thanks, Vineyards!

Turkey´s most important political trial in more than a decade starts near Istanbul today, amid hopes the country may finally be able to crush shadowy criminal groups that, for decades, have hobbled its democratic development.

The 86 defendants, prominent secularists and right-wingers united only by their authoritarian ultra-nationalism, stand accused of attempting to remove the government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan by force. The indictment against them, a 2,455-page door-stopper, reads like a Dan Brown novel.

Beginning with the discovery of 27 hand-grenades in the Istanbul home of a retired military officer last June, the prosecutors accumulated evidence linking the gang to assassinations stretching back more than 15 years.

The gang´s aim, they assert, was to use high-profile murders to stir up social tensions, easing the way for military intervention against a ruling party which has its roots in political Islam.

The accused – among them senior retired military officers, mafiosi and prominent academics and journalists – are alleged to have commissioned the murder of a High Court judge in April 2006. Originally blamed on Islamists, the killing triggered a secularist backlash against the government that culminated in a veiled coup threat last year and a court attempt to close the ruling AK Party this February.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/democracy-on-trial-in-turkey-as-86-face-coup-attempt-charge-966933.html

I was not aware  that there is a word called Neo-Ottomanism

Turkey’s Middle East Policies

Turkey’s increased engagement in the Middle East reflects its desire to become a self-confident regional superpower. Yet, Ankara’s fraught handling of the Kurdish issue has been reactive, alarmist, and insecure. Unless Turkey learns to balance its opposing priorities, the country will witness an increase in ultra-nationalism and isolationism, concludes a new paper from the Carnegie Endowment.

• Neo-Ottomanism motivates the foreign policy of Turkey’s ruling party, the AKP. Critics of the AKP, including the military and national security establishment, view neo-Ottomanism and its use of soft power in the Middle East as a threat to Turkey’s Kemalist secular identity.  
• Turkey’s secular, nationalist establishment resents the West for supporting the Kurds and “moderate Islam” in Turkey, while the AKP’s neo-Ottomanism favors good relations with Washington and Brussels—an important realignment of Turkish foreign policy.
• Both groups favor improved relations between Ankara, Tehran, and Damascus. Neo-Ottomans view engagement with Iran and Syria as part of Turkey’s growing regional influence, while Kemalists see a shared interest in containing Kurdish nationalism and preventing the emergence of an independent Kurdish nation on their borders.
• Should a military or judicial coup overthrow the AKP—as almost happened in April 2007 and July 2008—a radical form of Kemalism could dominate Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy, leading to a more confrontational position on the Kurdish challenge, notably in Iraq.

Taspinar concludes:

http://www.ottomansouvenir.com/Calligraphy/Calligraphy.htm

  We have tried to give the chief Turkish poets in somewhat chronological order, beginning with their first poet Ashiq, who died in 1332 and whose very name is forgotten, since ashiq means merely "the lover." In other words, Turkish poetry begins with the passion of an unknown lover, not apparently for woman, but for life and God. The collected poems of Ashiq are called a "divan," the usual Persian and Turkish word for such collections; but very little of the divan of Ashiq has survived. Among Turkish epic poets, the earliest is Ahmedi (died 1412), who wrote the Book of Alexander the Great. The first romantic song is that of Sheykhi (1426) on the loves of the maiden Shireen. The first religious epic is that of Yaziji-Oglu (1449), called the Book of Mohammed. These, then, were the early singers. Of poets accounted of the highest rank, the earliest was Nejati (1508). Lamii was the scholar poet, a dervish or monk who delved into the older Persian literature and drew his themes perhaps from ancient Zoroastrian tales. He is usually named as the second greatest of Turkish poets. Gazali, Buzuli, and Nabi were also noted singers of the sixteenth century, which was the great age of the Turkish Empire, both in literature and in military glory.

    Of the two poetesses on our list, Mihri has been called the Turkish Sappho. Yet as the life of a Turkish woman of rank is carefully secluded, no scandal ever attached to her personal life. Her poems are mere dreams of fancy. Zeyneb was equally honored, a lady of high rank and a student of the Persian and Arabic poets.

http://www.ottomansouvenir.com/General/Turkish_Poetry.htm

I can write the saddest poem tonight
I can say, the night is full of stars

Bu gece en hüzünlü þiiri yazabilirim
Þöyle diyebilirim: gece yýldýzla dolu

And the stars are blinking far away, in the darkness
Wind of the night is swinging in the sky with songs

Ve yýldýzlar, masmavi titreþiyor uzakta
Þakýyarak dönüyor gökte gece rüzgarý

Pablo Neruda

toward the end you will hear them saying several times the word þaban, does it mean stupid?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfEeGzbKJto

sünnet

From Sözcü Gazetesi -- 20 August 2007: After an unlicensed practitioner botched the circumcision of a child in a municipal parking lot, friends and family had to rush the boy to hospital in a panic. The hospital´s on-duty doctor hastily sewed the severed piece back on, but the result won´t be known anytime soon.

The parents of the 10-year-old boy (C.N., from the Dikkaldýrým Mahallesi; Dikkaldýrým District of Bursa) had become eager recently to have their son circumcised -- even at the boy´s advanced age for the procedure. So they made arrangements to have it done by an unlicensed person who was known locally as a sünnetçi (circumcision practitioner) -- and who had worked for a while in a saðlýk ocaðý (small town health clinic).

During the procedure (that was performed in a spare room attached to the city parking lot), the boy began to scream in pain. When he suddenly became covered in blood, family and friends whisked him off to hospital, together with the severed piece of his penis -- where he underwent surgery to sew it back on.

Eyvah! (My God!/How awful!)

The boy´s father who was waiting outside, said that he rushed into the room to find his son covered in blood when he heard a voice cry, "My god it´s cut in two! It´s detached."

Psychological Trauma is likely

The boy had an emergency operation under general anesthesia and Prof. Dr. Emin Balkan sewed the severed piece back into place. The Doctor said, "It was a successful operation, and the chance of full recovery is 70%."

"But more important than that will be the psychological trauma that the child is likely to suffer. Even if he recovers from his physical wound, we believe he´ll have psychological distress for some time to come."

The Sözcu Gazetesi article goes on to say that ´it´s a sorrowful event but it provides an important lesson."

Dr. Balkan (who sewed the severed part back on) said that too many Turkish people think that sünnet is a simple procedure. "Sünnet," he said, "is a surgical procedure -- and like all other such procedures, it must be carried out in a sterile environment. And it must be performed by a well-trained, experienced, and licensed medical-professional... This unfortunate boy may be adversely affected for the rest of his life -- by what has happened to him today."

I thank you so very  much  for your indepth explanation on the subjecty of the Uzbek people and also the the poem by Hikmet.