In the scholarly disciplines, the criticism of ideology is hardly spoken of any longer. The ideology-critical method of immanent critique, associated with the philosopher Karl Marx, is frowned upon. Wrongly. It is a philosophical method that goes back to Socrates and that has since been developed further....
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The resounding electoral victory of the Islamic Justice and Development Party bodes a conservative turn with Muslim undertones in Turkey. Since Atatürk's reforms in the 1920s, Turkey has been held by a corset of modernisation along Western lines. Long-established elites have fostered nepotism and a general dumbing down. Yet this corset has also had a healing effect, failing which the AKP's victory would look very different indeed. By Zafer Senocak
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The country is like a prefabricated building on historic land. With Turkey's opening to the West, the question is: What is supplanting the Islamic mysticism which, for centuries, provided the inspiration for that country’s music and literature? By Zafer Senocak
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I want to see Turks en masse waving the German flag. Jobs, rules, the German language and free religion – these must be the pillars of a new German society. Today's West Germans, East Germans and foreign Germans are perhaps only the forefathers of the curious folk we will be in thirty years. And then, what belongs together will grow together. An appeal by Feridun Zaimoglu.
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Turkish-born German sociologist Necla Kelek has been accused of painting the Turkish community in Germany in a bad light. In an interview with Michaela Schlagenwerth, she explains that what she sees is what she writes. More dangerous than her portrayal, she says, is the pervasive blindness to the facts. (Photo Lebeck)
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Since it hit the German screens in February, Serdar Akar's Turkish secret agent film "Valley of the Wolves" has been widely touted as an anti-Western hate film. But for all the talk of a "clash of civilisations", isn't it much like any Western thriller - with the roles reversed? By Alexandra Stäheli.
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The autumn of 2005 was marked by the anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Repubic, the start of EU accession talks and, most importantly, the first open discussions in the country about the Armenian genocide. Seyla Benhabib looks at changing attitudes in Turkey toward its past and its multicultural legacy.
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Two billionaire families are rivalling to become Turkey's
biggest sponsors of the arts. The Sabanci Museum is now trumping with the show "Picasso in Istanbul". By Elke Buhr
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Gingerbread hearts, 4711, the lovely Petra and appalling paintings. Author Feridun Zaimoglu describes how growing up on a German diet eventually bore literary fruit.
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Now that social and political conditions in Turkey seem to be fast approaching EU requirements, the opponents of Turkish EU entry are using a new line of argumentation. Europe is being defined more as a unit forged by a common past and common cultural values than a project for the future. This obsession with identity is a threat to European unity and the universality of European ideas and values. By Nilüfer Göle
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In the heated debate over Turkey's entry into the EU, something is being forgotten: the fact that the two continents are within spitting distance of each other. And that Europe in its current form would not exist were it not for the Middle East. By Hilal Sezgin
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A combative response to Jutta Limbach's article on "Making multiculturalism work" by the Turkish-German lawyer and activist Seyran Ates.
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In the wake of terrorist attacks, people who plead for a dialogue between religions are avoiding the key question: why do Muslims become terrorists? By Zafer Senocak
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"I don't stop being Turkish when I'm in the USA, and I'm also an American when I'm in Istanbul." Turkish novelist and professor of gender studies in Tucson, Arizona Elif Shafak talks to Arno Widmann about multiple identities, the joys of heterodoxy and the dangers of getting comfortable.
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After winning the Golden Bear in Berlin for his last film "Head On", Fatih Akin has now made a documentary on Istanbul's music scene. A talk with Daniel Bax on the film "Crossing the Bridge", tour guides and Vikings, music divas and the responsibilities of critical acclaim.
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Turkish society flatly refuses to recognise the atrocities committed against the Armenians. This has catastrophic implications for Turks in Germany. By Zafer Senocak
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