Turkish Forum

Category: World

  • Letter from Istanbul: Is Tom Cruise a Mayan, After All?

    Letter from Istanbul: Is Tom Cruise a Mayan, After All?

    James Tressler / Sunday, Dec. 16 @ 10:03 a.m. /  Elsewhere

    If Mayan predictions are true, the end of the world is nigh. A tiny village in western Turkey, it seems, is exempt. That’s attracting a lot of people, including — according to rumor, at least — one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.  

    I was getting my haircut in Kadikoy on Wednesday morning when I overheard thekuaför gossiping: Tom Cruise was coming to Turkey. It was in the newspapers that were scattered on the small table for the waiting customers to read over cups of tea.

    “For a new film?” I interrupted.

    “No, for the end of the world,” he said. “You know it? December 21? The Mayans?”

    Of course I knew what he was talking about. The Hollywood star, Maverick, it seems, is coming to the town of Sirince in Turkey to seek refuge from the end of the Mayan doomsday. Sirince is one of those places identified – by whoever decides such things – as a safe haven. (As an aside, I’ve always wondered, why is it we have never bothered to seek out the Mayans on anything else in the past few millennia, yet take their loin-cloth and huipil- wearing asses at their word on this, the ultimate score? Never mind.)

    At the school an hour later, Fethi was upstairs in the canteen reading the newspaper, checking the football scores. “Today is 12 December 2012,” he remarked, with a bemused chuckle. “12-12-12.”

    Alas, the times, it seems, are chock full of strange and interesting signs. As Bukowski once observed, we are filling up the prisons and emptying out the madhouses.

    Speaking of: “Did you hear Tom Cruise is coming to Turkey?” I asked Fethi.

    “Tom Cruise?” He looked up from his newspaper. “Really? A film?”

    “No, not a film,” I said. “For the end of the world.”

    “Sorry?” Fethi seemed confused for a moment.

    “Tom Cruise is a Mayan?” he asked.

    “Not really, no.” (But this set off a train of thought!)

    Fehti caught up. With a wave of his hand, Fethi, a devout Muslim who closes the canteen every Friday morning to go to the mosque, dismissed the Mayans as “rubbish,” and went back to his football scores. Good old Fethi. I have a feeling that even if the world did end, he would still find a way to be open for business, with his fresh tea and toasted sandwiches. He’d probably even have the insider tally on the living and those who are now, as they say, the souls behind lightning.

    Meanwhile, it was a busy morning at the school. We have recently formed a partnership with International House, a well-known school with branches all over the world. The IH inspector was due to arrive that morning to have a look around, talk with teachers and observe lessons. If the world is indeed to end, then it will have to wait until after the inspection. We won’t even have the final report of the inspection until at least mid-January. And besides, think how much the school has already spent on the downstairs renovation. It looks nice, too! In these tough fiscal times, we can’t let money go to waste, people! Fiscal Cliff! Fiscal Cliff doesn’t care much for ancient prophesies. In fact, I think Fiscal Cliff votes right most of the time, and is not haunted by our own strange and terrible fantasies. It only cares about brinksmanship on its own terms, which are green and red.

    Anyway, surely we are allowed a little while to enjoy the downstairs redesign. After all, teachers alone can save nations, as the Great Kemal Ataturk said. If we can save nations, then we can certainly enjoy our new space until – let’s say until the late spring. By then the upstairs renovations will be done too, and the meteorites and tidal waves can come and have it all in one fell swoop. I mean, if you’re going to have wholesale destruction, you might as well do it right, right?

    While I was waiting to meet the inspector, I did some quick research on this promised land, Sirince. For those who don’t know it, Sirince is a tiny village of about 600 in the west of Turkey in the Izmir province. According to Wikipedia, “Sirince was settled when Ephesus was abandoned in the 15th century but most of what one sees today dates from the 19th century. There is a story that the village was settled by freed Greek slaves who named the village Çirkince (meaning ‘Ugly’ in Turkish) to deter others from following them.[1] The village’s name was changed to Şirince (meaning ‘Pleasant’) in 1926 by the governor of Izmir Province.[1]” I’ll leave it to those on the professional irony circuit to have a go at that one.

    Actually I cursed myself for not having taken a few days off and gone down to take in the scene. It’s the kind of thing that Raoul Duke would do. You know, get in the Great Red Shark with a pint of whiskey, a bag of grass and a suitcase full of illegal substances, and drive on down to where all the pilgrims of the world arrive, bloody and half-insane, while the rest of the world sinks back into the mantle. What a story!

    And just think! All this time, while I have been here in Istanbul, the apocalyptic, doomed mega-city, I could have been down in Sirince with not a care in the world. I could be hanging out with Tom Cruise. He could, at this precise moment, be giving me the low down on when the Mother Ship will arrive, taking us all back to the Source. God forbid, the Mayans could be wrong, and we are still around on December 22, when, as some say, the rest of the world awakes into a brave new world of peace and enlightenment. Either way, I shall surely be kicking myself. To miss such a chance, to have T.C. really lay it on me, man. Perhaps in Sirince he will indeed, as Fehti suggested, unveil his true identity as Mayan Re-incarnate. I see him now, standing proudly in his loin cloth, perhaps a plume of feathers on his handsome head, the sun shining as Great Truths emit from the Mayan Re-incarnate T.C., and all of the pilgrims gathered in Sirince gather to kiss his golden feet …

    … But enough of this daydream, this frolic, this fantasy. It’s time for my appointment with the inspector, and after that classes to teach. The work must go on. One thing I will say for the Mayans though, is at least they had the sense to end the world on a Friday. That’s what I call real style. But the question begs: If the world does end on Dec. 21, then where does that leave the Messiah? Wait, maybe he’s Tom Cruise too. Maybe T.C. has great range and power as an actor: now that would truly be a revelation.

    Ed. note: While rumors of Tom Cruise going to Turkey have been reported in the Turkish press this past week, as of Sunday, there has been no official confirmation that Tom Cruise will be there.

    James Tressler was a reporter for the Times-Standard. His books, including “Conversations in Prague” and “The Trumpet Fisherman and Other Istanbul Sketches,” are available at Amazon.com and Lulu.com. He lives in Istanbul.

  • America Again Submits to the Istanbul Process

    America Again Submits to the Istanbul Process

    By Nina Shea
    December 3, 2012 12:28 P.M.

    Round three of the “Istanbul Process” opens today, December 3, and runs through Wednesday, at Canada House, in London, hosted by the U.K. and Canada. The Istanbul Process is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s major transnational law initiative, undertaken in partnership with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). It was established last year to “implement” measures against speech and expression that negatively “stereotype[s]” Islam and Muslims, with a particular emphasis on enacting them in the West.

    This initiative was started as an inexplicable, gratuitous gift to the Muslim world following the March 2011 adoption of a non-binding U.N. Human Rights Council resolution (16/18) on the same theme. While the Obama administration claims that it doesn’t intend for the process to adopt regulations beyond the American free-speech standard, our partner, the OIC, is only too eager to do just that.

    For over a decade within the U.N., the OIC has relentlessly pushed for a universal law to punish blasphemy, or “defamation,” of Islam. This 56-member-state organization, an essentially religious body, is in fact chartered to “combat defamation of Islam.” It issues fatwas and other directives to punish public expression of apostasy from Islam. Its current action plan calls for “deterrent punishments” in all states for “Islamophobia,” a term that encompasses a broad range of constitutionally protected speech, judging from the OIC website’s black list of Americans and other perpetrators of “Islamophobia.” The OIC’s stated understanding of the Istanbul Process is that it will “help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.”

    Corner readers will remember that the Istanbul Process’s first conference was co-chaired by Clinton and the OIC secretary general in July 2011, in Istanbul, with the foreign ministers of the Muslim countries in attendance. The second was held over three days of closed-door meetings last December, at the offices of the U.S. Department of State in Washington. That meeting drew enough controversy within free-speech circles to raise questions about whether the process would continue. But thanks to a leak last week by OIC head Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, we now know the event will go ahead, even if its agenda is still being treated like it’s “classified.”

    Judging from the 2011 session I was partially able to observe as a commissioner on the official U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the point of the Istanbul Process is for the governments of the developed West give an accounting to the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, and other key Muslim states on measures taken to stop American and other Western citizens from disparaging Islam. This puts our diplomats.in a tight spot: Unlike virtually every other country represented in the conference hall, America does not protect any religion or any other body of ideas from criticism and ridicule. However, when we’re in the dock this time around, the U.S., represented by Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook, the administration’s severely marginalized ambassador-at-large for religious freedom, will have some measure of “progress” to report.

    For example, the U.S.’s top intelligence official and its top commander in Afghanistan were again deployed to suppress blasphemy against Islam in Florida and, this time around, they succeeded. Last year, the efforts of our top authorities to stop Florida micro-church pastor Terry Jones from desecrating a Koran ended in failure. But this year, their resort to the “good offices” of Tampa socialite Jill Kelley proved an effective strategy. Her persuasive emails resulted in Florida talk-show host Bubba the Love Sponge’s standing down from deep frying a Koran, something he had threatened to do on-air. The OIC’s Ihsanoglu would likely rule Bubba was about to “abuse” freedom of expression by not being able (incontrovertibly, I should note) to pass a “responsible use” test.

    That leads to our next plea: The administration has also adopted the OIC’s own standard of condemning the “abuse of free expression.” Or at least that is what it appeared to do on the website of the pivotal U.S. embassy to Egypt on September 11 this year. Our embassy declared on its homepage: “We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”

    But perhaps, the best evidence of America’s “implementation” in response to the Istanbul Process is the Justice Department’s dispatching the FBI a couple months ago to investigate Mark Basseley Youssef (a.k.a. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, or Sam Bacile), the California Coptic filmmaker of “Innocence of Muslims,” the YouTube trailer that blasphemed the Muslim prophet. As Ambassador Cook can point out, this investigation has resulted in a creative criminal conviction of Youssef, and his being sentenced by a federal court to a year in prison. All the better for the U.S.’s reputation as implementers is that it will be lost on the conferees that Youssef has been imprisoned on a probation offense, à la Al Capone — though, unlike Capone, his underlying offense, without which he would not have been investigated, was making a crude, insulting video, which is hardly equivalent in American law to gangland massacres or racketeering. It, in fact, is not a crime at all. Thus, most important, the OIC’s take-away will be that in defense of Islam the U.S. government can and will regulate speech.

    Nevertheless, none of this is likely to impress the Istanbul Process gathering. On its opening day last December, Saudi Arabia — headquarters to and godfather of the OIC — beheaded a Sudanese woman for “sorcery.” Last week, Egypt sentenced to death Youssef, Terry Jones, and six other Americans implicated in the blasphemous YouTube trailer. For the Istanbul Process that’s “best practices” for “implementation.” Thus, again, America will be judged to have fallen short, indignation will rise, and the Istanbul Process will need to ramp up its pressure.

    — Nina Shea is director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and co-author with Paul Marshall of Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide.

  • THE HIDDEN EMPIRE

    THE HIDDEN EMPIRE

    Most US citizens believe that the US is a country & the President is the most powerful man on earth. The US is not a country. It is a corporation. And the president is President of the Corporation of the United States. He & his elected officials work for the corporation, not for the American people. Since the US is a corporation, who owns the corporation of the United States?

    *WARNING* FB have BANNED ALL LINKS to this text. Circulate by way of photo and text.

    (We’ll see if they take this down)

    THE HIDDEN EMPIRE:

    1. City States.

    Did the world wars, revolutions & big events of human history happen naturally or coincidentally, or were they calculated & pre-planned? If they were pre planned, who planned them?

    The answer to this question can be found within the boundaries of 3 of the worlds most powerful cities. Those 3 cities belong to no nation & pay no taxes. They are Washington’s District of Columbia, which is not part of the City of Washington or the US. The inner city of London, which is not part of London or England & Vatican City, which is not part of Rome or Italy.

    These cities, called City States, have their own independent flag, their own separate laws & their own separate identity.

    2. Vatican City – Spiritual Capital.

    Gracing the walls of St Peter’s Basilica is the Vatican-approved image of God. An angry bearded man in the sky, painted by Michael Angelo. Cruel/violent images of God’s tortured son, suffering, bleeding & dying with thorns gouged through his skull/nails pounded through his feet & hands are on display throughout the Vatican. These images serve as reminders that God allowed his son to be tortured & killed to save the souls of human beings who are all born sinners.

    The Vatican rules over approximately 2bn of the worlds 6.2bn people. The colossal wealth of the Vatican includes enormous investments with the Rothschilds in Britain, France, USA, with giant oil & weapons corporations like Shell & General Electric. The Vatican solid gold bullion, worth billions is stored with the Rothschild controlled Bank of England & the US Federal Reserve Bank.

    The Catholic Church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence, possessing more material wealth than any bank, corporation, giant trust or government anywhere on the globe.

    While 2/3 of the world earns less than $2 a day & 1/5 of the world is underfed or starving to death, the Vatican hoards the world’s wealth, profits from it on the stock market & at the same time preaches about giving.

    So how did the Vatican accumulate all that wealth over the millennium? One method was to put a price-tag on sin. Many bishops & popes actively marketed gilt, sin & fear for profit, by selling indulgences. Worshippers were encouraged to pre-pay for sins they hadn’t yet committed & get pardoned ahead of time. Those who didn’t pay-up risked eternal damnation. Another method was to get wealthy land owners to hand-over their land/fortune to the church on their death bed, in exchange for a blessing which would supposedly enable them to go to heaven.

    Pope Leo the fifth rebuilt St Peter’s Basilica, by selling tickets out of hell & tickets to heaven.

    During the dark ages, the Catholic Church not only hoarded the wealth they collected from the poor, but they hoarded knowledge. They kept the masses ignorant & in the dark by denying them a basic education. They also prohibited anyone from reading or even possessing a Bible, under pain of death.

    Between 1095-1291 AD the Pope launched 7 blood baths called the Christian Crusaides, torturing, murdering, beheading & mass murdering hundreds of thousands of Muslims & Jews in the name of God. The Pope’s brutal solders were called Knights Templar or Knights of the Temple of Solomon & evolved into today’s secretive brotherhood called the Freemasons.

    Between 1450-1700 AD the Catholic Church followed up their holy terror with the inquisition. Based on rumours of practicing witchcraft, the Catholic Church hunted down, tortured & burned-alive 10’s of 1000’s of innocent women at the stake.

    During WWII the Vatican was criticized for supporting Hitler & his Nazi regime. To this day, the Vatican is still under investigation for plundering Nazi gold from the Swiss bank accounts of Jewish holocaust victims.

    Over the past 5 decades more than 1,500 priests & bishops have been identified in the sexual assault of tens of thousands of boys & girls in their trusting congregations & orphanages.

    Why is the filthy rich institution preaching spiritual values of poverty & chastity while cardinals, bishops & priests cover-up their crimes of sexual abuse? Why has the church fought & resisted the compensation claims of their sexually, emotionally & spiritually traumatised victims?

    3. The City of London – Economic Capital.

    Like Vatican city, London’s inner city is also a privately owned corporation or city state, located right in the middle of greater London. It became a sovereign state in 1694 when King William III of Orange privatised & turned the Bank of England over to the bankers. Today, the City State of London is the world’s financial power centre & the wealthiest square mile on the face of the Earth. It houses the Rothschild controlled Bank of England, Lloyds of London, the London stock exchange, all British banks, the branch offices of 385 foreign banks & 70 US banks. It has its own courts, its own laws, its own flag & its own police force. It is not part of greater London, or England, or the British Commonwealth & pays no taxes. The City State of London houses Fleet Street’s newspaper & publishing monopolies. It is also the headquarters for world wide English Freemasonry & headquarters for the world wide money cartel known as The Crown.

    Contrary to popular belief, The Crown is not the Royal Family or the British Monarch. The Crown is the private corporate City State of London. It has a council of 12 members who rule the corporation under a mayor, called the Lord Mayor. The Lord mayor & his 12 member council serves as proxies or representatives who sit-in for13 of the worlds wealthiest, most powerful banking families, including the Rothschild family, the Warburg family, the Oppenheimer family & the Schiff family. These families and their descendants run the Crown Corporation of London.

    The Crown Corporation holds the title to world wide Crown land in Crown colonies like Canada, Australia & New Zealand. British parliament & the British prime minister serve as a public front for the hidden power of these ruling crown families.

    4. The District of Columbia – Military Capital.
    Like the City States of London & the Vatican, a third city state was officially created in 1982. That city state is called the District of Columbia & is located on 10sq miles of land in the heart of Washington. The District of Columbia flies its own flag & has its own independent constitution.

    The constitution for the District of Columbia operates under a tyrannical Roman law known as Lex Fori, which bares no resemblance to the US Constitution. When Congress passed the act of 1871 it created a separate corporation known as THE UNITED STATES & corporate government for the District of Columbia. This treasonous act allowed the District of Columbia to operate as a corporation outside the original constitution of the United States & outside of the best interests of American Citizens.

    Although geographically separate, the city states of London, the Vatican & the District of Columbia are one interlocking empire called Empire of the City.

    The flag of Washington’s district of Columbia has 3 red stars. One for each city state in the 3 city empire. This corporate empire of 3 city states controls the world economically, through London’s inner city, militarily through the District of Columbia & spiritually through the Vatican.

    5. The U.S.A. – A Crown Colony.

    A sobering study of the signed treaties & charters between Britain & the US exposes a shocking truth. The US has always been & still is a British Crown colony.

    King James I was famous not for just translating the Bible into the King James version. But for signing the first charter of Virginia in 1606. That charter granted America’s British forefathers a licence to settle & colonise America. The charter also guaranteed that future Kings/Queens of England would have sovereign authority over all citizens & colonised land in America, stolen from the Indians.

    After America declared its independence from Great Britain, the Treaty of 1783 was signed. That treaty specifically identifies the King of England as the Prince of the United States & contradicts the belief that America won the War of Independence.

    Although King George III of England gave up most of his claims over American colonies, he kept his right to continue receiving payment for his business venture of colonising America.

    If America had really won the War of Independence, they would never have agreed to pay debts & reparations to the King of England.

    America’s blood soaked War of Independence against the British bankrupted America & turned its citizens into permanent debt slaves of the King. In the War of 1812, the British torched & burned to the ground the Whitehouse & all US government buildings. Destroying ratification records of the US constitution.

    Most US citizens believe that the US is a country & the President is the most powerful man on earth. The US is not a country. It is a corporation. And the president is President of the Corporation of the United States. He & his elected officials work for the corporation, not for the American people. Since the US is a corporation, who owns the corporation of the United States?

    Like Canada & Australia whose leaders are Prime Ministers of the Queen & whose land is called Crown Land, the US is just another crown colony. Crown colonies are controlled by the Empire of the 3 City States.

    6. Obelisks

    At the centre of each city state is a towering phallic shaped stone monument called an obelisk that points skyward. In DC city state, the obelisk known as the Washington monument was dedicated to the Freemason George Washington by the Freemason Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. 250 Masonic lodges financed the Washington obelisk monument, including the Knights Templar Masonic order.

    At the heart of London City State, is a 187 ton 69 foot tall Egyptian obelisk called Cleopatra’s Needle. It was transported from Egypt & erected on the banks of the river Thames.

    In Vatican city, another Egyptian obelisk towers high above St Peter’s square.

    Obelisks are phallic shaped monuments honouring the pagan sun god of ancient Egypt called Amen Ra. The spirit of this pagan god is said to reside within the obelisk.

    For more info check out this video: watch?v=oYJzXkcJgEU

  • Protests held worldwide against IDF op

    Protests held worldwide against IDF op

    WASHINGTON – Pro-Palestinian activists protested Friday in several world capitals against Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza under the banner, “Free Palestine.”

    Hundreds demonstrated in Istanbul and Ankara, in Australia, outside the parliament in Rome, and opposite Israeli embassies in South Korea, Istanbul and Madrid. Protest rallies were also held in the Arab world – in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and Algeria.

     

    Ali Golin, who protested in Istanbul, said: “I believe that all Muslims should show solidarity. Factions and differences destroy our goal. If we want to answer Israel we must do it together. We won’t achieve anything by condemning Israel. We must take real action.”

    A South Korean human rights activist who took part in the protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Seoul said, “You must not force the Palestinians to sacrifice. You must not kill children anywhere. Children are precious whether in Palestine or in Israel. They must not die in a massacre. We are calling on the Israeli government to come back to its senses.”

    Sylvia Hale, a former parliament member on behalf of Australia’s Greens protested in Sydney. “The Israelis are adopting a policy of slaughtering the people in Gaza,” she said.

    via Protests held worldwide against IDF op – Israel News, Ynetnews.

  • Olympics Features: Istanbul 2020: Bid city hosts UN World Tourism Organization Global Summit

    Olympics Features: Istanbul 2020: Bid city hosts UN World Tourism Organization Global Summit

    The Maiden’s Tower in Istanbul / Istanbul 2020

    LAURA WALDEN / Sports Features Communications

    November 15 – The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is holding its Global Summit in the bid city gathering more than 1200 delegates from 155 countries allowing an excellent opportunity for Istanbul to show off its touristic qualities.

    There are six associate members attending as well as over 400 affiliate members representing private businesses, educational institutions, tourism associations, and local tourism authorities participating at the meeting being held at the Haliç Congress Centre on the banks of the Golden Horn.

    Some of the attendees included Mayor of Istanbul, Kadir Topbaş; the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ertuğrul Günay; and UNWTO Secretary General, Taleb Rifai.

    The leader of the bid, Hasan Arat, was also presenting at the Global Summit in his capacity as Vice President of the TOBB Tourism Assembly and Vice Chairman of the UNWTO Affiliate Members.

    Arat said, “Tourism figures continue to illustrate that more and more people are being attracted to Turkey every year. Turkey will welcome a record 33 million visitors this year – a 200% increase over the last decade.

    “The huge investment that has already been made into Turkey’s tourism infrastructure demonstrates the country’s desire to deliver the best possible visitor experience.

    “As a result, Istanbul is better placed now than it has ever been to deal with the demands placed on a city by hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

    Over the last 7 years Istanbul has hosted more than 40 cultural, sporting, and tourism events. This year alone the city held theIAAF World Indoor Championships, the WTA Championships and Intercontinental Istanbul Eurasia Marathon.

    IOC member and head of the Turkish NOC, Uğur Erdener, said, “As a city which has brought together people of different nationalities and cultures throughout its fascinating history, it is fitting that this summit, which involves the sharing and exchanging of knowledge and ideas, is held in Istanbul – the city where East meets West.

    “Istanbul has now emerged as a global capital due to its central gateway location, diverse cultural attractions and world-class facilities.

    “This has made the city an attractive destination for the world’s top international business and sporting events.”

    Coming up next is the 11th FINA World Swimming Championships set to be held in the Sinan Erdem Dome December 12-16. This venue is slated to host basketball according to the bid plan to stage the Games.

    Istanbul is bidding against Madrid and Tokyo for the 2020 summer Olympics.

    The IOC will vote for their host city on September 7, 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

    via Olympics Features: Istanbul 2020: Bid city hosts UN World Tourism Organization Global Summit.

  • Turkish start-up conquering Middle Eastern online gaming world

    Turkish start-up conquering Middle Eastern online gaming world

    Istanbul (CNN) — “Hurry up,” one of my rivals curtly warns me, as I clumsily try to decide which tile to add to my deck.

    Ali doesn’t seem to realize that part of my dawdling is because I’m learning to play the Turkish game Okey for the very first time. Coached by my colleague, CNN producer Gul Tuysuz, I reach for a number. Then, in an effort to create some goodwill, I buy a glass of Turkish tea and send it over to Ali’s side of the table.

    “Thanks,” he writes. But I still proceed to lose the game.

    Instead of playing Okey the traditional way, shuffling plastic numbered ties on a green-felt table in a smoky cafe, Gul and I are exploring the game digitally.

    This online version of Okey lets you win digital dollars and play with your friends via Facebook. It is definitely designed for a Turkish audience: Among the gifts you can send people are Turkish coffee, a nargila water pipe,and even a belly dancer. There is also a function called “flört” that lets you flirt with other players.

    It is a fairly simple formula that the game’s online designers say has been wildly successful. Since Turkish start-up company Peak Games released Okey less than two years ago, the game has attracted more than 19 million users, with an average of more than 3 million players a month.

    “We’re only 2 years old,” says Rina Onur, one of Peak Games’ founders. The Harvard-educated former investment banker then rattles off accomplishments that would make any entrepreneur jealous.

    “We started with three people, and now we’re with 200. Five offices around the world, 10 million daily and 30 million monthly active users, to be the third-largest gaming company in the world.”

    An intense work force

    Onur speaks in the company’s offices, which overlook Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait.

    Ferry boats glide past the window, as employees stare intently at banks of computer monitors. The age of the work force here looks to be in the mid-20s, and the dress code is casual. But the atmosphere is pretty serious. I’m struck by how clearly I can hear the sound of clicking mouse buttons.

    It isn’t easy to independently confirm some of Peak Games’ claims.

    The young company does not reveal its revenues. As Rob Fahey, a British gaming industry consultant and columnist explains to me, there is a culture of secrecy within the online gaming industry.

    “This is a very young market, and there are people who are treating it as a gold rush and there are others who are saying ‘Listen, you have to build something sustainable,’ ” Fahey says in a phone call from Britain.

    Regardless where Peak Games falls in this ongoing debate, it is clear that the Turkish start-up has quickly become a significant player in the online gaming industry. According to the application tracker AppData, Peak’s 23 games have a total of more than 22 million monthly active users. That puts Peak Games within the world’s Top 20 most popular application designers.

    Targeting an overlooked market

    Part of Peak’s successful strategy appears to be that it has focused on a region apparently overlooked by many of the world’s more established game designers.

    “We just saw there were huge opportunities around the Turkish and Arabic speaking market,” explains Onur. “We realized that there was so much demand, so much usage and Internet consumption, but not enough local content and local games.”

    With more than 31 million users, Turkey is the world’s seventh-largest Facebook country, according to Socialbakers, another social media tracking company. Peak Games first targeted this enormous Turkish market by “localizing” games that had been designed for foreign audiences and converting some Turkish traditional games such as Okey to the digital realm.

    Statistically, Peak claims one in five Turkish Facebook users has now played Okey.

    Less than a year after its launch, Peak Games expanded its operations to the Arab world. The company established an office in Amman, Jordan, and this year acquired a Saudi Arabian online game designing company.

    Half of the company’s millions of consumers now log on from the Arabic speaking world.

    Bridging a cultural divide

    Fahey, who writes columns for Gamesindustry.biz, credits the ambitious Turkish start-up with getting a head start in Middle Eastern markets.

    “The rest of the world doesn’t really engage with these markets because it’s hard. Selling games to American or British or German people is very easy, because it was figured out in the 1990s,” Fahey says.

    “If you’ve got a country that can organize a revolution over Twitter and one of the first things the government does when people get grumpy is it turns off the Internet,” Fahey adds, referring to the 2011 revolution in Egypt, “that should have been a wake-up call for business people.”

    Onur agrees it isn’t always easy to translate games designed for American teenagers for an audience in, say, Saudi Arabia.

    “The Arabic region and Arabic culture is even more difficult than Turkey to understand and penetrate, because of the cultural differences, religious differences, even the way that the alphabet works and the language works is different,” she says.

    To avoid triggering religious taboos in Arab markets, for example, Peak Games had to transform a game character named Horus from an ancient Egyptian deity to a “hero.”

    On the other hand, Peak Games has gambled that online gaming will likely grow in the Arab world, in part because it provides conservative Middle Eastern societies with an easy, alternative way to socialize.

    “It’s not as easy in a lot of these countries to go up to a bar or a cafe and meet someone and have a meaningful conversation,” she says. “These games provide a platform and a medium to talk to others without being shunned or looked down upon.”

    Barring linguistic divisions, the online gaming world effectively has no borders. As a result, designers at Peak’s Istanbul offices have made some cultural observations, while monitoring game play of participants from different countries.

    In the hard-core, empire-building strategy game New Battles, for example, designer Balkan Cilingir said German players tended to focus on teamwork within their alliances, whereas Arab players were “the most competitive” and Turks were “in the biggest rush to make the biggest army.”

    Peak is now in the process of designing a new strategy game, “War of Mercenaries.” Its slightly cartoonish cast of warrior characters includes a Persian sapper, a Bedouin hunter, an Ottoman janissary and the legendary Ottoman aviator Hezarfen.