PASOK's Turkish Candidate
June Samaras
By Hasan Haci, Athens
Published: Sunday, May 07, 2006
zaman.com
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=32870
When the Greek main opposition party, the Pan-Hellenic Socialist
Movement Party (PASOK), announced Turkish-minority member Ms. Gulbeyaz
Karahasan as the candidate for governor of the Drama-Kavala-Iskeche
provinces, an enormous conflict took place in the country.
The government and the Church reacted to this choice as
Macedonia-Thrace Minister George Kalantzis said, "If Karahasan says
'I'm a Greek', there won't be any problem." Speaking to Cihan News
Agency, Karahasan said she is not daunted by the criticisms, and
defined the preference of PASOK Leader George Papandreou as a
historical decision.
Ahead of the local elections, parties have begun to announce their
candidates for the positions of governor and mayor.
The main opposition party PASOK announced Gulbeyaz Karahasan, 27, a
member of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority, as the super-governor
candidate for the cities of Kavala-Drama-Iskece.
A graduate of law from Athens Law School from the Gokcepinar village
of Iskece, Ms. Karahasan is working as a lawyer.
On the list along with Ms. Karahasan that Papandreu announced at a
meeting of introduction in Athens, Hristoforo Korifidi was named as
the governor candidate for Drama, Dimitri Paputci for Kavala, and Foti
Karalidi for Iskece.
Finding herself at the center of discussions after her candidacy was
announced, Karahasan evaluated the recent developments for Cihan News
Agency.
Karahasan called Papandreou's preference a "historical and democratic"
decision, adding that they will all struggle to obtain the best result
in Drama-Kavala-Iskece.
"This is an important preference. I will try to help minorities be
represented in local administrations and make their voice heard in the
capital when they face problems. I will do my best to help the region
develop for everyone," said Karahasan.
Her reply to the question "Will you be able to garner support from the
minorities in Iskece," was "I've received countless congratulatory and
supportive messages. I have no doubt about the studies I conduct. I
think I will get their support."
Karahasan said that she will commence the election campaign beginning
from next Monday (May 8), and commented on the rumors that she was
assigned by the center without the permission of the local
administration, saying, "It's nothing like that; the election
commission informed the center after it conducted studies."
Preferences Reflect the Essence of PASOK
Papandreu's decision provoked reaction from both inside and outside the party.
As PASOK officials supported Papandreu's decision, Papandreu came
under criticism from the government, the Greek Church and local
organizations.
Karahasan, the main opposition leader, said the elections reflect the
essential points of PASOK policies.
During the period of time when PASOK was in power, Papandreu said he
made an effort to create a mixed atmosphere of different cultures and
religions, and he worked hard to keep a fine balance of ties between
the Christians and Muslims and minorities to create the notion of an
open and democratic Greece.
Female members of the parliament as well as governors from PASOK lend
their full support to the idea of proposing a minority member as the
candidate. Maria Damanaki, a female deputy from Athens, said that all
citizens, both male and female, are equal by law. "This decision is
meant to show the whole of Europe the notion of an open and democratic
Greece."
Church and government apprehensive
On the other side, Salonika metropolite Anthimos reacted to the
nomination of a minority member as a candidate by severely criticizing
PASOK.
Responding to the church's criticisms, PASOK official and former
minister Evangelos Venizelos said: "Politics are open to public. The
church should deal with its own business." Salonika PASOK deputy Yanis
Makriotis said, "This is an appropriate preference" while Salonika
mayor cited:" We are all Greeks with the same rights. I have no
problem."
Karahasan's being a Western Thrace Turk caused reaction on the
government side as well.
"If this candidate comes out and says bravely 'I am a Greek woman',
then there will be no problems," said Yorgos Kalancis, a
Macedonia-Thrace minister.
Upon a question asking," Would you say the criterion to be a candidate
is being a Greek woman?" He responded: "No. It's something everybody
says. If she explains this, there will be no problems. If she becomes
a governor, will she stand next to me on the 25 March ceremonies when
Greece attained independence from the Ottoman Empire? According to my
view, this issue is a national extension apart from the political
view. PASOK's choice is the choice of failure."
This approach from the government side is seen as worrisome since it
reflects the viewpoint of a European Union (EU) member country
concerning the participation of people from different religions and
national identities in the democratic process.
--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
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S. Hassid
conclude by reading June's message (obviously originating from the turkish
press) - the greek press claims that the candidate self-determines herself
as a greek moslem and not as turkish (she is of Pomak origin)
KALAMOS BOOKS
Church also have their knickers in a knot over this (see below)
I posted the Turkish version first, just to add a little extra flavour
to the list <g>
1] Prefect hopeful sparks wrangle
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_3158899_08/05/2006_69421
PASOK's decision to appoint a Greek Muslim woman as a candidate to
become Drama-Kavala-Xanthi prefect in northeastern Greece drew
opposition from the local minister and religious leader over the
weekend.
Upon hearing that the Socialists had put forward 28-year-old Gulbeyaz
Karahasan to stand in the October local elections, Macedonia-Thrace
Minister Giorgos Kalatzis called on her to confirm that she was a
Greek Muslim.
He also queried whether Karahasan "will stand next to me during the
March 25 celebrations." March 25 marks the beginning of the Greek war
of independence from Turkish rule. Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki was
equally outspoken in his criticism of PASOK's choice. "Inside me, I
cannot accept this," he said yesterday.
Karahasan received the backing of Socialist leader George Papandreou
and PASOK MPs. "All Greek men and women, regardless of religion, have
equal rights and should be actively and equally involved in the
country's political life," said party stalwart Evangelos Venizelos
followed by
2] Silence ordered on Karahasan
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_3164976_09/05/2006_69468
New Democracy ministers, deputies and officials were ordered yesterday
not to talk about PASOK's decision to appoint a Greek Muslim woman as
its candidate to run for Drama-Kavala-Xanthi prefect in October after
comments by the local minister sparked controversy.
Government sources said that the Prime Minister's Office instructed
party officials to refrain from commenting on the choice of
28-year-old Gulbeyaz Karahasan as the Socialist candidate in
northeastern Greece because it was helping unite PASOK behind the
nominee at a time when the Socialists were divided over the choice.
Macedonia-Thrace Minister Giorgos Kalatzis stirred reaction over the
weekend with comments that seemed to question Karahasan's loyalty to
Greece.
The ruling conservatives were quick to distance themselves from this
impression yesterday.
"The government does not comment on PASOK's nominations for local
authorities. The citizens are those that judge, compare and ultimately
choose," said alternate government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros. "All
Greek citizens have the right to vote and to be elected."
Kalatzis also appeared to retract his comment in which he queried
whether Karahasan would stand next to him during the March 25
celebrations which mark the beginning of the Greek war of independence
from Turkish rule. Yesterday he said he was sure that Karahasan would
be with him at the parade and said he had never questioned her
nationality.
He also said Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki should "look after his
own house" after the religious leader said he objected to PASOK's
nomination.
-------------------
A just wish the lady lots of luck - she's probably going to need it !
June S
-------------------------------------------------------------
KALAMOS BOOKS
(I loved this comment : "The move also came as a surprise to political and
religious leaders used to behaving as the exclusive agents of authentic
"Greekness" and the only ones able to judge who is and who isn't Greek ")
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_3595441_09/05/2006_69463
By Pantelis Boukalas
PASOK leader George Papandreou's decision to nominate lawyer Gulbeyaz
Karahasan as the party's candidate for Xanthi-Kavala-Drama Prefect
came as a surprise not only to Karahasan herself and to the party —
whose cadres should have known that the fanfare over "participatory
democracy" was destined from the outset for the Internet and not the
political arena proper — but it also astonished the wider public.
Those surprised mainly were in the south, who for decades were either
not aware of (or did not consider important) the bar of discrimination
that until 1997 was in place to divide Greeks from Greeks, the "pure"
from the "suspect." The move also came as a surprise to political and
religious leaders used to behaving as the exclusive agents of
authentic "Greekness" and the only ones able to judge who is and who
isn't Greek.
So we heard Macedonia-Thrace Minister Giorgos Kalantzis asking
Karahasan to confirm that she had indeed been born in Greece to Greek
parents, had studied in Greece, and so on. Then former PASOK minister
Stelios Papathemelis, now an independent deputy, expressed the view
that the candidate was being primed by the Turkish Consulate in
Xanthi. Thessaloniki Bishop Anthimos, meanwhile, said on television
(and only then in his Sunday sermon) that while it was none of his
business, he was nevertheless concerned. Theoretically, Christianity
is an ecumenical faith that does not heed national or ethnic
boundaries, but that has not yet convinced those who preach its
gospels.
Those who doubt Karahasan's Greek identity forget that she is a Pomak,
a minority within a minority, a people who, according to "nationally
correct" documentation, are descended from the ancient Thracians. The
critics are shifting the goalposts again.
C.Bu...@westminster.ac.uk
Muslim archnomarch. The newspapers 'Ta Nea' and especially 'Eleftherotypia'
were central in front-paging the notion that the 'right' was up in arms.
In fact, overall the rest of the media kept a relatively low, if not discrete
response. These two newspapers were identifying in their headlines the New
Democracy party as being extremists. In fact, once you read the text you found
that the qutoes by ND politicians were non-comital, if not respectful. Even
supposedly right wing extremist Karadzaferis just blamed the US.
Eleftherotypia made a big deal about the mispelling of her name, it wrote
contemptuously that it was 'Kara Hasan', not 'Karahasan'. But I see that even
Turkish newspapers spell it the 'Greek' way!
At the risk of being wrong, I have to conclude most respectfully that the
'PASOK' media and PASOK are probably solely responsible for the negative
publicity the Turkish press gave Greece. They highlighted non-existant
opposition and a few minority voices opposing the nomination.
filika CB
PS, if I am wrong - even fractionally, I wish to express my humble and
respectful apologies to these extremely powerful Greek media organisations.
C.Bu...@westminster.ac.uk
Sion’ that was founded in 1090. This sad exercise in credulity highlights the
risks one can anticipate when leapfrogging serious academic sources of
information and relying on the wishful thinking of dreamers and conmen. It all
started in 1956.
I was associate producer (responsible for Europe) for a leading US TV program on
‘The Priory Of Sion’, broadcast in April 2006. We dedicated the necessary time
and research in tracking down the development of this modern age myth, whose
(anti) climax – The Da Vinci Code, is currently on our cinema screens.
But, going through all the evidence at my disposal - much of it investigated for
the first time - I find it revealing, if not utterly fascinating, to have come
fact-to-face with the very ingredients and circumstances that gave rise to a
modern day myth. I cannot help but search for a theoretical model underscoring
this phenomenon and test it against the dynamics impacting the construction of
national identities – including the panoply of historical characters
underpinning such national identities. The interpretative skills of these ‘myth
makers’ seem to depend on their ability to take disparate historical elements
and link them into a cohesive narrative. Repeated refutation of this narrative
and even the demonstration that it rests on fraudulent documentation, only act
as temporary flood gates before the narrative finds new channels to continue
its course - albeit slightly modified but ultimately unabated.
In fact, at the early stages of our TV production and to our amazement, a number
of a respectable personages observed, off the record, that “there must be some
truth behind all this, that Jesus had children who grew up in the south of
France, that the church knows something it wishes to hide at all cost...”.
Dear list members, it may interest you, some of you hard nosed academics with
tried and tested criteria regarding 'historical truth', to glimpse how utter
fiction can be presented as ‘plausible scenario’ and thence into ‘factual
evidence’.
Fromthe early stages of my research, I was struck by the absence of any Greek
references. Indeed, the ‘secret of the grail’ was supposed to have been
"re-discovered” in the late 11th century, in Crusaders Jerusalem. Well,
considering Jesus was born in the 'Hellenic east’, that the Greek Patriarchate
is the longest continuous institutional presence in the Holy Land and that
Constantinople was busy across its Christian empire, you would have expected at
least some references in the odd Greek text, or some report of a kalogeros
passing-on the dreaded secret with his dying breath. The answer was nada,
nothing, zilch, tipota. Even amongst the eccentric ‘historians’, or rather,
self-appointed luminaries - floating around in Greece, I found no one who was
interested in dreaming up any ‘holy grail' links – some were too busy
establishing how the ancient Greeks colonised America. In fact, in the
Anglo-Saxon world, one researcher who specialises in transforming bunkum into
plausible evidence and who benefited handsomely from this ‘Sion / Grail’
charade, realised the necessity for a Greek link. That person could find
nothing. After all, this is a western myth with distinct modern Arian and
ancient Judaic overtones and bloodlines.
And so, to the facts, the myth kicks off in 1956. First of all, in a remote
village of the Pyrenees, Rennes-le-Chateau. There, a certain Noel Corbu had
just bought land and a home for his young family. He was a wartime
jack-of-all-trades. He opened a restaurant and, in order to attract the local
clientele, he whiped up a story of a buried Visigoth treasure. The story took
hold and by 1962, it was national news. Treasure hunters dynamited the place
for years, dined at the local restaurant and found nothing. Of course, there
was no treasure.
Also in 1955, Pierre Plantard, a self-appointed sage of the esoteric arts, a
convicted fraudster and former jailbird moved to Annemasse (outside Geneva). In
1956 he starts a cooperative for local tenants. But this is the 4th Republic
and France is shaken by mini coup d’etats, threats of rebellion and
conspirators. In order to appease the local authorities, he gives his
association a local name, ‘Priory of Sion'. Sion is the name of two well known
local landmarks – it has a homely touch. But he is soon accused of
‘interfering’ with young children, and spends a short spell in prison for fraud
(I seem to remember). End of story.
But by the early 1960s, Plantard begins to fancy himself as the rightful heir of
the Merovingian throne with a mission to save France. With a close associate,
he fakes documents and royal genealogies, backdates them, and places them in
the Bibliotheque Nationale (it was an easy procedure in the 1960s) to be
discovered by ‘historians seeking the truth’. He has also searched around for
his ‘ancestral’ seat. At first he selects well known sites, like Gisors, but
they are too well documented and impermeable to the fantasies of a misguided
individual like himself. Finally, he falls upon the Rennes-le-Chateau story. It
is a remote village with a recently invented 'secret treasure' attached to it
and upon which just about any invented bloodline can be grafted.
Unfortunately for him, bona fide historians castigate his nonsense and that is
that. End of story.
Then, in the early 1970s comes Henry Lincoln, a script writer for ‘Doctor Who’.
He likes the story and persuades the BBC that there is truth in it. The BBC's
factual programming believes him and gives him three programs! So the story now
takes a new dimension – it is official history according to the BBC. People in
their thousands are – literally - crying out for a book, but since this is a
modern invention, there are none. By 1981 Lincoln writes a book with two other
colleagues (Holy Blood Holy Grail). The new twist / invention and key selling
point is that Plantard’s Merovingian line is, in fact, directly linked to that
of Christ. Plantard is the descendent of Christ. No one claimed that he could
walk on water and there were no lepers in Europe to test any residual
miraculous talents. The story now takes on an international dimension. But by
the early 1990s, Plantard is again investigated, his flat raided. It reveals a
rather sad den of forgeries, product of a confused mind. He acknowledged that
he invented all the bloodline stuff and royal titles. Meanwhile, real
historians have torn the theory to pieces. End of story.
Then come Dan Brown, bla, bla, bla, major Holywood movie. Bona fide historians
pull the theory to pieces. End of story.
To conclude, I am quite sure that in a world where Greek and Latin were
appreciated in their original and enjoyed a modicum of popularity, these types
of fantasies would find it very difficult to take hold.
Thank you for your indulgence.
Ευχαριστώ για
την υπομονή
σας.
filika
Constantine Buhayer
ps. the opinions expressed are those of the author who remains solely
responsible for any inaccuracies contained herewith, and the research on the
Greek sources was undertaken on the author’s own time.
Angela Kabouris
Åõ÷áñéóôþ ãéá
ôçí õðïìïíÞ
óáò.
filika
Constantine Buhayer
ps. the opinions expressed are those of the author who remains solely
responsible for any inaccuracies contained herewith, and the research on the
Greek sources was undertaken on the author’s own time.
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Åõ÷áñéóôþ ãéá
ôçí õðïìïíÞ
óáò.
Sotiris Sotiropoulos
"To conclude, I am quite sure that in a world where Greek and Latin
were appreciated in their original and enjoyed a modicum of popularity,
these types of fantasies would find it very difficult to take hold."
You can thank the disciples of post-modernism and social constructivism
who have managed to gravely infect human society with their pernicious
and dangerous moral relativism.
Sotiris Sotiropoulos
"To conclude, I am quite sure that in a world where Greek and Latin
were appreciated in their original and enjoyed a modicum of popularity,
these types of fantasies would find it very difficult to take hold."
You can thank the disciples of post-modernism and social constructivism
Sotiris Sotiropoulos
"To conclude, I am quite sure that in a world where Greek and Latin
were appreciated in their original and enjoyed a modicum of popularity,
these types of fantasies would find it very difficult to take hold."
You can thank the disciples of post-modernism and social constructivism