With great attention, I have been watching the Charlie Rose interviews broadcasted on Bloomberg TV, which mirror the American foreign policy. Rather than the words of the guest speakers, the posed questions lay a better focus. Generally speaking, strategists, scientists, journalists, artists and, from time to time, presidents are invited on the program. Last week, Charlie Rose’s program hosted Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the guest speaker. This week after seeing the Egyptian president Abd al Fattah el-Sisi in the same program, I watched it even more attentively. With his stature, speech and answers, Sisi gave a profile of quite a weak leader. Even his succinct and irrelevant answers with a short smile could not avoid Charlie Rose from getting what he wanted. The speaker Charlie Rose filled this gap with his own questions and comments. He tried to cover the deficiency of the general. Sometimes Rose asked the question and answered himself and waited for the general to confirm it.
Rose didn’t use any argument other than the case of journalists being detained in prison or pick on anything to refute the general’s statement “we have made a more democratic constitution than Mursi ”.
My impressions from the program are as follows:
The US gives a message to Turkey first by inviting the Turkish President and then the Egyptian President.
Egypt is being dragged into the center of the coalition against ISIL and reinforced for that purpose.
Sisi signals to the US that he can give them the promise “we will collaborate with you under no condition and even fight against ISIL” in turn of an economic growth and in return of the air and heavy ground weapons.
He agrees with categorically listing the Muslim Brotherhood among the terror groups and gives unconditional support to struggle against them. He underlines this point constantly.
When asked about a guarantee for sending the troops to ISIL, he points out Turkey.
The presence of Israel in the region and the guarantee of its security was one of the most focal discussion topics along the interview. Sisi keeps it on his agenda depending on a support for him to avoid the people’s resistance, which he appeals as terror.
I don’t know what impressions you have had from this interview. However, I found this broadcasting as an open card in viewing the US strategy in the region. As far as I can see, the clash between the Sunni and Shia and Turkish-Arab lines are even more heated. The function of the nation-state, which was structured after WW1, is now over. We should not forget the mechanism at that time which provoked Arabs against Turks. What waits the region is a completely different framing for the region through the new clashes. Of course, Turkey today is not the same country, which back then lost the war due to lack of power and saw its territory being split into 30 different nations and suffered from the overwhelming effect of the defeat. Today, it feels strong enough to reclaim its own heritage, which the Allies usurped, but if we think that the US and the energy companies had made a 50-year plan, a card game tournament is waiting for us in the region. May God help the decision-makers and the people of the region who are swinging between the open and closed hands in this game.
The red card and the Hijabi girls
I want to write about an advertisement billboard, which frequently draws my attention. There are two hijabi girls who give a pose nearby an open-tapped, red, luxurious sports car. I am not going to mention the brand of the car. I am not going to talk about the presented images or the image, the behavior that is intended to be representing the desire of the advertiser. I am not going to talk about Gramsci or the hegemonic masculine language used in the ads. I am not going to talk about the unavoidable affect of the photographic violence on our subconscious level every time when we see a picture. I am not going to talk about the whimsical gazes of the companies or the formula of the “hijab + luxurious car + beautiful woman” in the manly perception of the “religious” concept coming in “religious” brackets. I won’t deal with it from a religious perspective. I just want to raise the question of how this scene is different from the inevitable part of a car ad. in which a woman appears with long and hot legs walking near the tires. The connotations, sexist perspective and the usage style of the woman’s body…
The perspective of capitalism about the woman’s body and its advertisement language does not change even if the woman covers her body. Shouldn’t we open a discussion topic and question the language of the advertisement through the philosophy of the product? If we simply copycat the same thing, what was our struggle worth?
Have a good eid!
