Politurco

31/10/2025

DR. AZLY RAHMAN

Do we live in a rational world, one in which things make sense, explainable by the simple logic of cause and effect and correlation? Or is the world an unpredictable universe of chance and randomness, where unforeseen events cascade into tempests, and we, as pattern-starved mortals, scramble to impose meanings, explanations, and hard-won lessons upon the void? This perennial dilemma—rational order versus capricious flux—has haunted thinkers from the Stoics, who saw fate as a providential chain, to modern physicists grappling with quantum indeterminacy.

As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy elucidates, causal determinism posits that every event is inexorably linked to prior causes, yet it collides with fatalism’s resigned inevitability, where outcomes unfold regardless of our striving. In between lies randomness: not mere noise, but the wild heart of complexity, where free will dances uneasily with cosmic dice rolls.

Could an event from years, or even decades past—one seemingly trivial, a mere whisper in the gale—reshape today’s world in cataclysmic fashion? Envision a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon jungle of the 1970s: the faint ripples of air interact with zephyrs, amplifying into swells, then tempests, altering weather patterns continents away. Plausible? Emphatically so, as meteorologist Edward Lorenz demonstrated in his 1963 paper, coining the “butterfly effect” to describe chaos theory’s core insight: minuscule initial perturbations in nonlinear systems can yield wildly divergent outcomes.



Continue Reading politurco.com

31/10/2025

ADEM YAVUZ ARSLAN

U.S. President Donald Trump’s dream of a third term is once again dominating Washington, D.C. — and naturally, the rest of the world is watching closely.

The debate reignited after Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, told The Economist recently that “Trump will be president in 2028,” even hinting at a plan to make it possible. A few days later, aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters, “I’d love to do it!” before quickly backtracking with, “But of course, it’s not allowed.”

Soon, “Trump 2028” became a trending slogan on social media. Supporters printed new hats, while critics reacted with outrage. Yet behind all this noise lies a deeper question: Is Trump genuinely planning a third term — or is this another attention-grabbing act of political theater? In other words, is Trump trolling not just his rivals, but the entire world?

A Constitutional Stress Test

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is explicit: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
This rule, adopted in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms, leaves no room for ambiguity.

But Trump has never been known for respecting rules. Even when he says, “I’d love to run again,” he’s performing a taboo test — signaling to his base, “If I leave, chaos will follow.” Such remarks serve more of a political than legal function. By keeping the third-term debate alive, Trump keeps his base energized, provokes Democrats, and distracts from his other controversies — like his bizarre proposal to “bomb drug traffickers.”



Continue Reading politurco.com

28/10/2025

AYDOGAN VATANDAS / Editor-in-Chief

The U.S. leg of the “After the Reunion” commemoration tour—organized in memory of Fethullah Gülen following his passing—came to an emotional close with a spectacular finale in New Jersey.

The event took place at the Breslin Stage and Arts Center of Felician University, hosted by the well-known TV personality Kemal Gülen.

“We Continue to Live the Ideals and Action Taught by Hocaefendi”

The welcoming address was delivered by Dr. Erkan Ertosun, President of the Northeast America Civil Platform. He recalled that just a year earlier, on October 12, the same stage had hosted the Ümit Nağmeleri program themed “Inheritors of the Earth.”

“At that time,” Dr. Ertosun said, “our friends from around the world brought us a message: despite all the ordeals, difficulties, oppression, and pressure, this movement remains strong and continues tirelessly. Only eight days after that event, we experienced a moment that deeply wounded us all—our beloved teacher, Hocaefendi, departed for the horizon of eternity. A year has now passed, and we are once again together for this program themed After the Reunion. You have filled this 1,500-seat hall to capacity, with people even standing. With this presence, you are sending a clear message: yes, Hocaefendi is not with us physically, but his ideas, his ideals, and the actions he taught us are very much alive.”



Continue Reading politurco.com

28/10/2025

DR. AZLY RAHMAN

We are a book of signs. We are also living in a book of signs. We must learn how to read it critically, especially in an era dominated by digital algorithms, artificial intelligence, and global interconnectedness.

“Read, in the name of Thy Lord who Created Thee, from a clot (of Blood).”

This foundational Quranic verse from Surah Al-Alaq (96:1-2) emphasizes the profound importance of reading. We can interpret this not merely as an act of comprehension but as a transformative process of knowing, naming, deconstructing, and reconstructing the world around us. In today’s context, where information flows ceaselessly through social media feeds and AI-driven recommendations, reading becomes an essential tool for discerning truth from manipulation.

What are we to read in our lifetime? How do we navigate a life predetermined by ideological frameworks that greet us from the moment we emerge from that clot of blood? These questions grow more urgent as technology accelerates the pace of ideological dissemination.

“Man, in a word, has no nature… what he has is history,” wrote the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset in his essay “History as a System.”

“Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I exist),” proclaimed the French mathematician René Descartes in his “Discourse on Method.”
The Western philosophical tradition posits that circumstances and historical materialism shape the conditions of human existence. This implies that we must harness our mental faculties to master our environment and unlock the possibilities it offers, all while recognizing the structures of oppression that bind us.

To exist as truly free beings, we must first become aware of the visible and invisible systems erected by fellow humans. This awareness enables our existence to evolve into one of “being and becoming,” equipped with our own internal “global positioning system” for navigating life’s complexities.



Continue Reading politurco.com

28/10/2025

AYDOGAN VATANDAS / Editor-in-Chief

In August 1977, the Big Ear radio telescope of Ohio State University recorded a 72-second signal coming from the sky. The scientist on duty that day wrote only one word next to the printout: “Wow!”
The signal’s frequency was 1420 MHz — the natural vibration frequency of the hydrogen atom, that is, the most logical band for “intelligent communication” in the universe. But the signal was never repeated. That short signal from the sky turned into one of the strangest silences in human history.

Today, almost half a century later, another silence is unfolding. An interstellar object named 3I/ATLAS has entered our Solar System and is about to reach perihelion — the most critical point in its orbit — right behind the Sun, where no telescope can see it. This time, however, the silence is not only cosmic; it carries political, epistemological, and institutional meaning as well.

According to Michel Foucault, knowledge and truth are never neutral. Truth, in every era, is produced in relation to specific structures of power. Foucault explained this with the concept of the “regime of truth”: every society creates an institutional mechanism that defines which information is “true,” which is “false,” and which is “dangerous.” This regime is not only academic; it operates through law, medicine, the military, media, and state bureaucracy.

Knowledge, according to Foucault, is a form of power because those who possess knowledge can shape social behavior, belief, and fear. The saying “knowledge is power” was not a slogan for him but a structural reality. For Foucault, truth is not a mirror reflecting the world but a mechanism that organizes it. This mechanism determines not only what we can know but also what we cannot know. The history of knowledge is also the history of suppressed truths. Scientific silences, censorship, and so-called “irrelevant anomalies” — all are fracture points excluded by the regime of truth.



Continue Reading politurco.com

27/10/2025

Evrenin Derinliği

25/10/2025

Evrenin Başlangıcında Ne Vardı?

25/10/2025

24/10/2025

DR. AZLY RAHMAN

Introduction:

The Cybernating Nation in a Globalized World
In the contemporary landscape of globalization and post-industrialism, the concept of a “cybernating nation” emerges as a critical lens for understanding how developing societies integrate advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly the Internet and telematics, into their socio-political and economic fabrics. Cybernation refers not merely to technological adoption but to a profound cybernetic reconfiguration of societal structures, where feedback loops between human agency, institutional power, and digital networks redefine national trajectories.

This essay expands upon a series of interconnected theses to explore the multifaceted implications of cybernation. Drawing from center-periphery dynamics, complexity theory, structuralism, and resistance paradigms, it argues that cybernation accelerates both integration into global systems and internal contestations of power, ultimately eroding traditional notions of sovereignty while fostering new forms of enculturalized discourse. These transformations, best illuminated through postmodern lenses, reveal the tensions between hegemony and subaltern agency in an increasingly wired world.

“The Enduring Grip of Center-Periphery Dynamics in Cybernation”

At the heart of cybernation lies the persistent center-periphery pattern of development, a framework originating from dependency theory that posits global economic and cultural flows as radiating from core (developed) nations to peripheral (developing) ones. In a globalized post-industrialist world, the development of a cybernating nation will continue to follow, to a degree or another, this center-periphery pattern.

Peripheral nations, eager to harness ICTs for economic leapfrogging, often replicate the infrastructural and ideological blueprints of the center—adopting Western-modeled digital platforms, data protocols, and innovation hubs—while reaping asymmetric benefits.



Continue Reading politurco.com

23/10/2025

ADEM YAVUZ ARSLAN

In 19th-century Ottoman literature, Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem’s The Carriage Affair (Araba Sevdası) mocked the shallow Western obsessions of an emerging elite—people who mistook imitation for progress.

Nearly a century and a half later, Turkey seems to have revived that same spirit, but in a distinctly 21st-century form.
It’s no longer a “car affair.” It’s a license plate affair.

From Diplomacy to Digital Comedy

Modern Turkish politics has become increasingly performative, symbolic, and self-referential.
Even foreign policy pronouncements often sound like they’ve come from the nation’s traffic authority.

The latest example came from Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who recently proposed in Parliament that:

“Düzce is 81, Cyprus should be 82—let it join Turkey!”

It sounded like a joke, but it wasn’t.
His statement captured something essential about Turkish political culture in the Erdoğan era: a longing for conquest reimagined as a game of license plate numbers.

The Politics of Imaginary Plates

In today’s Turkey, online nationalists—often aligned with the ruling AKP—assign license plate numbers to territories they believe should belong to Turkey.
Each province in Turkey has a unique two-digit code, so these fantasy maps create a kind of numeric imperialism:

Kirkuk becomes “82,” Rojava “83,” Afrin “84,” Tel Abyad “85.”

Even European cities are not safe from the meme: “Berlin 100,” “Thessaloniki 101.”

It’s all absurd, yes—but it’s also revealing.
This new license plate nationalism reflects a deeper need to project power through symbols at a time when real geopolitical influence is shrinking.



Continue Reading politurco.com

21/10/2025

AYDOGAN VATANDAS

This sentence encapsulates the essence of the late Fethullah Gulen Hodjaefendi’s theological thought. In his understanding of God, existence never falls outside divine knowledge; places, times, and even thoughts are not independent of His omniscience. God is a reality not confined to any location, yet “present” in every existent being. On this matter, Hodjaefendi states:

“God Almighty, through His knowledge, is present and watchful everywhere.”

This expression reflects one of his clearest theological positions concerning the nature of divine knowledge. God does not occupy a particular space; rather, all beings find their place within His knowledge. Therefore, God’s being “everywhere” does not indicate a movement or diffusion in space but means that everything exists within His knowledge, power, and will.

This understanding interprets God’s omniscience not as passive awareness but as an active power that continuously sustains existence. As Hodjaefendi often emphasized, God is not only the initial cause of creation but also the ongoing agent of creation’s continuity. Every breath, every vibration, every motion occurs within His knowledge and power. In this sense, the statement “God is present and watchful everywhere” constitutes a doctrine of ontological continuity: existence is constantly renewed within His knowing.

From this perspective, the interpretation “God exists within everything, yet nothing exists within Him” gains meaning. God’s presence everywhere does not mean that He resides in beings, but rather that beings exist through His knowledge. God is not bound by space; rather, space itself arises within His knowledge. Thus, to be “present” signifies a transcendence of time and space; to be “watchful” denotes a consciousness that constantly perceives, comprehends, and knows.

In Hodjaefendi’s theological framework, God is not a spectator in the universe; existence itself is a reflection of His knowledge. God’s knowing, therefore, is not mere cognition or contemplation — it is a form of creation itself. He knows, and through His knowing, He brings into being.



Continue Reading politurco.com

21/10/2025

TARIK TOROS

Sometimes nothing is as it seems. Or, conversely: perhaps everything is exactly as it seems. Both statements can be true, depending on one’s perspective—on where you stand, what you wish to see. Let me explain with two examples, one from outside and one from inside; it will make more sense.

The External Example

On October 13, just before the Gaza ceasefire was declared, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke in the Israeli Parliament. “I will make the world love Israel again,” he said—his lavish praise prompting repeated standing ovations for Prime Minister Netanyahu. It was, in a way, the “magnificent farewell” of an era.

Trump then turned to Israel’s President and asked him to pardon Netanyahu, who is being tried on corruption charges. He later praised the opposition leader.

Notice that since that day, Netanyahu’s public visibility has markedly decreased. Thus, his absence from the Cairo summit came as no surprise. The Netanyahu era is ending—indeed, it must end.

Now, under the framework of the Abraham Accords (September 15, 2020), Israel must establish normalization with its neighbors. The same clause appeared in the agreement signed by Erdoğan—carefully hidden from the Turkish public.

The Internal Example

On September 27, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan made an unexpected statement during a press conference in New York: due to U.S. sanctions, production of the KAAN fighter jet had been halted. Although the Palace tried to keep things under wraps, fury erupted behind closed doors. With one sentence, Fidan had demolished the “domestic and national aircraft” narrative, bursting a balloon that had been inflated for years.



Continue Reading politurco.com