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August Resurfacing Post
The Lounsbury - August 18, 2010 12:06 PM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: Site News
Sorry all, have been on vac with family and without proper internet connectivity. Back in time for Ramadan.
Turkey & the old empire (Turkey and MENA)
The Lounsbury - July 29, 2010 04:22 AM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: Business, Private
, Economic Development
, Economic Policy
, Levant
, MENA Fringe
, MENA Region General
Slyly referring in the title to some of the crazed political commentary coming out of hard right Israel circles, but I genuinely find this interesting. The Turkish business engagement with MENA has been building since before our AKP fellow, a natural development.
As Turkey Inches Eastward, Syrians Feel the Love - NYTimes.com
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Well-heeled Syrians had already been coming to this ancient industrial city, drawn here by Louis Vuitton purses and storefront signs in Arabic. But local shop owners say Israel’s deadly raid on a Turkish-led flotilla to Gaza in May has solidified an already blossoming friendship between Syria and Turkey, the new hero of the Muslim world.Emphasis added. Quite so. I recall again a recent conversation with American diplomats that I ran into that were in high dungeon after snubs to some Israeli delegation that they - the Americans - were pimping in the region. Leaving aside the queerness of why the Americans were so very solicitous of an Israeli delegation's meetings (they do seem to forget it is a foreign country, and one never sees quite this solicitousness for other allies), their view that Turkey was 'turning against them' was just boggling. As was their apparently genuine surprise at the reaction to the Gazan flotilla event (as if one of their own citizens had not been killed, well one of the wrong religion and ethnicity it would appear); entire and myopic misread of the Turkish relationship and influences.
“People in Syria love Turkey because the country supports the Arab world, and they are fellow Muslims,” Zakria Shavek, 37, a driver for a Syrian transport company based in Gaziantep, said as he deposited a family of newly arrived shoppers from Aleppo, which competes with Damascus for the title of Syria’s largest city and is about a two-hour drive from here. “Our enemy in the world is Israel, so we also like Turkey because our enemy’s enemy is our friend.”
The monthly pilgrimages of tens of thousands of Syrians to this southeastern Turkish city — which intensified after the two countries removed visa requirements last September — are just the latest manifestation of the growing ties between Turkey and Syria, part of the Turkish government’s efforts to reach out to its neighbors by using economic and cultural links to help it become a regional leader.
Turkey’s shift toward the Muslim world — from the recent clash with Israel to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s description of Iran’s nuclear program as peaceful — has prompted concerns in the United States and Europe that Turkey, an important NATO ally, is turning its back on the West.
But in Turkey, where 70 percent of all exports go to Europe, businesspeople insist that the government’s policy of cultivating friendly ties with all neighbors reflects a canny and very Western capitalist impulse to offset dependence on stagnating European markets while cementing Turkey’s position as a vital economic and political bridge between east and west.
Indeed, most Arab states, including Syria, enthusiastically support Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, viewing Turkey as a vital intermediary to Western markets that might otherwise be off limits. At the political level, Turkey’s influence in the Middle East is also deeply enhanced by its strong Western ties — a fact recognized by Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, who shocked many in the Turkish capital this month by warning that the latest crisis between Israel and Turkey could undermine Ankara’s role as a mediator in the region.I also believe this is largely true.
While it is a bit of journalistic .... shiny new objectism to point to this as entirely new after the Gaza debacle, there is certainly a real development. Shall try to return to further comment on the article, unfortunately on a plane the next two days.
Books & Media
Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad"Matthew Hogan | Comments (0) Coincidentally, I re-picked up this 1867 humorous classic travelogue of Mark Twain's for a (re-)glance not too long after Mr. Netanyahu had threatened to (re-)use it for sundry and sordid Middle East polemics. The Israeli Prime Minister had planned to...[More] |
The Birth of Modern Yemendubaiwalla | Comments (7) You know a country must have issues when its problems stick out in a region as troubled as the Middle East. Brian Whitaker's latest book examines the tumultuous course of events in Yemen during the early 1990s....[More] |
Journals
Stereotypical but.... blog software for Blackberry?
The Lounsbury - July 29, 2010 09:28 AM | Comments (2)
Filed Under: Blog Notes - Admin
Just so you know
eerie - September 9, 2009 11:03 PM | Comments (1)
Filed Under: Site News
Book Review: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
Matthew Hogan - July 17, 2010 09:23 PM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: Egghead Stuff
, Random Personal
, World War 2
