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On Sunday the Turkish people approved a referendum with a 51.41 percent vote for the constitutional changes that will marshal Turkey into a presidential system. In a historic constitutional referendum, more than 50 million Turkish citizens voted on a series of amendments that extended the presidential powers to include those of the prime minister, thereby, replacing what some perceive to be a flawed parliamentary system. Others see this change as jeopardizing the judicial and legislative independence as presidential powers increase. An estimated 85.3 percent of all registered voters in the country participated in the contest, according to the Daily Sabah newspaper in Turkey.Sunday’s vote represents an important milestone in Turkish political, social, and economic history. Every election results in winners and losers. Since 2003, the Justice and Development Party, the AKP, keeps winning the popular vote in Turkey because of a lack of good oppositional leader to stand against Recep Tayip Erdogan. In this election the losers were the Gulenist religious cult, secularists, and the Kurdish guerilla PKK. The Gulenists religious cult could not defeat Erdogan democratically, so it staged a coup on July 15^th to use military force to assassinate him in order to take over the democratically elected government. The Gulenists failed in their attempt. Continue reading →

Last week six church leaders from one of the leading Christian churches in Singapore were sent to prison for embezzling 34 millions US dollars in church funds to promote the leader‘s pop star wife. The mix of faith and corruption has fascinated people in Singapore, from where we seldom here news. No wonder people are getting fed up with religion when things like this are happening. No wonder people make jokes quipping, “If you want to become rich, build a church.” The same thing took place in the Unification Church of Reverend Sun Yung Moon, who became incredibly wealthy, while his followers gave up all of their earthly goods in order to follow him. Two things that all these cult religious leaders have in common are that they all claim that they are the chosen one and that they are constantly talking to God. For example, there was another very wealthy Muslim religious leader who does not have a college degree but is an old reclusive imam now operating a multi-billion-dollar global network of Islamic schools, including in the Philippines. He has three educational facilities here: the Turkish Tolerance High School in Zamboanga City, the Fountain International School in Manila, and the Tuskon Chamber of Commerce, but his schools are being closed by the Turkish government because he led a coup in Turkey on July 15 2016, in spite of his news media outlets, businesses, and sports teams that he manages from his compound in the United States. Gulen had become too powerful because it seems his followers have taken over key positions in the Turkish government and politics. Millions of his followers believe he is the chosen one and that he talks to Allah. In the view of those who believe him and follow him, they all will go to heaven. If Gulen tells his follower to jump, his devotees will jump; that is why they killed more than 245 people in Turkey during the attempted coup. Even President Duterte said that he is a dangerous person and that corrupt mullahs are his biggest concern because they are the ones corrupting young minds. Continue reading →

When we talk about economic development, we often start with Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, which explains modern economic growth. According to Adam Smith’s economic growth theory, individuals have a rational proclivity to maximize wealth. To make this process of individual self-maximization and subsequent market growth viable, Smith argues, individual self-maximization and subsequent market growth can happen. According to Smith, there should be no force, not even state intervention, disrupting the market, since intervention would only harm the market. Smith ‘s economic growth happens when the “invisible hand,” the unobservable market force, helps the demand and supply of goods in a free market to reach equilibrium automatically.Asian economies that were under the influence of Communist regimes during the Cold War, and that are still governed by Communist regimes, are now the number one defenders of globalization and free global trade, whereas Western countries, which had been the champion of liberalization are now raising their voices for protectionism. The European Projects was supposed to be a civilization project, but now they are almost on the verge of collapse. The great world civilizations used to have separate identities; now they have increasingly overlapping commonality, that is, becoming a global community. Everyone around the world has the same aspirations as the people who live in the West or in the Untied States. They want their kids to have a good education, obtain better jobs, and live in peaceful communities. Granted, they have gone about obtaining those goals in different ways. Continue reading →

President Rodrigo Duterte lashed out against the European Parliament for demanding that the Philippines stop efforts in Congress to reinstate the death penalty, monitor rights abuses in the country, and call for the immediate release of detained Senator Leila de Lima.  On March 19, during a gathering of some of the 1,800 Filipinos residing in Myanmar, President Duterte cursed the critics and admonished them, “Do not impose your culture or your belief in what would be a government in this planet; why don’t you mind your own business?” He rightly criticized the issue of how the West does not seem to respect Asian countries in their decision to continue to impose the death penalty. Currently, the Philippines House of Representatives approved its version of the death penalty bill that allows execution of drug convicts through hanging, firing squad, or lethal injections. The counterpart bill still has to go through Senate. The world struggles to balance the democratic promise of human rights protection against its historically Western identification. Western attitudes toward human rights and the Philippine are riddled with contradictions. The West gives aid to poor countries, but then takes back four times as much in debt repayments through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, rather than forgiving the debts. The West protests about Duterte‘s war on drug in a faraway place, ignoring the fact that the weapons used were probably made closer to home. The West talks about eradicating poverty but for more than fifty years has not eliminated it. Western policies regarding human rights are carefully planned and staged, yet are often managed hypocrisy. These policies –and the violations that result from them — are not charges against President Duterte only but also are official directives “legally” enacted and implemented over centuries. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been a great example used to shore up oppression against the developing countries, such as the Philippines and nations in Africa and the Middle East, such as where Western countries bungled affairs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya.  Continue reading →

TWO OF Donald Trump’s most effective slogans during the presidential campaign were “America First” and “Make America Great Again.” This underscores the contrast between seeking globalist interests versus fighting for American interests. President Trump promised his supporters he would give priority to national interests. Currently, we are witnessing the same sentiment in Europe, with some asserting that fascism is on the rise there, and that President Donald Trump is an American example of fascism. This is a false assumption.The nation-state is reasserting itself as the primary vehicle of political life. In Europe, the refugees and immigrants from conflict-torn countries are challenging the European Union’s institutions. Some European citizens see the immigrant policy as not being in the national interest. Even though some of these refugees and immigrants go against European national interests, accusing the nations of being racist or fascists when they guard their borders and beliefs is wrong. Continue reading →

Islam is going to be the last giant to face Christians. In the few days since Donald Trump took office, he has signed quite a number of executive orders, some of which have caused heated debates. The current media and left wing buzz about President Trump’s executive order that he signed enacting a temporarily ban on entry into the USA of nationals from seven Muslims countries is normal. I don’t understand what all the buzz is about; he is just doing what he told his supporters he would do if he was elected President. There is no doubt that President Trump has declared war on Radical Islam, thereby demonstrating that his administration will shift America’s approach to terrorism. People should understand that President Trump’s order did not come from nowhere. President Obama ‘s approach to terrorism produced the ISIS and caused Americans to vote for Donald Trump out of disenchantment and frustration, and Muslims in the West have produced Donald Trump’s policies toward them.For years President Obama refused to properly address the threat of radical ideology by fighting against it. So the American people decided they wanted to have a tough leader who would call something by its name without being constrained by political correctness. Denying the problem will not solve the problem itself; the only way to solve the problem is to address it correctly. It is true that Islamic values and Western values clash with one another. This is not about hate toward Muslims nor producing hate or fear. We need to accept our differences before we agree on our commonalities; that is the problem. Donald Trump is not just temporarily restricting immigration from seven Muslims countries to the United States, but also he tells the public that Islam hates the West.  We are living in a world war against an ideological movement with many of its members committed to kill those who do not believe or share an ideology with them. Continue reading →

The past centuries of the Middle East domination of the Arabs, Persians, and Turks have been a major historical aberration. All aberrations end eventually. The Kurds have returned to center stage again. However, many Kurdish leaders do not understand this, or they do understand but because of their egos, selfishness, and mental maps, they have been trapped by their narrow-minded thinking and self-interests. Leaders as well as friends of the Kurds should realize that we are entering a completely different historical era. It is going to be an era where the Kurds will have their own state.The Kurds are always making some serious strategic mistakes in their dealing with each other. They have sometimes sacrificed long-term interests in favor of short-term objectives and their global interests in favor of self-concerns. And in the process, they have undermined a critical catalyst to their independence. The United States, Russia, China, or the EU will not create a new Kurdish state. To do so might be seen as making up for their imposing borders nearly a century ago, but the Kurds have to make their own decisions. Kurdistan’s peaceful emergence as it fights against ISIS, as the number one power is a modern geopolitical miracle. Great power transitions are accompanied by competition and conflict. The KRG has managed to establish workable state institutions, including an electoral system, institutions of local government, and an effective military in the Peshmerga. It is true those institutions are not perfect in terms of checks and balances, but which country is free from corruption? That is not to say that corruption should be allowed, absolutely not. It is to say that Kurdistan is ready. Continue reading →