Chomsky kicks off Turkey tour (RE: Support Turkish publisher of Noam Chomsky facing trial)

Hakki Alacakaptan nucleus at superonline.com
Wed Feb 13 06:00:54 PST 2002


Arriving like a rock star, with a bodyguard escort, girls in Kurdish dress carrying flowers, and saturation press coverage, Chomsky was greeted by beautiful Pinar Selek, a young sociologist fresh out of jail who was framed by the cops. He made his first stage appearance of his Turkey tour at the invitation of my present employer, Bahcesehir U. The venue was a landmark (but ugly) Istanbul hotel overlooking Istanbul's Trafalgar, Taksim Square. The Marmara hotel, which witnessed many a bombing and assassination, including the famous May 1 massacre and the assassination of another of my former employers, film curator Onat Kutlar, couldn't contain all of Chomsky's fans and those who got left out in the square started booing Bahcesehir U., which is one of the new private colleges offering lazy rich kids with mediocre entrance exam results the chance to get a college degree.

The conference at the Marmara where Chomsky spoke was called Media, War, and Democracy, and was chaired by writer Orhan Pamuk, author of "My Name is Red" (a historical thriller that's a cross between The Name of the Rose and Satanic Verses). Today, Chomsky gets hosted by my former employer, Bilgi U., another rich-kid rehab college (Unfortunately, these are the only institutions that actually pay something resembling a salary and provide the hardware and software I need to teach.) He's being mobbed by all our ex-con intellectuals and seems to be having a great time.

So, I think I can safely stand by my prediction that Chomsky's publisher will go scot-free.

Another important get-together was taking place at the Ciragan Palace on the Bosphorus, where foreign ministers from the EU and the OIC, as well as prominent intellectuals from Europe and the Islamic world responded to Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem's invite for a conference called Civilisation and Harmony: The Political Dimension. The US was mercifully absent. Both the speeches and the photo ops picturing East-West conviviality successfully undercut the "Conflict of Civlisations" line pushed by Sharon and his flunkeys in D.C., and provided crictical support for the EU's political initiative in the ME. French Foreign Minister Vedrine coined the term "spirit of Istanbul" for all this, and EU ministers chatted amiably with "evil axis" ministers Naji Sabri and Kamal Harazi. Turkish PM Ecevit reiterated to journalists there that it would be very difficult for the US to attempt any action against Iraq without Turkey's OK.

Confusing? Goes with the territory. All in all, a nice day.

Hakki



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list