Here is a message from Sabri: Dear All,
It is one of those rare moments that I have access to the net and I wanted to say hello. Life has always been very "exciting" here and it is no different this time. We the peoples of Turkey don't need to learn anything about chaos because chaos is what we experience all the time. We are "natural" complexity theorists, by birth. I found the country worse than what I left behind about a year ago. Here in Bakirkoy, one of the centers of the multi-centered Istanbul, or the city on seven hills as it is known historically, although we now have about 27, there are now private security on Peugeot mountain bikes. Unfortunatelly, the muggings went over the roof as I heard. These security are young men and women who couldn't make it to the university and were unable to find better jobs. They seem to be quite bored with what they are doing and it is not just their looks. I heard them speak among themselves while sitting at a coffe house and they were complaining. In orange shits and black shorts they pedal through Bakirkoy with their walkie talkies on their shoulders and more than security guards they look like bananas in those colors. They are like actors and actresses on a comedy show on TV and as I watch them it feels as if I am watching a reality show of some sort. The distinction between what is real and what is simulation is quite blurred here. I keep hearing talks of a military takeover from foreign sources but nothing of the sort from the "corporate" newspapers here. Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the Sivas massacare when religious fundamentalists burned a hotel in the city of Sivas, killing about 35 intellectuals attending a festival there. This brought the tension between the Islamists and Secularists to a peak, each side attacking the other from their respective media sources and the tension doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. The supporters of the Military, the guardian of secularism in Turkey, seem to fan the flames to increase the tension and some of them are calling the Military to the "rescue" from the Islamists. On my first day here, I met some friends who used to be the members of the Dev-Genc (Revolutionary Youth) "gang" at my university and one of them said this: "Back in those days, our 'subjective conditions' were ripe but the 'objective conditions' were not suitable for a 'revolution'. Today, the 'objective conditions' are ripe, but our 'subjective conditions' are fucked up." Most of them are now executives or managers of this or that corporation or some state enterprise and those who couldn't make it there are still dreaming of "turning the corner" to make it big, in financial terms, that is. As I see it, there is no revolution coming out of Turkey any time soon. It seems the rest of the world has to do it without us. Corruption appears to have gone beyond imagination and there is the talk of 160 billion dollars that disappeared into the personal pockets of public thieves, most of whom are well known personalities of public life and some of them are in the government. People seem so desensitized that they just sit and watch. And the local TV channels are horrible. There is soccer and female singers that you get to wacth any time of the day. Most of the TV clips of these female singers look more like educational material on female anatomy and I suspect that they may even turn into educational material on gynecology one day. Everything I left behind in Berkeley feels so distant, irrelevant and unreal here. The food is still the best on earth though. I am short of time so I stop here. Best, Sabri -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
