Slog - Comments on Happy MLK Day http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day The notion that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's sweeping Turkish revolution gave us record company man Ahmet Ertegun—the guy who revolutionized America by churning out early rock and roll records in the late 1940s and 1950s—is worth savoring. Check it out: An exile from Sunni Islam, a Turk, comes to America where he hooks up with blacks and Jews (and white country players as well) to create rhythm & blues, rock 'n' roll, civil rights, electric signal generations. This is a jolt to extremist Sunni Islam losers like al Qaeda, who cling to their 7th Century fetishism. On October 29, 1923—some three... Copyright 2008 Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:03:48 -0800 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:54:38 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Bauhaus I know all I want to know about the freaking Manson family. What else can be said about them?

]]> Bauhaus http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904027 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904027 History Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:14:10 -0800 Comment by nipper Bless you Josh Feit!

]]> nipper http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904048 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904048 History Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:25:34 -0800 Comment by michael strangeways Did Josh and Charles exchange bodies today?

Is it Freaky Friday?

]]> michael strangeways http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904093 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904093 History Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:44:36 -0800 Comment by Erica T Your analysis is naively black and white: Ataturk, a ray of pure light against the dark forces of Islamic fundamentalism. The reason there was a backlash against Ataturk is that his policies were brutal and uncompromising. Yes, Ataturk modernized and secularized Turkey. He also suppressed freedom of religion and speach, and was directly responsible for the first repression and massacre of the Kurds.

]]> Erica T http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904273 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904273 History Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:39:56 -0800 Comment by Jude Fawley Yeah, I agree with Erica T. The creation of Turkish nationalism required the attempted erasure of whole cultures. Kurds didn't belong and were redefined as "mountain Turks", the Kurdish language outlawed. Also Constantinople in the 1920s was an amazingly diverse place culturally. Now little remains of that, but every barber has a picture of Ataturk on the wall.

Mustafa Kemal was so very 20th century for better and for worse. Turkey could have been screwed without him but... I can't help wishing someone had come along who wasn't so sold on Turkish nationalism, suits, ties and pocket watches.

]]> Jude Fawley http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904332 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904332 History Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:23:31 -0800 Comment by Gitai If you turn this into a story, can you have a cartoon of Osama bin Laden looking angrily at a performing John Coltrane?

]]> Gitai http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904415 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904415 History Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:30:24 -0800 Comment by mike Ahmet Ertegun: Turk.

Bob Dylan: from the Turks.

Istanbul not Constantinople etc. etc.

]]> mike http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904433 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904433 History Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:40:05 -0800 Comment by *gong* TL;DR

]]> *gong* http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904870 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c904870 History Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:18:48 -0800 Comment by msl The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt by Egyptian political prisoners who were rebelling against British colonial rule. Ataturk's brand of nationalism was being developed at the same time as the brotherhood, but certainly one didn't cause the other.

Turkey is different from its Arab neighbors. The corrosive religious politics that holds sway in, say, Saudi Arabia wouldn't wash in Turkey, because at this point it is a Muslim country in the same way that Spain or Italy is a Catholic country.


It's important to remember that the left/right secular/religious orientation that prevails in the U.S. is reversed in Turkey. The conservative forces in Turkey are the secularists, who want to hold on to state power and limit freedom - i.e. ban women who wear headscarves (a majority of Turkish women) from universities and keep on the books the "insults to Turkishness" laws that threaten novelists and journalists. The religious parties - the ruling political party including - aim to bring about reconciliation with Turkey's ethnic minorities, allow greater access to education and more freedom of speech. It's too bad that a lot of U.S. reporting on Turkey's politics doesn't take this information into account.

]]> msl http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c905121 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/happy_mlk_day#c905121 History Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:54:38 -0800