It is a strong tradition in Turkey's Kemalist circles to regard all policy choices that contradict with the country's official ideology as a betrayal to the Republic's founding principles. This struggle between status quo and change has always been current in the Turkish political agenda – since the Turkish people have an undying habit of bringing non-Kemalist political parties to power, and since the Kemalists who predominate the state institutions anxiously believe that their opponents, covertly or overtly, always try to do away with Kemalism, which they consider an indispensible component of the Turkish Republic.

[Originally published at Turkish Daily News.]

After the coup of 1980, Turkey was governed by a military administration for three years, during which the junta restructured the country's political system. The most important outcome of this process was probably the Constitution of 1982, the most militaristic fundamental document of law in the history of the Turkish Republic. The new constitution was enacted by a popular plebiscite, which the junta conducted with quasi-transparent envelopes.

The next and final phase of the process was the restoration of 'democracy,' which, according to the junta, was a synonym of 'elections.'

[Originally published at Turkish Daily News.]

The Turkish Parliament adopted eight legislative packages between February 2002 and July 2004, introducing somewhat revolutionary changes to the country’s political system. As the European Commission’s 2004 progress report on Turkey stated, these changes ranged from "improved civil liberties and human rights to enhanced civilian control of the military." The changes were so wide in scope that the European Commission, in response, recommended the EU to start accession negotiations with Turkey.

Preceded by a number of other positive developments, this long-awaited decision of the European Commission was warmly welcomed in Turkey. The majority of the Turkish people came to believe that things were finally getting on track in the country. The subsequent events, however, proved otherwise.

[Originally published at Turkish Daily News.]

The current U.S. foreign policy focuses on the states that sponsor terrorism, and aims to replace dictatorial regimes with democratic ones – on the assumption that the latter will bring new societal and political values which will not only moderate strong anti-American sentiments but also make America safer. In that sense, the region that poses imminent security risks and requires immediate attention in the world is the Middle East. Therefore, democratization of the Middle East surfaces as one of the biggest concerns of the current U.S. administration.

On October 27, 2005, two Muslim teenagers of North African origin were electrocuted by a transformer in an electric substation, where they were trying to hide from the French police officers who mistook them for burglars and chased them. This event triggered a series of riots in French suburbs that lasted for more than three weeks.

The riots brought into question the French idea of republicanism.

'[T]o petition the Government for a redress of grievances', is a constitutional right – as stated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Various interest groups in the United States, based on the Petition Clause of the First Amendment, assume the right to lobby legislators and other government officials in an effort to influence policy outcomes.

Pluralism, as a theory of power, relies on the dynamics of the concept of free market of ideas, and affirms that free competition of diverse interests will serve the best interests of a democratic society. Policy decisions, according to the pluralist approach, are therefore results of the struggles among competing groups that have different causes.

When people feel that they are entitled to their own opinions, on this premise alone, they conclude that they live in a free country. However, they fail to understand that even those who live under the rule of the cruelest dictatorships are already enjoying that much of a freedom. Because, pretty much like the elected officials in the so-called free countries, dictators, too, care about not what the masses think, but what they do. It may be argued, at this point, that although it is not a rare case for elected officials to make laws that restrict freedom of speech, they do it in an effort to ensure the well-being of the country. However, this justification is not much different from that of the dictators.

Justice Breyer, in an effort to uphold his view of ‘living constitution’, states that the Constitution ‘begins with the words "We the People"’, not ‘"we the people of 1787’.¹ However, those who wrote the Constitution, in fact, were the people of 1787, and their values reflected those of 1787. Although many people would claim otherwise, their values were very different from the prevalent views in the American society today.

In his book 'Constructing Civil Liberties'¹, Ken I. Kersch, an assistant professor of political science at Lehigh University, analyzes the progressive ideology, and the nation- and state-building process, in terms of its effects on civil liberties. Kersch does that under three sections – or 'sites' as he calls it. He focuses on 'privacy and criminal process rights', 'labor rights', and 'education rights'; respectively. These different concepts of civil liberties, and the issues they deal with, however, are, strongly interrelated, and this why the author, in each and every one of sections, keeps referring to various past cases and developments about the same issues – such as racism, which has applications to all of the concepts of civil liberties mentioned above.

In his academy award winning documentary movie Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore focuses on the use of firearms. Below are the numbers Michael Moore presents in the movie in an effort to compare the deaths caused by firearms in the United States to those abroad: