In a recent book detailing the massive war migration in the South-East of Turkey, Kemal Öztürk questions: “Has an Islamic position been made clear on the Kurdish problem, which for the last ten years has assumed the highest place on the national agenda?” and goes on to ask: “In the fifteen reports suggesting solutions to the Kurdish problem is there one representing muslims?” He concludes by saying, “Unfortunately the answer to both questions must be ‘no’” (Öztürk 1996, p. 104). Öztürk's comments are interesting for three reasons: first, is his assumption that a distinct Islamic stance is possible regarding the Kurdish problem. Second is his deploring of the fact that such a position has not been enunciated. And third is the rather disingenuous claim that the lack of a clear response in the name of Islam is synonymous with no position at all by the religious camia (community), as if the ‘de facto’ positions of muslims, i.e. their actual practice, could be dismissed quite so unproblematically.

As Islam becomes an increasingly salient element of political life in various countries around the world, there is a growing need to make sense of the new forms and meanings Islam assumes in its various manifestations. It is obvious by now that complex mechanisms surrounding the politics of Islam cannot be adequately understood by the employment of such broad and overgeneralizing categories as “reactionism”, “fundamentalism” or “conservatism.” Political Islam, far from being a unified social movement with a coherent political aim, is a fragmented, multi-faceted phenomenon which cannot, therefore, be adequately understood through singular categories.

Over the past two years, the televised sermons of Fethullah Hocaefendi have thrust him into the public limelight, lending his name celebrity status as a prominent religious-cum-political figure. His long standing influence as the leader of one of the most powerful Islamic communities in contemporary Turkey, Nur Cemaati, is now common public knowledge. Currently, this group owns one of the largest mass circulating newspapers (Zaman), a TV channel (Samanyolu) and a vast network of hundreds of educational institutions extending all the way from Turkey to Central Asia. The teachings of Fethullah Gülen Hoca are widely disseminated through books as well as cassette recordings of his sermons, readily available for sale on counters of commercial bookstores. For the “secularized” public however, Fethullah Hoca's renown extends beyond his religious-cum-political prominence. He is famous for the fact that he weeps ecstatically during his sermons, contrary to what is expected of a man in Turkey today.

During the last few years the Turkish Flag has gained incessant public attention and visibility. Events in both foreign and domestic Turkish politics are often discussed in relation to the honor of the ay yıldız, the ‘Star and Crescent’, and sometimes the banner itself is to be found in the very center of ongoing events. Among recent examples from the realm of foreign policy, one could refer to the crisis of January 1996 between Turkey and Greece over an uninhabited cliff in the Aegean Sea, which culminated in a commando operation to plant the Turkish flag on the cliff; or to the latest incident on the Turkish-Greek border in Cyprus where a young Greek trying to tear down the Turkish colors was shot dead. In the domestic arena, one of the most shocking and disturbing events of recent Turkish politics has centered on the insult to the flag during the last political rally of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party, HADEP, in June of 1996. At the rally, the Turkish “Red Banner”, the al sancak, was cut down, and replaced by the flag of the banned Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK. The scene was captured by television cameras and repeatedly broadcast by different channels, in slow motion.

In this paper I will discuss the options of political identity the Lebanese have at their disposal against the background of the German experience. Germany and Lebanon, states at first glance completely different from each other, show some similarity in their historical experience. In the context of this comparison I will discuss constitutional patriotism, a political concept in circulation in Germany over the last fifteen years or so, and its potential application in the Lebanese case. Constitutional patriotism, unlike many other concepts originating in the West, has yet not entered the political vocabulary of the Middle East. The debate on democracy and the civil society is widespread in the whole of the Middle East, including Lebanon. Lebanon's political culture, polity and national identity, however, show some peculiar traits that might justify the introduction of the term constitutional patriotism into the Lebanese political debate.

This study draws upon fieldwork to examine the role of the small firm in developing countries with special reference to the Turkish case. The fieldwork was conducted at OSTIM during 1992-93. The study will critically examine the theory of ‘flexible specialization’, which claims that certain developments in capitalist economies, such as a rapid change and differentiation in demand and growth of trade unionism in large production plants, increasingly undermine the system of mass production in large scale firms, and thus favor the growth of small firms. More specifically, it will inquire whether the Turkish case confirms the growth of the small firm sector of the economy in relation to the use of new technology, flexible production techniques, flexible work force and design.