No point: like t.v.'s in the back-seat's headrest

I promise that we will make it to this lecture.


QDN favorite, philosopher, political scientist, dialectician, and economist, Slavoj Zizek was recently published in the International Journal of Zizek Studies.

QDN congratulates Zizek on his unusual accomplishment making it into the peer reviewed section of the journal which bears his name. Especially since we often think of him as little more than an intellectual curiosity with the bad habit of using films to explain almost everything. Really, SZ, well done.

Unfortunately the fascists at "the provincial pamphlet of Hacizade mutterings" still won't take someone's submissions.

While officially, I think Zizek's presence in his own journal is due to the fact that no one is going to pay $40 for a defense of Lenin and Heidegger, during the first major recession of the 21st century, I genuinley look forward to proudly walking around with the contented feeling that someday I will read "Language, Violence and Non-Violence". I probably will not, however, read SZ's advice column in LRB on the financial crisis, titled, "Don't Just do Something, Talk." Thanks.

analyze this (PLEASE!)

Turkish news reporting could be contributing its share to normalization and reconciliation with the country's Kurdish population by acknowledging certain facts first, except journalists seem to be insisting on continuing their idiotic tradition of writing news stories without feeling the need to calling involved parties by their relevant group/category identification, or pointing to the underlying causes of an event, conflict, mobilization, protest, whatever. It's almost like analysis is prohibited.

Case in point, respectable news source NTVMSNBC reports the clash in Altinova between Kurds and Turks, and the instant-pogrom that immediately followed. Except nowhere in the story this is mentioned.

It reads, "Tension in Altinova" (I would call an incident in which two people died and more were hospitalized by a name other than tension), but moving on.. Let's see what information we are given.

BALIKESİR - Balıkesir’in Ayvalık ilçesine bağlı Altınova beldesindeki olaylar, doğu kökenli bir grupla karşıt grup arasında “yüksek sesle müzik dinleme” tartışmasıyla başladı. Tartışma kısa sürede kavgaya dönüştü. Kavgayı duyan Murat Aygün, kamyonetini karşıt grubun üzerine sürdü.

The whole thing starts with an argument between a group of Easterners and an opposite group about "listening to music too loudly." It escalates into a fight in no time. Murat Aygun, hearing about the fight, drives his truck into the opposite group.

If "Easterners" sounds vague, I don't know what "opposite group" is supposed to tell us. You and I assume that this is Turks and Kurds, and the music in question is only problematic because of that fact. We still don't know who the fuck Murat Aygün is. We are assuming he is an Easterner, since he aimed at the "opposite group." But any group is the opposite group simply by opposing. Headache. The nutgraph is over, but maybe they will tell us in a minute what this is all about.

Olayda 17 yaşındaki Oğuz Dörtkardeş, olay yerinde hayatını kaybetti. Ezel Kırca ise kaldırıldığı hastanede öldü. Olayda Ercan T., Murat K., Mustafa K., Enver G. ve H.T. yaralandı.

Kavga sırasında çevredeki işyerlerinin camları kırıldı, çok sayıda otomobil de zarar gördü.

Oğuz Dörtkardeş, 17, died on the scene. Ezel Kırca died in the hospital. 5 other people were injured. During the fight, windows of nearby stores were broken and many cars were damaged. And I rightfully expect better constructed sentences from NTVMASNBC. Anyways, still not very clear to me who did what. Are the Easterners a minority in the town? Whose stores were those? Which group do the injured belong to?

Gerginlik, ölen iki kişinin cenazelerinin kaldırılması sırasında da devam etti. Oğuz Dörtkardeş’in Küçükköy beldesindeki cenazesine 400 kişi katıldı. Ezel Kırca’nın Altınova’daki cenaze törenine katılan yaklaşık iki bin kişi ise yürüyüş yaptı.

Tensions continued during the funerals. 400 people attended OD's funeral, while the 2000 attendees of Ezel Kırca's funeral walked in protest. Saying what? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Yours truly is getting frustrated at this point.

Gruptakiler daha sonra doğu kökenli kişilere ait ev ve işlerlerini taşladı. Gruba müdahale etmeyen jandarma ekipleri, binaları kalkanlarla korumaya çalıştı. Jandarma olayları yatıştırmak için 22 kişiyi gözaltına aldı. Böylece gözaltındaki kişi sayısı 37’ye yükseldi.

The groups later stoned houses and offices belonging to Easternes. The Gendarme, who did not interfere, tried to protect the buildings with shields. They later took 22 people under custody, which brings the total number of people under custody to 37. THE END.

The problem with this is evident when looking at reader comments. People have commented on the trivial nature of the origin of the fight (merely loud music, in this case) and that fight like these can erupt anywhere between anyone, and that they shouldn't be exaggerated. Except it's not just music, and it's not just anyone. And the choice here to avoid calling the incident by what it is, that is an inter-ethnic conflict, is a conscious one. By now Turkish journalists should have the balls to leave aside the term Easterner as a euphemism for Kurd.

For an example of a story that does not engage in similar idiotism, see Today's Zaman.