The Birth of Venus

It was time for a banner update!

What you see now is a detail of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". A beautiful painting, one of my favorites!

According to Roman mythology, Venus was born as a full grown woman out of the sea. This was actually the result of - it may sound strange, I warn you - Uranus' genitals falling into the sea and fertilizing the water. In case you might ask why his genitals fell in the first place - and here I warn you again - well, his son Cronus chopped them off!

In reality, Venus arrived in Rome from the east. The Romans had borrowed her from the Greeks, who were calling her Aphrodite, but the goddess had her origins even further to the east. According to the Ionian historian Herodotus, the Greeks had borrowed her from the Phoenicians. In fact, she was known as Astarte in the Levant and as Ishtar in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians, creators of the first Mesopotamian civilization, called her Inanna. From Mesopotamia to Rome, quite a journey huh?!

I wonder why there is no sign of the goddess in her native lands nowadays. Might it be that she has fled the violence as well?

Weddings!

Last Saturday, my good friend C (The Anatolian) invited me to the wedding of his one and only brother. I hadn't been to a Turkish wedding for quite a long time, so I felt a bit special about it. C himself had come over all the way from Istanbul for the event.

I remember how I used to be excited about weddings when I was a child. For us children, it usually meant a great occasion to play our favorite games in a big hall, until very late in the night. We often ended up with so much perspiration that all our clothes were soaked through, which of course caused the anger of our beloved mothers.

As we grew older, weddings assumed a completely different meaning. The games we used to play as children were replaced by the act of flirting. Both the boys and the girls often made extensive use of the dance floor, trying to impress the opposite sex with their dancing skills. Signs and especially notes were the initial means of communication, as many did not dare to simply walk to the one they fancied (among others because of the presence of the parents and other relatives). I remember how I was once given a note that was so badly written, that I could not read a single word!

Looking around at the wedding of C's brother, I realized that nothing had changed really. Children were, as always, running all over the place, playing their games and annoying all other guests. The flirty behavior of boys and girls was to be observed in all its splendor too all right. Several times, I was poked by M, who continuously pointed to a girl on the dance floor, whispering how much he liked her dress.

Well M, the next time you should write it on a note and pass it on!

Market in Jaffa

Changed the banner!

This new banner is a detail of "Market in Jaffa", painted by Gustav Bauernfeind (1847-1904) in 1887.

In ancient times, Jaffa (or Yafo in Arabic) was an important port city on the Levantine coast. Today it's part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area (the municipality is actually called Tel Aviv-Yafo).

The thesis issue: a road trip along the Mediterranean

After several months of pretending to do important things, I've finally started writing my thesis since a couple of months. Doing research is something I like very much, so I do not have any difficulty in the process of research. However, as there are so many possible subjects - and paths within these subjects - I do find it difficult to make decisions. For this reason, my attempts to write a thesis have turned in something like a road trip along the Mediterranean.

Last year, when I was studying in Florence, Italy, I was thinking of doing my final thesis on Turkish-Italian relations in the Ataturk-Mussolini period. I had always been interested in the two Mediterranean countries and thought that my thesis would be a good opportunity to study the relations between the two. However, after I returned to Amsterdam, I realized that my interests lay somewhat more to the east: the Levant. Thus, I changed my plans and started thinking about a Levantine topic for my thesis.

At first I tried to focus on Syria, another Mediterranean country/region, and was intrigued by the Syrian political scene in the late Ottoman period (first quarter of the 20^th century). Within a couple of weeks, my interest shifted to the relation between the Ottoman capital Constantinople (which is Mediterranean too) and the Syrian political scene (btw Syria included Lebanon - also Mediterranean - back then). I decided to do research on the former's influence on the latter. However, I was soon caught by the idea that I had to be familiar with Arabic to carry out a 'good' research on this topic and subsequently dropped the Syrian issue from my agenda.

I continued with the Constantinopolitan political scene and was now interested in the ideology of nationalism during the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918; also called the Young Turkish period). That's where I'm at now and I hope that this will really be the end of the trip. I've just finished the first step of the research: an analysis of the thought of Ziya Gökalp, the most prominent thinker in the nationalist camp at the time.

The second step appears to be a bit more difficult to take. I have several options and I just can't decide! That's why I'm asking you to vote for one of the three options below:

1. I might compare Gökalp with a liberal thinker, like Prince Sabahaddin, and find out whether the differences between the nationalist and liberal camps were superficial or deep (the liberals were the main adversaries of the nationalists). This would also include a research on the balance between the two camps in the political scene. This is interesting, because it enables me to assess the prevalence of nationalism in the Second Constitutional Period. In literature, the period is often described as one in which nationalism is rising.

2. I might use the Gökalpist theoretical framework to analyze the Kemalists policies in the 1920's and 1930's. This is interesting, because Gökalp is often mentioned as "the father of Turkish nationalism". This option would enable me to check this claim.

3. I might bring in IR theories (Realism, Idealism and Social Constructivism for example) and try to place Gokalp's thoughts in the modern academic context of IR.

Dear Readers, please help me on this matter and leave a comment with your vote! Any kind of suggestion or criticism is welcome!

Caught by viruses

My dear friends, I've caught a cold! Oh how wonderful, isn't it!

If I were devoutly religious, I would probably think that God was punishing me for things I had done wrong and would feel terribly conscience-stricken and ashamed. If I were a member of a Nuer clan, I would probably think that someone had bewitched me and would be quite furious about that. Isn't it funny that a fact can be interpreted in such different ways that it will trigger completely different emotions?

Well, I'm not religious, nor a Nuer and I don't have any intention to become either one in the near future. I don't know whether I'm being punished by a supernatural being or whether I'm bewitched by someone feeling an intense antipathy against me, a humble human being, but I do feel pretty fucked up.

Those ruthless viruses have obstructed the functioning of my brain in such a way that I can't think of anything else than how to stop my running nose. Ergo for now, no stories about Blair visiting Maliki or the fifth (!) truce between Hamas and Fatah.

Oops, I've run out of tissues...

"Che ragazzo serio!"

When I asked my Italian friend E to have a look at my blog, the first thing she said was "Che ragazzo serio!", which would translate into something like "Oh god, you gotta be kidding, this is far too serious dude!". She obviously referred to the prevalence of politics and society related writings and in particular to the absence of personal and light subjects in my oh-so-wonderful blog.

It is actually not a coincidence that these three words were uttered by this lovely lady from Florence. "Ah, Florence! Of course, that romantic city with its refined taste for food, fashion, arts (etc.) and its la dolce vita lifestyle; that's why!" I hear you shout, but that's not the reason. She's actually Neapolitan and not very fond of Florentines (and for some strange reason the Florentines are not very fond of Neapolitans either). The reason is in fact much simpler: she just hates politics and stuff.

There's a Turkish proverb that says "Look at one's friends and you will know what one is like". I must admit that this is largely true for me. Most of my close friends either study politics and society (or anything that is related, including humanities) or are highly interested in the subject. Most of the time they're advocates of cultural pluralism and often also anti-nationalist, or anti-rightist in general (which does not imply that they're leftist).¹ It must be for this reason that they haven't remarked about the general course of my blog so far; they must be thinking it's great! (or don't you?)

Only a few of my friends, among who E, do not match this general description and I think that is a very good thing. They keep me reminding of things of which I myself wouldn't think in the first place. I mean, at first I had no intention to write about personal things, but now the idea doesn't seem that bad at all. In fact, most of the bloggers that deal with politics and society, also write personal stories. It's not an unusual thing.

I guess a blog would simply be too heavy if politics and society would be its only contents. A personal, easy digestible writing now and then, would in this respect surely do good. In any case, it would give the blog more personal traits. After all, it is not some organization or whatever that keeps this blog running, it's me!

Obviously there are still many things to learn for me, but that's just how things go. Let us not forget that this is a process, not a project!

1. Needless to say, my friends are not as one-sided as depicted in those few sentences. Let us for the sake of convenience skip a comprehensive examination of their interests and activities as a whole, and assume that they are all multifaceted intellectuals.

New layout!

Yesterday I have been busy developing a layout for my blog. I didn't like the templates offered by blogger.com and besides, everyone uses them. A good blog needs to be somewhat distinctive in both contents and appearance, doesn't it? Anyway, what you see now is the result of my design efforts yesterday. You like it?

I could use some feedback though, so just leave a comment!