Turkish Delight
The Sauna Gang. Sounds seedy, doesn't it? like an early '80s gayploitation flick, such as William Friedkin's Cruising (1980), which many cineastes still regard as the acme of Al Pacino's acting career (dig those chaps!). Unfortunately, it's nothing quite so salubrious - just the name given to the gaggle of Turkish generals, politicians and businessman who have been reportedly meeting in hammams (saunas, or 'Turkish baths') to discuss their dislike of processes such as EU accession, Kurdish separatism, political Islamism, Cypriot reunion, uppity writers ... etc. They've been implicated in the bombing of a bookstore in Semdinli in November last year. (Listen also to this week's edition of From Our Own Correspondent.)
Members of the Sauna Gang probably identify themselves as conservative, secularist, republican and nationalist. They think that EU accession will be inimical to the interests of the Turkish republic: that EU laws on freedom of religion will encourage the Islamists; that EU laws on freedom of expression will encourage the likes of Orhan Pamuk to raise dark issues from Turkey's (and the Ottoman Empire's) past; that EU laws on discrimination will encourage Kurdish nationalists; and so on. They're also not generally happy about the Kurdish resurgence over the border in Iraq, and probably still a bit peeved that Turkey didn't provide bases for the US-led Coalition attack on Iraq because the Islamist-influenced parliament cocked a snook at Dubya ...
The Sauna gang seem to be part of the derin devlet (lit. 'deep state'), the shadowy, military-dominated faction which reputedly controls Turkey, and which cropped up in relation to the trial of Pamuk ( see earlier post). It's unusual in the Middle East for 'conservative' not to mean 'Islamist', as in the case of the Sauna Gang; unfortunately, they seem a little too conservative.
Members of the Sauna Gang probably identify themselves as conservative, secularist, republican and nationalist. They think that EU accession will be inimical to the interests of the Turkish republic: that EU laws on freedom of religion will encourage the Islamists; that EU laws on freedom of expression will encourage the likes of Orhan Pamuk to raise dark issues from Turkey's (and the Ottoman Empire's) past; that EU laws on discrimination will encourage Kurdish nationalists; and so on. They're also not generally happy about the Kurdish resurgence over the border in Iraq, and probably still a bit peeved that Turkey didn't provide bases for the US-led Coalition attack on Iraq because the Islamist-influenced parliament cocked a snook at Dubya ...
The Sauna gang seem to be part of the derin devlet (lit. 'deep state'), the shadowy, military-dominated faction which reputedly controls Turkey, and which cropped up in relation to the trial of Pamuk ( see earlier post). It's unusual in the Middle East for 'conservative' not to mean 'Islamist', as in the case of the Sauna Gang; unfortunately, they seem a little too conservative.