Cheshmandaz چشم انداز

Dogan Kuban – 600 yıllık imparatorluk (Osmanlı İmparatorluğu) nasıl çöktü? Asıl öğrenilmesi gereken budur.

Cumhuriyet gökten inmedi. Biz yıkılan evimizi yeniden inşa ettik. Türk olmayanlar imparatorluğu terk ediyorlardı. Aslında imparatorluk 18. yüzyıldan bu yana parçalanmaya başlamıştı. Ama adı ve şaşaası sürüyordu.

1877- 1878 Rus Savaşı (93 Harbi) başlarında Çar Aleksandr İngitere, Fransa ve Avusturya- Macaristan’a çektiği telgrafta “Yüzyıllardan bu yana Avrupa’yı ve uygarlığımızı rahatsız eden ve Balkan ve Makedonya halkını ezmekte olan Türk egemenliğine son vermenin bize nasip olmasını İsa’nın lütfu sayıyorum.” diyordu.

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Read this book with high interest. Superb writing plus a story that is mostly encouraging, especially about a man with cancer, especially if you read it in a hospital. My wife says “Is a new technology, a new toy like iPhone more important than the robotic ‘Da Vinci’ technology they have developed for precise computer-based surgery? Is Steve Jobs more important for the human being than Fleming and Florey who found and started to use penicillium?” Well, obviously no. But playing with toys such as iPhone and iPad, I know how they can sweeten your life even though you are in a hospital for a serious reason.

Goodread

Amazon Link

Patrick Cockburn/The Independent – Turkish optimism has ominous parallels with the self-regarding opinions once heard in Ireland and Greece. As with Turkey, both these countries had histories of poverty and emigration which made them psychologically receptive to the self-deceiving idea that they had at last attained the prosperity so long and so unfairly denied them. Excessive belief in their own booms produced disastrous economic bubbles.

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Ahmet Altan/Star Gazetesi, 13 Kasım 2011 Pazar

Avrupa, 16’ncı yüzyıldan itibaren sanayileşmenin ve kapitalistleşmenin sosyo-politik alt yapısını iyice oluşturmaya başlamıştı…

Bunun da zihinsel temelini Protestanlık, özellikle de Kalvenizm sağladı.

Hâlbuki Osmanlı-Türk insanı girişimci ve kapitalist bir anlayışa sahip olamamış, geçici bir dünyada yaşanıldığına inanan kanaatkâr bir insan olarak kalmıştı.

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BBC/Doha Debates – Istanbul, Turkey: Ankara’s human rights and media freedom record came under sustained attack at the latest Doha Debate, as a majority-Turkish audience told Arab states not to follow their country’s example.

The debate, at Bosphorous (Bogazici) University, overlooking the historic waterway, provoked heated arguments between panelists and audience members before 59% voted for the motion: “This House believes Turkey is a bad model for the new Arab States”.

Ece Temelkuran, an award-winning Turkish journalist and author, who was recently dismissed from her newspaper, drew applause whenever she cited examples of the government’s crackdown on critics, including journalists, students and academics.

“Arabs should talk to Arabs about which model is best for them,” she said. “They should hear their own voices…Turkey cannot be a model because Arabs already have enough problems.”

via Turks tell Arabs: don’t follow our example | News | The Doha Debates.

پیشتر انتخابات تونس و حالا انتخابات مصر. خیلی دلم میخواست بدانم اگر در ایران انتخاباتی واقعا آزاد – دور از هرگونه فشار و تحریم و فیلتر و زندان و شکنجه و سرکوب و منع آزادی سخن و مظبوعات – انجام میگرفت واقعا کی، کدام نیرو ها و گروه ها با کدام نسبت انتخاب میشدند؟ صزف نظر از القائات حکومت و شعار های طرفدار و مخالف و آرزوهای تک تک افراد که آنرا اغلب با واقعیت عوضی میگیرند؟ و خیلی دلم میخواست این سوال ها به بحث گذاشته شود که: آیا درست است که چه از نتیجه انتخابات راضی باشید و یا نه، به هر حال حالا مردم حرف آزادشان را میزنند و این بهتر از دیکتاتوری بن علی و مبارک است؟ یا اینکه بهتر است دیکتاتوری و یا «آزادی هدایت شده» باشد اما اسلام گرایان سر کار نیایند؟ آیا این نتیجه گیری درست است که در یک کشور مسلمان با اکثریت مومن (اما نه لزوما تند رو دینی) اولا احزاب اسلامی اما معتدل و طرفدارآزادی شانس بمراتب بیشتری از احزاب بنیاد گرا و تند روی اسلامی دارند؟ ثانیا آیا درست است که در این قبیل جوامع احزاب و گروه های لیبرال و سکولار شانس موفقیت چندانی ندارند؟

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The exciting story of how Chinese and Arab-Abbasid advances in Asia came to a halt on the banks of the Talas River in today’s Kyrgyzstan 1,260 years ago, somehow dividing a line between the Muslim and Buddhist/Confucianist parts of Asia and leaving today’s Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan with the Islamic world. Also a brief history of the Central Asian periphery of the Muslim world.

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This article is adapted from Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty from W.W. Norton & Company.

Extremely well-written. This is basically a case for liberal Muslims. Or maybe rather a good book for non-Muslims, primarily Westerners, as a tool to look at Islam a bit more differently than what is the popular approach of the “man on the street” in Chicago or Paris. But, frankly, I am not sure if this discussion has already started to occupy our Muslim countries/communities to the extent it could potentially change the mindsets of the “masses.” You look at the “Arab Spring” and find out, in my view, that people’s main concerns are other than the theoretical/practiced religion and whether or not it is compatible with the liberal values of the West. They are primarily (and maybe rightly) concerned about their freedom of speech and change the government, media freedom, corruption, authoritarianism, etc. – and less about all these religion-related discussions. And if you have free and fair elections in a typical Middle Eastern country, it is extremely hard to believe that a non-Muslim, secular type of political figure would get elected as a president or prime minister. This is where the Turkish model may come in – though not necessarily in all cases and in the same way.

Mustafa Akyol – If your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are on the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?
— Koran 10:99, Shakir translation

In March 2006, a modest Afghan citizen named Abdul Rahman made global headlines with an unpleasant story. The poor man was on the verge of execution for the “crime” of converting from Islam to Christianity. His prosecutors, who called him a “microbe,” were pretty straightforward in their indictment: “He should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society, and should be killed.” The court, which did not hesitate to agree, gave Abdul Rahman three days to rethink and recant. If he still insisted on apostasy, he would be sentenced to a public hanging.

Full Article: A Muslim Case for Liberty

Now reading: Die Konkubinenwirtschaft: Warum westliche Unternehmen in China scheitern und die Chinesen an die Weltspitze stürmen.
by Frank Sieren; published by Hanser (Germany). Costs around $20.25 at Amazon.

Fascinating stories on how some German businessmen failed or succeeded in China…

Yes, Chinese economy and trade has been and is still improving with dramatic pace… But many don’t know how the country made it to the world’s second (and soon the first) biggest economy… It has not always been through “clean ways”… Also, what did the Westerners do wrong? How did they try to invest in China and why some of them failed while others succeeded? Extremely interesting case studies that could tell us something about other countries that decide to open up to the world economy…