From the morality of living to the morality of sying: hunger strikes in Turkish prisons

Political hunger strikes have been part of the debates on human rights in many countries around the world. This paper explores the preconditions for and motives behind hunger strikes in Turkey by conceiving the hunger strikers as a part of citizenship politics through which strikers not only express their views against certain common issues, but also declare total opposition to an unjust condition within their political community. The paper focuses on the question of why some such “citizens” choose to participate in hunger strikes, which appears as an individual commitment to achieve a certain common objective. In doing so, the meaning of the experiences of hunger strikers and their universal right to live are elaborated in relation to their political and moral views. Hunger strikes are suggested to be seen as voluntary fasting, undertaken as a means of civil disobedience against an injustice within the context of citizenship. As examples of non-violent political acts, hunger strikes are not only part of citizenship politics but also expressions of commitment to achieving one’s goals through non-aggressive means for the common good of all citizens. Moreover, they can also be considered examples of martyrdom/heroism because hunger strikers altruistically risk their life for a public cause. As a particular altruistic act, hunger strikes can also be viewed as an effective form of communication directed toward fellow citizens. Moreover, they are expressions of self-determination for having control over and for one’s own life conditions. Finally, hunger strikes can be conceptualized as a struggle for transforming the configuration of structures and practices of citizenship about which one is passionately concerned. In this context, hunger strikes seem to be struggles for recognition in a relationship between two subjects, in which one subordinates the other

Citizen Alevi in Turkey: beyond confirmation and denial

Critics of the current national citizenship models argue that, although it rests on claims to be inclusionary and universal, it can never eliminate exclusionary and particularistic practices when challenged by those identities excluded from the historical trajectory of "nation building." Turkish citizenship has been a form of anomalous amalgamation since its conception. On the one hand, the state insisted on the pre-emptive exclusion of religion and various communal cultural identities from politics, while, on other hand, it promoted a particular religious identity primarily as a means of promoting cultural and social solidarity among its citizens. Contemporary Alevi movements, representing the interests of a large minority in Turkey, provide a new source of energy for the revision of concepts of citizenship. Alevis have suffered from prejudice, and their culture has been arrested and excluded from the nation building process. They were not able to integrate into the form of national identity based on the "secular" principles that the republican state has provided as a means of promoting solidarity among citizens. What Alevis seek is a revised citizenship model in terms of a system of rights assuring the condition of neutrality among culturally diverse individuals

AUTOMATIC ELIMINATION OF SHIP DESIGN PARAMETERS BASED ON DATA ANALYSIS FOR SEAKEEPING PERFORMANCE

In this paper, we are proposing a computer-based system which makes the automatic elimination of ship design parameters based on data analysis for seakeeping performance. Usually engineers do not have enough time to analyse the data. In this case it can be better to use less parameters in the data analysis. But if the investment has the high commercial worth then the engineers must consider and analyse all variables and their effects in the concept design to minimise the risks of further stages of the design. We are mainly focused on ship motions to identify their most influential parameters. By the use of statistics, the backward elimination method is constructed in a software based on the SQL Server Database. The system contains two modules named as “Identification” and “Elimination”. Identification module is used to find out the weakest parameters by the method and then the elimination module avoids these parameters from the final model. In fact the most engineering areas concern with the problem of different parameters and physical issues to construct meta-models to calculate the closest prediction to real values

Turkish capitalist modernity and the Gezi revolt

In this paper an attempt is made to reassess how and why the laic/Islamic dual opposition has come to be a decisive factor in the politics of Turkish capitalist modernity. The question as to whether this opposition may survive into the twenty-first century is briefly discussed. It is noted that in the aftermath of the prolonged confrontation between the emergent imagined community of the Gezi Revolt and the Islamist AKP government, a religiously neutral political identity came into sight in public life, which can be considered as the harbinger of a new kind of social individuality, one which is incommensurate with the laic/Islamic dual opposition

Dictatorship plus hegemony: a Gramscian analysis of the Turkish state

Analysis of the Turkish state in the 20th Century both draws upon and supports Gramsci's definition of the state as "dictatorship + hegemony." Both the form of the capitalist state and its activities rest upon the hegemony of the dominant class. The importance of society and class conflicts in understanding the capitalist state suggests a critical position vis-a-vis the state autonomy tradition. The history of the Turkish state provides support for the argument that the dominant class Must have established hegemony in the state in the first place, since without this there is no guarantee of successful use of the coercive power of the state on behalf of the sectional interests of the dominant class