Spinoza and Camus: Members of a terror organization? Censorship in Turkey

By Dilip -
"Early in the morning, when we wanted to deliver the manuscript to the publishing house, we were arrested. All our notes that had something to do with the book, as well as all computers - in other words basically everything - was confiscated. We then decided to write the book anew in jail. As we were not allowed to use a computer or a typewriter, we wrote it all down with a pencil. As we were in different cells, we sent each other our texts."

Baris Terkoglu describes how the book "Sızıntı: Wikileaks'te Ünlü Türkler" ("The Leak: The Popular Turks of WikiLeaks")came into being. He wrote the work together with his colleague Baris Pehlivan in jail. Both journalists were accused of being members of the terrorist organization Ergenekon. The group was alleged to have been preparing for the overthrow of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After 18 months in jail, Terkoglu and Pehlivan were released in 2012.

The distribution of their second book, "Mahrem: Gizli Belgelerde Türkiye'nin Sırları" ("Discreet: The Secrets of Turkey in Secret Documents"), was hampered in late September. A court ruled that selling the book online was forbidden, along with any publicity or social media postings for the book. The ruling claimed that the personal rights of an AKP member of parliament mentioned in the book were being violated. According to the Turkish publishers' association, the ruling in fact constitutes a prohibition, as it has made it impossible for readers to acquire the book. After an appeal was lodged against the ruling, the ban was partially lifted, and Terkoglu hopes the entire ban will be scrapped at some point.

Journalist Fehim Tastekin doesn't share this hope. A court in the province of Adiyaman has already outlawed his work "Rojava: Kürtlerin Zamanı" ("Rojava: The time of the Kurds") together with two other earlier works. Tastekin would be quite surprised if the ban were to be lifted. The court argued that Tastekin's book contained elements hinting at a terrorist organization. In Tastekin's eyes, "the ruling opened a new chapter by making this decision about the book," in that the judicial system had now described a book directly as a "terrorist organization" for the very first time. And that, he thinks, is the real scandal. Tastekin fears the state could now launch criminal proceedings against him, a reality his lawyers think is quite possible. Dozens of journalists and authors have been imprisoned in Turkey in the last year, most arrested following the attempted coup on July 15, 2016.

Spinoza and Camus: Members of a terror organization? Following the coup attempt, a state of emergency was declared in Turkey. According to Turkish publishers, a total of 30 publishing houses have since been closed by decree, while more than 670 books have been confiscated for allegedly serving as "propaganda of a terror organization." Another 135,000 books have been banned from public libraries on the same or similar grounds. Some works by Louis Althusser, Server Tanilli and Nazım Hikmet have even been considered as evidence for criminal actions. Baruch Spinoza, one of the most renowned philosophers of the 17th century, as well as 20th century French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, have been accused of having been members of terror organizations. A farmer was arrested for owning their works, even though he himself is illiterate.


According to numerous advocates, these actions violate the freedom of expression protected by the country's constitution, in addition to limiting freedom of information. But it's not just courts making the life of authors difficult. A few years ago, critic Ihsan Eliacik was verbally and physically threatened to such an extent that he was unable to attend a book fair. A similar situation occurred during the recent International Istanbul Book Fair, which ended on Sunday, when author Sabahattin Onkibar was attacked by a group of 10 aggressors as he signed his books... read more:
http://www.dw.com/en/books-come-under-suspicion-in-post-coup-turkey/a-41361598



Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the ...
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227...
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested...
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certai...
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, ...
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the...
Read more

James Gilligan on Shame, Guilt and Violence

By Dilip -
Shame, Guilt, and Violence / James Gilligan During the past 35 years I have used prisons and prison mental hospitals as "laboratories" in which to investigate the causes and prevention of the various forms of violence and the relationships between these forms and to what I will call (with a nod to William James) "the varieties of moral experience." In the course of that work, I have been struck by the frequency with which I received the same answer when I asked prisoners, or mental patients, why they assaulted or even killed someone. Time after time, they would reply "because he disrespected me" or "he disrespected my visitor [or wife, mother, sister, girl-friend, daughter, etc.]." In fact, they used that phrase so often that they abbreviated it into the slang phrase, "He dis'ed me." Whenever people use a word so often that they abbreviate it, it is clearly central to their moral and emotional vocabulary. But even when they did n...
Read more