From: Dogan Goecmen (Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM)
Date: Fri Dec 29 2006 - 09:37:25 EST
Jerry, I do not know who is more popular in Turkey. What I can say from my observations is that many people in Turkey turn away from islamic parties just because they did not keep their promisses in particular with regard to enhancing the living standards of poor people. Which islamic and other right wing party ever came into power they implemented neoliberal policies. The gap between the rich and the poor gets bigger and bigger. The system of mutual support among islamic people takes place against the will of islamic ruling classes. In Turkey the islamic bourgeosie is meanwhile a monopoly bourgeosie. Again from my oberservations I know that many people like the anti-imperialism and walfare policies embodied by Chavez. This is however not to say that leftwing movement improves its influences. For this it is spilit into hundreds of fractions, being not able to mobilise even its traditional basis. In short, Despite this, in short, Chavez is very popular in Turkey in particular among the poor and working classes independently from their religious belives. Subcommandante Marcos is popular in Turkey too. But his popularity limited to the leftwing groops. Differing from him Chavez is popular among ordinary people who try to get their everyday lives somehow organised. It is not by chance that every interview, paper and statement of Michael Lebowitz is translated into Turkish not later than within two days. The aim of my email was (because I can follow the debates in Turkey from the original sources) to inform our discussion group about an interesting phenomena and in doing so to provide an additional window to the world politics. Cheers Dogan In einer eMail vom 29.12.2006 15:05:58 Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM: > Chavez was one of the few names refered to by the people. Some of > the people asked said sponteniously: *I wish Hugo Chavez could become > Turkey's president.* Dogan: Thanks for the explanation. I guess it's not surprising under the circumstances you describe that some replied by declaring wistfully their preference for Chavez. After all, he has a large and growing reputation internationally and is looked towards with hope by much of the Left. I would be somewhat surprised, though, if Chavez was currently more popular in Turkey than Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. There is much that many in Turkey should find appealing about Nezrallah: for instance, Hezbollah's military success this past summer against Israel aggression and their effort to build a popular front by reaching out to both religious and non-religious Shiite, Sunni, Christian, and Druze communities in opposition to the US backed government. The reports from recent demonstrations in Lebanon are very encouraging in this regard: indeed, it was commonplace for people to wear the symbols of clothing associated with divergent tendencies and communities as an expression of this desire for unity and genuine self-determination. Hezbollah also has an excellent reputation in poor communities of providing social services to the poor independently of the state. I would think that all of this would be very appealing to many Turkish communities, no? In solidarity, Jerry
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