Mustafa Akyol

Articles de cet auteur (25)

Not all terrorists are Muslim, apparently
8 August 2011

A silly motto had developed in the West in the past decade. “Not all Muslims are terrorists, of course,” people would utter it, smilingly, only to add; “but all terrorists are Muslims.” Yet now, the monstrous violence committed by Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed more than 70 of his innocent countrymen, clearly debunks that rhetoric.
Of course, the first thing I would say in the face of this horror is to offer my condolences to the families of the victims, and share (...)
Turquie : valse avec les « maîtres de Schengen »
21 juin 2011

On discute beaucoup ces derniers temps sur le fait la Turquie porte de plus en plus son regard vers l’est. L’orientation occidentale du pays, réelle ou perçue comme telle, est en train de basculer vers une autre direction incluant l’effrayant Moyen-Orient. Certains accusent le parti de l’AKP en exercice et son islamisme caché de cette évolution alors que d’autres pointent du doigt les changements tectoniques dans l’économie politique mondiale auxquels la Turquie ne fait que s’adapter.
J’ai (...)
The nightmare of the generals
21 June 2011

Last weekend, I had coffee with a young Turkish lady who is, besides other things, the daughter of a general in the Turkish military. She was very polite and articulate, but not very cheerful and happy. For her beloved father has been in prison since last January, when an Istanbul court decided to arrest nearly 200 officers. They were all accused of having taken part in the “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer) scheme, a 2003 military meeting in which a military coup against the Justice and Development (...)
Why I am turning my face East
3 June 2011

It has been argued lately that Turkey is “turning its face to the East.” The country’s traditional “Western orientation,” real or perceived, has claimed to be replaced by a different direction, including the all-scary Middle East. Some blame the incumbent Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and its “covert Islamism” for this shift, whereas others point to tectonic changes in the world’s political economy, to which Turkey is only adopting.
I have my humble opinions about this debate as well. To (...)
Turkey : not all quiet on the eastern front
25 May 2011

Let me give you a rule of thumb about Turkey: If you want to focus on the deadliest conflict in this country, forget the tension between the conservatives and the secularists. Dismiss the culture war between those who define themselves “Muslim first” and “Kemalist first.” For all those “central” issues are trivia when compared to the most lethal trouble in this country: the Kurdish question.
That is the case, for, despite all the political tension and the cultural brouhaha, the Islam versus (...)
La Turquie reste un pays laïc
24 mars 2011

Gouvernée par le parti islamique AKP depuis neuf ans, la société turque n’a pas pour autant changé son mode de vie libéral.
Depuis que le Parti justice et développement (AKP) est arrivé au pouvoir en Turquie, à la fin de 2002, les médias ont eu du mal à trouver un qualificatif adéquat pour le désigner. Tandis que l’AKP tient à se faire appeler “conservateur” et affirme clairement qu’il “n’est pas un parti religieux”, les définitions courantes adoptées par la presse vont de “légèrement islamique” à (...)
The Islamization of Turkey (through nudist hotels, gay bars, etc)
15 May 2010

One of the interesting stories I recently read in this paper was about Turkey’s first “nudist hotel,” opened in Marmaris, a beautiful town on the Aegean coast. Here was a place where “nudist tourists will be able to work on their full-body tan” on their “private naturist beach.” This would be, the story added, “a small revolution in Turkey’s conservative society.”
If you look for such “small revolutions” in this conservative country, you can find other ones. Gay bars and lesbian clubs, for example, (...)
L’islamisation de la Turquie ( par les hôtels nudistes, les bars gays, etc…)
10 mai 2010

L’une des histoires récentes les plus intéressantes que j’ai lue concernait le premier hôtel nudiste de Turquie ouvert à Marmaris, une jolie station balnéaire de la côté égéenne. Voilà un endroit où “les touristes pourraient se livrer en toute liberté sur leur propre plage privée à leur passion du bronzage intégral”. Ce lieu constituerait également « une petite révolution dans la société turque pétrie de conservatisme. »
Si vous vous mettez en quête de ce genre de petites révolutions en Turquie, vous pouvez en (...)
A requiem for Armenians—a sequel
6 May 2010

My latest piece in these pages, “For the fear of God: A requiem for Armenians,” proved to be quite controversial. And I, as usual, was blamed by some readers for being a bunch of nasty things. (A “traitor” to my own nation who is funded by evil foreigners, a “fake” Turk who hides his crypto-Armenianness, or a deceitful Islamist hell-bent on destroying secular Turkey.)
I am not going to waste my time by trying to explain that I am really not the man in these caricatures — or that I really don’t (...)
Turkey : Tearing down the Ankara Wall (in slow-motion)
25 novembre 2009

Mustafa AKYOL
Twenty years ago, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. It took just a few weeks to tear it into pieces. It took only a little more than that to disestablish the East German state apparatus. In January 1990, the infamous Stasi, “The Ministry for State Security,” was stormed by people who demanded the destruction of their “personal files,” and, ultimately, the end of communism.
Now, to get what is happening in Turkey these days, you need to realize that there is an “Ankara (...)