact.

Hygiene is often cited as a reason for male circumcision, and there is some evidence that infections can occur in uncircumcised males. There is also a condition known as phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin over the head of the penis) which is sometimes treated by circumcision. Some doctors argue that urinary tract infections occur less in circumcised babies, and also that there is a reduced risk of penile cancer in later life. Perhaps the most powerful argument in favour of circumcision these days is the claim that removal of the foreskin reduces the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV, at least in countries where the rate of infection is high – so for many proponents, no further justification is necessary.

If you are the prospective parent of a new boy child, clearly there is no shortage of arguments in favour of having the little man’s foreskin removed. What about the other side of the debate? Undoubtedly there are many uncircumcised grown men in the world leading relatively normal, well-adjusted, productive lives, as yet untouched by AIDS or cancer of the penis.  What of them? Are they just lucky, or is there a case to be made for leaving your male child whole and uncut? In my roamings on the internet, I came across the website of an organisation calling itself the Circumcision Resource Center, and I really recommend you to take a look. One of the first things I noticed on their home page was the claim that most of their directors are Jewish. Another item that caught my eye was a quotation on the banner by Michael de Montaigne: “Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.”

Well, let me say loudly and clearly that I am not going to go criticising anyone’s religion or strongly held cultural beliefs. Biblical scholars and historians of ancient Israel apparently harbour doubts about the historical validity of events and personages featuring in the Book of Genesis but if Abraham’s covenant with God is important for you, then nothing much remains to be said. That will be the crucial factor in determining your parental responsibilities in this matter.

I don’t know how much pain tolerance remains an unspoken but important element in some people’s view of a child’s passage to manhood. Call me a wimp, but I freely admit that I would not willingly submit to the removal of any part of my anatomy, let alone in that nether region, without a very convincing life-or-death medical argument, and certainly not without serious pain relief. However, in defence of my virility, I would like to offer the words of my childhood dentist, in the days when teeth were excavated by slowly spinning drills, sometimes even treadle-powered, without the benefit of local anaesthetic. Through mists of pain and watering eyes, I recall his gruff Scottish voice remarking, “Well, laddie, those Germans widnae hae got much out o’ you!” I understood he was comparing his dental ministrations to Gestapo techniques of interrogation, well known to my post-war generation. Later, at the replica English grammar school I attended, I took my canings, as did most of my peers, without a fuss. More recently, a Turkish orthopaedic doctor, realigning my dislocated elbow, observed that my pain tolerance was quite high, so I don’t feel the need for more intimate proof.

The question of belonging is undoubtedly an important one, especially in all-male environments such as boarding schools, military barracks and prisons. Such communities can be unforgiving of anyone seen as different. I’m not so sure about the family argument though. Little boys may ask, ‘Why is daddy’s hair black and mine is orange?’ They may ask about different eye colour and so on. As a parent, you give the child an answer. Perhaps circumcising the kid might save the father’s embarrassment, though, if he felt obliged to explain that ‘Grandpa and grandma had mine cut off.’

As for other claims for the benefits of circumcision, genital health and hygiene, most sources I checked agreed that the evidence is not powerfully persuasive. It seems that a little boy’s foreskin rarely retracts in early childhood, and there is no cause for treatment unless it becomes a problem in teenage years. In modern societies, with readily available bathrooms, running hot water and soap, personal cleanliness is less of a difficulty than it may have been in waterless Middle Eastern deserts or medieval cities. The incidence of urinary tract infections is not high in babies, and when it occurs, may be attributable to other factors besides the existence of a foreskin. The same appears to be true for penile cancer in adults, and it is questionable whether the slight reduction in risk justifies the removal of a part of the body which the Creator, in His (or Her) infinite wisdom, saw fit to attach to His (or Her) highest creation. There is evidence that circumcision provides some reduced risk from sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS, but most of this evidence comes from poorer countries where the rate of infection is high, and again, seems to be a less convincing argument in more advanced societies.  Also, other factors can be said to play an important role, in particular the practice (or not) of promiscuous unprotected sex.

Finally, there is the question, implied above, of why the male sex organ comes with a foreskin attached. First, there is the obvious function of protecting the sensitive head of the penis. One source I came across compared it to the eyelid’s role in protecting the eye. Second, there is the medical fact that the foreskin contains nerves and blood vessels which make it also highly sensitive, increasing the pleasure of sexual contact. Admittedly, though, this may be a reason for Dr Kellogg’s recommendations (see above). Finally, it has been suggested that the existence of the foreskin increases pleasure for the woman also in the sex act because it reduces friction and dryness. Of course, reducing such pleasure for the woman is, as far as I am aware, the major argument for female circumcision, or genital mutilation, as is the preferred term these days. Interestingly, use of the latter term is not extended to males, though the ancient Greeks apparently considered it so, finding the practice abhorrent.

Well, I will continue to follow the progress of German law-makers in finding a solution acceptable to all sides in this debate. In the end, I suspect, in the interests of peace and social harmony, they will be obliged to leave the decision to snip or not to snip to the families concerned, while legislating to ensure that the procedure is carried out in authorised hospitals or clinics by qualified medical practitioners using some form of anaesthetic. That’s probably as much as we can hope for in this less-than-perfect world.

Of Marbles, Midas and the Mona Lisa

I’m reading a book at the moment: ‘Greece, The Hidden Centuries’, by historian David Brewer. It’s subtitled, ‘Turkish Rule from the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence.’ Brewer is a classics scholar with a particular interest in the history of Greece, and this book raises many issues that challenge received wisdom. Perhaps I’ll review the book in another post – but for now I want to focus on the chapter entitled ‘Travellers to Greece’, which deals with visitors from Western Europe during the two hundred years from the late 16^th to the late 18^th century.

Brewer notes that, from the late 17^th century, as interest grew in Greek antiquities, the removal to England and France of whatever could be moved became a kind of competition between the two nations. Even at that time there seems to have been some argument about whether collectors were saving the monuments from destruction, or simply looting, and wreaking their own destruction in the process. Possibly the most famous of these uplifted treasures is the collection of marble sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens, sometimes known as the Elgin Marbles, after the English Lord who arranged and financed their removal to London. Brewer ventures his opinion that the controversial statuary should be returned to Greece.

No doubt the UK Government, and the curators of the British Museum, where the Parthenon marbles are displayed, will be in no hurry to acquiesce in this matter. An entire new gallery was added to the iconic museum in 1937, solely for the purpose of displaying these priceless relics of ancient Greece. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, I would like to take this opportunity to commend officials of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, who have decided to make an important gesture in the controversial field of relocating antiquities. It seems that the museum had acquired twenty-four pieces of ancient jewellery back in 1966, at a time when museums generally were rather less fussy about checking the provenance of purchases. Recent study of the items has suggested that they could originate from the city of Troy, now in northwest Turkey.

King Midas of Gordion,
with his golden daughter

Apparently a deal has been worked out between the American museum and the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, providing for the jewellery to be loaned indefinitely to Turkey. Archeologists from Pennsylvania University have been working on excavations at Troy, and Gordion, some seventy kilometres from the Turkish capital, Ankara, and the institution is planning an exhibition of artefacts from the latter site. The Turkish Government continues to support the archeological work, and will allow the loan of treasures from Gordion for the exhibition.

Gordion was the capital of ancient Phrygia, a kingdom at its height during the 9^th and 8^th centuries BCE. Its wealth became proverbial, and one of its kings, Midas, is remembered for his ill-considered wish to turn everything to gold with the touch of a finger. Excavations at the city have recently unearthed a tomb believed to be that of Midas’s father, so the exhibition should generate considerable interest.

Not all attempts to repatriate archeological treasures, unfortunately, meet with such amicable resolution. It is reported that the Italian National Committee for Historical, Cultural and Environmental Heritage have petitioned the French Government for the return of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Da Vinci was, of course, Italian, and is believed to have painted his best-known work in Florence between 1503 and 1506, so you might think the NCHCEH have a case.

Sad to say, such matters are rarely so simple. Some years ago, while on a cycling holiday in France, I found myself in a Val de Loire town called Amboise, where I paid a visit to the main attraction, the Chateau de Clos Lucé. I was fascinated to learn that da Vinci had spent the last three years of his life here, at the invitation of the French King Francis I. International travel was not so easy in those days, and the great artist, at the age of 64, made the journey from Italy, over the Alps, on a donkey, with the Mona Lisa, and a couple of other prized paintings, in his saddle bags. Of course, a royal invitation is hard to turn down, more especially in the 16^th century, but still, it’s a big trip for an old guy, huh! One reason the offer seemed particularly attractive was that Leonardo just wasn’t getting the commissions in his homeland that he once had. A couple of younger rivals, Michelangelo and Raphael had apparently sidelined him.

So, there it is, in France, the Mona Lisa – where it has been for nigh on five hundred years. It has moved around a bit from one royal palace to another, to safe places in time of war, on loan to the Uffizi Art Gallery in Florence, and even to a thief’s apartment for a couple of years.  These days you can see it hanging in the Louvre in Paris – and I have a strong suspicion that the Italians’ chances of getting it back are on a par with the likelihood of the Brits' handing back the Parthenon marbles.

Freedom of Speech in Other Places – apart from Turkey

'No nation can achieve stability and economic growth if half the population is not empowered.'

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton uttered the words recently in a speech she made in Tokyo (Time, 23 July 2012). Apparently she was referring to Afghanistan, and the sad plight of that nation’s women – oppressed, downtrodden and disenfranchised. No doubt Mrs Clinton feels genuinely sorry for her disadvantaged sisters in Muslim countries, but is she aware that the average voter turnout in US presidential elections since 1992 is 52%? I can’t help feeling Madame Secretary might more profitably focus on the 48% of her own citizens who seem to feel that democracy in the land of the free has little to offer them – and look for ways of empowering them.

I mentioned in my previous post, a book called American Theocracy, where the writer Kevin Phillips posits an unholy alliance of Big Oil, the Debt/Finance Industry and fundamentalist Christianity which he claims have united to govern the United States. The book was published in 2006, and Phillips’ primary concern was President George Dubya Bush, and what he saw as the Republican Party sell-out to that Big Three. Phillips details the elements of the partnership:

• Encouragement of continued profligate oil consumption, refusal to develop alternative fuels and limit carbon emissions;
• Continued encouragement of consumer-driven economic growth fuelled by the debt/finance industry;
• Deregulation of the finance sector, tax-cuts for the wealthy and calls for reduced government spending on social programmes;
• Refusal to accept the case for global warming, and support for the lobby against abortion and in favour of teaching creation/intelligent design in schools, are all part of the plan.
• The beauty of it is that it appeals to all of the Big Three: unfettered capitalism does not conflict with the beliefs of the religious loonies convinced that end-times are upon us and only Jesus can save the world, so there’s no need for social welfare programmes – bankers don’t really care what kind of rubbish kids get taught in schools and no doubt abortion, like everything else, will always be an available option for the rich.

Did anyone seriously believe that the Iraq invasion wasn’t about oil? Or that George W Bush is a true follower of Jesus? Honestly, if I thought Jesus loved the 43rd president, I’d have to rethink my whole understanding of Christianity.

As you may have realised, this post doesn’t have much to do with Turkey – or at least only peripherally – so at this point you may want to switch to another channel. My focus here is Ecuador, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the USA, Chile and Venezuela, not necessarily in that order.

Rapist or champion of freedom of the press?

No doubt, like me, you’ve been following news items from London about Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks guy. That he’s been accused of sexual assault by a couple of women in Sweden; that he’s holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in the plush neighbourhood of Knightsbridge; that the London Metropolitan Police Force has mobilised significant manpower to ensure that he can’t sneak out of the country; that the UK Government seems committed to extraditing the guy to Sweden so that he can be questioned about the alleged offences.



I have to admit I didn’t pay much attention to those Wiki-leaks when they first surfaced. I’ve always been fairly cynical about governments and politicians, and I guess I felt that nothing would surprise me. I had to do a check in the archives to see what all the fuss was about, and I can see why the US government and military would be unhappy to have such information made public. Those ‘Afghan War Logs’ and ‘Iraq war Documents’ showing that there were significantly more civilian deaths over there than official sources had been letting on; and that there seemed to be a policy of ignoring complaints of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. Then there was that embarrassing video showing a couple of helicopter gunships mowing down apparently unarmed civilians, along with a Reuters journalist or two.

So, you can also kind of appreciate why the US army was quick to arrest a young private suspected of passing on the above material to the Wiki people. Bradley Edward Manning  is 24 years old and openly gay, with some history of psychological problems. In spite of that and his lowly rank, because of his high-level IT skills, he was posted to Baghdad and put in a position where he had access to databases storing extremely sensitive classified information. Private Manning, apparently disturbed by what he saw, and believing that the public had a right to know, took the difficult decision to blow his whistle. As a result, he has been in custody (much of it of a particularly unpleasant nature) awaiting trial on a number of charges, at least one of which carries the death penalty – though prosecutors say they won’t ask for it.

Which is where WikiLeaks comes in. According to its website ‘WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists.’  Well, if you’ve ever considered blowing the whistle on an employer, or heard about someone who did, you’ll be aware that the action carries some risks and dangers. And given that few institutions, from the corner grocer up, are as squeaky clean as they could be, you might think that there is a place in the world for an organisation like WikiLeaks. Julian Assange clearly thinks so – and that is what has landed him in trouble.

It is fairly evident that the US Government is keen to get its hands on this gentleman, and probably put him away for a long time, as a salutary lesson to others who might be tempted to emulate his obsession with transparency and freedom of information. His own government in Australia has indicated a lack of sympathy, and an inclination to cooperate with the USA. There is some evidence that plans are proceeding in secret for a grand jury indictment. Several high profile politicians and political commentators in the US have even recommended that Assange should be assassinated.

Interesting then, that an apparently unrelated and somewhat bathetic affair has arisen to threaten the WikiLeaks boss’s liberty. Two women in Sweden made complaints of rape and sexual assault against him in 2010. Despite clear evidence that Assange was consensually in the beds of the ladies concerned, and that the Swedish Prosecutor’s Office originally decided that there were no grounds for a rape charge, nor for having him arrested, this decision was subsequently overturned, and Swedish Police issued an international warrant for his arrest. Assange gave himself up to police in London, but, when it became clear that UK authorities were determined to extradite him to Sweden, he sought and was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy. It seems his fear is that, once in Sweden, the US Government will arrange for him to be sent to the US, where, he suspects, retributive justice will be swift and sure.

Assange and his lawyers believe that the Swedish business has been organised to give US authorities time to prepare a more serious case against him. They have asked the Swedish Government to guarantee that they will not authorise Assange’s extradition to a third country (the USA) – which they have refused to do. In the mean time, the Brits have police swarming all around the embassy to ensure the WikiLeaks man doesn’t sneak out. They even went so far as to imply to the Ecuadoreans that force could be used to apprehend him – a threat which they later retracted. Nevertheless, you have to ask, where does a relatively minor South American nation like Ecuador fit into this business?

Apart from a lifetime of eating their bananas, I confess to an appalling ignorance about Ecuador. Now that I know it is about the size of New Zealand, with a population of around fifteen million, I can understand why. However, it seems the small Latin American country has assumed some international fame (or notoriety) since the election of President Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado in 2006. Despite having studied economics in the US, Correa seems to be leading his nation’s march with a different drum. With the aim of reducing poverty and unemployment, and minimising Ecuador’s dependence on foreign companies and capital, he negotiated major restructuring of its external debt and a greater share of its oil profits. His government refused to renew the US military’s lease on the Pacific coast airbase of Manta, has been resisting IMF pressure to monitor its economic plan, and pursuing policies encouraging conservation in Ecuador’s share of the Amazon basin. Correa has apparently even endeared himself to the main group of indigenous people by learning their language. To tell you the truth, he doesn’t sound like such a bad guy to me.

One problem he has, however, in his relations with his large northern neighbour, is that he is good mates with Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela since 1999. Some sources suggest that Venezuela’s oil reserves could be larger than those of Saudi Arabia, and at present it is the US’s third most important source of oil. Little wonder then that there is some disquiet in upper echelons of the US Government that Chavez ‘probably doesn’t have the interests of the US at heart.’

Chavez’s self-styled policy of Bolivarianism opposes imperialism, capitalism and neo-liberalism, and has focused on participatory democracy and nationalising industries (especially oil). He has been influential in the establishment of the Bank of the South, a partnership among South American nations to provide finance for ‘the construction of social programs and infrastructure.’ In 2002 he was ousted in what may be one of history’s shortest-lasting successful military coups. Chavez maintains that the US was involved in planning the coup, and even its military leaders are on record as saying they believed they were operating with US approval. Whatever, the result was a huge outpouring of popular support for Chavez, resulting in his reinstatement a mere forty-seven hours later.

This got me wondering if there are any leaders of South American countries that are loved by US and British governments – and one surprising name I came up with was Augusto Pinochet, dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990. General Pinochet came to power when a military coup, reputedly endorsed by the Nixon administration and the CIA, ousted the elected government of President Salvador Allende. Pinochet’s regime was characterised by free-market economic ‘reforms’, restrictions on labour unions and privatization of state assets, not to mention the imprisonment, torture, and or ‘disappearance’ of tens of thousands of civilians, some of which, unfortunately, were Spanish nationals. As a result, the General was arrested in the UK in 1998 and the government of Spain sought his extradition to face numerous charges of human rights violations. A protracted legal battle ensued, at the end of which Pinochet was released after Tony Blair’s Home Secretary, Jack Straw, overruled a House of Lords decision to extradite him to Spain. Apparently former US President Nixon, and former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had both interceded with Blair’s government on Pinochet’s behalf.

OK, Nixon we’ve touched on above, but what was Mrs Thatcher’s interest here? Well, it seems that General Pinochet’s military had given major support to the Iron Lady’s Falkland Islands campaign back in 1982. Some sources say that Chile provided invaluable intelligence about Argentinean air attacks, tied up elite Argentinean forces with threats of cross-border incursions, and even allowed British aircraft to operate with Chilean colours. Given that Dame Maggie probably wouldn’t have won a second term in office without the jingoistic patriotism generated by the Falkland Islands victory, you can see how she might have felt she owed General Augusto a favour or two. Unfortunately for Julian Assange, he clearly doesn’t have the same ties of ‘friendship’ in high level international political circles.

Even so, you might think that the British Government could take a slightly less hard-line approach to the WikiLeaks guy, if the issue really is just a matter of a couple of somewhat debatable sex offences in Sweden. As a comparison, I’d like to tell you about an on-going affair in my beloved homeland, New Zealand.

Kim Dotcom is a 38 year-old computer genius of German-Finnish parentage, currently resident in New Zealand, but very much wanted by authorities in the USA to answer charges of copyright infringement against his highly profitable company Megaupload. Admittedly, Mr Dotcom (or Schmitz, if you prefer), has a somewhat murky record of shady business practices preceding his Megaupload activities, but knowing this, the NZ government granted him permanent residency in 2010. Subsequently, however, NZ police raided his palatial home in January this year, and took the internet entrepreneur into custody – since when there has been a continuing legal shemozzle over the question of extradition. Most recently, a NZ High Court judge has ruled that in seizing Dotcom’s property, police exceeded the authority of their warrants, and the case is continuing. As an interesting aside, a prominent NZ Member of Parliament and strong supporter of the Prime Minister, has been accused of soliciting and obtaining a large donation from Dotcom for election purposes – but probably that has nothing to do with the larger matter. Whatever the case, I’m feeling kind of proud of my country for standing up to US corporate interests.

And I’m also feeling a little sorry for Turkey, as its government continues to field international criticism on human rights and freedom of the press issues. Is hypocrisy too strong a word to use for grand-standing politicians who seek votes by criticising other sovereign states while refusing to acknowledge the dubious practices of their own?

At the recent Pacific Forum in the Cook Islands, evidence has emerged of increasing competition between the USA and China for influence in the Pacific region. China, apparently, is making significant financial investment in tiny developing nations, and US officials are not happy, despite the fact that the US economy would probably implode without Chinese monetary input. One US spokesperson was quoted as saying:

" . . . we have consistently been calling for increasing transparency in the Chinese military posture." Apparently the United States also ‘hopes to boost the forum as a regional alliance to combat shared threats such as climate change, encourage economic development and protect marine stocks in the face of overfishing’.

Run that by me again: the US government is calling for military transparency, and is acknowledging the threat of climate change?

The Last Word on Armenianism – In search of solutions

If you happened to be in Berlin recently, you may have indulged your musical appetite with an evening out at the Young Euro Classic Music Festival, a two-and-a-half week event taking place at the Konzerthaus on Gendarmenmarkt Square. The programme included orchestras from all over the world, African jazz, ballet, dance and choral groups, with the common factor of young people playing and enjoying music.

One of the concerts featured an assembly of musicians calling themselves the Turkish-Armenian Youth Orchestra, playing works by Beethoven, as well as by one Turkish and one Armenian composer. According to the festival website:

‘For the first time, Young Euro Classic presents an Armenian-Turkish Youth Symphony Orchestra. Initiated by Young Euro Classic, this ensemble unites young musicians from Armenia and Turkey in one joint orchestra. This ambitious project has great symbolic importance, given the political tensions between the neighbouring countries of Turkey and Armenia. The young Turkish and Armenian musicians distinguish themselves through the joy they take in their excellent music-making.’

The event attracted my attention because I had recently read an article in the New York Times by a gentleman called Taner Akçam. In fact, because of its tone and content, the article received some small attention in our local Turkish newspaper as well. The title was ‘Turkey’s Human Rights Hypocrisy’, and the writer, a well-known activist in the area of Armenian-Turkish relations, was drawing a connection between the contemporary situation in Syria, and the mass deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. The essence of Mr Akçam’s argument was that Turks should shut up about what Bashar al-Assad is doing to his people in neighbouring Syria until the Turkish Government admits to carrying out genocide against the Armenian race, and (unstated but we may assume) pays appropriate reparations. According to him, Christians and other minorities in Syria are choosing to support al-Assad’s murderous regime because of some strange connection in their minds between political freedom and Ottoman killings of Armenians in the 1^st World War. Well, Mr Akçam can set his friends minds at rest, I think. Even if Turkey had the aim of wiping out ‘Christians and other minorities’ (which I am pretty sure they don’t) – it seems clear that they have no interest in invading and annexing Syria.

I’m not going to expend energy going through Akçam’s article point by point to debate his weasel words and dubious logic, but I did pick up on one term that was new to me – denialist. It’s not a word you’ll find in older dictionaries, but it’s a pretty useful one, I’m sure you’ll agree. It goes beyond the Freudian term denial, perhaps because that word was losing its force from over-use. When you call someone a denialist, the –ist ending adds extra power to the criticism since it implies some kind of political/ideological conspiracy. The beauty of it is, as was the case with the earlier word in popular usage, it does away with the need for further debate, since you have at one blow established, without need for actual proof, that your opponent’s arguments are flying in the face of all scientific and historical evidence. So Turks are engaging in denialism on the issue of Armenian genocide – end of argument.

I guess that’s roughly where I started from when I first arrived in Turkey. Not that I knew a lot about it, but I knew what pretty much everyone knows: Turks slaughtered Armenians, right? In 1915, right? One-and-a-half million of them, right? That’s where Hitler got his inspiration for the Jewish Holocaust, right? Then I started to read about the Ottoman Empire that ruled what is now Turkey and much else in the region for over six hundred years until it whimpered out of existence in 1923. I learnt that Armenians were a respected millet within the Ottoman Empire along with Jews and Orthodox Christians; granted freedom to worship, use their own language, bury their dead in their own cemeteries, educate their children in their own schools, run businesses, get rich, rise to high positions in society . . . and my curiosity was aroused. Why would the Ottoman government suddenly decide to genocide these people?

Our local newspaper is running a series of articles during the month of Ramazan about significant mosques around the country. One article featured the Aksaray Mosque of Pertevniyal Valide Sultan, the mother of the 19th century Ottoman Padishah, Abdulaziz. The writer credits the building to the architect Sarkis Balyan, five generations of whose family served as builders and architects to the Ottoman regime through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I checked him out on a website called World Architecture Map and I learned that he lived from 1835-1899, but the space for Place of Birth was blank, and alongside Nationality there were three question marks (???).

Still, pretty much everyone knows that people with surnames ending in –yan or –ian are more than likely of Armenian ethnicity, and Wikipedia confirms that about the Balyans. So, credit where credit’s due – five generations of this Armenian family worked for the Ottoman dynasty and were responsible for the building of some of the city’s best known landmarks: the imperial palaces of Çırağan (now a 5-star Kempinski hotel) and Dolmabahçe, along with numerous mosques, public buildings and major factories. I haven’t been able to confirm the facts, but I would make an educated guess that, despite his Armenian ethnicity, Sarkis Balyan was an Ottoman citizen, born in Istanbul. I can’t say for sure why the WAM people couldn’t establish that one way or the other, but I have my suspicions.

Still, I hear you. Just because there were a few successful and respected Armenians in the empire it doesn’t mean genocide didn’t happen. Being a pillar of society didn’t save many Jews in Nazi Germany, did it? Nevertheless, you take my point. I wanted to know why the Ottoman state, after five centuries of relatively peaceful coexistence, would suddenly decide that genocide of Armenians was the way to go. Of course, once I started, I found that I had opened a can of worms. One question led to another, and another, and another, and I can truthfully tell you that I cannot give you a conclusive answer on this one. What I can say, however, is that labelling Turks ‘denialist’ in no way does justice to the complexity of the issue. Undoubtedly a horrifying number of Armenian people lost their lives in a tragic series of events in 1915, set in train by officers of the Ottoman Empire. This much seems to be accepted by all, but thereafter, important questions arise:

• Were these events part of a state-sponsored programme whose aim was the extermination of a race? Proponents of the case for genocide claim to have seen official documents proving this. Opponents claim that at least some of these documents are falsified.
• How many died? Obviously, in the circumstances, it is impossible to get an accurate count, but numbers vary enormously depending on which case is being argued. Still, even the lowest estimates seem to accept that several hundred thousand died – clearly an unacceptable number.
• Is Turkey responsible? Whatever happened, happened in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, which was not a nationalist state. Europeans had for centuries chosen to label the Ottoman rulers Turks, and their empire Turkey, but this is a distortion of the facts, a bit like outsiders calling citizens of the USA Yanks. Turks, incidentally, tend to refer to the United Kingdom as İngiltere, and its citizens as İngliz. The Ottoman Empire was defeated, along with its ally Germany, in the First World War, and thereafter divided among the conquerors, principally Britain, France, Italy and Greece. The modern Republic of Turkey was established in 1923 after a struggle by nationalist freedom-fighters who expelled invading forces from Anatolia and Istanbul, marginalising and subsequently abolishing the Ottoman Sultanate and its government. So there is only a tenuous connection between the perpetrators of whatever happened in 1915, and the present-day Turkish Republic.
• Is what happened to the Armenians comparable to Nazi German measures to exterminate Jews? First of all, the Germans set up a bureaucratic machine and invested in plant and facilities to expedite their scheme. There was large-scale state propaganda designed to justify Nazi actions. The Germans invaded other sovereign states and carried out their policy in those places also (France, Poland and Greece, for example). As far as I am aware, none of these factors was present in the case of Ottoman Armenians. It is also clear that extermination was the primary object of the Nazi German programme. The Ottoman aim was to remove/relocate people perceived as a serious security threat at a time when their state was at war and fighting for its survival on at least three fronts. Third, there is a long history in Europe (not only in Germany) of state-sponsored discrimination and violence towards Jews. This was definitely not the case in the Ottoman Empire (see above). Finally, there was no context in which Nazi German actions could be justified. The Jewish people posed no security threat to Germany and gave no provocation. On the other hand, Armenian nationalist groups had been carrying out terrorist activities in Ottoman territory for decades. As American military personnel in Iraq testify, in a guerrilla warfare situation, it is by no means easy to distinguish dangerous militants from law-abiding villagers – and remember, the Ottomans were operating on their own soil, with at least some modicum of moral authority. Further, it is also historically verifiable (as I have written elsewhere) that Russian Imperial expansion into Ottoman territory had involved the incitement of Christian minorities (including Armenians) to revolt against their lawful government, followed by large-scale killing, terrorising and displacement of Muslims from the areas they conquered.

OK, I admit I am working from secondary sources here. Like most of you, I don’t have the time or the language skills to check primary documents. I am not employed and paid a salary by any university’s Department of Genocide Studies. I can say, however, that I have read a broad sample of the literature on both sides of this question, and I can assure you that there are some quite reputable scholars who question the application of the term ‘genocide’ to this Armenian business. One in particular you may like to check out is Justin McCarthy, Professor of History at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, two of whose publications are listed in the sidebar. One is actually available as a free eBook, so take a look.

Now, I know that, if you are a follower of Armenian Genocide Studies, you will be aware that McCarthy and others who attempt to balance the ledger on this issue, come in for a deal of criticism, and not simply on a scholarly level. I read an article recently by a lady identifying herself as a Latin Americanist (there's that -ist again). She was waxing warm on the Armenian issue, and informed the reader that our Taner Akçam (above) had received death threats for his outspokenness. She went on to say that he ‘fears prosecution’ if he ever sets foot in his native Turkey. Interestingly, then, the Wikipedia entry reveals that this ‘wanted man’ attended the politically-charged funeral of Hrant Dink in Istanbul in 2007, and managed to get safely back to his job of criticising Turks and their country at Clark University, Massachusetts. I'm not saying that the poor fellow hasn't received a death threat or two. I even got one myself while teaching at a prestigious high school in Auckland, New Zealand. The house of UCLA Professor Stanford Shaw was bombed in 1977 after he published a book on Turkish history in which he questioned the accuracy of Armenian genocide arguments, and Armenian ultra-nationalist organizations (to borrow a phrase) were responsible for the deaths of forty-two Turkish diplomatic staff abroad between 1973 and 1994, so make what you will of that.

As for the personal attacks on ‘denialist’ scholars, that Wikipedia entry on Taner Akçam names a certain Vahakn Dadrian as his academic mentor. I checked him out and learned that Dadrian is a ‘towering figure in the field of Armenian genocide history’. The quote is attributed to an academic by the name of David Bruce MacDonald. He too has a very nice entry in Wikipedia, but the managers of the site warn that ‘a major contributor to this article appears to have a close relationship with its subject’. Getting back to Mr Dadrian, I further learned that he had been dismissed from his position as Professor of Sociology at the State University College in Geneseo, New York for sexually molesting an 18 year-old student. According to the report I read, Mr Dadrian had escaped punishment for a similar offense ten years earlier by pleading ‘cultural differences’. Given that the learned professor had pursued his academic studies at reputable universities in Europe and the USA, you'd think he might have gleaned some understanding of acceptable teacher-student behaviour in Western cultures. Anyway, the excuse apparently didn’t wash the second time he was caught.

The Wikipedia entry on Akçam states that he is ‘recognised as a leading international authority on the subject’ (their quotes) of Armenian genocide. If you check the referenced footnote, you’ll find that the words are attributed to a David Holthouse of the Southern Poverty Law Centre. If you follow that lead, you’ll learn that the SPLC published an apology for that particular article and retracted claims made therein that, among other untruths, another scholar arguing for a more balanced view of the issue, Guenter Lewy, was in the pay of the Turkish Government.  But I'm not here to blacken anyone's name - merely to suggest that there may be more to this business than simply ‘truth’ and ‘denialism’.

I am not at all a reader of horror literature, but I am about to finish a book that is seriously frightening me. Probably the scariest thing about it is, it is not a work of fiction. The writer is Kevin Phillips, a political and economic commentator from Lichfield, Connecticut, and former strategist for the US Republican Party. In the book ‘American Theocracy’, he posits an unholy alliance conjoining big oil, the finance industry and fundamentalist Christianity which he claims has taken over the GOP and pretty much the governing of the United States. To put the thesis of a 400-page book in a nutshell, the ‘FIRE’ sector (finance, insurance, real estate) is enriching a small elite by encouraging indebtedness at every level of society (spend like there’s no tomorrow – it’s your patriotic duty!); as US oil runs out, it becomes necessary to control the major global areas of supply (did you ever believe Iraq was not about oil?); and fundamentalist Christian leaders hold that an inerrant Bible justifies man’s exploitation of the environment, salvation is by faith alone (which means no need for social welfare programmes, hence no taxes), unbelievers must be converted or destroyed, and the end-times are coming when true believers will be ‘raptured’ and the last battles will be played out in the Middle East, home of the anti-Christ and his evil followers (Muslims).

All this wouldn’t be particularly relevant here, except that, in my rummaging around on the internet, I learned that Taner Akçam had been giving talks to an organisation called CSI – aka the Christian Solidarity Foundation. On their web page, their CEO has this to say:

‘CSI is unique. It is currently the only organization working in the field to free slaves captured by Islamic jihadists [another -ist] during Sudan's civil war, and we are one of the few organizations to shine a light on the disappearance, forced conversions and forced marriages of Christian women in Egypt. My colleagues have repeatedly traveled to terror-torn Iraq to stand in solidarity with that country's beleaguered Christian community, and CSI supports the tiny remnant of Christians who remain in Turkey following the great anti-Christian Genocide and its devastating after-effects.

‘These are troubled times for Christians and other religious minorities in the broader Islamic Middle East where an upsurge of radical Islamic supremacism [that –ism again] threatens their very existence. The situation is especially dire in Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Iran.’

A man is a bird without wings
and a bird is a man without sorrows

Well, hate comes easy to human nature, I guess. Unfortunately, there are many organisations hiding behind words like peace, freedom, truth and democracy while pursuing programmes of discrimination, prejudice and violence. There is a wonderful novel, ‘Birds Without Wings’, by the English novelist Louis de Bernieres. It deals with events surrounding the time of that ‘great anti-Christian Genocide’ in a rather more even-handed manner. A minor character, Daskalos Leonidas, is schoolteacher in the small Anatolian village of Eskibahçe where most of the story takes place.  The village is a microcosm of the Ottoman Empire, with Muslims, Greek and Armenian Christians getting along as they had for centuries, before the great upheavals of the 20^th century tore them apart. The teacher is a lonely bitter man who sees his mission as being to educate his Greek Christian neighbours in ‘their own culture’ and to foster a spirit of nationhood which they will then fight to achieve. The result is the disaster of the Greek-Turkish War and the tragedy of the population exchanges that followed.  I wish the organisers of that Berlin Festival well, and hope that their attempts to demonstrate the power of music to heal wounds and unite souls will not be in vain.

The Mosaic of Turkey – untangling the Gordian Knot

One of the pleasures of summer is breakfasting on our terrace overlooking the blue waters of the Aegean Sea: or relaxing in the evening with an ice-cold beer as the sun sinks into the same waters, now turned fiery orange. Mostly the sea is empty, but occasionally the luxury schooners and motor yachts of the rich and famous pass by – and I imagine a time when the same seas would have carried galleys of the Ionian League, of Imperial Rome or the Byzantine Greeks, to marble cities up and down the coast, as they pursued their business of trade or conquest.

The biggest problem most outsiders have in coming to grips with the reality of modern Turkey is its location on a patch of earth which has seen the procession of so many civilisations, a normal human brain switches off from information overload. Mesopotamia has long been known as the cradle of civilisation. If that’s true, the land of Turkey/Anatolia/Asia Minor must, in addition, be kindergarten, primary school, junior high and high school. Archeological excavations at Göbeklitepe in Southeast Turkey have unearthed religious structures erected in the tenth millennium BCE. From then on, one civilisation succeeded another, with the last major world empire here, that of the Ottomans, surviving through to the twentieth century.

Once again, this July, I found myself in the town of Selçuk, visiting an English friend who has made his home there. It’s a very tourist-friendly place, as witnessed by the plethora of visitor accommodation. I passed by hotels and pensions with the enticing (at least to an antipodean like myself) names of Canberra, Wallabies, ANZ, Kiwi, Outback, and Boomerang, settling finally on Jimmy’s Place, with the added attractions of WiFi internet and air-conditioned rooms.

Selçuk çastle, Ayasuluk Hill

Well, it wasn’t my first visit to Selçuk, so I had no need to jostle with tourist crowds at the well-known attractions – but for those of you yet to discover the historical and cultural delights of Aegean Turkey, let me mention a few. Most visitors with an interest in history come to explore the ruins of Ephesus, a major port city of classical Greek and Roman times, and one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean region in those days. With its paved streets, impressive library, open-air theatre, luxury villas and well-preserved public toilets, Ephesus has much to excite the imagination. A short distance down the road is the site of a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis. There’s not much left of it these days, but in ancient times it featured on the list of the World’s Seven Wonders.

Those with a more specialized interest in religious history tend to focus on later days when Ephesus was home to an early Christian community, to whom the Apostle Paul addressed one of his famous epistles. It seems likely that Jesus’s mother Mary spent her last years here, having been entrusted by her dying son to the care of the disciple John. There is some uncertainty over the authenticity of the House of the Virgin Mary, located on nearby Bülbüldağı (Nightingale Mountain), although Pope John Paul II did see fit to drop by and pay his respects in 2004. Less open to debate is the ruin of the huge 6^th century basilica, supposedly built over the grave of St John, and one of the holiest churches of the Byzantine Age.

Christendom began to lose its grip on Asia Minor after the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine Emperor’s army in a major battle in 1071. Before the Ottomans rose to prominence, the Selçuk area fell under the sway of a local clan known as Aydınoğulları. One of its members, İsa Bey, had a mosque built in 1375 which students of Islamic architecture consider important for reasons we needn’t go into here. An interesting side issue, however, is the fact that certain elements from the Artemis Temple, including some of the columns, were apparently used in its construction.

It’s not easy for people like me, from New World nations whose recorded history emerged from the mists of prehistory two to four centuries ago, to fully appreciate the time-frames in which Anatolian civilizations appeared and disappeared. The Mosque of İsa Bey itself fell into disrepair for many years, even converted to a caravanserai at one stage. It is still not fully restored. When it was built, more than six centuries ago, the famous temple from which the columns were taken had been deserted and derelict for perhaps a thousand years, its pagan worshippers long-forgotten.

These are some of the highlights of Selçuk itself. However, visitors often use the town as a convenient base from which to explore ancient sites further afield: the famous lime-stone terraces of Pamukkale and the associated ruins of Hierapolis; the ancient city of Aphrodisias with its remarkably intact 25,000-seat gladiatorial stadium; the impressive excavations of Priene and Miletos, and the remains of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma.

Less well-known, perhaps, is the site of Magnesia on the road from Selçuk to Söke. I was lucky to go with my English local guide, Robert, who was able to point out details and inscriptions which would undoubtedly escape the notice of the casual visitor. The city was known by the Romans as Magnesia-on-the-Meander (source of the English word meaning to wander aimlessly) to distinguish it from the other Magnesia further north from which sprang the modern Turkish town of Manisa. It was a city of some size in ancient times, located in a fertile region with commercial and strategic importance. Currently archeologists are working to excavate a large stadium long buried by a huge landslip, and consequently very well preserved.

I too have made my home in Turkey, though my base is the megalopolis of Istanbul. I do try, in my spare time, to keep up with archeological developments around the country, and even to visit sites of special interest. The task is endlessly challenging and full of interest, but ultimately hopeless, as a small selection of recent news items will demonstrate.

Archeologists from several nations apart from Turkey are currently engaged in extensive digging in numerous sites around the country. Like me, you may not have heard of the ancient city of Kibyra, but I can now tell you that it was a city in Southwest Anatolia near the modern Turkish town of Gölhisar. It is believed to have been founded by the Pisidians about whom you may also, understandably, be a little hazy) in the 3^rd century BCE. During its five hundred years of prominence, it became one of the largest urban centres in the region, with a cosmopolitan population of Phrygians, Lydians, Lycians and Carians, reaching perhaps 200,000 at its peak. So it’s not altogether surprising that archeologists have recently uncovered a pavement which they believe may prove to be the world’s largest mosaic.

Another spot you may not be familiar with is the mound of Kuriki, near the Southeast Anatolian city of Batman. If you are new to the geography of Turkey, you may be sceptical that such a city exists, but I assure you, it’s true. Excavations here, in the upper reaches of the Tigris River, have been under way for three years and have established that human occupation was continuous from the late Chalcolithic Age (around 5500 years ago). Just last week, archeologists from Turkey’s Çukurova University brought to light a necropolis from the period when imperial Rome was engaged in a struggle with the neighbouring Parthians (of whom I have written elsewhere). So far, finds have included copper jewellery and pottery jugs and containers.

Hittite statue of Suppiluliuma

News of the day in our local paper on 29 July was the discovery, in excavations near Hatay, of a one-and-a-half tonne statue of a Hittite King, believed to be Suppiluliuma. Now I don’t presume to understand how these people can possibly know that, but at least the Hittite language is of Indo-European origin, which makes it more closely related to English than modern Turkish. Still, the Hiitites built an extensive empire that peaked in the 14^th century BCE, which is probably why Suppiluliuma is not such a common name in English-speaking countries today. The chief city of the Hatay province, incidentally, is Antakya, the Turkish version of a place Westerners may know better as Antioch. It’s peripheral to my present purpose here, but Antioch was founded by one of the Great Alexander’s generals around 300 BCE, and grew in a short time to rival Alexandria in size and importance.  It is said to be the place where Christians were first called Christians, and visitors can check out the grotto church founded by the Apostle Peter in the first century of the Christian era . . . but that’s recent history compared to the Hittites.

As you can see, archeologists have much work ahead of them, without the need for any new discoveries. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, almost every new construction, large or small, turns up previously unknown and unexpected links with the past. I mentioned above the Turkish city of Manisa, not far from Turkey’s third largest urban centre, Izmir. Labourers working on the foundations of a road underpass last week came across the remains of a necropolis, tentatively dated to the classical Roman period.

Again, perhaps, the find is not totally surprising, given that the ancient city of Sardis is just up the road. Sardis was capital of the kingdom of Lydia, whose 6^th century BCE ruler, Croesus, has come down to us as a byword for serious wealth. The city retained its importance under Persian occupation, and the discovery there of a large synagogue apparently obliged historians to reconsider their views about the place of Jews in the later Roman Empire.

Well, if you have followed me this far, and your mind is not thoroughly boggled, congratulations. As I said above, one of the principal reasons outsiders struggle to understand Turkey, and perhaps Turks themselves find their own identity a little confusing, is the incredible mosaic of races, cultures, languages and civilizations that represents the heritage of those who inhabit this patch of the Earth’s surface. I think, if I were a young student in Turkey today, I would give serious thought to embarking on a career in archeology. Perhaps I wouldn’t become as rich as Croesus, but it’s hard to imagine the spectre of unemployment being a serious threat.

Debasing the Currency – Dismantling Turkey’s secular state

It seems the Turkish government has recently issued a batch of one-lira coins and the customary portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founding father of the Republic, is not on them. Clearly, some say, this is a further indication of the ruling AK Party's hidden agenda to overturn the secular state and return Turkey to religious shariah rule. So, if not Ataturk's, whose face will grace the obverse side of the new coin? An Ottoman Padishah's? That of the current president, AK Party's Abdullah Gül, or some historical religious leader?

Commemorative coin provokes debate

In fact, I gather that the new minting is to mark the tenth anniversary of an event which has been a major cultural success for the people of Turkey - the so-called Turkish Language Olympics. One side of the coin, a limited edition of one million, will bear the usual denomination of value, while the other will carry a special commemorative design. In addition, wealthy enthusiasts will also be able to purchase a sterling silver fifty-lira coin. Now you might wonder about the pretentiousness of such a grandiose title for competitions in a language that has no serious claim to lingua franca status, and furthermore, poses major challenges to would-be learners from other language backgrounds. I can personally attest to the difficulties English-speakers face. A language based on the principle of adding multiple suffixes to a root word such that a single word can require an English sentence to translate, and moreover insists that every vowel in attached suffixes must harmonise with the root according to complex rules that most Turks find difficult to explain, clearly has more in common with Martian or Betelgeusian than any terrestrial language.

Nevertheless, in the ten years since the first Turkish Language Olympiad was held, the number of participating countries has grown from seventeen to one hundred and thirty-five. Students from these countries compete in tests of grammar, oral skills, writing essays, reciting poems, singing songs, theatre and general culture. If I were a Turk, I think I would be pretty proud of this event, and the way it was raising the global profile of my language and culture. Evidently the government is, and its members made the decision to issue a commemorative coin. 

It's not such an uncommon thing to do, in fact. Many reputable nations with democratically elected governments do it from time to time, without arousing the ire of, or even much interest among their citizens. Since 2004, for example, there have been 126 different commemorative two-euro coins issued by Euro-zone countries. The United States Mint has a similar programme producing quarter dollars for commemorative purposes. There is a branch of learning, numismatics, involving the study of coins, ancient and modern, and some people actually engage in it as a hobby.

Nevertheless, it is still possible that the present government of Turkey has some more sinister motive in its minting of the new coin. So I did a little digging, and here's what I turned up . . .

Ataturk's picture was put on Turkish money when he became the new Republic’s first president in 1923. Interestingly, after his death in 1938, a law was passed requiring Turkish currency to bear a portrait of the current president. Accordingly, for the next twelve years the face of Ataturk's close friend and successor, Ismet Inönü, could be seen adorning liras and kurushes throughout the land. The change back to Ataturk occurred in 1950, when Turkey's first democratically elected Prime Minister Adnan Menderes came to power. Sadly for Menderes, his support for the revered founder was not enough for at least some members of the secular Kemalist military, who ousted him in a coup in 1960, convicted him of violating the constitution and had him hanged along with two of his ministers.

When the AK Party government erased six zeroes and issued the new Turkish Lira in 2005, it was remarked by many that the previously grim face which had adorned the hopelessly devalued old currency (1,700,000 to the US dollar) had been replaced with a smiling Atatürk. Some saw this as a sign that the great man was pleased to see his nation's money returning to credibility. Undoubtedly, wherever he was, he must have had serious misgivings about the competence of his political successors, who were powerless to curb the hyper-inflation that had turned the TL into a joke of Weimar German proportions by the 1990s.

I have observed before that I have a long-standing suspicion of politicians of all political persuasions. I tend to judge them by their actions and results rather than their words, which can be misleading to say the least. I have no loyalty to any political party, certainly not in Turkey, where I do not have the right to vote. I can say, however, that the last nine years have seen a period of political maturity and stability such as Turkey had not experienced for some considerable time. The AK Party was brought to power in polls whose fairness has not been questioned as far as I know; and has been resoundingly returned in two subsequent elections. In that time inflation has been reduced to internationally acceptable levels, and economic growth ranks with that of powerhouses like China, India and Brazil. The Turkish government has pursued a foreign policy which has reached out to neighbouring states in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, while maintaining ties of friendship with Europe and the United States. At the same time, Turks have resisted pressure to involve themselves in regional conflicts such as Iraq and Syria, despite strong pressure from Uncle Sam, and provocation from Bashar al-Assad.

Again, if I were a Turk, I think I would feel some pride in the way my country’s international standing had risen in recent years and in the manifest signs of increasing wealth and growing national self-confidence all around me. I might feel some misgivings about the continuing disparities of wealth distribution, and the obvious lack of a credible opposition party in the legislature. But I hope I might try to channel these feelings into positive political action, rather than constantly harping on about peripheral issues like headscarves and whose picture is on the back of my one-lira coin.