Articles by Engin Kurtay and IIRSS
Hamas by no doubt corresponds to what you say for Russia, “a fanatic religious fundamentalist” organisation. And it wasn’t quite a long time ago that it’s antagonistic counterpart, Amichai Eliyahu suggested to use nuklear weapons for their complete annihilation. Continue reading “Dear Prof Zizek, you shouldn’t meme Amichai Eliyahu — Engin Kurtay”
A true academic work is a besetting output. It mustn’t gratify anyone. This peskiness of the academic work is what distinguishes it from what it is scholastic. By the same respect, a Real artwork too, it is analogous to the academic: a true art satirizes the status quo order and it’s beneficiaries while the scholastic presentment pleases them.
——————💪—————— Continue reading “The Finesse in Design by Nadezhda Kopylova: How to read a book cover — Engin Kurtay”
Editorial note: In ‘Theory of the Subject’, Alain Badiou theorises four political affects (or emotional states) – courage, justice, anxiety and the superego. The superego represents the force of law, and hence of the established order. Anxiety arises from a lack of symbolic order, and impedes decisive action. Justice is the opposite of the superego. It rejects adherence to present laws. Instead, it expands the symbolic order to include new elements. It is the basis for a new commonality. Courage is the opposite of anxiety. It allows decisive action without guarantees.
Continue reading “Grabbing the bull by the horns without being concerned who gonna follow me — Sahra Wagenknecht”
The attacks of Ukrainian government on Ukrainian Orthodox Church took an acute and improvised start on November 2022. The attacks intensified during the following months. As a reaction to all this provocative manipulations, people of Kiev, who consider the facility as their common spiritual and historical heritage, tended to protect the building. But they were stopped and blocked by the Police. Why does the Ukrainian government attack —supposedly— it’s own created Church? And the Western media has carefully avoided reporting any news on this event — and they still keep silence. Why? Continue reading “The onion-dome-phobia of Zelenski regime — Engin Kurtay”
Around mid-October 2022 news reported that two idiots committed suicide in Yerevan — but be careful, no news defined them as “idiots”. It’s us, who define them as “idiots”. No one else!
But what it is exactly the “idiocy” here?
It’s certainly NOT in the fact that the suiciders were gays, as many other idiots (some even among our readers) would hastily love grabbing the assertion that we were homophobic and that’s why we call them “idiots”. Fortunately not all gays are LGBTQ+ indoctrinated and the smartest ones are even against to it — against being politically manipulated by dirty LGBTQ+ agendas. Continue reading “They are “victims”, therefore they are tolerable to be Nazis! — Engin Kurtay”
Пусть не в таких масштабах, как это пропагандируют западные медиа, но все же многие жители РФ сейчас второпях стремятся пересечь границы страны, сбегая от частичной мобилизации, объявленой на днях Кремлем.
Но осознают ли они, откуда они пытаются бежать и во что впутываются на самом деле?
Давайте для начала разберём очень хорошую статью Эргина Йлдызоглу (турецкий писатель и аналитик, проживающий в Лондоне), которую он недавно, 12 сентября 2022 г. опубликовал в газете Джумхуриет (Cumhuriyet newspaper): Continue reading “Побег из страны чудес в никчемное ничто — Энгин Куртай”
— Birleşik Krallık’a ziyaretinizin sebebi nedir?
— Onu almaya geldim!
— Kimi?
— Yoldaş Julian Assange.
Pasaport polisinin o andaki suratını izlemek benim için dünyanın en büyük keyfiydi. Continue reading “Onu almaya geldim! — Engin Kurtay”
One should really be endowed by an heroine lordly spirit for putting an ultimate wedge to the extradition of Assange,
This wedge could be put either by gathering a brave group of British people ready to fight and storm the Belmarsh Jail (which is located 18 km away from the center of London, where people could first gather in Trafalgar Square and start a march —but definitely not a parade— towards Belmarsh) to free Assange by also possibly completely turning down and burning the Belmarsh Jail (as it was previously done with Bastille, a little while ago, in Paris)… Or alternately, just by (refraining from) putting a signature by the politician in charge, that is, by Priti Patel. Continue reading “Priti Patel: conformism, opportunism, Machiavellianism — Engin Kurtay”
We previously studied the complications of “playing with Other’s toy” by showing the similarities between the Ukrainian kids’ playing with the plush Javelin toys and the UkroNazis’ playing with the real Javelin missile toys.
Now we will study a similar case:
The unbearable lightness of defending the independence of Ukraine by the Ukrainians who well fulfilled their fantasies by having already moved to the West…
The similarity between the two cases is that, while in both cases they allegedly struggle for their independence, they pathetically end up in—dependence by mind and soul. Continue reading “The joy of shifting between middle finger and bloody ass — Engin Kurtay”
Two declarations denouncing the Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, both, allegedly belonging to Russian academics, have recently (beginning from the March 8, 2022 to our knowledge) been made circulated among the scholars affiliated to NATO academic-Gladio.
We will not indicate the specific personages and the name of the University, with whom and where this incident took place. The scholars who got engaged in this fraudulent dissemination activity have already been acknowledged by the nature of their involvement. Continue reading “Disseminating fake declarations on behalf of Russian scholars — Engin Kurtay”
“Mister Bernard-Henri Lévy, do you know The War has started in 2014?”
“Mister Bernard-Henri Lévy, War is not statistics!”
And now you are in Odessa, Mister BHL… But you are a loser.
Continue reading “Mister BHL, War is Not Statistics! — Anne-Laure Bonnel”
Note: This article was received from Prof Slavoj Žižek upon our publishing of the previous article “From Sartre to Zizek, freedom or Bashi-Bazouklouk — Engin Kurtay“. Professor has mentioned that he cut off all links with RT.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, I was yet again ashamed of being a citizen of Slovenia. The Slovene government immediately proclaimed that it is ready to receive thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian occupation… OK, but when Afghanistan fell to Taliban, this same government announced that Slovenia is not ready to receive any refugees from there – the justification was that instead of escaping, people should stay there and fight Taliban with guns. Along the same lines, a couple of months ago when thousands of refugees from Asia tried to enter Poland from Belarus, Slovene government offered Poland military help, claiming that Europe is under attack there. So there are obviously two species of refugees, “ours” (European), i.e., “real refugees,” and the Third World ones who don’t deserve our hospitality. Continue reading “Ukraine and The Third World — Prof Slavoj Žižek”
“Everywhere, on billboards, in the newspapers, on the screen, we encountered the revolting and insipid picture of ourselves that our oppressors wanted us to accept. And, because of all this, we were free. Because the Nazi venom seeped even into our thoughts, every accurate thought was a conquest. Because an all-powerful police tried to force us to hold our tongues, every word took on the value of a declaration of principles. Because we were hunted down, every one of our gestures had the weight of a solemn commitment.” Continue reading “From Sartre to Zizek, freedom or Bashi-Bazouklouk¹ — Engin Kurtay”
Jan Hus was killed on 6th of July 1415. Paradoxically, Jan Hus was the translator and a defender of an English theology professor: John Wycliffe. As a surprising fact of Historical dialectics, the 15th century Britain was more advanced than the Continent.
Jan Hus and similar heroic personages opened the way to modern philosophy, critical thinking, freedom of speech, to form the distinct political and legal norms of our contemporary civilization.
You, the Judges compounding the “Supreme” Court of the UK, you are supposed to be the products of this six-century-long philosophical and societal evolution.
You are not free to deny the legacy of this six hundred years. Your “judiciary independence” is the product of this legacy.
J’accuse! You did wrong.
But you will have a second chance to decide whether you are “Supreme” or the tiny pathetic puppets of the transatlantic imperialist cooperation. Julian Assange will re-appeal.
If you do the wrong thing, your injustice will match the logic of the inquisition of the dark ages.
The monument of Julian Assange will be erected in any case. This is unavoidable and will not be related to any decision of yours.
The only difference if you will do the wrong is that it will be erected over your infamy.
And a few words to your Queen (the throne throng are not my compeer, therefore it’s you who shall forward my words to her):
Despite her age she looks still lucid enough to remember the words of De Gaulle for Sartre:
“On ne met pas Voltaire à Bastille, sinon le peuple le détruiront sur nos têtes“.
I wish you all doing a good job.
Engin Kurtay
Prof Slavoj Zizek
Istanbul Institute of
Russian and Sovietic Studies
The mass gathering scene of the political action film by James McTeigue, V for Vendetta (2005) reminds us the October (1928) of Sergei Eisenstein! However, there is a slight but crucial difference: the crowd in the film heads towards the Parliament.
Not to the Buckingham Palace! …
And, neither any audience nor any cocky film analyst have so far questioned what could have been going on in the Buckingham Palace during those moments of blowing the Parliament up. The film never shows anything related to the Royal Order. It successfully makes the audiences to forget the fact that there actually exists a kind of centralized power in Britain. Continue reading “Inessa Armand versus Alexey Shmakov – Engin Kurtay, Ali Polat”
Professor Zizek’s paradox is due to a false contradiction that can exchange their roles with each other like any other paradox:
A) Those who can give up their own identity and have the privilege of talking about the victimization of the victims: We call this group WASP: the initials of white; Anglo Saxon; Protestant. Male is often added to it too: WASP+male.
B) Those who can declare their own identities without being stamped as fascist: This group includes all skin colors and ethnicities other than WASP. We call this group non-WASP. However, this group is not uniform in itself. They position themselves in a spectrum of different degrees of grievances and victimizations: the farther you are from WASP, the more authentic victims you are. For example, an Afro American is more underprivileged than a “brown” (mixed blood); a Bengali is more underprivileged than a Chinese; a Chinese is more than an Italian; a muslim is more than a buddhist; a buddhist is more than a catholic; a transsexual is more than a homosexual; a lesbian woman is more than a straight woman … and they altogether are victims of the WASP+male. Continue reading “Why Kamala Harris was destined to fail? – The paradoxes of anti-WASP left – Engin Kurtay, Ali Polat”
Profesör Zizek’in paradoksu, her paradoks gibi birbiriyle rollerini değiş tokuş edebilen sahte bir çelişkiden kaynaklıdır:
A) Kendi kimliklerinden vazgeçerek mahrumların mağduriyeti üzerine konuşma ayrıcalığına sahip olabilenler: Bu gruba WASP diyoruz: beyaz (white); Anglo Saxon; Protestan sözcüklerinin baş harflerinden oluşuyor. Buna “erkek” de eklendiği olur (Bunun Türkiye’deki karşılığının BEST olduğu söyleniyordu: beyaz; sunni, Türk).
B) Faşist damgası yemeden kendi kimliklerini söyleyebilenler: Bu grup ise bunun dışında kalan tüm renklileri ve etnileri kapsıyor. Bu gruba da WASP-olmayanlar diyoruz. Ancak bu grup yeknesak değil. Kendilerini farklı derecelerde bir mağduriyetler spektrumu içinde konumlandırıyorlar: WASP’tan ne kadar uzaklaşırsanız o kadar otantik mağdur oluyorsunuz. Örneğin bir afro-amerikalı bir meleze göre; bir Bengal’li bir Çinli’ye göre; bir melez bir İtalyan’a göre, bir müslüman bir budiste göre; bir budist bir katoliğe göre; bir trans bir eşcinsele göre; bir eşcinsel bir kadına göre daha mağdur… ve toplamda bunların hepsi de WASP+erkek karşısında mağdur… Continue reading “Kamala Harris neden kaybetmeye mahkumdu? – Engin Kurtay, Ali Polat”
Çeviri: Engin Kurtay
Kaynak: İngilizce orijinali Russian Times’ta 20 Nisan 2020 tarihinde yayımlanmıştır.
Covid-19 salgınının dijital seks dünyasına hareketlilik getirdiğine kuşku yok. Öte yandan fiziksel yakınlığın önemini, iki insan arasında yaşanan seksin maneviyatın ön koşulu olduğunu da insanlığa hatırlatmasını umuyorum. Continue reading “Covid-19, maneviyata giden yolun SEKSTEN geçtiğini hatırlatacak mı? – Prof Slavoj Zizek”
Istanbul Institute of
Russian and Sovietic Studies
The people of Russia, except few rickety events, remained indifferent to the centenary of the 1917 Revolution and spent the November 7th 2017 like a normal day. According to a survey commissioned by the Communist Party, 58% of the Russian population was unaware of the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution (1).
Whereas Nov. 7th was a holiday celebrated by big ceremonies, during the Soviet era.
The editor of the independent Russian TV channel, documentary filmmaker Mikhail Viktorovich Zygor proclaimed that he was very surprised by the fact that the Russian press remained indifferent to the centenary of October Revolution (2).
The Russian President V. Putin, four days prior to Nov. 7th (in November 3, 2017), said that the October Revolution was a complicated episode of their own history and that these course of events should be treated with respect in an unbiased way (3).
Continue reading “The fantasy universe of Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘October’ – Ali Polat, Engin Kurtay”
Istanbul Institute of
Russian and Sovietic Studies
“Boys climbed on trees, to see what was happening. And they fell down vomitting: they saw it. We suddenly realized that there was a mass massacre that was happening there”
“Before the Nazi occupation of Kiev the housekeepers were known as the spies of the KGB. After the Nazi occupation they all suddenly converted to Nazi spies. One of them was coming to our house and saying to my mother – who was looking as Jewish because she had a big nose – “Madam, you should go to Babi Yar, why don’t you go to Babi Yar?” Continue reading “Babi Yar – 2 – Mass Massacre in Kiev”
Cuaron’un ‘Roma’sından farklı olarak ‘Sibel’ filmindeki kadın dayanışması, terk edilmenin mağduriyeti üzerinden yürüyen bir dayanışma değildir. Sibel bir mağduriyet kısırdöngüsüne takılı kalmaz. Aşkın dolayımı Sibel’i daha da biler. Kadınlığını ‘kaldırarak‘ bireyin öteki birey için yürüttüğü bir mücadeleye dönüştürür; son sahnede köyün ‘sıradan‘ kadınları olanların farkında değilmiş gibi susup işlerine devam ederler, ama olayı hayranlıkla izleyen aralarından ‘sıradışı‘ birini fire vererek…
Not: Bu çalışmamız ilk olarak Sendika.org’da yayımlanmıştır.
Continue reading “Hegelci ‘kaldırma’: ‘Green Book’ ve ‘Sibel’”
“Jim Crow” logic has been carried till today by the liberal left’s ethnic politics:
“You are black, how come that you don’t know how to eat the chicken like a black?”
As the ‘Green Book’ sublates the ethnic problem, the film ‘Sibel’ (2019), directed by Guillaume Giovanetti and Çağla Zencirci, similarly sublates the problem of pseudo-feminism.
The negro Pushkin was more Russian than anyone else in Russia. A real art does not fit in any race, identity or ethnicity. What we call “ethnic music” cannot be an “art”. To install a revolutionary function in art, one has first to lift the whiskey glass away from the piano!
Note: This article has originally been published in Turkish, in Sendika.org
Continue reading “The Hegelian Aufhebung: ‘Green Book’ and ‘Sibel’ – Ali Polat, Engin Kurtay”
Istanbul Institute of
Russian and Sovietic Studies
Not: Bu çalışma ilk olarak Sendika.org’da yayımlanmıştır.
Ticari bakımdan fiyasko olan bir film neden bu kadar büyük bir bütçeyle desteklendi? Halkın filme ilgisizliği, melezleşme sürecinde geçmiş yıllara göre artık gündemin alt sıralarına düşmüş olan yerli X beyaz ayrımı ve ayrımcılığının gündemin yeniden üst sıralarına taşınmasına karşı içten içe bir tepki miydi?
Modern-post-modern dünyada, kaynağını Troçki’nin sanat doktrininden alan sanat-siyaset ilişkisi de en az sanat-piyasa ilişkisi kadar yozdur. Troçki sanatta her türlü formalizmi reddeder. Sanat eğitimine, sanatta kurumsallaşmaya, devlet aygıtının sanatçıyı himayesine karşıdır. Continue reading “‘Roma’ filminin otopsisi: Alfonso Cuaron kendi başyapıtını neden kötüledi? – Ali Polat, Engin Kurtay”
Istanbul Institute of
Russian and Sovietic Studies
The film did not attract public interest when it was shown both in Mexico and in USA. The box office was a complete failure. Moreover, Spanish media reported that the film triggered racist attacks in Mexico. So was the reason for the lack of public interest to the film a deep reaction to bring the indigenious X white distinction and discrimination back to the top of the agenda?
In the modern-post-modern world, the relation between art and politics is as corrupted as the relation between art and the market. This relationship takes its roots from Trotsky’s art doctrine: Trotsky rejects all kinds of formalism in art, thus he rejects art education, institutionalization in art, and the patronage/support of the state apparatus on/for art. Continue reading “The Autopsy of the Film ‘Roma’: Why did Alfonso Cuaron discredit his own masterpiece? – Ali Polat, Engin Kurtay”
(*) Yazının başlığı Todd McGowan’ın, “Enjoying what we don’t have – The political project of psychoanalysis” (University of Nebraska Press, 2013) kitabından ödünç alınmıştır.
(Bu yazının ilk versiyonu Sendika.org’da yayımlanmıştır.)
Bir yoksunluğun simgeleştirilmesi nasıl oluyor da eğlenceye dönüşüyor? Bu mekanizmayı anlamak için Profesör Slavoj Zizek’in “Ego Ideal and the Superego, Lacan as a Viewer of Casablanca” ve Owen Hewitson’s “What Does Lacan Say About … Jouissance?” makaleleri rehberliğinde ilerleyeceğim.
İdeal ego, öznenin (küçük öteki) büyük Öteki tarafından görülmeyi arzuladığı halidir. ‘İmgeseldir’. Ego İdeal ise, öznenin toplumsal kurallar ve yasaya göre kendini konumladığı halidir. ‘Simgeseldir’. Süperego, ego ideal’in kötü ikizidir, karanlık arka yüzüdür. Özneyi kurallara, yasaya uymamakla suçlar, onu yargılar, damgalar, özneyle alay eder. Eğlence ile müstehcenlik arasındaki paradoksal ilintiyi buradan hareketle anlayabiliriz: özne ne kadar itaat etmeye çalışırsa başı o kadar çok derde girer, çünkü süperegonun yargılamasına da o kadar açık (tabi) hale gelir – birbirine karşıt bu ikili (Ego Ideal X süperego) bireyi giderek kendi kendini besleyen bir ‘müstehcen keyif’ kısırdöngüsüne hapseder. Continue reading “Sahip olmadığın şeyle eğlenmek – Engin Kurtay”
Professor Zizek’s article that has recently been published in Russian Times with the title Sex in the modern world: Can even a ‘yes, yes, yes’ actually mean ‘no?’” provides a sound framework for rethinking on the impasses of nowadays feminism. At the end of the article, Lewinsky’s statements as referred by the Professor, exemplify the main theme of the #metoo movement. This theme is typically as follows: there is always a “strong” man on stage … either a famous businessman, or artist, actor, TV commentator, a man with a career and wealth or so … and the campaign is typically aiming to judge the man’s using his power on women for sex.
Continue reading “Feminism having turned to its opposite and Zizek’s warnings”
Geçenlerde Sendika.org’da yayımlanan Profesör Zizek’in Modern dünyada cinsellik: “Evet, evet, evet” aslında “hayır” anlamına gelebilir mi?” başlıklı makalesi, feminizmin çıkmazları üzerine etraflıca düşünmek için sağlam bir çatı oluşturuyor. Yazının sonunda ele alınan Lewinsky’nin beyanları #metoo hareketinin ana temasını örnekliyor. Ana tema şöyle : sahnede hep “güçlü” bir erkek var… bu ünlü bir işadamı, sanatçı, aktör, TV yorumcusu, yani kariyerli ve varlıklı bir erkek olabiliyor… ve kampanya tipik olarak erkeğin bu gücünü kadınlar üzerinde seks için kullanmasını yargılıyor.
Continue reading “Karşıtına dönüşen feminizm ve Zizek’in uyarısı”
Originally published on Sendika10.org.
Muhalefeti “Kürt terörist” diye yaftalayan resmi siyasetin borazanlığını yapmak üzere kaleme alınan yazı Suriye’de IŞİD’e karşı etkili bir direniş sergileyerek gücünü ispatlamış kadın savaşçılara çamur atma derdinde. Ama burada küçük bir problem var: Erkeğin erkekliği, organ olarak bir penise sahip olup olmamasına bağlı değildir, hükmünü geçirmek için harici bir phallik anlamlandıranla kendisini nasıl ilişkilendirdiğiyle ilgilidir -ve evet- bunu bir büyük Öteki figürünün gözüne girmek için yapar, ama ilişkiyi doğru kurmayı başardığında da büyük Öteki otoritesini ona devreder.
Psikanalizi aynı anda hem geleneksel ataerkil ideolojiye hem de Türkiye’nin güncel siyasetine alet etmenin kepaze bir örneği olarak Suheyb Öğüt’ün 17 Ağustos 2015 tarihli Aktüel Dergisi’nde yayımlanan “Butch Lezbiyenler ve HDPKK” yazısından bahsedeceğim.
Originally published on Sendika10.org.
Profesör Slavoj Žižek’in İngilizce orijinalini 3 Şubat 2016 tarihinde Sendika.Org’a gönderdiği bu makalenin, ayrıca New Statesman’da yayımlanan versiyondan hareketle kısaltılmış bir özeti 4 Şubat 2016’da Cumhuriyet Gazetesi’nde haber olarak yayımlanmıştır. Makalenin tamamı Engin Kurtay tarafından Sendika.Org için çevrilmiştir Continue reading “İşin özeti şu: Putogan’a karşı olmak”
Videos from Professor Slavoj Zizek’s talk in Istanbul 28 January 2012.