MUSTAFA AKYOL

Why Erdoğan is ‘Armenian-minded’ MUSTAFA AKYOL

Why Erdoğan is ‘Armenian-minded’

Last week, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of Turkey’s all-secularist main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), gave a furious speech at Parliament.

November 30 2011
A dark episode in Turkish history MUSTAFA AKYOL

A dark episode in Turkish history

These days, the Turkish media is full of discussions about “what really happened” in Dersim in 1937 – an eastern province in which a “rebellion” was brutally crushed. The victims, whose numbers exceed 10,000 and included many women and children, are remembered with grief. Now Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the ever-venerated and never-questioned “father of all Turks,” is getting the questioning he deserves for the first time.

November 29 2011
Some things never change MUSTAFA AKYOL

Some things never change

This morning I sat down in a busy cafe in the ever-busy British capital, which I am visiting these days for a series of talks about my newly released book. I began to skim my copy of The Guardian to check the news, and was soon drawn to a particular headline in the opinion pages. “A law that shames South Africa,” read the piece by South African journalist Justice Malala, who was very critical of the African National Congress (ANC) for imitating its racist predecessors. “The ANC’s state secrecy l

November 29 2011
The Anatolians are coming MUSTAFA AKYOL

The Anatolians are coming

If you want to get an idea of how much Turkish civil society has flourished recently, just visit this address on your browser: www.anatolianfestival.org.

November 22 2011
Fighting the Kurdish Khmer Rouge MUSTAFA AKYOL

Fighting the Kurdish Khmer Rouge

Why do you think the PKK, the armed and outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, killed two dozen Turkish soldiers on the very day that the Turkish Parliament would begin to discuss a new liberal constitution?

November 22 2011
Does God punish us via earthquakes MUSTAFA AKYOL

Does God punish us via earthquakes?

Turkey is beset these days with the earthquake in Van, an eastern city that borders Iran. The death toll is in the hundreds, while some suspect that it might ultimately reach into the thousands. The tragic stories and scenes of victims are all over the media, which brings anguish to the whole nation.

November 22 2011
Muslim democrats beat secular tyranny - again MUSTAFA AKYOL

Muslim democrats beat secular tyranny - again

Tunisia, the prime mover of the Arab Spring, had its first democratic outcome: Last weekend, this small Arab nation held free and fair elections, which had been only a dream under the tyranny of its former dictator, the all-secular Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Moreover, the winner turned out to be the Islamic-inspired party that the same Ben Ali brutally suppressed for decades: the Renaissance Party, or, with its original name, Ennahda.

November 22 2011
The Turkish Spring (since 1950) MUSTAFA AKYOL

The Turkish Spring (since 1950)

Why can the incumbent AKP easily sympathize with the anti-Baath protestors in Syria these days while Turkey’s arch-Kemalist main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), finds itself closer to Bashar al-Assad and his fellow thugs?

November 22 2011
Dead tyranny walking: Assad and his thugs MUSTAFA AKYOL

Dead tyranny walking: Assad and his thugs

The other night, on my weekly program on a Turkish news channel, I interviewed Dr. Khaled Khoja, a prominent voice of the Syrian opposition based in Turkey.

November 22 2011