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]

World Net Daily as a source? O.o OK.

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.

[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

[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

[luvdovz]

Well, in all fairness, you were the one who kept pressing on that bit. ;)