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Comment by zalew | Hacker News Reader

ok, but uhmm, I was asking about recent developments in Istanbul, not islamization.

btw abortion is forbidden in Poland, so is drinking on the street, and we have religion at primary school as well as other sorts of political and social influence by the church. and yeah, I know about how Turkey is leaning towards an islamic state and Ataturk is probably rolling in his grave, but your particular examples are not that radical to be honest. the Turk I talked to in Istanbul was a lecturer at an university and he told me they started replacing liberal principals with muslim ones, who obviously enforce their politics - penetrating the education system is serious stuff, not some beer ban (although I love beer).

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Well, it is subtle really. I suggest you to read the comments with a grain of salt (Including mine and that lecturer). People are politically biased and especially bias is strong against the current government. Always look at the cases not general statements. As you compare with Poland, we are not that different indeed. Perhaps even less restrictive in cases.

I lived in Istanbul from 1990 to 2003 then in 2009. I can say today, overall it is a more modern city. But problems like traffic persist. Government are starting to restructure parts of the city destroying old housings. It is a good move but I am skeptical on their artistic eye.

Also business as usual, construction companies close to government are better supported. This situation never changes.

> Government are starting to restructure parts of the city destroying old housings. It is a good move but I am skeptical on their artistic eye.

I'd be careful. such 'improvements' cause resettling, thus spliting local communities, and such actions smell really bad, not only because it pumps up property prices but it also weakens the integrity of citizens.

booze/cigarette bans and abortion discussions are a great distractor. usually brought up when there is some shit to cover.

Indeed, but honestly, if you see some parts of Istanbul you would `really` want re-structuring. After the boom of local immigrants in 80's a mess of ghetto-like places covered the city. In the first major earthquake, major loss of life is expected because of them. So, I sympathize the effort, but economics and architecture of it will not please almost anybody except construction companies.

But this is not about Istanbul. It is not about a park or a shopping mall, you hear about Istanbul because that’s where 1/4 of the country lives in there are protests in Ankara Izmir Eskisehir Adana etc.

> but your particular examples are not that radical to be honest.

Every time I head that I like to remind people that Iran in the 70s was not much different than your average European country [1].

https://www.google.com/search?q=iran+70s&num=50&safe...

I know the modern history of Iran and could easily talk you out of this line of argument because the circumstances are completely different, but I don't feel like drifting this thread into that direction.

Iran was the favorite 'scare' object used by mostly status-quo governments in modern Turkish history.

>Every time I head that I like to remind people that Iran in the 70s was not much different than your average European country [1].

Exactly. And even Kabul in Afghanistan was a very modern town and somewhat of a hippy mecca in the 1960s, with women in miniskirts, alcohol, etc.

I've spent a good bit of time in Turkey in the past 15 years. Modern Turks who don't wish to live under strict Islamic rule are very much on guard, since they know exactly where Erdogan and his type want the country to be (hint: it looks a lot closer to Iran than France). And while I criticized them for being "undemocratic" when I first visited Turkey in 1998, I wasn't the one who was going to have to permanently live under a strict Islamic government if Erdogan succeeded (and he was thwarted the first time). But comparing Turkey now to Turkey back then, he is succeeding now, little by little. And once his "reforms" are in place, there will be no going back.

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