June 5, 2014

Hizmet and March 30 elections: What happened? (2)

Haluk A. Savaş*

The people who were unable to acquire representation in the state because of the domination and influence of the pro-Western or pro-Republican People's Party (CHP) bureaucrats and officers within the state apparatus who consolidated their domination during the CHP's single-party rule of 27 years, which restricted the sphere of public activity and religious displays and practice, see Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a leader who has opened up the state and its sphere of influence to the people.

Turkey's never-healing illness

Sadık Çınar

By late 2010 the AKP became very open to Modernist ideology contamination in order to secure its power in the long term. The ruling people of the AKP and especially Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are of the people who believe that the new Turkey project targeting 2023 (even 2071 in some discourses) can only be achieved by extremely strong governments in which all the other institutions, identities and groups are submissive to their power. The AKP and Prime Minister Erdoğan started to acquire possible future opponents. In this process the HAS Party's (Voice of the People Party) and DP's (Democrat Party) charismatic leaders Numan Kurtulmuş and Süleyman Soylu joined the AKP with some powerful assignments within party management.

Hizmet and March 30 elections: What happened? (1)

Haluk A. Savaş*

This piece reviews the political and social position of a community referred to as the Hizmet movement -- which has been involved in social service since the 1970s as a social movement, both before and after the local elections on March 30, 2014 -- the processes it was involved in, as well as the outcomes of all this.

Nigeria: Post-2015 Agenda - Addressing the Inadequacies in Women's Rights

Women rights activists and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) recently gathered in Istanbul, Turkey to address the failures of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on the rights of women, and proffer solutions for inclusion in the post-2015 agenda, at an event organised by the Journalists and Writers Foundation of Turkey. Damilola Oyedele was there...