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Comment by beloch | Hacker News Reader

I'm a canuck who has worked with Turks and has visited Turkey. They're a wonderful people from a beautiful country with a real problem of a person in power. Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, yet they produce alcohol and tolerate its consumption within their borders, even by their own people. Let that fact sink in for a moment. Erdogan is subverting the premier secular democracy of the Islamic world, but nobody seems to care.

Turkey is nothing like the common stereotypes we have of it in the West, but Erdogan is a guy who, I think, wants to change that. A wonderful human being who I've had the privilege of knowing is currently in prison in Turkey on absolutely baseless accusations[1]. Nobody in Canada gives a damn because he was an "Imam", and that's a scary word apparently.

People in the West need to wake up and do their due diligence on Erdogan's regime. There's some seriously scary stuff happening because of this guy.

[1]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/davud-hanci-turkey-cou...

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Plenty of people care, but what are we supposed to do about it? Here in Europe Erdogan makes the headlines from time to time, right before the referendum he made several speeches where he called the politicians of multiple countries "descendants of nazis" and similar. Everybody knows that he cares more about suppressing the Kurds than ISIS. He holds Europe hostage by threatening to release large amounts of refugees into Europe, not dissimilar to what Qaddafi did. We've been hearing about the increasing religiosity pretty much since he took office.

It's one more example of a common pattern where the rural and the urban population disagrees, due to globalization, increased liberal ideas in cities, and a switch from manufacturing to service jobs. It seems to be universal that the rural population is more religious, less prepared for a global economy, and in general more backwards, yearning for times that aren't here anymore.

I think we should stop communicating from the top. Many problems right now are because heads of state, not necessarily people. Erdogan, Putin ...

We should try to get real people to talk, about who they are, what they want (peace ? surely .. war ? not so sure). So peoples in every nation start to avoid the national/patriot filter when thinking and voting.

> I think we should stop communicating from the top. Many problems right now are because heads of state, not necessarily people.

Damn right. If the people in charge could stop trying to exercise power and just leave everybody alone, we'd all be much better off.

Imagine the Turkish coup was organized and executed properly and they succeeded.

Who takes power? Does it create a vacuum? A civil war? I often ponder these "alternate history timelines" and try to imagine what the world might be like.

Turkey has had several coups. So I'd look at what happened after the previous ones.

None of them bore any resemblance to Erdogan. All the previous ones were the army emerging from its barracks, deposing democratically elected and popular governments they thought too Islamic/not secular enough and returning to their barracks. The current political situation is a result of the increasing democratisation that the EU encouraged. Erdogan would never have been tolerated before.

In this case it's especially ironic. The Army regarded themselves as the guardians of Turkey's secular democracy - even if that meant acting anti-democratically. This is of course a problematic position.

Now Erdogan - as a result of genuine democratic support- has gained enough power to make his move and has resolved to dismantle democracy and weaken certain factions in the Army to protect himself against any similar future coups.

Actually the kemalist factions in the army and police were the guardians of secularism (not quite a secular democracy but close) until Erdogan took care of them.

Well... It was properly executed and it has succeeded in giving Erdogan more power.

I asked a Turkish friend if she thought the coup being a false flag operation was an outlandish conspiracy theory and she strongly disagreed.

Of course that means nothing other than "one specific liberal ex-pat Turk believe X was plausible" but it's one more data point.

Coup was probably real but failed and Erdogan exploited it for his own ends. He's a very able and dangerous politician.

Real people rarely want war, they all want the same basic things: food and shelter, a good future for their kids, and to live in peace. This is universal over the whole world, unless they've had their minds poisoned by leaders with their own agendas, be it political or religious.

However, most people also don't really care that much about other people, especially in other countries. So they elect people to handle that for them, and then believe what they're told. Mark Twain's quote "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness" seems fitting. With modern tech you can communicate with people all over the world without traveling (I'm in my underwear in Sweden right now for instance), which helps widening the gap between the "liberal elite" and the rest who feel left behind or that their country is taken away from them.

One thing that contradicts that in a way is the fact that a majority of the expat Turks living in Europe voted for the new referendum giving Erdogan much more power. More than 63% voted yes in Germany for instance.

I have a lot to say to and ask you, but right now I'll say you're right.

Nobody wants war, but in most context people don't feel the need to handle their lives either. Democracy re-emerges after wars because the people felt hard and had to suffer and wake up, so now it's obvious and easier to act for peace and democracy.

Seems like societies just have a MTBF of 50 years and after that war acts as a reset button.

ps: travel quote is neat

> Seems like societies just have a MTBF of 50 years and after that war acts as a reset button.

Exactly my thoughts. Now how could we replace overreliance on unrealistic uptime goals with scheduled maintenance?

Sure, but what we need right now IMO, is calming shock among populations to reduce pressure/heat/tension all over. Then we can start exchanging peacefully and efficiently, and discuss alternatives. We need to slow down the boat.

A big solar flare might do the trick.

> Nobody wants war

Unfortunately that's not quite true. It is true that very few people want war as an end in itself (though even then there are exceptions) but some people want something else (land, power, eliminating the infidels) for which they are willing to pay the price of war -- especially if they can coerce someone else to do the fighting on their behalf.

> More than 63% voted yes in Germany for instance.

I also was baffled about the results of the Turkish vote abroad. How is it possible that, in many EU states, they won which such a majority? I would have expected expats to be generally more liberal/globalist/progressive.

When you don't feel the effects of your vote, you don't care about what you vote. I feel like this was the case of the referendum.

Haha, doubly amazing comment. That's indeed a very very possible reason. Same thing happened in France, people not impacted by a new airport all voted for it, people near the landing lanes voted against.

Also, there was an article about learned helplessness, how to craft depression into animals by confusing their brain when searching for way to stop suffering. Very similar root cause.

That's why the Swiss system is better. Only locals get to vote on local issues (building an airport, as opposed to giving Erdogan superpowers which affects the whole country and maybe even those around it).

It's easy to blame it on "ignorance" as "I am not there, so I don't know". In that country they also voted for it.

Why don't we simply face the ugly truth that most people who voted for YES are the alpha-males, unable to speak the country language, living in parallel societies, who want submissive women?

That's the kind of stereotype that Erdogan wants. I mean, Kurds are nice people, but for some reason they need to be wiped out. Boh!?

It also has to do with culture freeze. When people leave their country of origin, they try and retain the culture they left with, and fail to change with the country over decades. It's a type of coping mechanism for when they enter an unfamiliar place.

If "you don't care about what you vote" you don't vote.

When I lived in Germany a lot of the Turks I knew were very right wing. They were against asylum seekers and would have kicked out foreigners if they could have. The people in the US who are against big government while receiving government pensions remind me a little of that mindset.

Most of the Turks I have had contact with in Germany are racist against Germans (they are jealous of the lifestyle, or for whatever other reason).

The reason they are against asylum seekers may be simpler as it seems: they know that the situation was going to create troubles and escalate, and therefore it will be blamed on the dark ones (the focus is on them). Can you distinguish a Turkish from a Syrian, for example? Furthermore, with this huge expenses for refugees, the social money is likely to be reduced, and I don't have the numbers, but many of them live off of the social security provided by the state. (without even considering the money they get for the kids)

My experience is from the time before the refugee crisis. At that time asylum seekers were mainly from Africa.

Yeah, which kind of fits the description.

I mean, I do understand their concerns, which is really sad...

Many dark foreigners have the same point of view. In such white countries, more dark foreigners mean more chance of troubles for them. Dark, slightly dark, black, etc, they all belong in one category: dark foreigners. Even Indians, who do not have absolutely anything in common with Africans, for example, still belong to the same category.

If an Indian does something bad, dark people will suffer from it.

Same for social security: they'll have less, considering that many (poor) foreigners will come, and they may have to share the resources.

It's all about survival...

This is a common phenomenon that's not very well known outside of immigrant communities. My family emigrated to the US from Russia in the mid 80s and quickly went hard-right, as did most of their cohort. Same for many Chinese immigrants to the US, Cubans, and I'm sure the list goes on.

I never completely understood this. I guess it's partly a kneejerk reaction to the nominally left-wing repressive regimes they left behind. Another component is probably a sudden immersion into a truly pluralistic society when coming from an intolerant and homogenous one. But still, I can't say I truly understand it.

I'm in my 30s and this is still a source of conflict between my family and me. They're lower-class "real people" who have a soft spot for despots on the Putin spectrum. Because while they're pro-democracy, they also think you need a "firm hand" to keep all "those people" in line, and by "those people" they mean people they can't or won't empathise with: poor black people, the stew of "educated degenerates" who refuse to have normal sexualities or lifestyles, muslims, and so on.

How did your family change, exactly?

Just want to point out that majority of Turks in Germany(and some other EU states) are labourer immigrants that went there during 1960-1980. If you take United States instead where the Turks living there belong to a more elite class, you will see significantly more no vote. It seems expats are divided in terms of world view according to where they live.

Average Turk from Istanbul is way more western than the average labor migrant from 60ies-70ies. Mainly they came from rural areas and without much education to do manual labor (which was great IMO).

So "same" people that are now voting for Erdogan in said rural areas today.

2nd-3rd generation who grew up in Europe (local education etc.) don't even necessarily have right to vote in Turkish election.

>How is it possible that, in many EU states, they won which such a majority?

Of course one explanation is:

"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do."

> I would have expected expats to be generally more liberal/globalist/progressive.

I'm not sure "expat" is the right term to designate the masses who responded to West Europe's call for more labor in the 70s. In the sense that they live outside of their native land, yes, they are expatriates. But, today, the term almost designates a wealthier group who are sent by their companies to work abroad now.

In any case, there's a big difference between the Turks in Europe (more than 60% of them voted for Erdogan) or, say, Turks who live in the US (only 15% of them voted for Erdogan). Their backgrounds are completely different. Most of the people who immigrated to Europe to satisfy the new labor needs came from rural areas, mostly from the central and eastern part of Turkey without even living in a sizable city in Turkey. That created a complete culture shock and great integration problems.

Turks in the US, on the other hand, came here mostly for college/university. They are highly educated and they've fully embraced the values of the nation because they had those values at heart even before they decided to live or study abroad.

others already replied about the rural/urban distribution in expats, but there was another factor. in NL, speaking out against Erdogan got them ostracised from the Turkish community. only very few Dutch-Turkish political / tv personalities dared to speak out, even if you knew for sure they are against Erdogan, they would avoid the subject or twist words around it. very weird and quite scary to see such influence reach that far.

>With modern tech you can communicate with people all over the world without traveling

Internet used to be a tool that enabled people all over the world to communicate. I wouldn't have spoken a word in English if it wasn't for internet.

Commercialization of the Web killed the globalization spirit of the internet.

There's no commercial value in connecting people who are in different markets.

A Web enterprise does not benefit by showing its customers that they might be holding the wrong opinion.

Echo chambers bring loyal customers.

Globalization dies a little bit every time a curious teenager sees an error saying: "this content is not available in your country".

You are not an average internet user if you talk to the people on a different cohort, you are an elite and elites have always been communicating with the elites.

Uhh, I'm not so sure. Look at all the people on here essentially clamoring for war with Russia over.. uhm, Russia supposedly releasing authentic emails showing their favorite party (TM) to be corrupt? I might have missed some details in all the cold war fervor.

Erdogan was democratically elected. He's not a dictator (even if he does act as one at this point) and judging from the referendum results, at least half of Turks seem to like his direction. It's easy to say those voters are uneducated or misguided but the fact is that this is how democracy works. Where I am going with this is that we should not blame just the leader but also the people who put him there.

Blaming misguided voters only has merit when freedom of the press is available and people have access to news that does not have significant pro-government bias. Turkey was ranked #155 out of #180 evaluated countries on this year's RSF list [1]. If the government controls the information that the people have access to, it is a little difficult to expect a legitimate democracy, which requires more than simply valid elections.

[1]: https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table

Do the Turks in Germany also enjoy no freedoms? Because they actually support Erdogan more than Turks in Turkey.

* Many of them identify with their (parents' or grandparents') conservative countryside roots. * A community so much oriented towards Turkey consumes a lot of Turkish (the country) and Turkish (the language) media. * Turkish country media are in Erdogan's pocket. There is not even a semblance of free press anymore in Turkey. * Turkish language media in the EU with an editorial line not pro-Erdogan have been threatened in every possible way, either directly from Turkey or indirectly. Many have ceased to exist. The best example: Zaman in .be and .nl. * Kurdish language media have always been under threat from the Turkish authorities. * The Turkish government has directly ordered the network of Turkish mosques ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Religious_Affair... ) abroad to create lists of Gülen supporters. Evidence of these practices has led to a diplomatic incident with at least Belgium. * You may also want to read about media repression inside Turkey like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today's_Zaman . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement#2013_corru... .

Democracy, just like any tool, can be manipulated and corrupted to serve one's own ends. This is how tyrants come to power: they use populism and nationalism to get elected, then slowly dismantle the very institutions that make up democracy until they are the only one in charge.

You can be democratically elected and later become a dictator. That's been the path of many dictators.

It's not uncommon for dictators to be elected. That's how the transition from democracy to dictatorship works. But I agree with your assessment of the problem: there isn't really anything outsiders can do when an electorate tries to hurt itself. Any appeals to reason will just be catalyzed into even more votes by "them against us" rhetorics.

Neither is Putin, yet he controls all the press. He's just an elected gang leader. Have something against the gang in power? You might just get shot on a bridge while going to work, imprisoned on account of fiscal fraud, poisoned with Polonium in your tea etc. That is how the Russian mafia works.

> this is how democracy works

No, that's a common misconception.

Democracy isn't characterised only by the vote, but also by liberal values. We call it liberal democracy.

I'm from Romania btw and until 1989 we've had communism / stalinism. Guess what - we had votes then too. It was all arranged of course, party members didn't dare going against the dictators, everybody was dancing on the same music, etc.

In other words, everything is up for vote except for the liberal values that make democracy work. Without those liberal values, you don't have a democracy.

And to put this in perspective: you cannot claim that a popular vote is legit without freedom of speech, because in that case people can be coerced or manipulated by those in power, without the opposition being able to fight back at all. How many people has Erdogan imprisoned? You also cannot attest the legitimacy of the vote when you don't have separation of power in the state, because you no longer have a functioning judicial branch.

All famous autocrats in history achieved power through popular support.

But here's where it actually hurts: it's easy to vote an autocrat into power, it's hard to vote him out.

Turkey's economy will suffer, tourism is already going down the drain, other countries will slow down trade with Turkey due to political instability. Erdogan, like all populists before him, will end up pushing more and more nationalistic messages, blaming the Occident for his own fuckups, threatening with conflict because that's what populists do when they lose support.

Either way, I'm fairly confident at this point to say that Turkey is no longer a democracy.

I agree with you that we should stop communicating from the top - and this is what some politicians tried to do (at least what some European politicians did, like the Dutch ones before the elections, when things escalated).

However, for business interests, you simply can't ditch a country like Turkey[1]. Let's not forget that Bush's grandfather was also funding Nazi [2] (I would like to focus primarily on the years before Americans joined WW2, basically, before they "knew" that Nazis were not yet official enemies) and he earned a lot of money out of it.

Nowadays, a lot of companies do the same. And it will always be like this, unless such a country is recognized as an official "enemy" of the state, and you can't do business there.

So, we have already 1 reason that you simply can't stop communicating from the top.

Then, you have one more reason: immigrants.

Europe has a bunch of Turkish people which, it seems, helped a lot during the elections - in some cases (Holland, Austria, and Germany) the "YES" to the referendum got more than 60% (in some cases 68%). This opens up a whole new bunch of questions we should ask ourselves (and people actually do, at least in Europe):

- Why?

- Why did these people vote for YES?

- Don't these people value the freedom they have here (which they do have, unlike in the US - sorry guys, that's how we perceive it in Europe - where racism is much more common)?

Questions which raise another question:

- What did we as Europe (or West?) do wrong?

This is somehow connected to your sentence:

> We should try to get real people to talk, about who they are, what they want (peace ? surely .. war ? not so sure). So peoples in every nation start to avoid the national/patriot filter when thinking and voting.

In my opinion there are too many things we did wrong and failed to do.

One thing is to have expectations. In Europe, I can tell you that before the Turkish referendum there were a lot of people, mostly reporters and journalists, going out asking such "pro-YES" voters (they were grouping together for propaganda or for any other reason) whether they actually were aware of what Erdogan wanted to achieve with this referendum. Obviously, nobody actually knew all the points in it. The journalist was mentioning each point, and their faces were like "uh?", while, of course, some of them were bitten by the strong cognitive dissonance: "no, but this is what media here say...", or "no, but it's not as bad as it seems".

This issue dates back to the beginning of immigration. People with low education came, and many of them simply didn't get further - meaning, 2nd, 3rd generations still striving to make it, or criminals, or simply living off of social money. Where can this lead to? Entire neighborhoods not accessible to the police, criminality rate super high, etc. People who cannot even talk the national language - forced, therefore, to watch their own news.

Another issue: double citizenship. What is that? You live here, but you still have a voice in your country. Sorry, but no. After X years, as an immigrant you get citizenship from the country you live/pay taxes in. Further, you are born in this country, eventually (in some countries when you are 18) you get this country's citizenship. That's it. Either that, or the old one. Both? No.

There is a sentence from a German author, Max Frisch, "We wanted a labour force, but human beings came" [3], which kind of explains what had really happened. And now? That's what we have. A huge mess, people creating parallel societies, and Erdogan that comes to Europe as a good politician to the majority of his people.

Why good politician? Well, want it or not, it seems that during Erdogan's administration, Turkey's economy got better. [4]

Does this justify the fact that this politician needs a crown and absolute power?

[1]: http://aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-companies-investing-in-tur... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworl... [3]: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/735/3/the-end-of-mu... [4]: https://www.quora.com/Turkey-country-What-is-the-story-behin...

It seems you are talking about Germany. Please name one neighbourhood in Germany "not accessible to the police".

I can name a few. For example Neukölln in Berlin, or some areas in Köln (like Kalk, Ossendorf, Chorweiler, Porz), or the north of Duisburg. You can find lots of references online - search for "no-go zone germany", or simply befriend a German policeman.

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/nordrhein-westfalen-po...

https://www.derwesten.de/politik/in-problemvierteln-fuerchte...

All these are areas where policemen are afraid to work because they may get suddenly surrounded by 40-50 people. It's true, you can still access them, but then it doesn't mean you get out easily, hence they are not accessible.

Also, I live near one of the most damaged suburb in France, one that would earn a "no police zone" easily 10 years ago; it's now liveable, so much that I look at the sky when I drive in it now.

People react in fear and absolutes, but things are fixable.

This is putting your head in the sand. The problem is the people, the voters, who put Putin and Erdogan in office and kept voting for more autocracy instead of democracy. Those presidents are just manifestations, symptoms.

There's always going to be a candidate like that to vote for, and democracy can only survive as long as voters prefer candidates who uphold democracy.

Not necessarily.

Both Putin and Erdogan (many others as well, Orban, Gruevski, to name a few), were elected under promises to bring prosperity through democracy.

Carefully targeting vulnerable groups with PR and economic engineering has proven itself a great tactic for achieving their autocratic vision.

edit: spelling.

thats what the un is partly about.

> what are we supposed to do about it?

Kick Turkey out of NATO first. If things get worse, impose sanctions.

Nope, US needs more Turkey, not less. Erdogan is democratically elected leader, and yes, he is changing and breaking things, but he is still ELECTED.

Turkey is going through transformation, and it will come out of it stronger and mostly becoming pillar of Middle East. In an already chaotic part of the world, pushing Turkey to brink to satiate your "bleeding heart" will cause more death and destruction not less.

Isn't this the same argument for leaving Assad alone in Syria?

Of course, it is. If Assad loses Chrisitians and Alawites will be massacred in Syria.

A more honest assessment is, Gaddaffi, thanks to regime change, you have slave trade live and well in Libya. Pick your poison.

Its always easy to say, replace this.. but it much harder to replace it with what?

Middle East is not a choice about good and evil, it always present two bad choices, I choose the ones in which fewer people die.

>Turkey is going through transformation, and it will come out of it stronger and mostly becoming pillar of Middle East.

Like Nazi Germany grew stronger and stronger and grew to be the leader of Europe (+)?

((+) until it was vanquished of course by democratic countries -- but where do you find democratic countries, when you need one?)

Every strongman is not a hitler, mao or stalin. Especially, when they come through with largely "free" elections.

Abuse of power as President is different from putting 6 million people in gas chambers and marching around and being responsible for deaths to 10s of millions of people.

Lets have some perspective here, Please!

Hitler came out of largely "free" elections.

I don't think, that every despot is similar to Hitler, but still it is a despot.

BTW: How do you recognize a despot: He behaves like one. Just open your eyes!

To be fair, the issue here is that he seemed to be an undesirable despot. A good despot is actually better than a democracy, but they are just terribly risky every regime change. And a bad despot is.. well, terrible.

What is strong about that massive paranoia this guy and his corrupt gang is displaying for months now? And how the hell do you get the idea that this behavior is something that would be accepted anywhere in the 21st century?

FYI: in democratic elections, you don't put the opposition in jail first and control the media in a way that the ones you've left don't even get a chance to reach the population or tell them in a honest way what is currently happening. I'm sure all those vote manipulations are also part of democratic elections in your eyes eh?

He's holding millions of Syrian refugees and has threatened to send them to Europe if things don't go his way. Think European nationalism is bad now? You might not have a NATO after that.

We should refuse to be blackmailed by him. If he is that bad, those refugees are in danger in his hands. Europe has several rich countries that can easily handle the amount of refugees held hostage in Turkey.

Which rich countries do you propose 'easily' settle 2.7 million Syrian migrants? I'd like to tell you about their nationalist/neo-fascist candidates and their vision. Marine Le Pen, Victor Orban, Geert Wilders, Frauke Petry, Matteo Salvini, Norbert Hofer, etc. They're already building walls in Europe - in Norway, Greece, in the Western Balkans, Hungary. Border controls inside the Schengen area (I saw this first hand in Sweden a couple of weeks ago). We've already had Brexit. We could have Nexit, Frexit, Italexit, Grexit, and on. You might see a significant strain on the common currency, especially with some of the capital flight already going on. If anything close to 2.7 million refugees come to Europe at once, it's going to get _very_ ugly.

Europe does not want those refugees even if Merkel told you otherwise and undemocratically imposed refugee quotas on other EU states, which now threatens the EU's very existence. Then they're only Syrian in part.

But yes, I agree we should refuse to be blackmailed by Erdogan, although I'd not go as far as to kick him out of Nato.

I think its easy to make the mistake that replacing the guy at the top solves the problem. Isn't there enough history to suggest that is not how things work? Trump could have a heart attack tomorrow but his fan club is still going to be around. They will just prop someone else up. Same goes for Ergodan. This is not a problem that gets solved by dropping a bomb or making a kill list or a wikileak or a tahrir square or a Jon Oliver skit. Unfortunately the current instant gratification generation produced and conditioned by silicon valley is in total delusion when it comes to this fact. This is a multi generational problem and we could be working towards a solution if we weren't wasting our time with all the above "well intentioned", "quick fix" distractions.

Yes and no. There were wannabe dictators in turkey before erdogan, but the army had removed them, which is why erdogan essentially neutered the army (in multiple ways and through quite a few years) to allow him his current level of control.

Turkey didn't change as much as they guy in charge was persistent, smart and popular enough to do things his predecessors didn't.

It is possible a different ruler would have done the same, but it is also possible that without Erdogan, turkey would still be democratic.

> He holds Europe hostage by threatening to release large amounts of refugees into Europe

This is one of the key facts of the situation.

Logically then, if the Syria disaster is solved, Erdogan loses a lot of his power. Or in other words, the crackdown of Turkey is part of the Syria conflict.

> he made several speeches where he called the politicians of multiple countries "descendants of nazis"

Whoever cries wolf is a wolf himself.

I think a major issue with Turkey is that there is a large non-secular voting bloc. Historically, that has been kept in check by periodic coupes by the Kemalist military. However, Erdogan has succeeded in taming the military (as demonstrated vividly by the failed coupe). Thus, the non-secular voting bloc has escaped the historic check. I am afraid, Turkey will become less secular in the next few years. In addition, there is not much we can do externally, as evidenced by the latest referendum, Erdogan has the support of a majority of voters.

Bingo! It also seems that the quantity of secular bloc is lesser than that of the non-secular bloc. Apart from the military, Erdogan has also tamed the judicial system.

Well it seems the majority is not that big. He won by a small margin, while controlling all the media. If it had been a true free election, I bet he would have lost this referendum. And if you look at the demographics, people in cities voted against, countryside pro. Turkish people living abroad voted pro Erdogan. I bet most of those people came from the countryside in Turkey.

> while controlling all the media

It's much, much more than that. Every single billboard and half the TV ads before referendum were ads telling people to vote "yes".

People didn't even know what they were voting for.

People trust him. He provides "Stong and Stable Leadership", he's built roads and delivered on his promises.

He then says "I need you to vote for this to give me extraordinary powers", and people trust him - especially as the opposition is in disarray

Hopefully people will see this for what it is and not vote Tory on June 8th.

Whenever I see a politician calling for strong and stable leadership (happens in Spain, too), I know that's a politician I'm not going to vote.

Win with 75% and everyone knows you cheated. With 51%, you leave just enough doubt for it but to be obvious.

He does not. He falsified votes.

The majority of rural voters anyway. In the latest voting he had low support in major centres. His control of the media is key to controlling the public vote, especially in rural areas. So supporting the free press, and anti-censorship technology, is a great way to support democracy in Turkey.

>People in the West need to wake up and do their due diligence on Erdogan's regime

I think people in the West who follow these things pretty much uniformly dislike Erdogan and his throwing the journalists in jail type activities but the Turks vote for him. I'm not sure what we're supposed to do about it.

> but the Turks vote for him. "Vote". I'm not quite sure about Turks, but in Russia "vote" is a fake. As Stalin once said "It's not about who votes, it's all about who counts the votes".

There were always way too many violations in the vote process. e.g. people who voted multiple times, militaries who were forced to vote in the right way. God damn it, even 146% of a votes sum translated on federal TV channels [1]. Nobody even tries to hide violations anymore.

A lot of people simply don't believe there is anything they can do about it. They just wait the people in charge will be gone.

Plus add massive brainwashing, threatenings like "without <put the name> the country will fall into chaos", active opposition mortification by government.

And here we are.

[1]: http://netbespredelu.ru/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/656886.jp...

Much of the urban population rose up in support of Erdogan during the attempted coup.

And I agree with the brainwashing, we have that in the uk right now

The urban population rose up in support of democracy, not Erdogan.

> Turkey is nothing like the common stereotypes we have of it in the West

From what I see, there are two Turkeys - the liberal Turkey which resides in cities like Izmir and the conservative ones which come from places like Bursa or Gaziantep. Currently, there are fewer liberal Turks than the conservative ones.

> People in the West need to wake up and do their due diligence on Erdogan's regime

On this point, I've always found it amazing how most of my American friends/colleagues have little idea about what's happening outside the USA. I get that most news is local and all that but sometimes there are impactful events around the world which would be difficult to miss. Most times, they haven't even heard about the event let alone know about it.

I don't understand why Altay's comment is dead. I found it interestingly and informative. Unpopular opinions reasonably expressed should not be killed.

Check the user's comment history. It's not that comment in particular. The whole account is blocked for wishing people dead, calling people scum, insulting other users and expressing sadness that a genocide program ended to early. There's unpopular opinions and there's crossing the line.

Fair enough!

It's not that we don't care, it's just we have our own problems, have you been following what's going on here?

Seriously, stop trying to spread that notion that EU has to take care of everyone's problems. It doesn't!

If the majority of Turks are brainwashed enough to support a dictator, mass incarceration and ties of their government to terrorist organisations in order to appease their xenophoby towards the Kurdish minority, then make sure it's their problem and not the EU.

The only thing EU must do is make sure it doesn't blow up their way. When (not if) Turkey starts their civil war, just make sure you don't allow them in the EU after they willingly destroyed their own country after decades of EU trying to help them solve their internal problems by increasing democratic institutions there (and pouring a lot of money), but they very stubbornly resisting it and actually going the opposite way.

The world must stop looking at EU like they are the fireman of the world and at fault for all the arsonists the population keeps electing in Africa, the Middle East and even some parts of Eastern Europe.

You are describing the more modern half of Turkey aka the vacation belt.

The other half is much worse than what most western people who are familiar with the Turkish resorts imagine.

It's like looking at SF or SV and extrapolating from it the mindset of the Bible Belt.

Erdogan has support of at least half of the Turkish population and in many ways when compared to the more extreme mindset of it he's a moderate.

The voters elected and support an autocratic leader, however wonderful people they may be. It's not just about Erdogan.

Reposting my comment from another place here, as it kinda applies to this too, especially the second sentence:

> Every single billboard and half the TV ads before referendum were ads telling people to vote "yes".

> People didn't even know what they were voting for.

But they voted him many times before, it was apparent where he was heading.

> People didn't even know what they were voting for.

absolutely true! Which says a lot about those people who voted for him.

Turkey has a very harsh rural/cosmopolitan split, just like the US has.

On top of that, the last election (the turn the President into Sultan) had massive fraud and any critical media has been jailed.

I'm a greek who's grandmother has a view of Turkey within their back yard.

I'd say the majority of your view is true, but in my guess-timation, about half of them are fundamentalists, who still treat Kurds like third-class citizens, who want to turn Hagia Sophia, a cultural epicenter and museum back into a Mosque, who helped vote Ergodan in in the first place. The people you are talking about never wanted him.

A funny parallel, if you read HN, you could draw the same conclusion about America -- it sounds like most everyone is against Trump and are reasonable people, but 48.5% of the country still voted him in, and of that 48.5% half think he's doing a 'wonderful job'

These people don't stay in power by chance. America -- take note.

Isn't it kinda undemocratic for "the West" to go in and overthrow an, ironically enough, democratically elected dictator?

It's also destabilizing. Look at Libya, Iraq, 1970s Iran, etc.

Ukraine is the only example where an autocrat was removed from power without the entire country falling into chaos. They were fortunate to lose control over just Crimea and the eastern zone.

Germany, 1945

It required killing 7 million Germans, 10% of the population. I guess if you kill enough people, that does reduce certain types of chaos... but a world war is basically peak chaos.

Did these Germans die because Hitler was in power, or because he was removed from power?

As someone living in Cyprus an island who has serious issues with Turkey, overthrowing Erdogan scares me more than Erdogan being a dictator.

At this point at least we know Erdogan's issues stay inside Turkey. If someone unsuccessfully tries to overthrow him no one can predict what his reaction will be. From invading Greece to a civil war that will end with hundreds of thousands dead.

If he is successfully overthrown, we'll have a new Iraq for a decade before the area stabilizes. Either way there's no clean solution.

I am not sure about truly democratically elected part, but if its truly democratically elected it should be fine with the rest of the world.

You do realize they voted him in? They specifically chose him to be his leader and continue to do so. Why should the West "wake up"? What do you propose the west does? Should we send the militaty and overthrow him?

In a referendum with tons of irregularities and many reports of government thugs intimidating voters.

Did you reply to the wrong post or something?

Please give me a break, the great majority of the Turks living in Germany (just as an example) not only voted yes in the referendum but after it won there were major celebrations on the streets of a lot of big German cities by Turks living there.

Please stop this nonsense of trying to pretend it's always somebody else's fault other than the majority of the Turks. They choose to transform their country in the mess it became.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/referendum-in-tu...

In Germany sure, but not in most countries. http://www.unzcloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/map-turke...

I play video games from a young Turkish woman. She goes to gigs, nightclubs, drinks and socialises. She hits on guys and they hit on her. She is indistinguishable from any western 20something. I was on a voice call with her the night of the supposed coup, and listened to her and her family angrily lemmenting the administration. It seemed even on the night of they knew something was fishy. She lives in Istanbul, and is educated, so maybe I don't get a full picture of the Turkish opinion. Maybe others elsewhere support the government and its actions, blindly. She'd love to move to the UK, and would fit in well with our culture. Yet a part of the Leave campaigns was about how Turkey would one day join the EU, and then we'd have Turkish people flooding here too!!! Shock horror. It's becoming a self fulfilling prophecy by the west at this point, to turn Turkey from what it is, to what they think it is.

Let me see if I can follow the logic.

There are people in turkey that are more western.

These people would leave turkey if possible, but they can't.

This is making turkey less western?

Wouldn't that have the opposite effect? The west is generally responsible for the brain drain in less successful countries. Throwing borders up will keep those people who share our views in those countries. It's a fair bet that those people will be the force for good change in their governments more likely within their country than outside it.

There is a 49% in Turkey, and then there is 51%.

51 won and this happened.

We need to introduce some sort of minority action in democracy. The smaller pluralities should not be powerless against the majority...

The problem there I suppose would be neutral arbitration. sigh

Or something like proportional representation, maybe?

Proportional representation makes no difference for a straight yes/no vote.

Most countries tend to have or quickly get rules to make constitutional changes hard to pass. E.g. requiring 2/3 majority or even multiple votes across multiple parliaments, or the like. Couple that with constitutions that limit the governments power, and you get some reasonable degree of protection of minorities.

The ability to enact drastic change with a minimal majority like in Turkey (or the UK...) is terribly dangerous.

That's a great thought - I believe this is how democracy in the US used to work with more magnanimity and cooperation. Maybe I'm romanticizing, but I will think on how I can do my part to bring it to fruition.

51% won, but the vote rigging is staggering.

As a Turk, I'm actually happy that we were told that we can't join at all due to the referendum results. Not for me, I see myself similar to the friend you talked about, with a western culture, wanting to get off but failing, but for Europe. Allowing the 51% to roam around Europe would seriously damage the level of culture and freedom you have reached.

I'm Turk and living in Turkey and I can't name single positive thing about "that guy" or political islam in general.

> Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, yet they produce alcohol and tolerate its consumption within their borders, even by their own people. Let that fact sink in for a moment.

Call me naive, but is this actually a problem? I'm fairly secular and don't know much about how 'Muslim states' operate, but if they're producing alcohol, for it's population who drinks and and doesn't care, what is the actual problem here? Shouldn't the government reflect the values of the people (which has seemingly fine with alcohol consumption)?

The point is that there's no problem at all. The standard for many Islamic countries to introduce parts of Islamic law as state law, such as the forbidding of alcohol or the veiling of women. By contrast, Turkey is much more secular in its government.

People who haven't travelled read Islamic and think Saudi Arabia. Go to Indonesia and you'll find cheap beer and the only reason women wouldn't drive is the traffic is really bad.

What is the legal punishment for leaving or insulting islam in Indonesia?

People can sue you for insulting religion, there is a law for it (not specific to Islam, but religion in general). 99% of the times, this is a non-issue. People just don't care enough to bring the issue to court. However, if politic is involved, this can be used as a ground to discredit a politician. It is a hot topic this year before our capital's election, where one of the frontrunners was sued for allegedly insulting al-qur'an[1]

One other exception is if you live in Aceh. It is a special region in Indonesia which implements Islamic law to the tee.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2016_Jakarta_protests

Was. There's been a steady trend towards theism and religiousity promoted by Erdogan.

Unfortunately, this secular government is precisely what Erdogan is eroding.

I don't think it's that no one cares, it's that he is very difficult to stand up to. The EU needs him because Turkey is the only thing holding back a flood of 2 million refugees. They can't threaten sanctions without risking the floodgates being opened. The US has had a long relationship with Turkey and doesn't want to terminate it unless it has to. Turkey also has the second largest standing army in NATO and is a regional rival of Russia, which is convenient for us.

Yet so many people are rooting for Erdogan... to the point of fighting tanks bare hands. People say erdogan managed to improve some things and now people are all praising him madly...

1) There is a conservative majority in Turkey, which has flourished under Erdogan, both economically and societally. They have no reason to stop supporting them.

2) Not wanting a military coup does not make one a supporter of Erdogan.

But yeah, the secularist block seems to be powerless to do anything (and not even talking about the Kurds).

I would be hard pressed to believe the people pushing out tanks that night were just anti-coup.

Nor were they rural farmers

Aren't you oversimplifying things? Wasn't Erdogan democratically elected and later democratically increased?

There is nothing democratic about a election in a country where the ruling party has demonized the opposition in such a way that people are afraid to vote for them...

>People in the West need to wake up and do their due diligence on Erdogan's regime. There's some seriously scary stuff happening because of this guy.

I am wide awake but I am not one of the idiot Turks who voted for this guy. What am I supposed to do if a foreign nation turns itself into an islamofascist dictatorship?

FWIW, here is a map of US military bases in the region https://www.antiwar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1.-u...

This is a great map. However it doesn't include "minor" bases and classified installations, FWIW. It appears to be a map of unclassified bases with air operations capabilities, e.g. an unclassified base you could fly into and out of.

>> People in the West need to wake up and do their due diligence on [whatever] regime.

Yep, because that is what happened with the Eastern-Europian regimes in 1956 and 1969. History repeats itself.

It's this mode of thinking that tbh kills democracies, both internally and externally. The idea that just because you're struggling, your problems are someone else's problems.

We see it here (and elsewhere) with people continually calling for and hoping for politicians to "do the right thing" rather than organize themselves (unless it's to do something easy like stand around holding signs) and think through new reforms to then push for (we even have the article 5 mechanism designed explicitly for that); we see it elsewhere with "Where is the West, why isn't anyone helping" as they forget we have literally neither mandate nor motive to solve their problem for them, and problems of our own besides.

Yes, we will likely intervene on certain actions anyways to preclude all-out wars if they loom. But if it gets to that point it will only be insofar as it protects us or defuses that war; liberation and organization is still ultimately a people's own problem we literally have no business butting into.

In germany, we Germans know.

But as Merkel put it : erdogan is a democrat in a democracy.

Nothing we can do here.

I guess that's the thing: from what I can tell, Turkey ceased being a democracy with Erdogan. I do not believe anything pertaining to votes in Turkey for some time, since the time Erdogan was first elected. That vote was suspect, and so has everything that's happened since then.

In certain ways, what I find so disturbing about what's been happening in Turkey is how readily everyone seems to accept the official account of major events. The vote that initially established him, the "coup," the most recent vote... Things seem to be accepted at face value by the west without questioning it, even when major red flags are everywhere.

Erdogan isn't just a despot, he's a liar. And the West, especially Western journalism, seems to turn a blind eye.

Even if a large proportion of Turkey supports Erdogan, it doesn't mean a majority do. Even if Erdogan's government says a majority does, doesn't mean it actually does. And when a government establishes itself by subverting democratic or constitutional processes, it's not a democratic government anymore.

Well, he or the situation is often compared to Hitler.

I think for good reason...

People care, like watching a child throw a tempter tantrum in a restaurant kind of care. Us in the core west know we can shut it down if it ever becomes convenient to, so its just amusing to watch.

> Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, yet they produce alcohol and tolerate its consumption within their borders, even by their own people. Let that fact sink in for a moment

I don't think this is something to be proud of. The US is majority Christian and they tolerate satanism

You seem to be implying that because they're Muslim but not really Islamic and very western that it's somehow not desirable for them to become more Islamic. How about you let them decide what's good for themselves? Why is it scary just because it's Islamic? I detect racist undertones in your post. And I don't think much of Erdogan at all, and how he thinks censorship is cool. But you don't get to start deciding what's good for a nation unless you're happy for others to decide what's good for Canada too.

Well, for starters they didn't decide for themselves. It was decided for them: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/europe/turkey-refer...

The greater issue though, is that it seems the "majority" is now imposing their religious ideals on a "minority". That is an unacceptable violation of the basic right to religious freedom.

Sadly Turkey is far from the first country in the Middle East to do this. There's a guy in Saudi Arabia on death row because he admitted to being atheist on his blog / social media.

>The greater issue though, is that it seems the "majority" is now imposing their religious ideals on a "minority". That is an unacceptable violation of the basic right to religious freedom. //

But that violent subjugation of non-Muslims is a central part of Islam (as practiced and preached by Mohammed). Become a Muslim, if you're "people of the book" pay jizra, or die. That's the only way for an Islamic majority to stay true to Mohammed's injunctions.

Unless Islam turns is back on Mohammed and the Koran it can't become accepting of our Western concept of human rights in this way.

Muslims whom I know are thankfully just not practicing this party of their religion and not emulating Mohammed in this way; but suggestion they are not being true to Mohammed and his ideals would nonetheless be a massive affront to them. I see no way to fit Mohammedism in to a peaceful world.

I like that you think people living under dictators "decide for themselves".

They can. Revolution is an option too. "Decisions" do not begin and end with a paper ballot; ultimately, everyone is human and can be ousted from power or killed by an angry mob.

"The army" that would defend him are countrymen; the wealthy who help maintain the status quo are a much wider group of individuals whose interests can be led to differ from his own.

That said, I do not think it should have to come to violence. If "the 49%" are steadfast and "the 51%" are beginning to doubt, calls could be organized for another referendum or neutral third party arbitration or such. The EU or UN would at minimum have something to justify a closer look. Though I haven't been following this too closely, so maybe it's too late idk.

As an atheist is it 'racist' for me to want a country to be "less Islamic". I certainly want countries to become "less Christian" - and generally less ideological, less superstitious, more rational and less socially conservative.

If that bundles up as "more Western" then so be it. These are the values I hold dear. I want more of the world to be liberal democracies and I an unhappy when a nation retreats from that.

Islam is not a race, it's a religion, so he is not racist at all in his comment. You don't choose the color of your skin, but you have a choice which religion to follow, or not follow any.

It's less about Islam being a race and more about how Manifest Destiny is showing its ugly face once more.

Race != religion, and it is in no way unreasonable to judge people for following backwards religious doctrines that are a danger to the people themselves and their surroundings.

"I'm sorry, but we've decided you're not a cultural fit" is a reasonable response to Turkey wanting to join the EU in its current state IMO.

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