Turkey cracking down on Internet usage
usatoday.com
usatoday.com
Turks typically have a feeling that everybody conspires against them. Not only against the country, but also against them personally. Americans and Jews are always among the prime suspects of any conspiracy.
The kemalists have nurtured a strong national identity with flag, anthem, the infallibility of leaders, language and territory. Criticism is simply not welcome, but the internet is full of it.
Istanbul, and let alone the rest of Turkey, despite the rich cultural past is not international or multi-cultural. It is a given that most people are inclined to distrust cultures they are not familiar with.
None of these factors are exclusive to Erdogan. That helps explain why internet censorship is prevalent in Turkey and does not cause much uproar at all.
Now the AKP movement is extra zealous in 'protecting' the people from sex and gambling. That does not help either.
* disclaimer: I tired giving a generalizing brief on Turks, plz don't take it personally.
Can you shed some light on the political movements in Turkey regarding its neighbors? How is the Ottoman period perceived. What are the population's general sentiment towards neighboring countries. What do they say about it in their HS History textbooks?
I'm born in the region and was always genuinely curious.
I don't think the political movements are really defined by views on foreign policy. Notable exception being Syria which grabs a lot of attention.
To the west Turks still see the Balkans as their hinterland. They feel a deep connection to the fate of the Bosnian Muslims and have yet to forgive the Serbs. They are not so fond of Greece (long history), but have a neutral attitude towards Greeks. Bulgaria is viewed an odd little brother from another father.
To the north, the wars with Russia have been long forgotten. Russia now represents a big economical opportunity. I wouldn't think that Russians and Turks are very compatible characters, but business is business.
To the east there are some Turkic countries with whom the Turks feel a spiritual connection, starting with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. They represent the ideal of the nomadic society from the historic homelands. Georgia is a bit like Bulgaria. Armenia, they would rather forget about. Too many open wounds. Iran is a dangerous country. Militarily mighty, unreliable and very different.
The south represents economic opportunities. The Arabs are basically walking bags of money. I was surprised by the deep connection the Turks felt towards the Syrians. They have been very welcoming towards the refugees.
About the Ottoman period. There is a feeling that Turkey's rightful role is to lead the region once again. Not that it means that the Ottomans sultans should make a comeback. Although one of the most popular TV series is set in the Ottoman era. People love the costumes and the court intriges.
I don't know how the history books teach about this period. Would be very interesting.
They fail to realize that the Internet restriction practices are not specific to any one particular country. Similar practices are emerging in Britain, Ukrain and even in the USA.
If I was to talk about Internet restriction in the USA would I start talking about individuals in the USA or what kind of massacres took place in the past in America? How big a non-sense would that be!
We are faced with serious problems here in Turkey and most of those problems are artifically created and one-sided. The Internet Restriction law was proposed by only 27 parliament members and law's passed wo asking others. It's sure to die soon because it's created in a one-sided manner by a small group of blind people.
While the progressive part of the Turkish population looks for help and support from the "Western civilization", the "Western civilization" struggles with internet censorship and privacy themselves.
The sense of superiority of this western society is really strange: when disapproving and rejecting this kind of developments in the Middle East, they pretend that is intolerable and they cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But in the meantime, they themselves trivialize their own actions and policies regarding censorship and privacy breach that is getting worse.
Public opinion is just as schizophrenic. Such news is read with pity and denigration, without any realization that their own future is maybe not much better.
But hey, we are just much better and things like this will never happen here!
Do you really think that the domestic propaganda machine (of both) doesn't label these people as terrorists? How is Assange and Snowden treated? Were they terrorists?
They pushed for EU membership when their economy was in shambles. It seemed like an economic necessity for which they were (sort of) willing to make changes.
The opinions within the EU itself were always diverse, but what counted is that Turkey was a strategic and economic asset. Moreover it was a place where the EU could 'do good' with their superior moral values (sarcasm intended).
The first contribution of the EU was to keep the AKP in power. Every previous Islamic party was either outlawed of removed from power by the military. Both the army and the supreme court decided against that, because that would mean Turkey would never join the EU (which they needed at that time).
Turkey dragged its feet in making changes, likely because they were not so convinced the EU has superior morality. Meanwhile Turkey rebounded economically and the role within the region grew. It also saw Romania a Bulgaria admitted into the EU while these countries did not even live up to the economic demands of joining.
When Erdogan took full control, several things happened. Corruption went rampant and civil liberties were restricted. The country is being islamized. These things led to the Gezi Park protests and a diminished confidence from investors. Funny thing is that the more progressive part of the population only now starts to realize that EU membership could result in better civil rights.
Meanwhile the EU keeps broadcasting mixed signals. They criticized Erdogan but let him get away with attacking and lying to him own people. France and Sweden are among the strongest advocates of Turkish membership. Sweden has the strongest civil rights tradition and France has the strongest separation of church and state. The idea still seems to be: "when they come into contact with our superior standards, they will change accordingly".
My opinion? That is an arrogant thought and it will not work. It did not work for immigration waves and it certainly won't work for 75 million Turks. The EU will not change Turkey, but Turkey will change the EU.
Because of this, and regardless of the Turkey issue, can we please stop referrring to Europa, or the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not. Let's just stop pretending.
What are you talking about? It's elected, maybe not by the people directly, but by their (elected) representatives. That's the same as saying that the US president isn't elected, because s/he isn't elected directly by the population.
> the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not.
Care to substantiate that claim?
Granted, if you look at wikipedia it'll say its an indirect system, but that's only a technicality.
They're appointed by vote by foreign ministers of the member states (as a group, they can't include or exclude individuals), who are elected as a group (again, no apointing individuals) by the local parliaments. By that standard, the new CEO of Microsoft is an elected official. Also note that most European commissars are not appointed by the current governments of the member states.
As if that's not bad enough, why don't you look at the results of European referenda, how the people voted on the creation of Europe in the one instance they were asked.
Let me help you out with the links :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_European_Constitution_re...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_European_Constitution_ref...
Several other referenda that were planned were canceled, for reasons that I'm sure had nothing to do with how people were voting.
There is absolutely nothing democratic about the EU.
In fact, it's very existence doesn't have a mandate. We never agreed to surrender our national sovereignty to a European government.
When the people in my country where asked in the only major referendum ever held in our history, our answer was a loud and clear "no". The EU has zero democratic legitimacy.
As a Swede, I think you shouldn't try to apply logic to Sweden's position. Most [foreign] policy are decided because of economic interests and/or internal Swedish (politically correct) politics.
And about changing a society -- it takes a few generations to modernize. But it has to come. Sure, it might be harder for muslim countries (e.g. there is no real demand to execute people leaving the religion in Christianity!). Since a liberal and open society seems to be needed to e.g. get rid of corruption. With rampant corruption you just have, well, a pile of shit (see Romania and Bulgaria, which you mentioned; I work in Romania right now).
The previous paragraph is, I believe, the thinking in West Europe. I tend to agree. China is the obvious counter argument to this position, we'll see where they end up when the Chinese GNP/capita gets closer to a rich country.
While it is not fair to say I have no idea about Turkish history, I might have missed the mark. Please feel free to correct me, I can take criticism. I take it better than an offhand remark that I am clueless.
It's not about you, only just couldn't hold myself, sorry about non constructive reply.
My conclusion was that it was very clear that the only reason Turkey was not included in EU was because it is not Christian. That's a perfectly fine choice if that's what EU chooses to be, but they should face the truth about themselves.
- Widespread dissent that was not publicly expressed suddenly became public in the gezi park events, and the internet was a huge catalyst in expressing dissent and disseminating information, as well as organizing protests (Long topic, more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey)
- There has recently been a fallout between AKP and their longtime allies, the Gulen Movement (weird religious cult-cum-political-power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement). This has resulted in the Gulen people uncovering a ton of dirt on AKP members, including mind-blowing corruption scandals that include millions in cash being kept in shoeboxes in the personal residence of the owner of a national bank and important people being complicit, including the PM Erdogan's sons. AKP's response was to shuffle around 350 police officers to replace them with their own men, and unsurprisingly the police refused to carry out the prosecutor's orders for arrest. The prosecutor was also fired. The cabinet was reshuffled. A "judiciary coup" took place where they tried to change the laws to have the head of the judiciary elect the prosecutors, so they could elect their own prosecutors, so they could find prosecutors which would not indict AKP (http://www.todayszaman.com/news-336883-erdogan-govt-rolls-ba...)
Throughout this internal fallout, documentary evidence was often released anonymously on the internet (records of phone conversations, photos of documents, etc). AKP suddenly realized that it's not to their benefit to allow this.
(Long topic, more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turk... and http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/opinion/the-filth-in-erdog... and yet even more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/whose-turkey-is-i...)
The new legislation was suggested by 27 members of AKP, and no other members from other parties. Surprise, surprise! (Source: http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/tasari_teklif_sd.onerge_b...)
edit:
More info on the new laws:
- The Telecommunications Communications Directorate (yes, redundant name, TIB for short) head can immediately order content to be removed.
- TIB can ask for any information they want and the hosting providers have to supply it, no due process needed (no DMCA safe harbour-ish clause)
- You need permission from the TIB head to begin a questioning process about any TIB employee (i.e. abuse abounds)
- Hosting providers must keep IP addresses for 1 year instead of 6 months
- IP, DNS and URL blocking will be implemented (previously it was DNS only), but of course no one knows how they're going to acquire the hardware for deep packet inspection.
- No hearing required for complaints about websites that allegedly involve a violation of personal rights. A decision is immediately made.
- Hosting / Service providers must respond to requests in 24 hours.
- The directorate has permission to "fight cyber war", which seems to be a patriot act-ish catchall phrase to do whatever they want.
Ridiculous!
Orwellian control of the internet will not make power abuse go away, it will increase it.
This link has been just recently discussed here on HN and it seems like this will be the future of Turkey.
Turkey never was a hotbed of freedom and justice - but when injustice is made legal by law, then the shit is about to hit the fan soon.
Option if you have friends in Turkey like me - set up a VPN?