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Comment by lightedman | Hacker News Reader

Bingo. The military was organized not only for defense but to specifically prevent things like this - a religion-driven dictator - from taking over the government.

Anyone that's been paying attention to Turkey for the past decade knew of this. It's one of the reasons I hang on Camfrog, the Turkish are prevalent there (although typically the ones you encounter are just trying to harass women into displaying some skin. Mention politics and their attention changes drastically.)

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So military dictatorship overthrowing democracy= good. Democratically elected islamist government = bad.

Got it.

That should be self-evident.

Not everything involving a voting booth is really democratic.

I'm not going to debate the dictatorship part of your comment, but is there a islamist government (elected or not) that has been good for human rights - or any religion based government for that matter?

Not really. But military safeguards pretty much worked in secular Turkey. In establishing those lies Mustafa Kemal's genius.

Keep in mind that this referenfum was organized under a state of emergency imposed after last year's failed coup. So its democratic nature is rather questionable. The No campaigners were misrepresented and harassed.

And the media were mostly controlled by Erdogan & company.

Is there any government good for human rights? I'm thinking about Iran, which is obviously a horrible place now for human rights, but it wasn't exactly a wonderland before the Islamic revolution either.

> but it wasn't exactly a wonderland before the Islamic revolution either.

No, the Shah was pretty brutal. Besides SAVAK there were many other really bad episodes, one of which I read about some years ago but have never forgotten about as the epitome of decadency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,500_year_celebration_of_the_...

Use some nuance and common-sense, rather than jump to an over-simplistic, extreme argument. If said military had an alternative leader better than Stalin or Hitler, that's an obvious improvement.

Except a democratically elected islamic government is turning into an islamic dictatorship.

Um, no.

Turkey is a peculiar case. Turkey's post-Ataturk government has (usually) been more secular than the United States (to the point of--at times--making it illegal for women to cover their heads). It was quite a pleasant place for non-muslims to visit, e.g. alcohol was legal and widely available, and Israelis routinely went on holiday to the Turkish coast.

In the past, when the Turkish government has veered toward theocracy, the military has stepped in, restored democracy, and stepped back. The coup didn't work this time, and its failure made the theocracy stronger. I fear that secular Turkey is over.

Believing that a secular state de-facto ruled by the military is the best option for Turkey is certainly a viewpoint people have. I mostly object to calling that situation "democracy".

Turkey is not "de-facto ruled by the military." The military has historically taken orders from elected civilian leaders as long as those leaders embrace democracy and equality and the principles of Ataturk. When the civilian leaders veer too far from what they were elected to do, the military steps in and stops it, then retreats. Turkey's military is like the US Supreme Court; it's a check on the ambitions of fanatical would-be dictators who want to divide the country and pit groups against one another. This is certainly not how military coups usually work, which is why I said Turkey was a special case. (Except this time the coup failed and the dictator won.)

What? Seriously man! let me get it right. You think that people shouldn't be allowed to choose the Ideologies of their home country. That they shouldn't strive for their freedom and fight corruption and poverty. And you think that military coups and secular leadership persecution is the way to go for non western countries?

I can't respond to this because your assumptions display too much ignorance of Turkish history.

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