The feeling is mutual, kthxbye

[mahnmut]

"The Constitution of Turkey establishes the Republic of Turkey as a secular state and provides for freedom of conscience, religious belief, and conviction, as well as freedom of expression and dissemination of thought".

Does freedom from religion count too, I wonder? Um, guess not:

In a nutshell: "Atheists are animals".

That's nice, you know.

Comments

[underlankers]

I've said in every single post (and for the bulk of that one) that I think that the conduct of the Turkish state and the Islamist party associated with it and Erdogan's regime is deplorable. There was one line about WND in that post and there was a much longer paragraph decrying Turkey (as opposed to rhetorically and reflexively defending it like I believe it was expected for me to do as I expect I'm one of the people called out for 'defending' Turkey because I don't like the PKK worth a damn).

You wrote about the one line involving WND and not the paragraph that went:

"I was hoping that the Turkish Islamists would be more in the vein of the Christian Democrats, but they keep disappointing me by proving to be slightly less thuggish equivalents of the Muslim Brotherhood. Then again as Donald Trump shows, nothing about democracy or 'moderate' options means people would actually choose them, the masses have through the 6,000 years of human history as civilization repeatedly taken self destructive choices before. Also sad that Turkey almost caricatures at this point the idea that the region can choose between secular dictators or theocrats as the champions of the masses as they actually are."

I was actually hoping for a discussion based on that, not the one line about WND. Which so far hasn't actually happened in this thread yet even though the bulk of the OP you responded to was about this repeating (and preceding, technically) the Egyptian pattern and why the region seems stuck between secular autocrats and backward medieval masses.

[mahnmut]

OK. Let's have that discussion.

What's the reason for that region to continuously take self-destructive decisions?

[underlankers]

I believe it's because the dictators destroyed any potential secular opposition to themselves in a democratic fashion, first and foremost.

Second, monocrop economies tend to be relatively barren soil for democracies to rise on as it's easier for dictators to buy contentment in a short and a medium term.

Third, democracy just gives people the power to make decisions, it does not guarantee that they make the right decision on a logical basis. Demagogues wouldn't exist if that were so.

Fourth, that democracy is associated with bloody, chaotic, and self-destructive Western invasions probably hasn't really helped its case that much either, as if the fruit of Israel and the US invasion of Iraq is what it is, I wouldn't exactly see Western democracy as something more than a potential source of death by bombing.

[underlankers]

In the specific case of Turkey, it's never really been a democracy and people like Ataturk and Inonu established a regime that relied on overmighty generals while constricting the fruit of a real democratic experiment. Generally speaking, political parties that rise in more autocratic environments aren't really that democratic themselves, especially when religion gets involved. I think that the course of action Erdogan takes is because the Turkiye Islamists are really a self-destructive force in a democratic sense and he really doesn't want to be overthrown by yet another long-lived regime ruled by a general.

It creates a spasm of further self-destruction and reliance on a siege mentality to try to balance between a pool of hydroflouric acid and one with starving rabid crocodiles that's probably not going to work for him in the medium or long term anyhow, but won't readily be reversed in a short term sense by anyone who'd succeed him.

The region's been a mess for at least 100 years and further generations just snarl the mess up worse, they really aren't even trying to resolve it. NATO already let Turkey and Greece get away with one fratricidal war, so I wouldn't be shocked if that sent to Ankara a basic green light to do whatever it wants whenever it wants without real restraint, either.

So I'd expect part of this has some routes not just in the AKP but in Cyprus, as well, and NATO's permissiveness toward Turkey leading to the same "Well, if we're not going to get into real trouble for it" mentality Putin has.

[mahnmut]

Yes, but why were those dictators allowed to destroy any opposition to themselves? Who allowed them, if not their own society? And if it did allow them this, then why do some people persist with the notion that those societies truly desire democracy, when every bit of evidence that we've seen thus far seems to strongly suggest that no, hell no, they do not.

When Egypt earned its democracy by deposing Mubarak, it chose the Muslim Brotherhood. Then the military did what the military in Turkey had been doing for decades under the Kemalist model: saw that the people were straying way off course, and removed the Muslim Brotherhood. Now Egypt has substituted what was fast shaping up to become a theocratic autocracy with a military autocracy. Where's democracy in this equation? You guessed right: nowhere. The people didn't want it.

Why do we keep measuring these societies through our own measuring system? And are we sure we truly know what's best for them, to be so insistent about our nation-building efforts?

[underlankers]

Because the West and East made much of the system and preferred dictators who were brutal but reliable to murkier democracy.

I would say we clearly don't know what is best for the people there, but oil and Jerusalem are why Islamists in Syria and Turkey are seen as existential threats but Islamists in oil rich Nigeria who are a larger, more murderous, better organized movement, are not.

[htpcl]

There's been a notion around these latitudes that cultures like ours (Balkan, Middle Eastern, East European, even Latin American or any other Second- and Third-Worldean) are incapable, unwilling, and undeserving of a truly open democratic societal model. What they've always known, are accustomed to, and are only responsive to, is the "firm hand" approach. Even when we do have something resembling democracy, it's usually restricted within some boundaries, often imposed forcefully. Like the military in Turkey, which for a long time was considered a "guarant" of secular democracy - but only you dare stray off course, they'd hit you with a 5-ton cartoon Acme anvil on the head.

We've had some pseudo-democracy for some time here too, and we're now mostly disgusted with the results. So we've chosen what seemed at the time like a "strong-hand" macho leader to show us the way and tell us what's best for us. He turned out a pussy with muscles eventually, but the idea was still there. You get the idea. Every society deserves exactly the rulers that it gets.