AK Party starts a new era on Sunday

I make much of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Congress on Sunday.

Like it or not, a team who has led this country for 10 years will leave and a new era will start. We may need time to adjust to the new era. More importantly, nobody knows what this new order will bring.

The major change will be seeing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Çankaya Presidential Mansion. Even though the prime minister said in his joint interview with both Star TV and NTV that he will make his final decision after the local elections in 2013, it is obvious that the target is the “mansion.”

The position of the prime ministry, no matter how much its powers are increased is a much different position than the presidency. Obviously, the powers of the “mansion” will be reviewed during the constitutional change; however, it is not clear to what extent this authorization will be.

No matter what happens, will the prime minister, after he ascends to the “mansion,” be able to do whatever he wants as was the way it used to be? Will he be able to keep the party under his discipline as it used to be? Will he be able to control the “administration”? How will he be able to work with the person who will become the prime minister?

There are hundreds of questions like that.

Indefiniteness bothers societies. Even now, there are some of us who feel this inconvenience in advance. There are those scattered around asking, “How will this be?” There are those who will be rejoicing that the party will disintegrate, that Erdoğan will be disabled, that the coalition years will come back, and there are those who dread that all of these things will happen.

We may be able to find out a portion of the answers to these questions at the congress. We will meet the new names that will come to the forefront of the party. The rest of the answers lie in the 2014 presidential elections and the picture that will emerge after these elections.

The AK Party congress will be the opening of a new page for Turkey.

Cadets are not stupid
There was a very interesting story last Sunday in daily Hürriyet.

Upon an unsigned and unnamed tip, the television series “Game of Thrones,” which has been a global hit, was banned for Izmir Maltepe Military High School students. Four teacher officers were discharged from the army for screening the series for their students to help them develop their English, despite the fact that the series contained “sexual abuse and insult to Turkishness.”

The best part is the report from the head of the examining committee:

“In the film there are scenes where our nation is insulted and denigrated, not directly but in a way that can easily be perceived by viewers, by showing [us] as barbaric, pervert and uncivilized, with religious beliefs and traditions. Accepting the film in question as normal and showing it to students may cause grave consequences such as the weakening of the national feelings of students, and even alienating them from the profession,” the report said.

Wow.

I also watch this series and not even for one moment has such evil thoughts crossed my mind.

This mentality is nothing more than accepting that the cadets are fools and that one has to be a genius to watch the show and derive that it is an insult to Turks. To claim that cadets will become alienated from the military profession because of the series is a discovery impossible to understand. In this case, there should be a list given to students on which films and series they can watch at home. Terminator and Rambo films should especially be banned.

What a pity.