academics-from-turkey

"What the Roman Empire is to European history, the Mongol Empire is to Asian history."

"Even more so than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine there are major structural trends that are threatening to change the way we experience politics: climate change, developments in technology such as AI or shifts in how we do finance such as bitcoin and other similar technologies."

"If you were living in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, or sixteenth century, you would not think Europe was the center of the world, you would think “Asia” (whatever you called it) was the center of the world"

"What seems to destroy world orders (at least in history) is not great power rivalry, but structural pressures that fray connective tissues."

"Those who support Hrant Dink or Orhan Pamuk do not raise their voice when we are prevented from speaking."

"Although the majority [of Turkey's population] is Turks, it is governed by cryptos."

"Today, many people known as Kurdish Alevis are unfortunately Armenian converts. Many people who are in TİKKO and PKK are among them. In other words, the PKK or TİKKO movement is not a Kurdish movement as we think."

"Anyone who calls me a racist, a fascist, or something similar is a traitor, they are the real racist."

"We are hearing a speech of hatred. You cannot use your freedom of speech to hurt others."

"Turkey’s commitment to keeping stability and peace in the region has been clear. We’ve committed significant military, economic, and humanitarian resources to realize this end. Any terrorist who think they can derail our efforts is gravely mistaken,"

"We all know that the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, Ankara and Istanbul have nothing to do either with Islam, which brought peace and mercy to humanity, or with Muhammad, prophet of compassion, or the Quran."

"It is not possible to give up our rights and interests in the Eastern Mediterranean just because sanctions will come or because the EU will criticize us,"

"During my fieldwork in Cyprus, I observed what is known as “adult territoriality”, in which the politics is mainly dominated by older men, and they do not allow young people to take part in any type of governmental body. As one young Cypriot told me, “political parties are hesitant to encourage youth candidates in politics and they don’t have any intention to open the doors to youth either”. This prevents young people from being included in politics, decision-making or peacebuilding. [...] Cyprus is not alone in this regard. Youth-led demonstrations often receive criticism, such as calls for youth climate activist Greta Thunberg to “shut up and go back to school”. And sometimes, young activists are more directly sidelined: Ugandan climate activist was cropped out of a photograph by after a press conference at the 2020 at . The marginalisation of youth activists of colour has also been a persistent trend."

"Although countries are hesitant to include youth in politics, young people find alternative ways to cope with marginalisation and amplify their voices. This is apparent in the youth-led protests around the world. Young people are demanding to be leaders today, rather wait their turn in an elusive future."

"Most Cypriot young people are used to living in a divided country. However, some wish to see the division end and seek to contribute meaningfully to dialogue and cooperation between the two sides. [...] Cypriot youth may not be as politically active for peace as they were in the run-up to the 2004 referendum on the , or the period in 2011 when there was a movement to occupy the buffer zone between the north and south, and when young people were involved in demonstrations for peace. But the island’s youth still believe that they have a responsibility to find a peaceful solution to the “Cyprus problem”."

"Young people have taken part in remarkable political mobilisation in the last year. They have participated in global climate change strikes and demonstrations and protests against ruling elites, corruption and inequality in countries such as Algeria, Sudan, Tunisia, Iraq and Libya. However, my research shows that they can be excluded from decision-making and processes. In particular, young people frequently think that their messages are devalued or ignored. Young people are often perceived as vulnerable and in need of protection. Yet they can be simultaneously viewed as dangerous, violent and uncontrollable. These views have long dominated attitudes towards youth. Moreover, popular beliefs about young people’s lack of experience and has meant that many people are ignorant about their contribution to political debate. This has also led to a failure by political leaders to acknowledge young people’s potential to bring about political change."

"There is a 360-degree difference between our understanding of Islam and that of IS."

"We will always side with the wrongdoers."

"Cryptocurrencies have given rise to an entire new criminal industry, comprising unregulated offshore exchanges, paid propagandists, and an army of scammers looking to fleece retail investors. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of rampant fraud and abuse, financial regulators and law-enforcement agencies remain asleep at the wheel."

"It’s not as if there’s infinite wealth. There are thousands of new luxury units coming on the market, and the question is, who will buy them? If people start losing jobs, who can afford to pay 2, 3, 4, 5 million dollars? Do you know 10,000 new investment bankers on Wall Street?"

"I think globalization actually maintains and fosters various elements of national and cultural identities. I don’t think everything is being homogenized. If anything, your food, your culture, and your ethnicity might become part of the globalized world, and thus absorbed by other countries."

"Janera:: Do you think then that it’s good that the French are abolishing the headscarves or the yarmulke? Roubini: I’m not in favor of restricting what people wear. It’s counterproductive and creates more separation. The effect of the French policy is that children will attend a religious school and won’t be exposed to the secular education that France offers. They won’t learn the value of western modern secular values."

"The challenge we face is how to integrate the Muslim world into the global economy. Asia has become part of it, but not Africa or the Middle East.One could realistically think about a Marshall Plan with respect to this part of the world, to succeed in integrating the Muslim and Arab world into the global economy as we did in Europe after World War II. For example, we’ve wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on the Iraq war. Had we taken a third of this money and invested it into a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, the benefits would have been ten times more than wasting it on a war."

"Reckless people have deluded themselves that this was a subprime crisis. But we have problems with credit-card debt, student-loan debt, auto loans, commercial real estate loans, home-equity loans, corporate debt and loans that financed leveraged buyouts... We have a subprime financial system, not a subprime mortgage market."

"Our biggest financiers are China, Russia and the gulf states. These are rivals, not allies."

"The Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown."

"(During the Italian crisis, about the proposal of replacing Silvio Berlusconi with Angelino Alfano, as the new Prime Minister of Italy) Replacing Berlusconi with one of his servile lackeys is unacceptable. Italy needs a credible government run by a respected & competent leader (2011-11-08"

"We cannot achieve price stability, maintain economic growth and have financial stability at the same time. So in the end we will have an economic and financial collapse."

"When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, gets to know the streets so well after a number of years that in a fit of melancholy, perhaps stirred by a light snow falling ever so sorrowfully, you'll discover your legs carrying you of their own accord toward one of your favorite promontories."

"Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness."

"I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well."

"When another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free."

"The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write. I write because I can’t do normal work as other people do. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy."

"Let me first state forthright that contrary to what we've often read in books and heard from preachers, when you are a woman, you don't feel like the Devil."

"Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow."

"The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion; if you want to live in that paradise where happy mares and stallions live, open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony."

"Are you an angel that approaching you should be so terrifying?"

"Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?"

"All great masters, in their work, seek that profound void within color and outside time."

"Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight."

"A letter doesn’t communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it, touching it and fondling it. Thereby, intelligent folk will say, “Go on then, read what the letter tells you!” whereas the dullwitted will say, “Go on then, read what he’s written!”"

"For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home."

"There are moments in all our lives when we realize, even as we experience them, that we are living through events we will never forget, even long afterward."

"T feel like the Devil not because I’ve murdered two men, but because my portrait has been made in this fashion."

"Suddenly, it seemed to me that the entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room."

"In actuality, we don’t look for smiles in pictures of bliss, but rather, for the happiness in life itself. Painters know this, but this is precisely what they cannot depict. That’s why they substitute the joy of seeing for the joy of life."

"Yet does illustrating in a new way signify a new way of seeing?"

"What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand."

"Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity."

"Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief."