« US: Black Muslim Sniper Conducts His Own Defense |
| UK: Muslims Planned To Blow Up Famous Nightclub »
May 25, 2006
Turkey: Islamist Driving Manual Sends Secularists Around The Bend
The issue of road safety in Turkey is a political hot potato. Turkey has a poor record for bad driving, and last year, 3,000 people died on Turkish roads. Last Friday, May 19, a crash in southern Turkey made international news when two trucks collided, and 40 people were killed (pictured). The Turkish Daily News states that most of the dead were illegal immigrants, mostly from Afghanistan, trying to enter Europe. They had been standing upright in a tarpaullin-covered truck when their vehicle collided with a truck near Osmaniye. The illegals were thrown out onto the road.
According to the World Bank Group, Turkeys rates of road accidents are 3 to 5 times the levels of countries in the European Union. A report by a Turkish government agency states that normally 7,000 people a year die on Turkey's roads. The cost in injuries and property damage are costing Turkey about 2% of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
The hazards of Turkish driver's habits are such that the United States State Department has issued a set of guidelines, warning American tourists of how to cope with the locals' bad driving and when to avoid the roads.
In light of Turkey's appalling record of road safety, a new safety manual for drivers has been produced, according to AKI which implies that road safety matters less about skills, and more about the will of Allah.
The 66-page manual, entitled: "Traffic Education and Information for Students" has an introduction by Ahmet Misbah Demircan, the mayor of Beyoglu, a city within the conurbation of Istanbul. This man is a member of Erdogan's Islamist-based AKP or Justice and Development party. Demircan has stated in the introduction that there is little a person can do to avoid road accidents.
Demircan states that "even a leaf cannot move" without God granting it permission, and says that traffic accidents are a part of a person's fate. Ultimately, he says nothing can be done to prevent traffic accidents.
Amongst the main text of the manual, there are numerous islamic quotations. 10,000 copies of this manual have gone to print, and its Islamist disdain for actual road safety has invoked the wrath of the firecely secular opposition party, the People's Party (CHP).
Two politicians from the CHP (Ozlem Cerioglu and Nail Kamaci) have submitted a motion in Turkey's parliament for all copies of the manual to be withdrawn.
AKI states that in another Istanbul municipality, Tuzla, a similar controversy erupted earlier this year. A guide for married couples was tainted with Islamist ideology, saying a woman should "respect her husband at all times". Citing the Koran (sura 4:34) the manual advocated the beating of a wife "but very softly if his wife has some faults". Human rights activists kicked up a protest and the book was scrapped.
After the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, disbanded the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924, Turkey has had a secular constitution. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the AKP Party and his cronies have been trying to circumvent the secular constitution, and have campaigned to allow the hijab or Muslim headscarf. Currently, the hijab is banned in schools and state buildings, such as universities. Erdogan's wife Emine always wears a hijab, to reinforce her husband's Islamist credentials.
The issue of the hijab even led to the shooting of five Council of State (Supreme Court) judges on May 17. One judge, Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin, was killed. The judges were shot by an Islamist lawyer because they had upheld a ban on women teachers wearing the hijab.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at May 25, 2006 6:09 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)