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Turkey's Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar delivers a speech during the Democracy and Martyrs' Rally in Istanbul, Sunday, August 7, 2016. Depo Photos/Press Association. All rights reserved. It is quite common for a military regime to change the names associated with public spaces (e.g., squares, avenues, streets) and public institutions (e.g., schools, hospitals), particularly if these are associated with a previous regime or ideologies designated as subversive or simply as the arch-enemy. After the 12 September 1980 coup in Turkey, for instance, the military regime in Turkey cleansed public spaces and institutions of unsuitable names.

But it is not only the military who are interested in renaming schools. For as long as militarism is considered a viable ideology, civilian governments can also be intent on naming schools after military figures, events, or martyrs. That is exactly what has happened in Turkey. Turkey is now full of schools named after martyrs.

Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has ruled Turkey since 2002, this militarist practice intensified:

In 2007, for instance, the Provincial Education Directorate of Kars changed the names of seven village schools with a single decision. The schools were named after the village they were located in. These schools now carry a name that has nothing to do with the village or the region. The schools have been turned into sites marking a never-ending conflict.[1]

Local governments controlled by AKP played their part diligently. Even parks for children were named after martyrs. Municipalities in Istanbul played a major role in promoting martyrdom in the context of the Battle of Gallipoli, known as the Victory of anakkale. But Sincan Municipality, which is part of metropolitan Ankara and long considered to be a bastion of political Islam, surpassed all others in 2012: the mayor announced that 36 parks would be named after martyrs. Many parks were previously named after key figures from the Ottoman dynasty, such as Gazi Osman and Orhan Gazi. It was quite clear that the local administration had an agenda: the public needed to be reminded of the magnificent heritage of the the Ottoman Empire and young people, in particular, indoctrinated into seeing the martyrs as examples to follow.

After the failed coup attempt on 15 July last year, the zeal for renaming public institutions reached an unprecedented high. This time mosques were targeted, too. Mosques, initially used to mobilize the public against the coup attempt, soon became tools for a political machine that wanted to keep the entire population on the verge of something.

The regime was eager to develop novel channels and strategies of political communication. The goal was to reinforce two notions. First, the regime was in control, and secondly, the regime and the nation were one entity. The regime was determined to use this god-sent opportunity to consolidate its control and public support.

One of the new channels was democracy vigils, initiated and staged by central government in AKP-controlled municipalities. Each vigil was highly publicised, totally safe to attend and orchestrated in a top-down fashion. And they had nothing to do with democracy. Rather, these provided stages for large numbers of extras to be summoned every night to deliver what they were expected to deliver night after night. The vigil in Istanbuls Taksim Square, for instance, was more like a major film set. It was on television, on social media, on YouTube, and politicians kept repeating the message, Democracy has been saved.

The vigils ended on 10 August with major gatherings. In Pendik, on the Asian side, crowds were greeted with big banners at the National Will Gathering. They were provided with the opportunity of a photo shoot. In the background, it said Thank you Pendik, thank you Turkey, thanks for saving your will, meaning that it was the public who saved the regime. (They now saved the administration it was their will to elect.) Before the photo shoot everybody was given a flag. And it was left to the person to decide if they wanted to contribute a political message to this setup. Some contributed the four finger gesture, introduced into Turkeys political scene by President Erdoan. The gesture, imported from Egypt, came from a tradition of hardcore political Islam.

The vigils fulfilled a very important function. They raised the emotions, made people feel like they were part of a democracy that they had never really participated in. If the vigil and the festive activities were democracy, crowds were the living proof of it. But the vigils served a more subtle function, too: they legitimized the regimes militarism and belief in violence. The crowds were also celebrating the violence directed at anyone and everyone accused of being associated with the failed coup, with Glenists, and all the rest. Those who wanted to overthrow the regime were all to be regarded as subhuman, dehumanized.

One of the many videos broadcast on television shows an officer shouting insults at captive soldiers and officers in a military area in Etimesgut, in Ankara. He calls them dogs, traitor, traitor dogs and so on. The voiceover says he is teaching them a lesson. He accuses them of following someone who has not been circumcised meaning not even a Muslim. Associating non-Muslims, particularly the Armenians, with terrorists has been common practice for decades. Many AKP politicians have endorsed the practice and had no problem admitting that they did not have respect for non-Muslims. In 2014, President Erdoan apologized for uttering the word "Armenian" in public. After 15 July, dehumanisation became the norm in the way the regime framed its opponents. Opponents were simply subhuman enemies and were turned into outcasts.

Flag-waving during the speech of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Democracy and Martyrs' Rally in Istanbul, Sunday, August 7, 2016. Depo Photos/Press Association. All rights reserved.

The Directorate of Religious Affairs, which is in charge of all mosques and religious affairs in Turkey, asked all preachers to call people to the streets in the hours following the coup attempt. But the preachers were ordered to continue sela calls on 16 July and the following day. The mosques were turned into political tools to repeatedly remind the population of the coup attempt.

The last two times that the ezan and the sela were incanted outside of ritual time occurred before the Republic of Turkeys boundaries were established in 1923. During World War I, as the British and French laid siege to Istanbul at the Battle of Gallipoli, Ottomans heard the ezan and the sela sounding across the Marmara Sea. In 1922, Greek soldiers retreating from Anatolia ostensibly left the port city of Izmir with recitations ringing in their ears. In both cases, the ezan and sela were used to marshal Ottoman Muslims to defend their communities.

Reciting the call to prayer outside of normalized Islamic ritual time rendered this July coup a kind of war against Turkey itself.[2]

The persistent use of mosques indicated, more than anything, that Turkey was indeed in extraordinary times, a time of war. For those against political Islam, each sela was a reminder of that infamous line, "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets..."

Turkey was indeed under a state of emergency and the government initiated a campaign to associate mosques with the resistance to the 15 July coup attempt. The coup attempt was over and the country was under the firm control of an authoritarian regime. So clearly, the campaign to associate mosques with the resistance was first and foremost a political move.

In August, the campaign started in zmir. Yamanlar Koleji, one of the first of the many private schools in Turkey founded or associated by the Glenists, was transformed into a religious school for girls. The new name of the school, ehit lhan Varank Kz Anadolu mam Hatip Lisesi, not only sounded long and awkward but was very much an amalgamation of several victory messages. First, the school was named after a democracy martyr, a professor from a university in Istanbul. Secondly, the renaming proved the fact that the regime was conquering and eradicating Glen schools and turning them into their kind of school, an imam hatip school. Third, this was going to be a girls-only school in a city where such schools and the regime were not welcome. The private school had a large structure built as a mosque but used as a library. The structure was also seized and turned into a mosque with the name 15 July Martyrs Mosque.

Pendik, a big municipality on Istanbuls Asian side, was next. A mosque commissioned by a businessman who had made a fortune in the construction business was renamed 15 July Martyrs Mosque. The businessman was linked to Glen. He was first arrested and then released with an electronic device attached to his leg. His business empire was under attack by the regime. Amidst these troubles, he asked the mosque to be renamed.

More mosques were renamed as the 15 July Martyrs Mosque. In Bahelievler, on the European side of Istanbul, a mosque that carried the name obaneme, the name of the neighborhood, was renamed. In Bafra, a city near Samsun in the north, a mosque named after Ismet Pasha (Ismet Inn) was renamed. Also in the North, a new mosque in a village called ykren was renamed.

In Antalya, in the south, Denizkenar Mosque was renamed. In erkezky, which is the west near Tekirda, Tepe Emlak Konutlar Mosque also became 15 July Martyrs Mosque. In elikhan, which is in the east about 90 km. from Adyaman, a groundbreaking ceremony for the 15 July Nation Martyrs Mosque took place. And in central Turkey, a new mosque was built in a village called Hilalli in orum Province, also with the same name.

What is particularly amazing is the geographical spread of the idea to name mosques after 15 July. One of the first mosques to be named as such was located in Bulgaria: It was named as 15 July Democracy Martyrs Mosque on 21 August. The opening ceremony was attended by the heads of the Muslim religious establishment in Bulgaria and also by three high-level representatives of the DOST party.

The idea reached as far as Kyrgyzstan, thanks to the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, which is very closely associated with AKP, and said to be active in more than 100 countries. For years it commissioned mosques around the world, including the biggest mosque in Vietnam. Recently, the foundation named two of three mosques it commissioned in Kyrgyzstan after the 15 July Martrys.

The renaming campaign was led by the Directorate of Religious Affairs (or Diyanet), which is now an extension of the ruling party. It is provided with the budget of 5-6 ministries combined. It now has a television channel, a radio channel, many publications and vast powers. Now nobody in Turkey seems to be surprised when Diyanet backs each and every political move by the regime.

This week Diyanet is working over time. Diyanet is supposed to oversee religious activities but this week it is busy organizing many activities, including a new publication: a new book (15 July as Told by the Veterans), a documentary and short films about 15 July. Next, an special exhibition with 15 July as the theme. Diyanet publishes a monthly magazine: this July it has a special issue dedicated to 15 July. High-level Diyanet officers are going to visit the families of 15 July martyrs and also the 15 July veterans.

Friday is when Diyanet is always more active. On 14 July, special activities, all titled Commemoration of Our Martyrs, will be held across the country in Quran courses for children. Quran reading sessions will be held across the country before Friday prayers. One hundred thousand prayers will read in honor of martyrs. Friday prayers and the sermons will focus on 15 July.

And then there will be activities on 15 July. Diyanet will hold special activities with the slogan, From Coups that Silenced Prayers to Sala that Silenced Prayers. A web page devoted to 15 July will be published. And on Saturday night Diyanet will organize for sala calls from minarets at 00:13 across the country in 90 thousand mosques. The lights of the mosques and minarets will be on all night.

Diyanet was founded to oversee and manage religious affairs, and to serve the new secular republic. It is not part of any ministry. It is attached to the Prime Ministers Office, just like many other key agencies. In the 80s it turned into an umbrella for variants of political Islam to organize under. Under AKP, it turned into a political mechanism serving the regime.

After 15 July and under the state of emergency, Diyanet has no reason to be shy. The regime has no reason to be careful. Mosques, funerals, martyrs are all in the service of a one-man regime. If anyone has any doubts about the predominance of this strain of political Islam in Turkey, this week they should be watching the mosques in Turkey and aware of how mosques, as well as schools and parks have been renamed.

Last year the regime in Turkey organized an unprecedented campaign to make the world believe that last year democracy was saved on 15 July. It is true that the regime survived. And the regime has turned the coup attempt into a survival strategy because it has no other way to claim legitimacy. The frenzy around 15 July has a very good explanation. That infamous line, "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers," fits the strategy well.

[1] http://www.wri-irg.org/en/story/2011/militarism-all-over-schools-turkey

[2] http://theconversation.com/turkeys-coup-and-the-call-to-prayer-sounds-of-violence-meet-islamic-devotionals-63746.

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Can mosques and minarets be tools for democracy? - Open Democracy

America was founded on the principles of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. A vibrant and strong grassroots democracy is essential to those principles weaved into the fabric of our society. The founders of our great nation felt it essential to provide a system of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The thing is, like most things in life, we get out what we put in. Put another way, we reap what we sow.

I founded the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho, a 501(3) charity, because I believe our state and nation are in distress. The overwhelming majority of the citizens in our state are disconnected, unaware, and apathetic to the awesome gift and responsibility of being part of a participatory democracy.

I am amazed at the number of young adults I meet who dont know what the state Legislature does, or that we have county commissioners.

Moreover, way too many are surprised by the statement that a supermajority of the laws and decisions that affect our daily lives are made at the city, county, and state level. Most alarming is that only about 50 percent of Idahoans even show up to vote. We are at a crossroads Idaho, wake up or be complicit in the destruction of our democracy.

The goal of the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho is to help inspire the disconnected, unaware, and apathetic citizens of our state. Inspire them to care enough to follow and interact with local government. Inspire them to take more seriously the awesome responsibility of being a citizen of this great state. Once inspired we will strive to connect them to political and/or civic action groups that can help harness that passion we cultivated.

I believe that this inspiration is essential to survival of our democracy. I want this organization to help inspire everyone, regardless of political affiliation or ideology. Because of this, and our 501(3) status, we will not be getting involved with specific issues, broadcasting positions on the serious challenges facing our state, or holding rallies in support or opposition of candidates.

This is essential to the goals of the organization because I absolutely believe: It does not matter if someone is Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or none of the above; if they are willing to participate, we will show them how. My organization is in the business of civic education, grassroots cultivation and support, and community Service.

While this organization is new, we have a lot of passion for seeing a better Idaho. We are dedicated to bridging the gap between knowledge and action. We believe if we show people the value in connecting with government, people will get involved in political parties, community groups, and other organizations focused on the issues they are passionate about.

People keep asking me what is the grassroots democracy? A better question is WHO is the grassroots democracy. The answer, all of us. Together, as all the citizens of Idaho, we make up the grassroots democracy of the state and communities we are part of. I really believe that with some education and inspiration we can again have a strong and vibrant grassroots democracy in Idaho.

Remember, we reap what we sow. Whether you are passionate about the work of this organization and want to help or not. I implore you all to stay connected to our local governments, hold our elected state & local officials accountable, and most importantly make your voice heard. Learn how by joining us for our Grassroots Conference in Pocatello Idaho on Saturday, July 15, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Marshall Public Library in Pocatello.

This event will feature valuable workshops on our local government, civic rights, voting rights, and other important topics. You can also learn more about the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho (and our upcoming events) on our Facebook Page (fb.com/grassrootsofidaho).

I also welcome your feedback, send me an email (grassrootsofidaho@gmail.com) or give me a call (208-380-8673).

J.D. Wardell is the president and founder of the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho. Its a 501(3) non-profit public charity focused on civic education and supporting the Grassroots of Idaho. Learn more on its Facebook page (www.facebook.com/grassrootsofidaho).

Original post:
Grassroots Democracy, Say What? - Idaho State Journal

UNITED NATIONS The United States on Tuesday threatened to impose further targeted unilateral sanctions on anyone who hinders Democratic Republic of Congo's already delayed preparations for an election to replace President Joseph Kabila.

The country's election commission president said on Sunday that the vote, originally due in November 2016, was unlikely to take place in 2017, because of delays in registering millions of voters.

Further delays could trigger additional unrest following anti-government street protests last year in which security forces killed dozens of demonstrators. The opposition quickly denounced Sunday's announcement as a declaration of "war".

"We are ready to take additional action to sanction those who stand in the way of DRC's first democratic transition of power," U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Michele Sison told the U.N. Security Council.

The United States imposed sanctions on several Congolese officials last year - blocking any financial assets in the United States and generally barring Americans from engaging in financial transactions with them - for hindering democracy.

"The Security Council should also consider targeted sanctions to reduce the violence in the DRC and help pressure all stakeholders to play a more constructive role in moving the country forward," Sison said.

Kabila has refused to step down at the end of his second elected term in December, sparking protests that killed dozens of people. Militia violence has also intensified across Congo, raising fears the country will slide back into the wars at the turn of the century that killed millions.

The IMF has told Congo that "a credible path toward political stability" will probably be a condition of any assistance package, a letter seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday.

Under an accord struck on Dec. 31 between Kabila's representatives and opposition leaders, Kabila, in power since 2001, is barred from trying to change the constitution to stand for a third term.

About 80,000 people have fled fighting between the Congolese army and a new rebel coalition, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Conflict has forced more than 1.5 million Congolese to flee their homes this year, while more than 3,000 have died since last October in central Congo's Kasai region.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

WASHINGTON The United States said on Tuesday it shot down a simulated, incoming intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) similar to the ones being developed by countries like North Korea, in a new test of the nation's THAAD missile defenses.

DOHA The United States and Qatar signed an agreement on Tuesday aimed at combating the financing of terrorism, as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Doha to try to end a month-long rift between Western-allied Arab states.

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US threatens more sanctions for hindering democracy in Congo - Reuters

The most telling feature of Daniel Fosters response to my article on Donald Trumps Warsaw speech is that, while he dislikes my definition of the West, he never offers one of his own. I argued that, in the United States today, the best predictor of whether a country is considered Western is whether it is primarily white and primarily Christian. (With Protestant and Catholic countries considered more Western than Orthodox ones, and Israel tossed in to buttress the Judeo part of Judeo-Christian.) I noted that non-white or non-Christian countries arent generally considered Western even when they are further west geographically than Christian, white ones (Morocco v. Poland, Haiti v. France, Egypt v. Australia). And that non-white, non-Christian countries arent generally considered Western even when they are economically developed (Japan) or robustly democratic (India).

Foster responds that Morocco was jostled about by Spanish and French empires for a few hundred years and that Western ideals were kind of a big thing in the Haiti of Toussaint Louverture and that Japan enjoys the sponsorship of a demure American empire and that Indias in the frigging British Commonwealth. Sure. Countries that Americans today consider Western and countries that they consider non-Western have interacted for a long time, and shaped each other in profound ways. So have white and black Americans. Yet Americans still distinguish between the two.

Foster is trying to have it both ways. He says that India, Morocco, Japan, Haiti, Egypt, and many other non-white, non-Christian places are right well tangled up in the West. Notice the slippery language. Are they Western or not? Saying no would require Foster to explain what excludes them from the club. Saying yes would render the term meaningless. Yes, India is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. (Its not called the British Commonwealth anymore.) So are frigging Nigeria and Papua New Guinea. If being influenced by (and influencing) the West makes you part of the West, then the West is everything.

Like other critics of my piece, Foster wants to associate the West with principles like democracy, freedom, tolerance, and equality. Thus, he says the Haitian revolution was fought for Western ideals. But if the real test of a countrys Westernness is its governments fidelity to liberal democratic ideals, then Japan, Botswana, and India are three of the most Western countries on Earth, Spain didnt become Western until it embraced democracy in 1975, and Hungarys slide towards authoritarianism means it is significantly less Western than it was a few years ago. Almost no one, including Foster, uses the term that way. And for good reason. If Western is synonymous with democratic or free, then you dont need the term at all.

What Foster is actually doing is linking these ideals to a particular religious (Judeo-Christian) identity. (Other conservativesPat Buchanan and Ann Coulter, for instanceexplicitly link them to a racial identity as well. And in America today, Muslim virtually functions as a racial category anyway. The Tsarnaev brothers, of Boston bombing fame, literally hailed from the Caucuses yet were not described as white.) Foster gives it away with this line: The West is the only civilization that blushes. Really? Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arabian, and African civilizations have no traditions of self-criticism or shame? Its telling that Foster sees the Haitian revolution simply as a struggle for Western ideals. Of course, African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and American revolutionaries turned the ideals of their oppressors against them. But they also drew on non-Western, pre-colonial traditions. During the struggle against apartheid, Bishop Desmond Tutu popularized the term Ubuntu, a Bantu word meaning common humanity. In his 2005 book, The Argumentative Indian, Nobel Prize Winner Amartya Sen argues that Indian liberal democracy owes its robustness in part to the legacies of a Buddhist emperor of India, Ashoka, who, in the third century BCE laid down what are perhaps the oldest rules for conducting debates and disputations and to a Muslim Indian emperor, Akbar, who in the 16th century, when the Inquisition was in full swing, outlined principles of religious toleration.

Near the heart of the immigration debate in America and Europe today is the question of whether non-white, non-Christian immigrants will embrace values like tolerance, reason, and womens rights. Conservatives tend to be more pessimistic. Liberalsremembering that, in many countries, such principles were once considered alien to Catholics and Jewsare more optimistic. Thats fine.

The problem is when conservatives ask not whether immigrants will embrace democratic or liberal values, but rather Western values. In so doing, theyre conflating the universal and the particular. Theyre implying that being Muslim itself is incompatible with good citizenship. Foster himself may not believe that. But if he thinks its a marginal viewdivorced from mainstream conservatism in America todayhes nuts. According to a 2015 Public Religion Research Institute poll, three-quarters of Republicans say Islam is incompatible with American values.

Donald Trump is not a to-be-sure paragraph. On the subject of Islam and the West, he reflects what most American conservatives believe. And defending his speech without acknowledging its context, as Fosters magazine, National Review, did is willfully nave. When Trump talked in Poland about defending our civilization from threats from the south and east, he was not talking entirely, or even mostly, about defending liberal democracy. How could he have been? He fawns over authoritarian leaders. He attacks judges for their ethnicity and tweets images of himself physically attacking a man with CNNs logo superimposed on his face. No president in modern American history has cherished liberal democracy less.

Trump arrived in Poland as the man who, during the campaign, said, Islam hates us, and called for banning Muslim immigration. And he gave his speech about the survival of the West in a country whose government is itself undermining liberal democracy (without the gentlest chiding from Trump), and will not admit a single Muslim refugee.

In contemporary political discourse, defending liberal democracy and defending the West are very different things. In fact, from Trump to Marine Le Pen to the leaders of Poland and Hungary, many of the people most loudly defending the latter represent the greatest threat to the former. Its reminiscent of Gandhis famous line: Asked What do you think of western civilization? he answered, I think it would be a good idea.

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Defending Liberal Democracy is Not the Same as Defending 'the ... - The Atlantic

July 3 marked the 169th anniversary of the United States Virgin Islands Emancipation Day. In 1848, 15 years before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved Virgin Islanders under Danish rule organized and executed their own armed rebellion and won their freedom from chattel slavery. Those people of the Virgin Islands and Haiti executed the only successful violent overthrows by those enslaved in the Western Hemisphere.

Virgin Islanders then spent a decade as citizens without a country, and now, alongside fellow territorial residents, hold no electoral votes and have no voting representation in Congress. Disenfranchisement in territories was originally a temporary step on the path toward statehood, but it has become a means to maintain the doctrine established by the Plessy v. Ferguson-era Supreme Court of separate and unequal status for the overseas territories. A federal appeals court decision, the Obama administration brief in Tuaua v. United States in 2015 and Congresss unwillingness to grant equal treatment requests made by territorial representatives all uphold that unequal status.

As a consequence of this disparate treatment, the Virgin Islands does not receive the same proportion of support in federal dollars as do states for school funding, roads and healthcare. The federal government matches 14 cents to every dollar of territorial funds but 30 cents to every dollar of other state funds.

In 1917, Virgin Islanders came to Washington to petition for not only citizenship, but also the responsibilities thereof, demanding to be included in the draft, committing our sons to defend this country. This tradition of patriotism continues today, with Virgin Islanders giving the ultimate sacrifice in military conflicts at three times the national average. These brave service members fight for a commander in chief they do not elect and protect the ideals of a nation that are not fully extended to them and their families.

Our territorial status is eerily similar to the status of the original 13 colonies. The colonists we commemorate every year revolted and wrote the Declaration of Independence because they were controlled by a government in which they held no representation. Today, territorial residents face the same treatment. How can we herald the actions of our Founding Fathers while simultaneously depriving fellow Americans of the same rights those Founding Fathers fought so hard to achieve? Just as the colonists, we are subjected to the laws of an un-representational government. But just as the colonists, we will not stop fighting for the same representation that every other great American enjoys. A people who have made great contributions to this country including Alexander Hamilton, Denmark Vessey, and Tim Duncan still do not have equal citizenship. Democracy is not complete.

Plaskett represents the United States Virgin Islands at-large district in the United States House of Representatives. Plaskett currently serves on the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Plaskett is the ranking member on the Oversight Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and Environment.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

Originally posted here:
The ironic state of freedom without democracy - The Hill (blog)