Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Russia Today and the BBC both report that the Hagia Sophia (The Church of Holy Wisdom), the single largest Church in Byzantium, is to be repurposed as a mosque. This move ends 86 years of the building serving a “neutral purpose” as a museum, where neither Muslim nor Christian was allowed to pray in open sight. This move is understandably tragic for Orthodox Christians, particularly the Greeks, but there are several ways to understand this situation.

Source : Arte, Monika Czernin, 02-11-2018


Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, le “père des Turcs”, a fondé sur les ruines de l’Empire ottoman la république de Turquie, un État laïque et moderne. 80 ans après sa mort, les réformes de ce premier président turc se répercutent aujourd’hui encore sur le pays…Lire la suite

Pragmatism is the most assured guiding force for good government. It is possible to run a government based on ideology or its close cousin, fanaticism, but rarely do such things end up being successful.
More often than not, the antithesis of pragmatism ends in failure.
The controversial 20th century British politician Enoch Powell once remarked,

“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs”.

President Erdogan who after winning a referendum on vastly expanded Presidential powers, has given a surprisingly moderate yet  historically inaccurate victory speech. Shortly thereafter, he said that he approves the restoration of the death penalty.
Erdogan said in his victory speech,

With almost all ballots counted, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to have won the referendum on vastly expanded Presidential, some would say, tyrannic powers.
In the last few hours of counting, the vote has narrowed to 51.41% (with over 99% of votes counted) in favour of the reforms.
Erdogan has now declared victory and congratulated his supporters.

Today, Turkey holds a referendum that if passed, will change the Constitution and fundamentally alter the political balance of power in Turkey.
The proposed changes would make Turkey’s’ President, a post currently held by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ultra-powerful and largely unaccountable position.
The referendum would abolish the all ready weakened post of Prime Minister and allow the President to personally appoint his ministers, independent of Parliament.