Aby The Liberal

Aby April 7th, 2009

During the recently concluded US-EU summit in Prague, a little political tussle occured when the French President Nicolas Sarkozy rebuffed Obama’s recommendation that Turkey be inducted as a member of the European Union. While I understand the American President’s attempt at endearing himself to the Muslim world, Mr. Sarkozy stance against Turkey’s immediate admission to the EU was quite valid as a European concern.

A news video showing Barack Obama’s clash with Sarkozy in the EU summit.

While Turkey might be amongst the most moderate Muslim-majority nations, it still lags miles behind the European levels of secularlism, tolerance and human rights record of the past 50 years. Despite  the progresses made in the last few decades, Turkey still remains a country pretty hostile to the idea of religious tolerance and freedom of speech. Till very recently, Turkey has been bringing up objections to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, from becoming the next NATO Secretary-General. The Turkish argument was that Mr. Rasmussen wasn’t suitable for the post because he did not offer an apology for cartoons of the ‘Prophet’ Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 (which is hypocritic considering that the Turkish leadership never recognised, let alone apologise, the Armenian Holocaust of the early 1900s). On a more active front, Turkey has been  strifling its Kurdish minority for years. Turkish Christians are not treated on par with Muslims when it comes to rights to practicing their religion. The handful of churches that exist in Turkey today are either places of historical significance or annexes of foreign embassies.

Beside the religious concerns outlined above, Turkey’s admission to the EU could also create a clash of economic and political differences.  Its political conflicts with Greece and  Cyprus could become the next European headache, threatening the already strained stability of the European Union. In addition to this, as a member with the smallest economy, Turkey will also create a drag on the EU economy, far more than the effect of Poland, Lithuania and Romania’s admission to the EU. It could also become a corridor for migrants from North Africa and the Arab world to gain a backdoor entry to Europe.

Unless all the above (and additional) concerns are smoothened out between Turkey and Europe, admitting Turkey would be an extremely premature and self-destructive move for the EU. This is the part President Sarkozy and Chancellor Markel got right.

• Internationalism , World Politics
• Comments (23)

Aby December 10th, 2008

I never thought that a thing like ‘blog war’ existed until I found this site dragged unwittingly into one of those “blog wars”. Some blogger who calls herself ‘virgomonkey‘ and owns a blog titled “Waging A War on the Radical Right and Radical Left” decided to start a smear campaign against Aby The Liberal. On a closer inspection of this said blog, I was amused to find that the last six or so posts in that blog are dedicated to passionate bashing of my site. Most of these posts were peppered with insults, outrageous lies and conspiracy claims (a lot of them being taller than Mount Everest). Most of her fodder presumably came from my non-existent ‘husband’ or ‘wife’, who supposedly found her blog offensive and gifted her with ‘hate mails’ to put up in one of her pages.

It appears that the tactic of using outrageous lies and made up quotes to bash a blog is not a first. A quick google search brought up a case of Glenn Reynolds, a legendary blogger whose popularity prompted Frank J., an attention seeker to launch a tirade of outrageous lies and slanders against Glenn’s blog. An excerpt from The Alliance

Frank J., of IMAO, is an up-and-coming blogger who occasionally mocks Glenn as a way to gain attention. His first method was making up outrageous lies: Glenn puts puppies in blenders and drinks them; Glenn murders hobos for fun; Glenn worships Satan; Glenn is a communist spy who does the robot dance; Glenn punched Frank J.

Later, Frank attempted to get Google to bring up Glenn’s site if the terms “liberal assclown” were entered. Results were mixed.

 

A lot of the lies used by virgomonkey against Aby The Liberal look strikingly similar to those employed by Frank J. against Glenn Reynolds. I am yet to decide whether these outrageous claims are satirical jokes or some serious attention seeking behaviour. As she was recently banned from this site for trolling, this might also be her way of getting back. In one of her latest posts, she alleges that this particular comment of hers is supposedly a forgery. Since an allegation of forgery is more scandalous than admitting a troll comment,  it becomes quite obvious what that blogger’s agenda is.

I guess the next thing I should expect would be a ‘blogring’ of troll bloggers deciding to ‘wage a war’ against this site. Or maybe some more made up hate mails, quotes or something even more outrageous. Perhaps a picture of my so called ‘wife’ or ‘husband’ is in the cards. Or better still, an honest apology for making unsavoury jokes.

• Mischallenous
• Comments (30)