“The Grave Below is All Astir”

As I watched Saddam Hussein’s last moments I thought of the welcoming committee awaiting him–the long line of history’s dictators and despots who preceded him:

“The grave below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you–all those who were leaders in the world; it makes them rise from their thrones–all those who were kings over the nations.  They will all respond, they will say to you, ‘You also have become weak, as we are; you also have become like us.’  All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you  (Isaiah 14:9-11).

A la Turca Highs and Lows of 2006

Tops in Child Porno

 According to world-wide “Google Trends” research, the world’s top five cities hitting child-porn sites are all in Turkey, Trabzon, Izmir, Adana, Ankara and Istanbul respectively.  Next in line are Auckland, Melbourne, Seattle, Tampa and Sydney.

(Radikal, 23 Dec. 2006)

Christians under pressure

Pressure on the Christian community did not let up this year.  Early in the year a priest was shot while praying in his church in the city of Trabzon (the same Trabzon which leads the world in child porno hits) and another priest was knifed.   Molotof Cocktails were thrown at several Istanbul Protestant church fellowship, one of which was severely damaged.  Two Turkish Christians were arrested on obviously trumped up charged.  Their court cases are ongoing.  For more info go to the Compass Direct site, linked to www.pikkert.com.

Funnies

Muslims, failing to see the link, responded to a cartoon in the Danish newspaper Jyland Posten depicting Muhammed wearing a bomb as a turban, by bombing, rioting and killing innocent bystanders.  A cartoonist depicting the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayip Erdogan, as a cat caught in a ball of wool was sued by Mr. Erdogan.  The Prime Minister lost the case.

Papa Don’t Preach

The Pope undertook major damage control during his visit to Turkey.   He arrived unwelcome, after apparently linking Islam with violence.  However, he played a weak hand well… 

Nobel Matters

When Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize for Literature, a few Turks rejoiced.  Most seemed to think it was a western plot to support a national traitor because he once suggested that Turks were involved in an Armenian genocide.

Holy Sledge

The Prime Minister’s blood sugar dropped during Ramazan (month of fasting).  As a result he fainted while sitting in the back of his car.  His chauffeur raced to a nearby hospital, where both he and the body guard jumped out of the armoured car in a panic—which promptly auto-locked.  They tried to break into the car using a “No Parking” sign, but to no avail.  They then scrounged up a sledge hammer from a nearby construction site and eventually managed to rescue their man, who was bundled off on a stretcher, legs dangling everywhere.  Member of Parliament and party yes-man Feyzi Berdibek bought the sledge from the workmen, annoucing he’d treasure the sacred object forever.

Oops…

Mehmet Ali Agca, the fellow who tried to kill Pope John Paul II back in the 80s and who really did kill newspaper man Abdi Ipekci, was finally released after nearly 25 years in prison.  Following a public outrcy the court decided that they had “wrongly calculated” his release, whereup Mr. Agca was promptly rearrested and sent to back to his cell.  He is now due to be freed in 2014.

Good times for Turkish cinema

After a long decline following the demise of the Yesilcam films of the 70s and 80s the Turkish film industry is making a comeback.  In 2005 27 Turkish films were shown in cinemas.  I’m not certain of the total number of films for 2006—but more than 20 were produced since September.  The top 2 are probably Takva and Hokkabaz.

Attack on Supreme Court

A nationalist nut, lawyer Alparslan Arslan, attacked the Supreme Court Judges.  One, Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin died, 4 others were injured.  He had already thrown a bomb at the Ankara office of Cumhuriyet newspaper earlier that day.

Jet Ski Imam

An “ultra-conservative” imam, Ahmet Mahmut Hoca, was caught living the high life in Malta.  Women, visits to churches, and racing around on a Jet Ski struck most of the faithful back home as a bit odd. 

Tights

Colourful tights are all the rage in Turkey this season.

Beggars Matter

You’re not supposed to give beggars money—every one knows they’ve got loads of money stashed away somewhere, right?  They’re simply exploiting us hardworking people… And you must absolutely not give anything to the little beggar children; giving them money encourages those who exploit them, and thus simply increases the problem!

However, whenever I pass one of these numerous human wrecks—the doubled over old woman, the man without limbs, the doleful young mother with a dirty baby sucking an empty feeding bottle, the half-naked, snot-nosed toddler holding out a grubby hand and looking hopefully at you with big, brown eyes—I feel vaguely uncomfortable, guilty even.  What if these people really are needy…?

In fact the really needy people far outnumber those reduced to begging.  Most of the really poor people still have too much self-respect to beg.   Statistics bear this out:

According to the Turkish Statistics Organization (Turkiye Istatistik Kurumu: TUIK) 25.5% of the population of Turkey in 2004 lived below the poverty line.  That’s 18 million people.   According to TUIK about one million people go hungry.  A 2005 World Bank report states that 58% of the population of Turkey lives on $4.30 a day, 20% of the population on $2.15 a day. 

I don’t know how that is possible.   Nor do I know what I, personally, can/should do about it…

Give to beggars…?

Source for statistics: Radikal, Dec.5 2006.

Cover Up!

More and more Middle Eastern women are opting to wear headscarves; I dare say the majority now do so, raising hackles with hard-pressed secularists and westernizers. 

The Netherlands recently banned the burqa (full face covering), and Britain looks set to do the same.  France doesn’t allow any obvious religious symbolism in the public arena.  Tunesian police were recently given a mandate to simply rip the headscarf off women; it has been a politically sensitive issues in Turkey for decades.   An Egyptian cabinet minister recently condemned headscarves as “backwards”.

Some women are convinced that uncovering their hair in public means they’ll end up in hell.  For others it is a quiet revolt against western cultural values.  It is, in any case, a symbol of religious conservatism, social values and ethics, and a public declarion of personal piety. 

Having said that, you’ll see the most fashionable, colorful, silk headscarves sashay along the Nile or Bosphorus.  You’ll also see covered girls wearing clothing which reveals every curve, others are cuddling or walking hand-in-hand  with their boyfriends.  Some girls wear scarves which hold pill-boxes in place on their heads, seeking to complete the appearance of stature begun with high-heels.  In fact, the variety of ways in which scarves can be worn is amazing.  On television covered pop singers and movie stars twist and writhe….  Initially it all strikes one as odd, but you soon get used to it.

Add to this the recent spate of news articles about covered women: one threatened the jeweler she was robbing with a pistol, another killed her own children… there are covered rip-off artists, prostitutes, you name it… Nearly every day there is a news item about covered women involved in some henous crime or scam.

Of course having more and more women covering up means they end up merely representing the realities of their own culture.  The head covering thus ends up symbolizing nothing more than the values of Middle Eastern society-at-large.  And that cannot be good news for Islam!