BY FEHMI KORU
YENI SAFAK- Our media is eminently capable of finding a pointless subject even in the most important event. US President George W. Bush’s speech in Istanbul at Galatasaray University has already been forgotten, but two tangential points are still in the spotlight: State Minister Besir Atalay’s hands and the venue of Bush’s address.
Atalay has been saying that ‘nobody did a security check of my hands’ but nobody is listening. Utterly disregarding his placement on the stage at Galatasaray as chosen by Americans, listening to the president’s speech next to First Lady Laura Bush, everybody is talking about ‘security checks on the palms of the state minister’s hands.’ It’s obvious that, by drawing parallels with the American TV series ’24,’ the Turkish media are confusing real life with fiction.
Rather better is the buzz about the choice of Galatasaray University as the venue for the speech as inspired by Stephen Kinzer’s book ‘Crescent and Star.’ This is because Kinzer lived in Turkey for many years, reporting on it for the New York Times, and was able to get to know the Turkish people. His article in the current New York Review of Books about Turkey’s European Union prospects, ‘Will Turkey Make It?’ should be the focus instead.