
Turkey Purges 4,000 More Officials, and Blocks Wikipedia - alexbecker
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/world/europe/turkey-purge-wikipedia-tv-dating-shows.html
======
jwilk
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225602](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225602)

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DanielBMarkham
When a noted hacker dies, the community usually mourns them. We all talk about
how they impacted our life -- as we should.

When some political ruckus erupts, either we all gang together in our pre-
defined groups and throw monkey poo at one another -- or we ignore it. HN has
been better than most places at trying to ignore politics.

But every so often there's a story like Turkey -- it's politics, it non-nerd-
related, and it's tragic.

We are watching a modern country go down the toilet, one little bit at a time.
It's a slow motion train wreck where it's not just one person we'll mourn:
it's an entire country.

My heart goes out to my friends living in Turkey and the rest of those folks
who have to live through this. This is the rare story that I think folks all
over can agree is an extremely sad one.

I'd love to Monday-morning quarterback this thing, talk about how NATO
membership needs to be withdrawn and so forth -- but it's just too tragic
right now. It's too much.

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makmanalp
Through the course of a decade I've seen my country run into the ground. It
certainly was a flawed one to begin with, but now we've lost any dignity or
respect. I'm embarrassed of our leaders, and those who continue to support
them.

Online, I've seen the Wikipedia ban being discussed among AKP supporters and
the others, and a lot of people responded "what, should Wikipedia be above the
law?". That is what we've been reduced to - propaganda is not even necessary
anymore.

~~~
a2tech
Leave. Its not easy (in fact I know its incredibly hard) but come to the US.
Its not perfect, but even though we have an..argumentative democracy we
(mostly) get along. Come and help us be better. Throw your voice and talent
in. I have a Turkemen exchange student staying with us right now and they
think of Turkey as being overwhelmingly better than Turkmenistan-come to the
US which is the same but with Turkey and the Turkmenistan reversed :-)

~~~
Mithaldu
Recommend any of the north-western/central europe countries instead. Germany,
Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, heck even
Finland. Any of them is a better place to live in than the USA on almost every
given axis of measure, and many of them already have plenty turks there
providing help and support with integration.

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diminish
The purge ( and the whitelists) are lower level followers of the Fethullah
Gulen ( a Muslim Imam settled in Pennsylvania ) sect, a cold war religious
network which penetrated a vast part of state apparatus as part of a Nato plan
to prevent a communist revolution to move the country towards the Soviets
which is part of the Super Gladio. During this 30 years the Gulen people in
full secrecy, stole national exam papers for many institutions, blackmailed
and jailed and sometimes killed anyone on their roads. Erdogan, EU and USA saw
them as best friends to secretly mute any opposition.

After 2012 Obama's reluctance of putting American soldiers on the ground paved
the way for Pentagon/CIA to intervene by toppling government​s in middle East
and Africa and use killer drones to kill enemies. As democratically elected
Erdogan and CIA's best friend Gulen went into a full stage war on who is going
to manage the county, the weird Washington network (read Michael Rubin and
Stratfor) made a last ditch effort to topple the democratically elected
government of Turkey by using the alien chestburst tactic with Gulen sect. The
members of the sect failed as they don't have a strong idea to offer to he
people except finding some support in Washington and Europe.

NYT echoes part of the small Washington circle pissed off because the coup
failed.

Turkey is a sophisticated semi industrialized country with strong
globalization and A military coup by a religious actor won't work here as
opposed to Sisi's in Egypt.

Actually we are living the seismic after effects of the fall of the Soviets,
as Nato, EU and Nafta, South Asia all face major changes in coming years.

So don't worry too much about Turks. we ll do fine. In a couple of years there
is an increased chance that democratically new movements will win against
Erdogan.

No dramas and if you need dramas look at every Western country with their own
major problems.

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ercu
Blocking wikipedia was ridiculous and doesn't fix the problem of biased
moderators doing propaganda on wikipedia articles. Many people believe russia
and iran have teams for editing articles [1], so maybe it's better all
governments do the same instead of blocking it. People should know that this
is not Erdogan's decision, but a court's.

I think it's done on purpose on the news but purging 4000 officials is not
related to any dictatorship power of Erdogan. Those officials came to those
positions by just being a member of an islamic organisation and by preventing
competent people taking the job. What is happening in Turkey is, we see Karma
is working.

[1][in Turkish] [https://eksisozluk.com/wikipediadaki-fars-sovenizmini-
engell...](https://eksisozluk.com/wikipediadaki-fars-sovenizmini-engelleme-
timi--4962974)

~~~
ralfn
>so maybe it's better all governments do the same instead of blocking it.

This may be a difference between the east and west. The lightness in which
"blocking" is mentioned. For the west you can replace that word with
"censhorship" "fascism" for equal emotional impact.

Because freedom of speech and information is the one thing that binds us all
in the West. Its why we can disagree non violently.

You may understand, though maybe not agree, with the strong anti Erdogan
sentiment in the West. The bad guy has already been established and Erdogan is
playing the part way too well.

And yes, we are fully aware of the hypocracy in terms of foreign policy, when
it comes to this topic.

~~~
diminish
To be fair when AKP was west darling's in mid 2000s , YouTube, blogger and
many service were blocked.

Your love for "Freedom of speech and information" didn't stop NYT, EU and the
western echo chambers cheering Erdogan a leader for democracy.

So don't trick yourself by imitating the "we have values" game. Noone has.

~~~
ralfn
>So don't trick yourself by imitating the "we have values" game. Noone has.

I would argue that people do have values. Corporations and governments on the
other end...

Keep in mind that its almost yesterday the west burried their notion of multi-
culturalism. In the 90ties it was still considered racist to apply our moral
values on people of another culture.

We were definately measuring with two different standards. And as a result,
the censorship back then wasn't considered news.

Not that the hypocracy is gone. I dont think thats possible in a world where
the west does any kind of bussiness with the Saudi's.

But you can see the change in perspective by for example looking at the
general debate surrounding the working conditions in FoxConn.

In retrospect its all obvious. Globalism leads to an inevitable culture war.
You cant have one world with multiple sets of moral rules. The working
conditions in one place impact the availability of jobs and working conditions
in other places.

Things have changed. Ten years ago, freedom of press in the West would be
something that we would fight (and kill) for, but we were not applying it to
exotic cultures. Nowadays, freedom of the press for any nation is an instant
"are you part of modern civilisation" or are you an enemy choice.

I completely understand your frustration. The thing about public opinion is
that its not like policy. Its inherently schizofrenic and contradictionary.

I am trying to explain the general sentiment towards Erdogan and why he has
zero friends left in the West. It doesnt mean i think its actually this black
and white.

The thing is: we have seen his speeches on TV. We didnt before. He called
Holland nazi's for example. That alone has completely ruined any credits he
had in Europe. No western politician can even smile at him right now and
politically survive. He has no future and with him Turkey doesnt either and
this has nothing to do with other political factions in Turkey.

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merchang
I'm too young to have a wide enough frame of reference, and I'm sure a lot of
this can be marked up to the type of stories that sell clicks. But I can't
help but to think that lately the news reads like a history textbook
explaining the political situations that led up to a world war.

~~~
zanny
This isn't a fantasy novel. We have well established since WW2 that there will
not be another global conflict like the world wars. There can't be. We are
nuclear. We will continue to see regional proxy war conflicts between global
superpowers, but outright declarations of war between NATO and anything else
would be extinction.

Too many checks are in place on launch codes worldwide to let one lunatic end
civilization. We were much, _much_ closer to annihilation 40 years ago. This
is little league instability.

~~~
unityByFreedom
> there will not be another global conflict like the world wars

If only one could guarantee such a thing. Yet we know there are madmen out
there, angry enough to push that button, or lead armies to conquer more
territory. Humans aren't much different today than we were 1,000 years ago.

~~~
zanny
That isn't a world war. You cannot have another Hitler who tries to push a
ground army to conquer the territorial first world. The nukes would fly well
before then, and since its _not_ a world war, and just one isolated country
going insane, we probably wouldn't resort to that - it would just be a counter
insurgency from the way-better-armed NATO allies.

The only economies capable of waging a war "from the other side" on NATO are
China and Russia, and the keys of their economies care too much about not
dying to let some lunatic take over these states to wage a world war.

The early 20th century was a transitionary period where plutocrats learned
that war between powers was no longer profitable. As soon as it stopped being
an economically beneficial act to try to conquer, people stopped doing it.
That is why Russia is able to still conquer foreign land - they _know_ nobody
cares enough to stop them, so they can just grab it for free. They also know
they could _never_ try that against a NATO member or first world nation,
because it would end them. They are too rational in their behavior for that
kind of stupidity.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Neither of us can predict the future with certainty.

Russia could keep taking non-NATO land, while new nations seek admission to
NATO. At some point, Russia could dispute the status of a new-NATO member
claiming they already held that territory or some such.

You can't know what increased tensions will lead to. Bay of Pigs and the cold
war were very real. Tensions in the South China Sea and North Korea are real.
The fondness that the US president holds for murderous conservative leaders,
and his disdain for left-leaning leaders, are real.

I would mention the pact the UK signed with Poland days before Germany decided
to invade anyway, however, you claim the circumstances are different now and
that history is irrelevant. I'd say ignoring history is foolish.

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blitmap
For a second there I thought: purges -> executes

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easilyBored
Turkey is big and important enough (NATO + bridge with that area) not to care
what others think.

Erdogan hates a FB posting or Wikipedia article? Ban them! Of course they
aren't going to remove everything that displease an up and coming dictator. I
think Turkey was saved until now by military coups.

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helthanatos
Maybe if Wikipedia would control the out-of-control editors, they would be
more respected. Sadly, Wikipedia has always had a problem with truth because
it documents everything and not everything can be checked without experts
looking. There's a big issue with people removing good sources and adding bad
ones or none at all to change the claims made in the article.

~~~
pcwalton
Can you point me to any evidence that Erdogan is acting in good faith at all?

