
RIP Turkey, 1921 – 2017 - sushobhan
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/16/rip-turkey-1921-2017/
======
_delirium
The extent of democracy in Turkey 1921-2017 is being rather idealized by a lot
of these articles. It was for large periods a quasi-democracy with a strong
role for the military (on a few occasions explicitly as military dictators, on
many more occasions less explicitly). And beyond the military, also a strong
role for paramilitaries.

In this referendum, for example, the ultra-nationalist party MHP played a
strong role, supporting Erdogan. Along with their notorious neo-fascist
paramilitary units, the Grey Wolves, which attacked "no" demonstrations,
especially any linked to Kurdish groups. But these militias aren't a new
development. They're decades old, and have had various political roles over
the years, usually linked to the "democratic" establishment. Historically the
MHP often carried out dirty work for the Kemalists, especially operations that
the military didn't want to do officially, like attacks on leftist
intellectuals and Kurdish cultural figures. What's changed is that the MHP has
switched alliances from working with them to working with the AKP, at least
for now, which is part of an ongoing reorientation of political alliances. A
weird alliance though, since AKP are more Islamist and MHP don't really care
about Islam.

~~~
diminish
Never have seen so many lies, and fake news bundled in one comment. Come on
don't waste people's time.

Edit: And clearly I have voted No in this referendum. Just such spaghetti
bundles of false information isn't needed. Sorry.

~~~
virmundi
As an American I have no idea about the veracity of the GP claims or your
claims that they are false. Can others step in and make HN great again by
having a cool, reasoned debate about the history of thr Turks within the
confines of their democratic endeavors?

I would like to know more. I've never understood the parliamentarian system.
I'm use to a presidential system with checks and balances.

~~~
_delirium
The clearest article I've found on current factions (not as much on the
history of the Turkish state), from an admittedly left-wing perspective, is
this one: [https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/erdogan-constitutional-
am...](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/erdogan-constitutional-amendments-
coup-akp/)

~~~
makmanalp
Might I also suggest: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/magazine/inside-
turkeys-p...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/magazine/inside-turkeys-
purge.html)

------
abpavel
Well, he tried aligning Turkey to Europe, paving the way for EU membership,
visa-free travel, and even shot down Russian's plane to show his European
alignment. That was the crest of the Western wave for him. Once he saw that EU
is just a pipe dream, and after through discussion with Putin, he decided on a
new way, returning his people back to the Islamic roots, purging opposition,
and controlling ethnic groups, especially Kurds, who pose a big problem
considering they are over 10% of the population, and would eventually want
independence, hence Kurdish activity in Syria.

Sad outcome. Especially with 99% or so voting turnout, and such a close
result. 97-99% voting turnout on such a large scale is a classic telltale sign
of fabrication balloting, and was standard since at least CCCP, just like in
Crimea independence referendum. With such a close result it would mean he was
losing 70/30 by vote on a standard 70% turnout, but padding his numbers by 30%
with his ballots was sufficient for him to maintain grip and win. Each
successive referendum will make him stronger, unleashing his full potential
without pesky opposition "provocateurs".

~~~
cm2187
Hum. There are people who think he used the EU membership as a way of leverage
against the military. Turkey couldn't be part of the EU with this military
threat, so it had to tame its military to be accepted as a modern democracy.
This enabled Erdogan to progressively regain control over the army helped with
the pressure from the EU, eliminating the remaining counter-power to islamism
in Turkey. I think the EU has been a useful idiot in this process. Now a EU
membership is out of question on the EU side and Turkey doesn't show any sign
of being interested anymore anyway.

~~~
wuschel
"Democracy is just the train, but not the final destination.", is a AKP slogan
I remember from a documentary on Erdogans long road to power.

I would also support the opinion that Erdogan used the EU integration process
to selectively weaken the kemalist/military grip on Turkey's institutions.
While you could point out that the EU were a 'useful idiot', IMHO there was
never a realistic chance of Turkey joining the EU. The reasons are multifold,
most important ones being the resistance of the EU population in major EU
countries such as Germany, France and Poland. In that regard, I think, EU
politics were not on an honest basis and just a game.

~~~
dreamcompiler
I had also assumed that Turkey's occupation of Cyprus, its refusal to take
responsibility for the Armenian genocide, and its antipathy toward the Kurds
were additional dealbreakers for EU membership.

------
sz4kerto
I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland...
). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here ​and I want to keep living here
if possible.)

~~~
Ralfp
I'm from Poland.

We are seeing failure of trust in to EU because its terrible at PR. Its
successes are taken as local governments successes ("our govt is awesome, it
snatched the money from those bureaucrats for new architecture!") which
failures are easily blamed on Brussels ("We wanted to rescure our failing
Shipyards and coal mining, but Brussels tells us we can't because its unfair
competition! In meantime French and Germans have no issues like that! This is
unfair competition and favorism of west-dominated Union!").

Then you have usual of their weird decisions that are brought as example of
overgrown bureaucracy without attempt to understand the reasoning behind it.
"Hey, did you hear? Idiots in Brussels decided that snails are fish, what an
idiots" the popular saying goes, meantime nobody cares that such decision
saved EU from making up separate legislature for seafood farming and trade.

Then we have refugee crisis which is generally something considered result of
poor decisions beind done in western EU side that it is trying shift the blame
on across all of the union. The situation where in Poland is explictly named
amongst the countries that show no solidarity while at same time we've
accepted one million people from UA doesn't help neither.

With all of this going on, its easy for populist guys to gain widespread
support. However situation in Poland where traditionalistic-populistic gov
gained enough of majority to rule on its own is (IMHO) primarily the result of
weak opposition, whose entire idea and programme was "we are saner than those
other folk" but instead we've got liberal party apparently become
traditionalist one with leaks after leaks of them doing disappointing deals
with each other or private business. This effectively sank primary opposition
party in polls.

They've also made some harsh steps to improve the grim future of our social
security system via bumping retirement age as well as forcefully relocating
bulk of private savings to the public fund.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/poland-pensions-
idUSL6N0H02UV...](http://www.reuters.com/article/poland-pensions-
idUSL6N0H02UV20130904)

Apparently there's trend in the polls going on for few weeks now giving them
growing support, but its most likely the wave of popular disgust for current
gov, which would be story from 2006 repeating itself. I'm unsure if they are
capable of fixing things.

~~~
Darthy
I think the problem is much deeper than that. There is not enough of a
democratic process in the EU. It would have benefitted from an approach with
much more direct democracy. Because then there is no favoritism, and people
realize that they have it in their own hands.

~~~
vidarh
But the quandry is that a more democratic EU requires constitutional change in
most member states to cede sovereignty. The EU largely is the way it is as a
result of a bunch of hacks making use of legislatures or even executives power
to bind delegates of the executive under treaty to act in certain ways, or
basically bind the legislatures to act in support of their executives.

The problem with this is that these hacks will continue to be used against the
EU even when trying to reform them: It's easy to argue against handing
sovereignty to an organisation with such a baroque decision-making process.

A lot of effort has gone into transitioning more powers to the EU parliament,
but ultimately, it will be impossible to get where the EU ought to be in terms
of which organs have which powers without very difficult processes in most of
the member states.

~~~
Darthy
I agree such a change is difficult, but I believe it's difficult precisely
because it's currently not very democratic.

Deeply direct democracy is self-sustaining - people would agree to move over
to a new system because it would give them more power than they have in the
current parliamentary systems.

The problem as far as I see is the current political class (parliamentarians
and people in the executive branch), which would lose power. And since this is
who currently has the power, and it's always nearly impossible to make
somebody give up power, that's the reason why this won't happen.

But Europe is in a state of crisis now, and maybe this crisis is great enough
to motivate this class to move to a more open system.

If you think about it, the current indirect democracy (with parliaments and
the electoral college etc) is a remnant of a time when a decision took days to
travel through the whole land, and to be reasonably fast and decisive, you had
to have them. Thanks to the internet, we could even go past such direct
democracies like Switzerland and allow each citizen to vote at each bill, or
if she didn't want to spend the time, leave that decision to a parliamentarian
of her choosing, but with the option to take power again or give it to a
different parliamentarian at any moment. Now _that_ is true democracy. No
back-hand deals, and no favoritisms anymore.

~~~
petre
It's not impossible to make those in power give it up, but it requires a
revolution and revolutions sadly imply violence most of the time.

Switzerland was always an okay model of how to run a federation.

------
mrwilhelm
I can't believe they changed rules after the voting has started. These new
rule allows people to vote even if their envelopes don't have seal. This is
against constitution. It clearly states that these votes will not be count if
they don't have seals.

1.5 Million vote envelope don't have seals. Who knows where they came from?

Difference between yes-no around 1.3 million.

We just can't do anything about it.

~~~
low_battery
I was curious about this as well, and looked around a little. I am not sure
where you got these numbers, but apparently technically this is not a deal
breaker (And not against constitution at all):

([https://twitter.com/kenanipek53/status/853675735357247490](https://twitter.com/kenanipek53/status/853675735357247490))

I am sad that yes vote win, but continuously arguing for this kind of
technicalities doesn't really change anything.

------
a_alakkad
As a Syrian, Turkey is the most country that welcomes (and still welcoming) us
between its people.

All other countries (except some like Sudan) doesn't require a visa for
Syrians, while all other countries require one.

The world still doesn't understand this war we have and think it's a civil
war.

People can't imagine that the few news they hear is true, they think
exaggerated news.. believe me, it is not exaggerated at all, the opposite is
true.

Children died from chemical weapons, a father has held his two twins after
they died, all of this are happening to Syrians, and no one cares.

For Syrians, Turkey has done a lot and we appreciate it a lot, and we pray
that Turkey stays safe in all aspects.

~~~
erikb
You'r aware that the biggest EU nations made a deal with Turkey to take most
of the refugees? Turkey doesn't do it for fun, but because they get paid for
it.

I.e., if you want to thank anybody, thank the previous governments of western
EU countries (not the current ones) that educated their public enough to force
the governments into doing anything. Without fear of public opinion all
countries would've just shut their borders.

~~~
a_alakkad
Have you thought why EU nations paid Turkey for allowing refugees in, while
not allowing them to enter the EU directly?

And why they keep arguing with Turkey to keep the sea borders block so
refugees don't cross to Greece via sea?

~~~
erikb
Yes, I have. If you want to talk more about, please explain more what you want
to talk about.

------
giorgosts
Kemalist Turkey was authoritarian from its infancy, with the military
establishment in a central political role. Throughout its history, any attempt
for liberalization / democratization, respect for human / minority rights etc.
was quashed. This domestic and international behavior of Turkey was tolerated
by its western allies (namely US and UK) because of its friendly orientation
towards these powers. See for example the various coups and juntas, jailing of
opposition and journalists, banning of the minority rights (e.g. language) of
Kurds, the invasion and continuous occupation of Cyprus, etc.

The unknown factor from a western perspective is how this new Turkey will
align itself (or not) with western interests, not a sudden sympathy for fellow
Turks.

~~~
cm2187
The sad reality of the muslim world today is that if you let the people vote
freely, it votes for the islamists. So you kind of have to choose between
islamists elected democratically or a secular dictatorship. I am not sure
which I prefer.

~~~
kakaorka
I'm not sure that would be true in Egypt anymore.

------
dleslie
Worth noting is the extent of power held by the Canadian PM:

> As such, the prime minister, supported by the Office of the Prime Minister
> (PMO), controls the appointments of many key figures in Canada's system of
> governance, including the governor general, the Cabinet, justices of the
> Supreme Court, senators, heads of crown corporations, ambassadors to foreign
> countries, the provincial lieutenant governors, and approximately 3,100
> other positions.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Canada](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Canada)

Chilling, isn't it? Perhaps this change in Turkey is an opportunity to engage
in political change here in the Americas.

~~~
uncletaco
Worth also noting, is the extent of power granted to those who don't agree
with the Prime Minister.

> the commons may revoke its confidence in an incumbent prime minister and
> Cabinet or caucus revolts can quickly bring down a serving premier and even
> mere threats of such action can persuade and/or compel a prime minister to
> resign his post, as happened with Jean Chrétien.

> The Reform Act of 2014 codifies the process by which a caucus may trigger a
> party leadership review and, if necessary, choose an interim leader.

> Either the sovereign or his or her viceroy may oppose the prime minister's
> will in extreme, crisis situations.

Also what happens if the ruling party does not have a majority and they lose
the coalition that gives them enough seats to rule?

~~~
dleslie
The party whip all but ensures that a majority government does not fear
reprisal from the house.

Asking the sovereign to intervene is an extreme last-resort, having last
happened around forty years ago in Australia.

Canada's democracy functions excellently when in a minority; in that situation
the house has the balance of power, and not the PMO.

------
digi_owl
I see a whole lot of EU this, EU that.

But at the same time it is glossed over that Turkey is a NATO member, and the
second largest standing army within NATO.

------
whack
It seems somewhat premature to proclaim the death of Turkey, just because
they've expanded the powers of a democratically elected office. I often wonder
if the system of gridlock (ie, checks and balances) found in many democracies,
actually lead to better outcomes than having a system that is free of gridlock
but still accountable to voters through free elections.

~~~
jacquesm
It's more symbolic than that. Turkey as a secular state was founded by Kemal
Ataturk and many of the things that were put in place to maintain stability
and to keep things reasonably fair will be abolished or have been abolished.

So in that sense it is accurate to claim this is the death of Turkey, even
though the land borders aren't going anywhere.

Just like Persia preceded what we know as Iran today Turkey will now change
into something that you would not recognize as the country it was only two
decades ago.

The people that have means and/or skills are fleeing the country in droves (or
have been placed under arrest or are afraid to even voice their misgivings).
It's a very sad affair.

~~~
erikb
"The people that have means and/or skills"

Probably depends heavily on the kind of skills you have. Military minded and
super rich industrials may actually like the new system better.

------
lossolo
In 90s in Turkey, military was securing that country was non-clerical. When
president wanted to bring sharia he received call from head of military saying
that he have 24 hours to resign or army will act. No one is securing this now,
that's why turkey have new Sultan. Modern turkey society will be transformed
same way like it happened in Iran 40 years ago. Shame that coup d'etat was so
amateurish in Turkey, now it's too late.

~~~
mustaflex
The attempted coup was from an islamist faction not secular one, I know it is
more convenient for the west to think so but reality is not that white and
black. Secular forces in the army, media and state were purged in by a
coalition of erdogan and the gulenist(who attempted the coup) from 2007 to
2013. No one did care back then. What's happening in Turkey has nothing to do
with religion, yes it is a huge step back for Turkey but we'll have sharia law
sooner here in Brussels than in Turkey.

~~~
Freak_NL
> […] and the gulenist(who attempted the coup) […]

Allegedly.

~~~
mustaflex
No one is denying it in Turkey even Erdogan's strongest critics. The fact that
Erdogan used this opportunity to strengthen his position doesn't make it less
likely. I really don't know what we have to prove it but this kind of
dismissive attitude is really exasperating. Maybe they should've left some
signatures and selfies.

------
ajmurmann
It seems like most of these right wing leaders with authoritarian tendencies
are ejected primarily by poorer, rural people with less than average
education. I wonder why this is? Is it because they are hit harder by economic
problems? During time of economic struggle we seem more likely to elect
leaders like this. Or does it have to do with a lack of education? Maybe there
is yet another reason?

~~~
thriftwy
This is actually a good question.

Rural people voting to give their civil influence away. By putting all power
in one hands, making future elections meaningless and reducing power of civil
actions.

Why does this happen? Because in e.g. USA, rural areas are anti-big-government
and anti-power-centralization. Which is exactly opposite.

~~~
hospes
I think the reason is that they are the easiest group to manipulate, due to
their lack of education.

Somehow a lot of folks in rural US believe that:

* Billionaire real estate developer from wealthy family, who grew up in Queens and lives in Manhattan (both are the opposite of rural America), understands their problems and "feels their pain".

* Manufacturing jobs are coming back.

* Coal mines are coming back.

* Having less health care is more freedom.

* There are death panels in ACA (Obamacare).

List goes on and on...

It is easy to manipulate the uneducated people. That is one of the main
reasons that a lot of politicians have vested interest in keeping general
population uneducated. Educated people will never elect them, their corrupt
friends or their spoiled kids (who are gonna run for office soon). That is why
they do not want to increase spending on education.

------
whizzkid
I think it is important to note that voting resulted in Yes by %51-%48 which
is so close.

3 biggest cities in Turkey voted for No. These 3 cities are having the most
educated people. As long as people get more educated and it easier for them to
reach for knowledge, it is going to get better for Turkey.

~~~
mrwilhelm
It doesn't matter now.

------
Xeoncross
> Turkey’s Islamists have long venerated the Ottoman period. In doing so, they
> implicitly expressed thinly veiled contempt for the Turkish Republic. For
> Necmettin Erbakan, who led the movement from the late 1960s to the emergence
> of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in August 2001, the republic
> represented cultural abnegation and repressive secularism in service of what
> he believed was Ataturk’s misbegotten ideas that the country could be made
> Western and the West would accept it. Rather, he saw Turkey’s natural place
> not at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels but as a leader of the Muslim world,
> whose partners should be Pakistan, Malaysia, Egypt, Iran, and Indonesia.

------
danielam
Two articles by George Friedman on understanding what's happening in Turkey
and elsewhere:

[https://geopoliticalfutures.com/making-sense-of-
turkey/](https://geopoliticalfutures.com/making-sense-of-turkey/)

[https://geopoliticalfutures.com/turkey-secularism-and-
religi...](https://geopoliticalfutures.com/turkey-secularism-and-religion/)

------
my123
Might be a bit overblown - other presidential regimes such as France include
many of the powers that Erdogan is claiming. As long as guaranteeing an
independent judiciary can be done - the powers can be controlled(Trump
couldn't do what he wanted to by a long shot)

~~~
dmix
France's president can appoint cabinet members without parliamentary oversight
and has a strong influence over the courts?

Once you lose independence of the judiciary system you basically lost the last
remaining checks and balances. This is why I never bought into the threat of
fascism from Trump. He would have to make similar changes which would never
get off the ground. The US system has been shown to work exactly as intended
on a number of occasions in the last two months.

The problem is the executive state has grown significantly over the last few
decades in the US. But that was hardly unique to Trump.

If anything the main issue is the presidents ability to conduct 'military
actions' without congress. That seems like a major risk.

But compared to Turkey the situation is far better in other western states.
This is one situation where saying "USA DOES IT TOO!" can't be used to dismiss
this out of hand (or EU countries in this case). And even if they did it
wouldn't make it a good idea.

~~~
dleslie
Meanwhile, in Canada:

> As such, the prime minister, supported by the Office of the Prime Minister
> (PMO), controls the appointments of many key figures in Canada's system of
> governance, including the governor general, the Cabinet, justices of the
> Supreme Court, senators, heads of crown corporations, ambassadors to foreign
> countries, the provincial lieutenant governors, and approximately 3,100
> other positions.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Canada](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Canada)

~~~
1_2__3
You're certainly a busy bee, posting this repeatedly in this thread. Almost
like you have an agenda.

~~~
maxerickson
Twice isn't that much.

The bigger issue is their failure to add some context to make the comparison
actually interesting. Like they could say that Canadian Prime Ministers are
rarely removed from office
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_defeat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_defeated_by_votes_of_no_confidence#Canada)
). Nevermind that it has been done a number of times in an orderly fashion.

------
sukruh
The Wikipedia article also looks informative:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_constitutional_referen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_constitutional_referendum,_2017)

------
jbmorgado
Sincerely, as an European this makes me uneasy. Not because of Erdogan or
Turkey itself, that's not what takes my sleep. But for knowing that the spiral
into madness in Turkey now seems unstoppable and in 5/10/15 years it will blow
up and, yet again, Europe will be called to take care of their problems and,
yet again, be blamed for not doing enough.

Once again we will have to open our borders to this good people running away
from a war and once again we will have to pretend that the majority of them
didn't actually choose this way of life by supporting some dictator/ideology
whose main ideologic pillars are xenophoby against people that don't follow
their religion their way (Kurds) and a return to islamism in some form of
Sharia.

~~~
erikb
Some part of your thinking should consider how much both Syria and the current
development in Turkey results from EU actions. I wouldn't spend all my time
pointing fingers at others, but also spend some time thinking what we've done
and could've done differently.

~~~
jbmorgado
People like you gravely mix two very different concepts: not giving _even
more_ help to someone with being at fault for that someone's problems.

We can/should help those in need and in fact we _do_ help those in need, but
don't put the blame on us for those people grave conditions in the first
place.

~~~
erikb
We have actually part in creating the Syrian war, and we are also one of the
sources of why Turkey makes this political swing now.

For instance we should have known that if we don't consider Turkey as a
partner, that they will at some point say "x you" and look for support from
others. We could've also considered how we can take care of the refugees
instead of dropping them on weaker governments. And we could have also
considered how to treat Greece like a part of our community instead of sucking
them more and more dry, which leaves all other fringe EU countries wondering
how they will be treated if they ever get weaker.

~~~
jbmorgado
Oh, so it's _our fault_ that we asked for decades (while putting a _lot_ of
money there in EU lost funds) that:

\- Turkey brought their legal institutions to the modern times

\- that Turkey showed more respect for democratic and humanistic principles

\- that Turkey respected more the civil rights of their citizens

\- that Turkey respected their ethnic minorities (like the Kurds)

\- Turkey recognized a member of the EU as an actual country (Cyprus).

And then, after Turkey failed yet, and yet again to address all those problems
and we told them patiently yet again, that they needed to address those
problems and they still didn't, they decided they are not going to really try
and reverted the little work they had done.

And you come and blame the EU for wanting Turkey to become a country that
actually respects the right of its own citizens.

How could we be so heartless, right?

~~~
erikb
> Oh, so it's our fault

Yes. You still haven't managed to think about what's our fault and why yet,
though.

------
ythn
I don't want to start any flamewars, but how much responsibility does Islam
have in this development? Are there any Islam-majority countries whose
governments aren't garbage?

~~~
xeromal
I believe Azerbaijan not only is not a dictatorship, but is also a secular
government.

Iran isn't a dictatorship.

I'm sure there are more, but these are off the top of my head.

~~~
cm2187
There are other democracies. Tunisia. Indonesia. There are also free elections
in Morocco even if the king has a strong power. But pretty much every muslim
country has to deal with a rising, if not dominant islamism in its various
forms (of which AKP is one).

It really feels like a repeat of communism. The rise of an ideology across the
world. It's not an homogeneous block. Various muslim ethnic groups hate each
others, as did the Maoists, Stalinists, Trotskyist, etc. It happens pretty
much everywhere there is a muslim population. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Lybia, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia / Eritrea, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. Western leaders like to pretend that
islamists are a minority of extremist groups but the reality is that pretty
much anytime there has been a free-ish election in any of these countries, the
islamists toped the polls, or got an outright majority.

I think it will get worse before it gets better.

~~~
guftagu
When was the last time Pakistan elected an Islamist government? The last PPP
government was pretty secular and the current one is also in the middle if not
purely secular. The only time a truly Islamist government was formed in
Pakistan was when US puppet dictator Zia ul Haq took over to fight the commies
in Afghanistan. Pakistan has many different Islamist parties but they struggle
to get even a handful of seats.

------
diminish
Sadly it's the time of the populists, racists and fascists all over.

RIP Austria (OVP), long time ago. RIP France (soon, NF - Le Pen). RIP Germany
(soon AfD). RIP Holland (soon Vilgers), RIp Russia, RIP Hungary. In similar
lines - Maybe RIP USA too. (Trump).

~~~
erikb
In both France and Germany the left wing is actually much more likely to gain
government power than the right wing. Both is bad for a EU, but if you only
worry about the right wing you can probably calm down at this point.

I'd say more RIP USA than RIP <western european government> for now.

~~~
diminish
You're right - actually among all those, Germany appears to be the most immune
to right-populism.

~~~
erikb
Are you aware that one could read your comment 100% serious as well as 100%
sarcastic? Which one is it?

------
pknerd
So just because Turks opted for an "Islamist" government, Western media have
been mourning for hours. Had it been someone like Sissy then everyone was
going to praise about it.

I can laugh at the hypocrisy of Western media and it's support to.. Democracy.

PS: Thanks for down vote, I can understand this unexpected results are not
making many happy, that's OK. I was not happy when Trump became President but
then I respect the choice of voters :-)

~~~
trendia
You say they're hypocritical but you're using a hypothetical (el-Sisi). Maybe
if you want to say the Western media is hypocritical, you should use an
example of a non-Muslim dictator being praised.

Besides, even if Erdogan had been Christian, the end result would be the same:
he now has fewer controls on his power, fewer people he needs to make happy to
stay in power, and more ways to entrench himself in the Turkis government.

~~~
pknerd
All I know that Erdogan is way better than a _genius_ Americans elected for
their country :-)

~~~
halfdan
That does not legitimise anything you said or anything Erdogan is doing.

~~~
pknerd
What all he is doing, one can like or dislike but Turks are supporting him.
Why irrelevant people are worried? Americans selected Trump, I definitely did
not like it but then I respect their choice. You should do the same.

------
na85
An important step in world history, to be sure. However this decay of the Rule
of Law is happening everywhere, not just in West Asia. People always turn
towards authoritarianism when the going gets tough. One has only to look at
the United States to see that the Rule of Law hasn't been respected for years:
politicians and public officials perjuring themselves, intelligence agencies
run amok, flagrant civil rights violations by police.

It's easy to justify one's actions, no matter how repugnant, against the
spectre of some unknown enemy.

~~~
purple-again
You honestly believe that if you compared 1967 USA to 2017 USA it would score
WORSE on any of the categories you mentioned?

Politicians and public officials perjuring themselves (2 years from Nixon)

Intelligence agencies run amok (CIA toppling governments like they are made
out of cards)

Flagrant civil rights violations by police (LOL no example needed here I
should hope)

Please don't conflate better information with worse conditions. Things have
never been better and they are getting better all the time (public shaming of
politicians who say or do stupid shit, Snowden level leaks of intelligence
agency bad behavior, federally recognized rights for gays in the military and
marriage etc).

~~~
na85
At least Nixon was forced out of office. What consequence has befallen Clapper
for perjuring himself in front of Congress?

CIA and NSA are enjoying unprecedented levels of low oversight and restraint.

For all the "public shaming" that is supposedly happening, where are the
actual consequences?

------
xmonader
Well, Turkey represents the dream of what every muslim wants and been like
that before attaturk denounced caliphat.

Just leave the people the chance to state/express what they want
(democratically) without coups that we always suffer from. When the people
choice doesn't go with the west the unleash their military pets and force a
coup.

~~~
kesselvon
The muslim world seems perpetually hungry for a strongman leader

~~~
cremno
I didn't know countries like the USA are majority muslim.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Or Russia, or much of Latin America.

