Cultural difference - Turkish camels everywhere!

It’s the opening sequence of the 2004 Turkish SciFi spoof “G.O.R.A.” We’re on the flight deck of an enormous inter-galactic spacecraft from the planet of the same name. The flight crew are speaking English. There’s no emergency and no panic. It’s a normal routine landing. “Please ensure your seatbelt is fastened, your tray table is stowed away and your seat is in the upright position.”  “Commander, the system is f—king activated sir.” “Pressure is f—king stable sir.” “What are the f—king coordinates?”

They wouldn't know your mother

In a later sequence, on Planet Earth, Arif, the main character, gives a ride to an old villager. He wants to play music but the old guy objects. “I don’t like foreign music,” he says. “They could be swearing at my mother and I wouldn’t know.” Don’t worry, says Arif. This band is very young. They wouldn’t know your mother.” He starts the track and the words erupt from the speaker – “Motherf—ker yeah, motherf—ker yeah!”

Now I don’t want you to give the wrong impression here. Turks are quite capable of swearing, and their language is rich in words that you wouldn’t use in front of your mother, father, or baby sister. But that’s the point I want to make here. On the whole, there are still rules in Turkey, written and unwritten, governing when it is appropriate to use such words, and when not. Cem Yılmaz, the writer of the G.O.R.A. screenplay was poking fun at the apparent lack of such rules in the USA and other Western cultures.

I’m not a big follower of the latest trends in popular music. I haven’t even glanced at MTV for years. Occasionally my students give me a glimpse into what’s going on when they ask me what a certain word means in the lyrics of a song they’ve been listening to. My main link to Western pop culture comes from my visits to the gym, as my companions and I sweat to the rhythm of rap, hip-hop and electronic rock. I have to confess, the first time I heard the young lady from 20 Fingers chanting, “You gotta lick it, before we kick it”, I was mildly shocked. Since then I have become less sensitive, and I scarcely blush when the guy from 2 Live Crew lets me into the intimate details of The Way he Likes to . . . tie his shoe laces (Not!). Or Enrique Iglesias hammers out the alternative version of “Tonight I’m Lovin’ You”.

On the other hand, on the occasional shopping expedition with my own good lady, when we  find ourselves in some up-market trendy women’s store, and the same lyrics are wafting over Istanbul matrons choosing fashion wear with their young daughters, a mischievous devil within urges me to offer a Turkish translation to the store manager.

This line of thought takes me nostalgically back to a more naïve time when my kids were teenagers, and I confiscated a Red Hot Chilli Peppers cassette on the grounds that, in my paternal opinion, the lyrics were not appropriate for the tender ears of my own 14 year-old daughter. I did reimburse her for the purchase price, however, and I can’t be sure that she didn’t immediately replace it, being more careful to use earphones around the house in future. Nevertheless, I felt I had done my fatherly duty. I’m just grateful I don’t have to deal with a nymphet daughter these days getting advice from Benny Benassi and his ladyfriend on How to get their Satisfaction.

Turkish parents complain about their kids, but really they don’t know how lucky they are. Check out these lyrics from the current Turkish Top 40:

I’m Tired, sings the girl. I’m drifting away with the wind. I don’t know if the end will be good or bad. I am so much in love I wish this feeling for all my friends. But sometimes, this love brings such pain, I can wish it on my enemies.

and another one . . .

Don’t Hold Back, says the guy. Why do you keep your distance? You said, Close your eyes and I’ll be there. You said, There is no obstacle to love. But what about touching and hugging? Don’t hold back! If you miss me, if you can’t live without me, don’t hold back!

Turkish teachers also complain about their students, but I find it hard to sympathise. The last time I taught in New Zealand, I had the experience of being eye-balled by a diminutive twelve year-old and called a “F—king W—ker”. When I mentioned the incident to the school principal, the first thing he asked me was if there was anything I might have done to provoke the lad. I expect to retire from the profession before I have to listen to the Turkish equivalent from a student here.

Young, and not-so-young women from Western nations, however, sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of unwelcome attentions from young Turkish guys on the street. The reason is two-fold. In the first instance, Turkish girls are (or most of them anyway) very much under the protection of their families. It’s not as easy for a Turkish guy to satisfy his sexual appetites out of wedlock as it is for his counterpart in the USA or New Zealand. Also, the impression these Turkish guys get of Western women from their portrayal in pop culture is one of sexual availability. This impression is reinforced by the undoubted fact that Turkey fulfils the role of sex tourist destination for middle-aged European women that Thailand plays for their menfolk. After one or two disturbing experiences, young Western visitors may be tempted to use an English obscenity (or learn its Turkish equivalent) to discourage unwanted attentions. As a general rule – Don’t. A good Turkish girl is more likely to use a phrase equating to “Shame on you”. Anything stronger may only serve to aggravate the situation. The same goes for rejecting the determinedly importunate carpet-seller or hotel tout. Learning the Turkish for "I don’t want one" (Istemiyorum) and uttering it in a firm tone will generally have the desired affect.

Something that struck me when I came to Turkey back in the late 90s was the absence of street graffiti. Sure, I know it’s an artistic genre, and I fully appreciate the skill it takes to execute in its highest forms. However, not everyone can appreciate such works of art when they appear on the newly constructed pristine white wall around his house. For sure, I’m seeing more of such street art in Istanbul these days, and also the less artistic variety with obscenities, often in English. Still to be seen, though, are those touchingly amateurish outpourings of a young male heart: ”Ayshe I love you – Forgive me!”

I am sure others like me will have had the following experience or something similar. Heading out on my bicycle one Sunday morning with the intention of stopping by the seaside for breakfast, I paused to buy two simits from a street vendor. As it happened, I had only a twenty lira note, which the guy couldn’t change. He insisted, however, that I take the simits and I could pay him at some future time. In fact I paid him on my return, having changed the note elsewhere. Far from being impressed with my scrupulous honesty, the chap seemed almost disappointed. His giving me the simits had been a good deed which God would undoubtedly reward – and my repaying him detracted from its merit.

Now I know that I am sometimes accused of lauding Turkey to the skies, and overlooking its faults. To a certain extent this is deliberate, in the sense that I am aware of the bad press that this country commonly suffers from, and this blog is an attempt to balance the ledger. Nevertheless, there are certainly cultural peculiarities that visitors to Turkey would be well advised to beware of. In April 2000 several planeloads of English football fans arrived in Istanbul to support Leeds United in its UEFA Cup match against the local team Galatarsaray. Accounts vary as to exactly what happened. Bar owners in the Taksim entertainment area said that a glass had been broken in a Turkish youth's face and that drunken approaches had been made to local women. Some said that revellers had mixed the powerful local spirit rakı with beer instead of the usual water. It was also suggested that the Turkish flag had been treated in a disrespectful way.

Whatever the reasons, fights broke out in nearby streets, and two Leeds fans died from knife wounds. English supporters, and the media back home were genuinely shocked. In the minds of some, the deaths amounted to murder, and feelings persist that the Turkish justice system failed to view the events of that night with the seriousness they warranted. They may well be right, but there are lessons to be studied by visitors to Turkey from foreign lands.

• First, public drinking and drunkenness are not very common, and generally frowned upon. Turks are quite capable of going out with friends to a restaurant of an evening without drinking alcohol at all. Don’t assume your hometown attitudes to drinking and a fun night out are the same everywhere.
• Most Turks are very patriotic, and they strongly identify with their national flag as a symbol of their national pride. If you’re not looking for big trouble, don’t disrespect it.
• Some Turkish men do actually carry offensive/defensive weapons, and it is as well to be aware of this possibility before getting into a fight. At the time of the Leeds incident one of the English fans was quoted as saying, “We didn’t know they was tooled up.” Do your homework before getting on the plane.
• Fighting is a very serious business for most Turkish men, and inextricably tied up with the masculine sense of honour. Once a fight starts, it may not end until someone is dead, or seriously injured. Consequently, bystanders in Turkey will rarely allow an argument between two guys to come to blows. Strangers will intervene, for example, to keep road-ragers apart. For the same reason, it is incumbent upon the antagonists so separated not to be seen to be too easily discouraged from pursuing the fray. It may take two or three peacemakers to hold each honour-bound combatant until calm is restored. In general, it’s better to avoid getting into a fight if you possibly can.

A more recent cinematic work from the Turkish comedian Cem Yılmaz, is the 2010 film, Ottoman Cowboys (Yahşi Batı in Turkish). Aziz and Lemi are two Ottoman officials charged by their Sultan with a mission to the President of the United States. The year is 1881, and our two Eastern gentlemen are sharing a stagecoach with an English couple, an elderly chap of aristocratic demeanour, and his younger wife.

“Are you French?” asks the lady. “Oh no, madame,” answers Lemi Bey. “I’m Ottoman.” “You ride camels don’t you?” inquires the Englishman with heavy sarcasm. “Camels?” replies Aziz Bey. “Yes, every time. Always. Camels everywhere.” Then in an aside to his companion, in Turkish, “They always say that. It’s the only thing they know.”

In fact, if you see a camel on your visit to Turkey, chances are it’s there to provide photo ops for tourists who might otherwise be disappointed. If you want to visit the country with the largest population of camels, better go to Australia.

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.