
Is Turkey Still a Democracy? - ayanai
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/14/is-turkey-still-a-democracy/
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ep103
I still remember, 10 years or so ago, watching a debate between Hitchens, and
a preeminent Islamic scholar. Hitchens was arguing that while strict religious
beliefs generally made it difficult to have a secular democracy, the special
nature of Islam made it more or less outright impossible.

The scholar argued that Hitchens was simply out of touch with reality, and
regularly pointed to Turkey as proof that widespread Islamic faith was
compatible with democracy.

I don't have any knowledge of world religions, really. And I know countries
like Albania are mostly muslim and seem to be doing okay. But that debate
comes to mind every time I see a headline about Turkey these days.

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pjc50
It's no more incompatible with democracy than any other religion. The problem
lies with Islam _ism_ , the illiberal belief by some muslims that Islam should
be superior to democracy, liberalism, individual rights and so on.

(See Christian "Dominionism" for the same sub-belief within Christianity)

~~~
ep103
well look, I'm absolutely not an expert. But the argument that Hitchens was
making was that Islam, more than any other major religion, very explicitly
dictates things of a governmental nature. Christianity has the 10
commandments, and so on, but Islam has much more social governance and legal
apparatus woven into its ideology, and taken "as gospel".

Its part of the reason why people get so scared of things like Shiara law and
Shiara courts. But regardless, Hitchens' argument was that without resorting
to exaggeration and fear mongering, because the ideology leans further in that
governmental direction, it makes it harder to square with modern secular
democracy than other religions would.

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eli_gottlieb
It's a funny sort of "democracy" that regularly jails journalists, purges its
institutions, and runs a one-party state with a singular leader at the top.

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nonamehb
"Democracy in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens
exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form
a governing body, such as a parliament" This is from wikipedia.

We can not say there is no democracy in Turkey because Erdogan is leading in
the elections.

The majority in Turkey wants Erdogan.

Technically this is democracy.

But Erdogan's behaves may not be modest,his genre is tough.But this is not
mean that Erdogan doesnt act in democratic way.

If public cant elect his leader,then we say there is no democracy.

By the way I dont like Erdogan attidues against Turkey's civillians and also
his economic management.

~~~
woodandsteel
Yes, but liberal democracy respects the various human rights, including to
free speech and freedom of the press. It also doesn't have a state religion.
Turkey is an illiberal democracy, and rapidly becoming less so.

~~~
nonamehb
In Turkey people respects human rights,by the way you can look this link
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Medina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Medina)

this is explain everything I guess.Befero Magna Carta there was Constitution
of Medina. We know human rights.All of you should stay away from Turkey. You
were talking about free speech and freedom of the press.You can watch turkish
press from TV. All of them can speak what they want. All of them can judge
their Leader by free style.

But of course we are not perfect like anybody in the world.

I know what are you mentioning but these Journalists spoke wrong and ugly. You
can judge anyone but everybody has limits.This is also human rights.

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rurban
It's soon to be called a Sultanat. And Erdogan the new Atatürk.

~~~
jbmorgado
Atatürk fought all his life for democracy, respect for state institutions and
for secularity. He was the exact opposite of Erdogan.

~~~
rurban
Well yes, but Atatürk was also a staunch Nazi supporter. He fought islamism,
was a champion for modernism and secularism, and was not really a champion for
democracy.

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TurboHaskal
Is democracy an end in itself?

~~~
jbmorgado
No, but it would certainly be a major upgrade to what Turkey has at the
moment.

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moomin
Betteridge's Law

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GuB-42
No, it's a bird.

~~~
rnmp
I was going to post same thing lol

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sametmax
It has never been a democracy. But again the us and europe have no democracies
either. Only a lot of freedom.

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neoeldex
What is your definition of a democracy? Imo it's not a binary term

~~~
sametmax
demo => the people, krato => the power.

The problem is not the system here. It's the fact people are not willing to
use the power they have. They don't vote with their money, act like citizen,
organize their life so that it reflects the way they wants things to be.

Having children is a political statement. Watching TV is a political
statement. Getting in shape. Eating at mac Donald. Leaving in the city.
Working in a bank. Taking a loan. Having a car. Dressing up. Embracing
religion.

Every decision of life has consequences on the system. This is the power
people have. They seldom use it for a lot of good and bad reasons. Indeed, if
you make a default choice, something you don't think about, or something you
refuse to bother with, you give up your power.

Often they will say "there is nothing we can do" or "it's x's fault". But the
reality is, it's impossible NOT to change the world. You just change it
locally, at your scale, all the time.

A democracy can only work if the majority of the people are trying to make it
work. If they just live in it, any system will decay, no matter how fair and
benevolent it is. A system is just a canvas. There are better than others, but
eventually democracy is how we are using it.

Actually having democracy implies thinking less about freedoms and more about
responsibilities, and how to all share them. Few people want to do that. You
can't blame us, it's hard, exhausting and scary. It's easier to expect the
system to be fair, to have "people that know" being responsible, and to be far
away from the consequences of failure.

Voting a few times in X years is not democracy. Delegating power to a minority
is not people having power. It's quite the contrary. If people accepted real
power, we would have much more numerous, regular and direct access to the
management of our society.

Note that I'm not saying I'm unhappy in our current systems. It's been very
generous with me, I enjoy a good life with many benefits, more than most on
earth, more than even most of my neighbors.

It's just not a democracy. We never had one. Just like we never had a
communist society. We tried, but until now we failed. And despite that we
labeled wrongly the failed attempts which became canonical examples, twisting
the definition.

I'm not sure it's a bad thing : I doubt humanity is ready for democracy. We
can't bother reading a "confirm/cancel" prompt, let alone all the political
programs on election month. Maybe we need to try something as a transition
instead of jumping around and pretending we are already were we need to be.

