Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

"Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is."

At least he is right about that. His, and by extension Turkey's, impotence will soon be there for all to see. It reminds me of "Consequences will never be the same"

"We won't allow the people to be devoured by YouTube, Facebook or others"

The people are willingly placing their heads in the mouth of these lions. It is revealing how much world leaders are freaked by the concept of really free communications. Observers of political life already know that while there may be an illusion of press freedom, the collusion between media barons and the powerful (entered into willingly or through the pressure "no interview / early access for you") has a chilling effect.




Turkey is kind of special, though. Atatürk managed to glue together the remainder of the Ottoman Empire by streamlining culture and society (by force). You have the culturally suppresed Kurds who were even prohibited from speaking their language for decades, then you have the backlash against the decades-long marginalization of religion (Islam), you have the Alevite religious minority, and then the ardent defenders of Atatürks vision.

It is hard to see how somebody could hope to "keep the lid" on all that. There will be more unrest in Turkey.


The problem is not diversification IMHO. It's - as always - lack of education and democracy. With a little bit of respect and tolerance for each other these fractions of a society could live peacefully together.


Exactly. Few nations lack these problems, but many are able to achieve stability and wealth through providing comprehensive and unbiased education, and supporting a democratic political process.

Erdogan has not been shy about his feeling that democracy is a means to an end, that it is a tool to be used for his convenience, and that such tools can be cast disposed of when their usefulness expires. This will be his downfall.


According to Jerry Pournelle, who's among other things a political scientist (academic and practicing, at least in times past), Turkey had a to his knowledge unique system where they Army "kept a lid" on thing by coming out of their barracks when the civilians got out of hand, hanging the appropriate ones, and then the unique thing, going back into their barracks. Erdogan obviously included dismantling/defanging the Army as he dismantled the rest of what Atatürk wrought.

Which is a great shame. Per David "Spengler" Goldman, it's the only Muslim Middle Eastern country with world class universities (I believe he's defining that region as from Iran to the west), and otherwise had great potential.

Ah, another note from Goldman, both Turkey and Iran are facing core population demographic collapses, e.g. soon enough Kurds will be a majority in the former. They are acutely and publicly aware they have about one generation to do something about this....




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: