
Turkey Extends Purge to Universities, Asking All Deans to Go - sethbannon
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-19/turkey-extends-purge-to-universities-asking-all-deans-to-go
======
ajmurmann
This to me again pushes the question when it's OK to overthrow a
democratically elected government. All western governments and even the
Turkish opposition came out against the coup because it was "undemocratic".
However, I believe there is definitely a line somewhere that a democratically
elected government cannot cross without losing legitimacy and making a coup
the right thing to do regardless of the remaining popular support. Had Erdogan
crossed that line? If so, what was that line? If he didn't cross it what would
be that line.

I'm sure we all can agree that there is such s line since we probably all can
agree that Hitler crossed it although I'm not sure in his case where exactly
that line was either. Maybe when he dismantled the parliament? Maybe earlier?

~~~
Grishnakh
Hitler was democratically elected. If you oppose any coup that's undemocratic,
then you necessarily have to oppose the attempted coups against Hitler. Hitler
had great support among his people, even after he dismantled Parliament. After
all, he was a strong leader for his country, and his people liked that, just
like the Turkish people love Erdogan for the same.

As for as crossing a line, because he was democratically elected, there's two
lines to cross: 1) when he makes death camps and starts gassing large numbers
of his own people (probably minorities like the Kurds, or various
secularists), and 2) when he invades some other country.

In WWII, other nations only finally did something after Germany invaded too
many countries (they gave him a pass on Poland, saying "we'll have peace in
our time!" by appeasing him). They didn't care about the death camps, until
after they defeated Germany and then decided to punish them for those. Just
like they didn't care about the genocide in Rwanda.

I imagine the situation with Turkey will be much the same.

~~~
learc83
>They didn't care about the death camps, until after they defeated Germany and
then decided to punish them for those.

The allies didn't know about the death camps until 1942. They were already at
war with Germany in 1942, and they issued a public condemnation of Hitler's
attempt to exterminate the Jewish race at the end of that year.

>Hitler was democratically elected.

He wasn't elected, he was appointed Chancellor then used violence and
intimidation to rise to power. Only about 1/3 of the population supported the
Nazis in the elections before 1933. Later after the Reichstag fire, the
government enacted emergency measures limiting left wing opposition parties
and arrested many communist leaders. You can't call anything that happened
after that a free and open election.

~~~
avar
The death camps also targeted e.g homosexuals, which the allies were fine
with. The allies didn't have any moral objection to the death camps, only
against them being used for certain classes of people (e.g. jews).

~~~
learc83
The allies weren't "fine with it". Homosexuals made up a small percentage of
the total people in death camps, and the vast majority of the allies weren't
even aware of them until the liberation.

Homosexual survivors were treated horribly because homosexuality was still a
crime in Germany and most of the Allied countries after WWII. But the western
allies weren't "fine" with systematically exterminating homosexuals or any
other group--as evidenced by the fact that they ended the practice.

~~~
avar
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph_175#Historical_overv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph_175#Historical_overview)

The allies discovered a bunch of gays locked up in concentration camps under a
1935 Nazi-enacted law, didn't repel that article similarly to e.g. laws
against Jews when WWII ended and supported their re-imprisonment, nor did they
make their times in the concentration camps count against their "crimes".

Granted saying they were "fine with it" might be a bit of an exaggeration. But
I don't think it's unreasonable in the face of historical evidence to think
that the concentration camps would have been treated vastly differently by the
allies if the only prisoners were homosexuals, given how the allies treated
those prisoners upon their release.

Which I think goes to show that the allied forces didn't have an intrinsic
objection to what went on in the concentration camps, they just minded the
target audience the Nazis picked.

~~~
learc83
Not legalizing homosexuality isn't the same having no intrinsic objection to
exterminating homosexuals.

>they just minded the target audience the Nazis picked

This makes no sense. Most of the allied countries had a long history of
antisemitism. If anything, targeting the Jews should have made it less
objectionable.

No, I think they objected to killing millions of men, women, and children,
using a horrific modern factory style process. No normal human (who wasn't
slowly conditioned to accept it) who saw the result of those concentration
camp could possibly have no intrinsic objection. The visceral reaction to
seeing the bodies and the emaciated survivors would be the same whether the
victims were Jewish or homosexual.

------
FreedomToCreate
Punish the smartest of your population and good luck creating an economy that
is built on any form of scientific progress. Utter sadness to watch a man
destroy a country so he can consolidate power while destroying that which he
wants power over.

------
noobermin
Atatürk must be turning in his grave. Can any Turks comment on this whole
thing?

EDIT: from DominikR, it seems the Turkish government is encouraging others to
report online posts of anti-government sentiment. Be careful to post
anonymously if you are willing to post from within Turkey.

~~~
anonymousturk
We were first confused about why coup was incredibly terrible. Starting it
with a tank on the Istanbul bridge instead of easily picking up Erdogan from
the hotel he is staying in a vacation town; Not destroying Erdogan's palace;
Doing some symbolic things on prime time hours instead of 2am; Having no
direction or aim other than making some show with tanks and airplanes.

Now, it is very clear to everyone that it was a fake coup. So that Erdogan can
do his regime change without getting any resistance. Anyone who is against is
a coup supporter and will be dumped to tens of thousands of people on the
prisons, after getting beaten up by Islamist running around.

One of the significant changes he has made was to make mosques a part of the
new regime. Mosques are now doing they have never done since the establishment
of republic 90 years ago. The mosques are now constantly making announcement
and telling Erdogan's people to "go outside and hunt coup supporters for the
love of god".

A civil war has started but we don't know it yet. I hope I am wrong.

~~~
ajmurmann
What happens if there is no civil war? The bad guys win without a civil war?

~~~
cloudjacker
the winners write blurbs in their history books about how they squashed the
rebellion of unsophisticated farmers

~~~
hx87
Except in this case the ruling party's base is largely "unsophisticated
farmers".

------
gonvaled
Sadly, this could have been avoided 20-15 years ago when Turkey was pretty
liberal and aproaching the EU. This has been the biggest mistake of the EU
history: letting the right declare it a christian club, and thus losing both a
moderate islamic country and a bridge to the middle east.

Erdogan understood long ago that Turkey would never be accepted in the EU
(even with big pressure coming from USA and UK) and has used the EU membership
as a bargaining chip.

Now the membership option is openly dead, and Erdogan can proceed with his
fundamentalist agenda.

Also, having been clearly betrayed by EU and OTAN in this military coup, he
really has nothing to worry about anymore. Turkey will be out of NATO soon,
and it will become a Russia ally.

What a blunder the west is playing: only 25 years after the URSS collapse, and
instead of integrating Russia into the global institucions, the USA decided to
proffit the strategic advantage to expand and provoke. We have managed to turn
the possibility of true global integration, collaboration and progress into a
new cold (actually warm and soon hot) war.

~~~
mucker
What on Earth are you talking about. Let's presume you are right and Turkey
wasn't being kept out for things like, oh as another pointed out, an
occupation of Turkey and Cyprus, how does blocking them from joining the EU
make them less moderate? Does the EU have magic dust that effects religious
outcomes?

~~~
pjlegato
Indeed, Hungary shows the EU's magic dust has little to no ability to induce
moderation.

~~~
pas
Well, we don't know what would have happened if Hungary wasn't a Member State.

~~~
pjlegato
It doesn't matter, since the topic was whether being a member state ensures
moderation.

~~~
gonvaled
It doesn't, but it can help. Anyway, in case of Hungary, they have already
been warned by the EU a couple of times. Time will tell how this evolves, but
weakening the project as UK has done will for sure reduce the incentives to
return to a more moderate path.

These free-market types, they are really wreaking the world. The 1% capitalism
we have reached is putting a death sign in the fundamentalist market ideology,
but they are for sure going down with a bang.

------
vegabook
_" Democracy is like a tram. You use it to get to you destination, and then
you get off"_ \- Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The West was seriously duped by this guy. I remember The Economist's self-
deluded/deceitful decade-long, apologetic editorial line, never letting a
mention of the islamist AKP go unqualified with the adjective "mildly" (read:
"market friendly"), and it is ironic that one of the most effective Brexit
camp scare tactics was Turkish EU accession, when it was Britain under Blair
and Cameron who were the most vociferous advocates of the policy in the first
place.

The fix is in. This "coup" is a transparent manipulation by Erdogan so that he
might grab absolute power. Who knows what havoc he will now wreak in the
region, and in Europe, with it.

~~~
api
He made GDP go up.

The West has also spent the past decade and a half fawning over the genius of
the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA for the same reason. Look into their
glorious human rights record, or the level of inequality there for that
matter. Makes the USA look like an egalitarian utopia.

Dubai is another one. Look at those skyscrapers! What a dynamic economy! Never
mind the slave labor and the caste system.

I'd throw Singapore in too. They're nowhere near as bad as the PLA or Dubai in
practice but they are essentially totalitarian at heart. But the numbers look
good and the streets are clean so it's okay.

Side note:

One thing that's disillusioned me about libertarianism is that the past 30-ish
years of history seem to have proven that capitalism and economic health are
_absolutely_ compatible with totalitarianism. IMHO the Randian notion that the
two are at odds and that a dynamic economy requires freedom and justice has
been empirically proven wrong. Slave states work. GDP goes up. What's not to
like?

~~~
iwwr
>Slave states work. GDP goes up. What's not to like?

They work when they're sitting on a mountain of oil, or Singapore's
equivalent: a shipping bottleneck. Sort-of, at some point corruption becomes
intolerable, or the oil runs out (or becomes too cheap to pay for the
oppression).

That said, the Singapore comparison may be a little far-fetched, they resemble
the West far more than the totalitarian Middle East states.

~~~
madelinecameron
Pretty sure Singapore gives the death penalty to drug dealers. Maybe even drug
users, but I do know at some point the minimum punishment for any drug dealing
was death.

~~~
PopsiclePete
You're going to have to provide a _lot_ more than that one example to show me
that Singapore is a "totalitarian" state. Just recently the entire State of
Louisiana's "Justice" system was shown to be in cahoots with the private
prison industry, for example. And judging by the "Making a Murderer"
documentary, our entire judicial process resembles a totalitarian police state
circus _much_ more than any other developed nation. Singapore is a
"totalitarian" state? Fine, by your standards, the US is a 2nd rate Banana
Republic.

------
DominikR
It is clear to me that the West wanted Erdogan gone (for good reasons)
although I'm not insinuating that the US had any part in the failed coup.

But after these extensive purges it will be basically impossible to remove the
elite that rose with Erdogan for the next decades, of that much I'm sure.

History has shown again and again that purges are a cruel but still extremely
effective tool. After this there will be no opposition left.

I even expect that Turkey will leave NATO within the next years and get closer
to Russia/China/Iran.

------
knowaveragejoe
Asking?

Also, I didn't know about this, but I guess I should be prepared for even more
of it:

> President Recep Tayyip Erdogan clashed with academics earlier this year,
> when more than 1,000 of them signed a petition calling for peace in the
> southeast and criticizing the government’s handling of the state’s long-
> running battle with its Kurdish population centered there. Many ended up on
> trial, while others lost their jobs.

~~~
Aelinsaar
"Plomo o plata" is still technically a choice you're "asking" someone to make,
and I don't get the sense that protection against coercion is a big thing
right now for old Recep.

------
bpodgursky
The only upside of Turkey overtly collapsing is that nobody will be able to
pretend anymore there are real examples of functioning Muslim democracies.

Pretty sad, given what it used to be.

~~~
gonvaled
This is a catastrophe! If muslims do not make it into the modern era, what are
the alternatives?

We can not build walls between blocks, so perpetual war is the only answer.

Losing Turkey is even worse than losing the UK - and both are probably
connected: Turkey is abusing a weakened EU.

Collaboration and compromise is falling apart: welcome to BoJo's future, where
everything is a trade and people have no rights.

~~~
pas
I think the loss of civil liberties in Poland are worse than any kind of
Brexit in a sense. Though both signal a fucked up populace. Just as submitting
to a supernatural being that so far provided 0 bit of its existence.

Eventually things will have to give. Navigating our increasingly global,
complex, many-faceted, and all in all stranger world requires firm roots in
rationality, of course, only if one wants to really get somewhere not just
hide from the hard problems of life.

So far, it seems, we have billions of people very much reluctant to face this
reality. Fighting tooth and nail against every kind of revelation, instead
butchering reality to make it fit to their worldview.

------
Aelinsaar
This is a particularly bad sign, and one that seems to support the worst fears
about the future of Turkey. Ousting judges and other powerful figures in the
government and military makes a certain ruthless sense, but intellectual
purges seem to always be the ultimate canary in the social coalmine.

~~~
Freak_NL
Working on reintroducing the death penalty is another.

Its saddening to see how the large secular part of the population that has no
desire to live in an Islamic state has little recourse but to keep quiet and
hope nobody points a finger in their direction.

~~~
api
... or leave.

The USA and Europe should welcome them. The American Century was in many ways
built on brain drain from totalitarian regimes. When Germany went insane we
got quite a bit of the cream of the crop of German intellectuals including
many of history's greatest physicists, the Bauhaus School of design, etc.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> ... or leave.

You're assuming a country that broken won't also prevent emigration, _and_
that everyone who wants to leave has the means to leave.

~~~
hx87
> won't also prevent emigration

Preventing emigration is rare for non-Soviet-descended governments, even the
most authoritarian ones. Most governments are pretty happy when dissidents
leave.

> has the means to leave

Not everyone, but as the Syrian and Afghan refugees that were formerly pouring
out of Turkey illustrate, if you are in decent health, have 2 feet and have a
way of acquiring sustenance along your way, you don't need much means to
leave. Most people are kept back by attachments to community and property, not
a lack of means.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> and have a way of acquiring sustenance along your way

Aye, there's the rub...

------
gumby
Viktor Orbán's Hungarian dream! In his case he doesn't even have a majority,
simply a plurality. But it was enough to purge the press and neuter the
judiciary.

And if you haven't read it, this is a timely read:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here)

------
Pica_soO
Imagine to sit in such a parliament, and the vote for the reintroduction of
the death penalty comes up. Do you vote for it? If you don't vote for it- you
surely get on El presidents list. If you vote for it, you might get on that
list... later. Imagine one would send out a fake "purge" list with nearly
everyone in parliament on it. Robespierre rule ended that way.

Thus the Madman, enters his final stage.

------
edko
Soon, it will be known that Galatasaray was behind the coup too.

------
sa-mao
This entire thread and the common trends in western media makes me think that
Turkey will be soon destroyed, and will be joining other failed countries.
Clearly not by raw force since this military coup failed to achieve his goals.
I will always be amazed how the west manage to slaughter third world countries
and still has political support from the people.

~~~
gwright
Your last sentence has an implied assumption that 'third world countries' have
no independent agency, that their success or failure is derived primarily from
'the West'.

Isn't it possible that the more direct cause of success or failure are the
circumstances and choices made by the people within these countries?

~~~
sa-mao
What you are saying is definitely true. People in third world countries made
over the past many bad decisions, and I think that is mostly due to the lack
of education, and an absence of honorable ruling class. But still the west is
playing a big role in that matter too. those countries are still maintaining
bad influence over their colonies or areas of interest. Draining at the same
time human and financial wealth crucial for these countries to rise as decent
nations. Mallence give an interesting talk on that matter
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pvNp9gHjfk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pvNp9gHjfk)

------
PopsiclePete
Pol Pot also didn't like the intellectuals. In general, the intelligentsia is
always troublesome for Despots. They're usually one of the first groups to be
purged.

Turkey is firmly bent on following Iran's lead.

Ladies and Gentlemen - Ayatollah Supreme Leader Sultan Erdogan I, The
Glorious, The Ever-Wise, Founder of the Modern Islamic Republic of Turkey!

------
knowaveragejoe
How is this story so popular yet already fallen off the front page after 2
hours?

~~~
jacobolus
Any time comments outnumber upvotes, a “flamewar” detector is triggered, and
the discussion drops off the front page.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
Seems potentially useful in some cases but overall obvious as to how it would
garner false positives. Basically limits things to 1 comment per person who
upvoted.

------
Animats
Erdoğan has been pushing primary education in Turkey to become more Islamic.
Is this part of that?

Turkey may be headed down the Islamic rathole. No country with an Islamic
education system is very successful, because Islamic education doesn't teach
useful skills. Some of the oil states survive by bringing in outsiders to do
the work, but that only lasts until the oil runs out. Then they become failed
states like Egypt and Syria.

~~~
Jtsummers
> Islamic education doesn't teach useful skills.

I can't speak to the quality (or lack thereof) of Islamic education. But I
feel this generally holds true for any _fundamentalist religion_ -based
education.

~~~
newacct23
Jesuit education manages to be good.

~~~
Jtsummers
I qualified my post with "fundamentalist" for that reason. Catholic schools
(in the US) tend to be far from fundamentalist. They still have a religious
component, but my experience has been that they generally refrain from
introducing that into their science and history classes to any great extent.

~~~
Grishnakh
Catholicism, for all its many faults, is not a fundamentalist religion.
There's no conflict between their theology and the scientific method,
evolution, etc. It's various Protestant sects that are fundamentalist and deny
evolution, think dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark, etc.

~~~
ivoras
... is not ANY LONGER a fundamentalist religion ...

it's almost like it takes a 1000 years, give or take, for a religion to blow
off its steam and become reasonably peaceful.

~~~
Grishnakh
I don't think Catholicism could ever have been called a fundamentalist
religion. It isn't completely based on one holy book (the Bible), it's
_always_ integrated other sources and teachings, such as the bit about Popes
being infallible when making certain proclamations. As such, it's always
evolving as a religion. Even more, Catholicism has always taken the stance
that the Bible isn't something to be read and interpreted by regular people,
and that only Church authorities can really interpret it correctly, which is
why they always kept Masses in Latin and never translated the Bible to other
languages. This was one of the issues in the Protestant Reformation, and why
the King James Bible was such an important book at the time: it was the first
time commoners were able to read it in their own language.

------
kra34
In the name of the general welfare, to protect the people's security, to
achieve full equality and total stability, it is decreed for the duration of
the national emergency that:

Point One. All workers, wage earners and employees of any kind whatsoever
shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be
dismissed nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail. The penalty
shall be determined by the Unification Board, such Board to be appointed by
the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. All persons reaching
the age of twenty-one shall report to the Unification Board, which shall
assign them to where, in its opinion, their services will best serve the
interests of the nation.

Point Two. All industrial, commercial, manufacturing and business
establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation,
and the owners of such establishments shall not quit nor leave nor retire, nor
close, sell or transfer their business, under penalty of the nationalization
of their establishment and of any and all of their property.

Point Three. All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices,
inventions, formulas, processes and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be
turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift
Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and
copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents
and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the
purpose of eliminating monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products
and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names
or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be
known by a new name and sold by all manufacturers under the same name, such
name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and brand
names are hereby abolished.

Point Four. No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature
whatsoever, not now on the market, shall be produced, invented, manufactured
or sold after the date of this directive. The Office of Patents and Copyrights
is hereby suspended.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
This would work. I don't understand why people shrug away these types of
ideas.

EDIT: This was an ironic statement meant to reference Atlas Shrugged. I'm sure
most people caught it, but its definitely interesting to see how primed up
people are to voice an opinion. Its a good thing, if you take your time to
understand what the other person has said. I believe is this a great
representation of what is currently happening on both the left and right.
People go straight for their opinions and demonize others without taking the
brief moment to listen and think.

~~~
acchow
> All workers, wage earners and employees of any kind whatsoever shall
> henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed
> nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail.

So if you're a doctor but actually discover one day you'd much rather be a
musician and actually you eventually hate being a doctor, you just have to
suck it up?

Sounds like Point Four needs to be extended far beyond "no new devices,
inventions, products, or goods of any nature whatsoever" to include "no new
ideas, thoughts, emotions, or any cognitive state of any nature whatsoever" to
get the kind of static state they're seeking.

~~~
egeozcan
Also, how do you operate the world's largest prisons without hiring additional
wardens and guards?

 _So if you 're a doctor but actually discover one day you'd much rather be a
musician and actually you eventually hate being a doctor,_ but you do not suck
it up, be a musician, and you may need to learn to keep yourself in prison.

I started with wardens, but the whole ecosystem would cause a chain reaction
that would just cause extreme disorder.

I keep thinking and more ridiculous scenarios pop-up in my mind but I don't
want to ruin the potentially fun game of finding them for everyone else.

