The book opens with a two page map of the Middle East extending to Pakistan on the east and Sudan in the south and an enlarged map of Israel in the corner. And yet the book is by the Secretary of State of the United States, Condoleezza Rica, from Birmingham, Alabama, who now teaches at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.  She was the 66^th U.S. Secretary of State of Bush administration from 2001 to 2008, following her services as the national security advisor, first woman to hold such a position. She is also the author of a book, “Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family.”

Checking the index and looking for entrees on Turkey out of habit, I saw there was a reference to Ataturk on page 331, but not to the leader himself, but to his photograph in the prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Office, which Rice portrays as rather a dark place with heavy red curtains and surrounded by photographs of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, also commenting, “I had a momentary sense that Turkey is indeed not quite European.” Rice also writes at the beginning of the chapter that “Recep Tayyip Erdogan was somewhat harder to read.”

Rice writes about Kemalism as a doctrine of secularism which has allowed Turkey to modernize but not to fully democratize. She also writes that the newly elected AKP (Justice and Development Party) allowed the Islamic leaders to take the reins, although insisting that they had no intention of turning Turkey into a theocracy but wanted to rebalance the society and give religious expression and religious people a place in the public square. Rice summarizes Turkish-American relations (p. 329-333), stating that Turkey was providing evidence that democracy and Islam could exist side by side. [Read more...]

Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, December 2011

Reading biographies of famous people and world leaders is always fun and educational, especially during dreary winter days. The libraries are full of them, from Attila the Hun to Stalin, from Truman to Ataturk, the greatest leader of the 20^th century, although Time dropped him from its list of “Important Persons of the 20^th Century” in 1999.

The biography of Steve Jobs by a former editor of Time, Walter Isaacson, is a masterpiece that makes a reader to “Think Differently”, using one of Jobs quotes, about the lives of geniuses, the creation of companies, friendship and the life itself and death. One of the comments in the 630 page book is about a servant who follows a victorious general paraded through the streets of Rome with a job to repeat to him, “Memento mori?- Remember you will die”, (P.461.) According to Isaacson, Steve Jobs always remembered that one day he would die. After he was diagnosed for cancer in 2000, he died in October 2011.

Like millions around the world, I have always been fascinated with the computers every time I sit in front of one, be it at work, libraries or home. What an incredible device, I tell myself, and wonder how it all works. I never owned an Apple computer or any of the Apple products, iMac computers, iPods, iPhones or the iPads sold at the Apple stores, including the magnificent store in Manhattan that Steve Jobs himself designed. However, I followed the developments in the computer industry like everyone else and the lives of many pioneers who ushered the computer age and the life of Steve Jobs, the genius who changed the world. I was surprised that Steve Jobs was not picked as the “Person of the Year” in 1984, when he first introduced the Macintosh computer, instead giving that honor to Computers, although Steve fancied that he would be picked, as told in the book. Perhaps, to make up for this, Time has issued a 96 page special “Commemorative Issue” in December 2011 that chronicles the life of Steve Jobs, including a section which shows that he was on the cover of Time 8 times but never as the Person of the Year. [Read more...]

Islam Without Extremes

Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty, (In English), By Mustafa Akyol, W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd. New York & London, 2011

Mustafa Akyol, a graduate of Bogazici University (formerly Robert College), is a young Turkish writer and commentator who has written a very ambitious book, “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty”, which seems to be the product of a very wide reading, evidenced with references to many writers, professors, Christian scholars, almost on every subject on Islam. However, one thing that strikes the reader is the absence of any references to Turkish writers, except a few, especially to Prof. Ilhan Arsel, who has written many books on Islam (1). The quotes that Mustafa Akyol uses to explain Islam and to defend certain aspects, such as Shariah, are from the likes of Hans Kung, Karen Armstrong, Fazlur Rahman, etc., but there is no reference to Ilhan Arsel’s book, “Seriat ve Kadin – Shariah and Women” or any book that explains Mustafa kemal Atatukr’s view on Islam. [Read more...]