The BBC reports on the political situation in Turkey and a large rally supporting secularism. The article also includes some background information about the history of secularism in the nation.

The rally began because of concerns that the leading presidential candidate would be too loyal to Islamic influences.

The protesters are concerned that the ruling party’s candidate for the post remains loyal to his Islamic roots.

The candidate, Abdullah Gul, earlier said he would not quit despite growing criticism from opponents and the army.

Keeping with its traditional role in Turkish society, the army remains a staunch supporter of secularism.

An army statement on Friday accused the government of tolerating radical Islam and vowed to defend secularism.

The article lists the military’s history of intervention in politics, in order to preserve a secular order.

The army has carried out three coups in the last 50 years - in 1960, 1971 and 1980 - and in 1997 it intervened to force Turkey’s first Islamist Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan, from power.

(more…)

Estonia removed a statue of a Red Army soldier in the capital city of Tallinn because it symbolized the occupation by the Soviet Union. They moved the statue to a military cemetery outside the city.

The case shows what powerful resonance the memory of the war dead has in many societies. The reference to the Russian military cemetery in Estonia makes me wonder what sort of international agreements are being negotiated now, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, to care for the cemeteries in newly independent former parts of the country.

Estonia’s decision to remove the statue of a Red Army soldier sparked riots last week. One Russian died and 153 were injured in clashes with police.

Protesters are now blockading Estonias Moscow embassy, according to officials.

Estonians say the soldier symbolised Soviet occupation. Russians say it is a tribute to those who fought the Nazis.

It has now been relocated to a military cemetery, away from the centre of the capital Tallinn.

The complete article from the BBC: Estonia unearths Soviet war dead

A disturbing report that the Ministry of Defence admitted that it mixed up the bodies of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Body parts of British soldiers who died on operations in Afghanistan have been mixed up and placed in the wrong coffins.

What interests me about this report is the implicit assumption that the state has a responsibility to care for its dead soldiers in a particular way. Britain no longer follows the procedures it developed during the First World War that involved identifying soldiers’ remains for burial on or near the battlefields. Instead of legislating that all war dead remain overseas, the policy in recent years has been to repatriate their remains.

It is also interesting to contrast the forensic work undertaken to identify these remains with what was done after the First World War and after the Second World War. Faced with tremendously more remains to identify, dispersed over much larger areas, and lacking present-day medical technology to assist with identification, the Imperial War Graves Commission did a remarkably good job of preventing these sorts of mistakes from occurring. Even their work was not perfect.

I wonder the precise moment during the past few decades when the job of identifying remains on the battlefield was no longer for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but instead for the Ministry of Defence.

The full article from the Guardian: Family shocked as MoD admits body parts error

The BBC has a report on the topic as well: Body of UK serviceman in mix-up

Tomorrow is the five hundredth anniversary of the first naming of “America” which took place in the French town of St. Die. The cartographer Martin Waldseemueller used the term on a map he prepared for Rene II, the Duke of Lorraine.

“AMERICA,” in capital letters, appears on a part of the map showing what is now Brazil. The first map to depict a separate Western Hemisphere and a separate Pacific Ocean, it also included an inset of both North and South America, and a portrait of “Amerigi Vespucci,” whom Waldseemueller honored for being the first to identify the New World as a new land mass.

The cartographer explained his use of the term:

“Europe and Asia have received names of women,” Waldseemueller wrote in the book first released to the public on April 24, 1507. “I see no reason why we should not call this other part ‘Amerige,’ that is to say the land of Americus, or America, after the sagacious discoverer.”

The map itself was quite impressive as was its complete title:

The full title for the 12-panel map covering 36 square feet was “a drawing of the whole earth following the tradition of Ptolemy and the travels of Amerigo Vespucci and others.”

Today the map is located in the Library of Congress, which acquired it in 2003 for

$10 million … making the map the most expensive single item it had ever acquired. “It is remarkable that the entire Western Hemisphere was named for a living person; Vespucci did not die until 1512,” wrote John R. Hebert, the library’s chief of the geography and map division.

The full article: “‘America’s Birth Certificate’ Turns 500″

This afternoon the Nike+ van came to the RSF at Berkeley. It contains a bunch of Nike shoes as well as iPods and sport kits for people to try out. The Apple Campus Reps promoted this on Facebook and with flyers. We had a pretty good turnout and quite a few people who were walking by to go to the RSF stopped and checked out the product.

We were giving away a bunch of t-shirts that Nike sent us. They were designed so that people could write their “Power Song” on them (a “power song” is something that you listen to in order to get you over the hump of a tough part of your workout). The only problem with the shirts was that they were all red — “Stanford red” — and I thought they wouldn’t be that popular. I was wrong, people seemed to really like them.

The Nike + iPod Sport Kit is a really neat product, Apple’s Nike + iPod Website

Professor Laqueur uses a custom edition of a Western Civilization textbook by Kishlansky, Geary, and O’Brien for History 5. The custom edition entails slicing only those chapters relevant to the Berkeley course from the complete edition. This saves the students some money, and it gives us a chance to create a custom cover for the book!

For the fall I want a more elaborate cover than the ones that have been used in the past. The publisher’s representatives said that we could submit photos that they would arrange, but I wanted to go all-out. My friend and fellow Apple Campus Rep Jarrett Fein is a really talented graphic designer, and he is also a former history 5 student. I gave Jarrett some general ideas and he came up with what I think is a stunning custom cover for us to use. It features blue and gold Cal colors, with the gold appearing as rays of light (”fiat lux” — which has UC Berkeley and “Renaissance” meaning), and a variety of really neat images. There is an image of a 17th century European map of the world faded in the background, on the front cover there are images of Renaissance architecture in Venice, and on the back cover there are images of campus buildings in the neo-classical architectural style that are modelled after those in Venice.

The cover is wonderful because it visually depicts one of the points that Professor Laqueur includes in his lectures on the Renaissance, that the legacy of European culture is evident in many ways on the UC Berkeley campus. The architecture of many buildings as well as some of the university’s principles reflect the admiration that the founders of the school had for Venice and European classical ideals.

The “History in the Movies” presentation at Cal Day today was a huge success. The room was packed, and although some people came and went throughout the two hours attendance was at least 250.

Professor Hollinger began the event with an introduction about the department and he noted in particular the recent teaching awards received by faculty (Professor Einhorn, 2006-2007 Graduate Division Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs; Professor Noreña, 2006-2007 Distinguished Teaching Award for the Division of Social Science; and Professor Taylor, 2006-2007 Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Award given by the Berkeley Graduate Assembly). He emphasized the fact that the department is not only one of the top three in the country in terms of scholarship and research but also that it fosters excellent undergraduate and graduate teaching.

Professor Brady’s discussion of The Wind That Shakes the Barley came next. He played four different clips from the film. Only one of them was even remotely lighthearted and Brady reported that this clip contained the only humorous moment in the entire film. Two of the other clips depicted brutal violence. One showed the “Black and Tans” harassing a group of Irish and killing one of the men in front of his family. Another one showed how the British oppression of the Irish begat more violence as several IRA members execute two of their friends and family members for betraying the cause. The final clip from the film depicted a local debate about the peace treaty with Britain and the question of partitioning the north and south. The film seemed powerful and evocative. Even from only four clips it was evident that the film fairly effectively presents the terrible nature of the conflict between the British and Irish.

Professor Mackil followed with her discussion of 300. Just as readily as she noted the inaccuracies in many of the depictions, she seemed to admire some of the visual artistry of the film as well as the graphic novel upon which it is based. One of the major historical problems with the film that she pointed out was the fact that it emphasized the heroism of the Spartans at the expense of the larger Greek alliance that was the real force that defeated the Persian invasion.

Professor Yeh presented her thoughts on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon next. She thought the film was trash insofar as it did not accurately depict much of anything about Chinese culture and society during the period. It does say something about the way that the Chinese diaspora exists at the time the film was made because of the fact that the four main characters and the director came from disparate Chinese communities.

Professor Brilliant on Unforgiven.

Professor Laqueur on Amazing Grace.

Tomorrow is Cal Day, UC Berkeley’s Open House, and I am busy preparing the technical aspects of the History Department’s presentation. The theme this year (like last year) is “History in the Movies.” Professors will be discussing the historical underpinnings of different films, what the historical truth behind them is and what is made up by Hollywood. I’ve been busy assembling the clips that they want to show as well as making sure that the PowerPoint files they’ve prepared will work.

The technical problem I’ve dealt with is how best to combine five separate presentations, each with film clips, into a unified show that is seamless for the audience (and the multiple presenters). I decided not to rely on DVDs for the film clips, so then I had to find out how to create MPEG or MOV clips from DVDs (some copy-protected). Some clips I managed to download from the films’ websites. The next challenge was whether to combine all these video clips into a single presentation file, or be constantly double-clicking files, or be swapping laptops. Micro$oft PowerPoint completely choked on c. 500 MB total of video files in a file, with other slides, images, etc. Apple’s Keynote was exactly what I needed. I was able to put all of the video files into a single Keynote, and I managed to incorporate Keynote’s stunning themes, transition effects, etc. There was absolutely no delay switching from slide to slide as the video loaded. Another triumph for Keynote on the Mac!

Here’s the complete program:

From the slave trade in Great Britain to the anti-British rebellion in Ireland, from ancient Greece to the Qing Dynasty and the American West ­ that’s entertainment! But is it history? Join us as five historians present 20-minute discussions of the real stories behind some famous “historical” movies. Introduced by Professor and Chair David Hollinger

* 2:10 pm: Professor Thomas Brady on The Wind That Shakes the Barley
* 2:30 pm: Professor Emily Mackil on 300
* 2:50 pm: Professor Wen-Hsin Yeh on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
* 3:20 pm: Professor Mark Brilliant on Unforgiven
* 3:40 pm: Professor Thomas Laqueur on Amazing Grace

The bodies of several British soldiers killed in Iraq were flown back for burial in the U.K. This is indicative of how government policy related to the war dead has changed from the period of the World Wars. I need to determine the exact moment that the policy shifted. I think it was during the mid-1970s because by the point of the Falklands War in the early 1980s British war dead were brought back.

The coffins were placed in hearses waiting to transfer the bodies into the care of the Wiltshire coroner.

As the procession of vehicles passed through the town Wootton Bassett a few miles away, local councillors and members of the public stood in silence as a mark of respect.

The bodies were taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where post mortem examinations will be conducted.

On Wednesday, a sunset ceremony was held at a base in Basra, southern Iraq, before the bodies were flown to the UK.

The complete story from BBC News: “Soldiers’ bodies flown back to UK”

In the penultimate chapter of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, Christopher Browning references Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment as evidence of the psychological explanation of how “ordinary” people can end up doing monstrous or unthinkable things. Browning, studying the actions of a reserve police battalion during the Second World War, concluded that the “most relevant” part of Zimbardo’s study “is the spectrum of behavior that [he] discovered in his sample of eleven guards” (Browning, 168). The range of conduct that Zimbardo observed among the prison guards in his experiment closely aligns with the ways that members of the police battalion responded to and took part in the genocide of Jews during the Nazi regime.

Zimbardo has written a new book that elaborates the moral dimensions of his experiment from 1971, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. As the New York Times interview with him reveals, Zimbardo sees his past and present work as a way of understanding how individuals are capable of evil.

Dr. Zimbardo, a social psychologist and the past president of the American Psychological Association, has made his reputation studying how people disguise the good and bad in themselves and under what conditions either is expressed.

His Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, known as the S.P.E. in social science textbooks, showed how anonymity, conformity and boredom can be used to induce sadistic behavior in otherwise wholesome students. More recently, Dr. Zimbardo, 74, has been studying how policy decisions and individual choices led to abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The road that took him from Stanford to Abu Ghraib is described in his new book, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”

The complete article from the New York Times, “Finding Hope in Knowing the Universal Capacity for Evil”