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Turkish Spring
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This would be similar to, say, the veneration of Dev or Collins, while the "military dominated nationalism" is what made Turkey a secular nation rather than an Islamic one. It's being described as if it were some kind of oppressive junta, which is inaccurate.
cordially,
Scofflaw
In fairness, since the party he created has gained control of Turkey over a decade ago Mr. Erdoğan has been doing is best to make Turkey more and more Islamic and more and more nationalistic. The Economy is doing well and he's the favourite pet of the Islamic world for us int he west, but he's not some nice liberal lets all get along type, he's a fundamentalist sunni who wants Turkey to have Islam as the centre of the governments policy making and law making process. The protests aren't about some trees in a park anymore, they are about state control of media, the government trying to impose islamic rule on the people and young people feeling like the control of their country is slowly being stolen from them by a fundi nutjob.0 -
pablomakaveli wrote: »A revolution can't take place if the majority of people aren't behind it. The CIA may or may not have played a part but the revolution in Egypt would have died out if the people had no desire for it.
The Egyptians aren't gullible idiots who need Americans to tell them how to feel. That desire for change was already there.
I never said the Egyptians were idiots devoid of their own brains but what I am actually hinting at is the yanks very real influence and manipulation upon "uprisings"
come on like, there's plenty of evidence of yanky involvement in revolutions/coups etc right across the world
http://wikileaks.org/plusd/pressrelease/
THE KISSINGER CABLES
"The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer." -- Henry A. Kissinger, US Secretary of State, March 10, 1975: http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/P860114-1573_MC_b.html#efmCS3CUB
The Kissinger Cables comprise more than 1.7 million US diplomatic records for the period 1973 to 1976, including 205,901 records relating to former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. Dating from January 1, 1973 to December 31, 1976 they cover a variety of diplomatic traffic including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence. They include more than 1.3 million full diplomatic cables and 320,000 originally classified records. These include more than 227,000 cables classified as "CONFIDENTIAL" and 61,000 cables classified as "SECRET". Perhaps more importantly, there are more than 12,000 documents with the sensitive handling restriction "NODIS" or 'no distribution', and more than 9,000 labelled "Eyes Only".
At around 700 million words, the Kissinger Cables collection is approximately five times the size of WikiLeaks' Cablegate. The raw PDF data is more than 380 Gigabytes in size and is the largest WikiLeaks publication to date.
WikiLeaks' media partners will be reporting throughout the week on their findings. These include significant revelations about US involvements with fascist dictatorships, particularly in Latin America, under Franco's Spain (including about the Spanish royal family) and in Greece under the regime of the Colonels.
The documents also contain hourly diplomatic reporting on the 1973 war between Israel, Egypt and Syria (the "Yom Kippur war"). While several of these documents have been used by US academic researchers in the past, the Kissinger Cables provides unparalled access to journalists and the general public.
Most of the records were reviewed by the United States Department of State's systematic 25-year declassification process. At review, the records were assessed and either declassified or kept classified with some or all of the metadata records declassified. Both sets of records were then subject to an additional review by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Once believed to be releasable, they were placed as individual PDFs at the National Archives as part of their Central Foreign Policy Files collection. Despite the review process supposedly assessing documents after 25 years there are no diplomatic records later than 1976. The formal declassification and review process of these extremely valuable historical documents is therefore currently running 12 years late.
The form in which these documents were held at NARA was as 1.7 million individual PDFs. To prepare these documents for integration into the PlusD collection, WikiLeaks obtained and reverse-engineered all 1.7 million PDFs and performed a detailed analysis of individual fields, developed sophisticated technical systems to deal with the complex and voluminous data and corrected a great many errors introduced by NARA, the State Department or its diplomats, for example harmonizing the many different ways in which departments, capitals and people's names were spelt. All our corrective work is referenced and available from the links in the individual field descriptions on the PlusD text search interface: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd
RECLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTS THWARTED
The CIA and other agencies have attempted to reclassify or withhold sections of the US National Archives. Detailed minutes of US State Department meetings show that these attempts, which originated under the Bush II administration, have continued on through until at least 2009. A 2006 analysis by the US National Security Archives, an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at George Washington University, found that 55,000 pages had been secretly reclassified.
The censorship of the US National Archives was thrown into stark relief in November last year when the Archive censored all searches for 'WikiLeaks' from its records. See http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/11/03/us-national-archives-has-blocked-searches-for-wikileaks/
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' publisher, said: "The US administration cannot be trusted to maintain the history of its interactions with the world. Fortunately, an organisation with an unbroken record in resisting censorship attempts now has a copy."0 -
You obviously have no clue about Turkish history. The Armenian Genocide was committed by republican Turkish government forces under Kemal Atarturk. Once the Armenian population had been wiped out Kemal then turned his attention to promoting a secular Turkish national identity.
Westerners are sold the story that secular=good and because of our lack of knowledge of other societies we take the bait ,hook line and sinker.
I will also admit to not knowing too much about Turkish history. The one thing I am here for though is to add my support to those wanting freedom of expression, something that should be granted to every human being on this planet.0 -
I never said the Egyptians were idiots devoid of their own brains but what I am actually hinting at is the yanks very real influence and manipulation upon "uprisings"
come on like, there's plenty of evidence of yanky involvement in revolutions/coups etc right across the world
........"
"Many" does not equate to "all", or that one specifically.0 -
You obviously have no clue about Turkish history. The Armenian Genocide was committed by republican Turkish government forces under Kemal Atarturk. Once the Armenian population had been wiped out Kemal then turned his attention to promoting a secular Turkish national identity.
Westerners are sold the story that secular=good and because of our lack of knowledge of other societies we take the bait ,hook line and sinker.
I don't know much about Turkish history either, but why don't the Turks even recognise that as a genocide?0 -
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You obviously have no clue about Turkish history. The Armenian Genocide was committed by republican Turkish government forces under Kemal Atarturk. Once the Armenian population had been wiped out Kemal then turned his attention to promoting a secular Turkish national identity.
Westerners are sold the story that secular=good and because of our lack of knowledge of other societies we take the bait ,hook line and sinker.
Oddly enough, I know Turkish history pretty well, as a follow-on from Byzantine. However, whether I do or don't is largely irrelevant, because I hadn't claimed Ataturk was a lovely guy. Neither was Dev, if it comes to it, but respecting them for their part in the foundation of their respective states doesn't make people fascists.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
In fairness, since the party he created has gained control of Turkey over a decade ago Mr. Erdoğan has been doing is best to make Turkey more and more Islamic and more and more nationalistic. The Economy is doing well and he's the favourite pet of the Islamic world for us int he west, but he's not some nice liberal lets all get along type, he's a fundamentalist sunni who wants Turkey to have Islam as the centre of the governments policy making and law making process. The protests aren't about some trees in a park anymore, they are about state control of media, the government trying to impose islamic rule on the people and young people feeling like the control of their country is slowly being stolen from them by a fundi nutjob.
Maybe, but personally I'll wait a bit before I fit it neatly into an agenda.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
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Maybe, but personally I'll wait a bit before I fit it neatly into an agenda.
cordially,
Scofflaw
Ah yeah, I mean, I don't think he's the worst man in the world, I think he's been generally a good leader of Turkey, but he is an islamist, and he is moving turkey in that direction, if rather slowly. But all in all I'd imagine he and his party still have majority support, especially with older people.
That said, the protests are perfectly legitimate and he needs to face the reality that a sizeable chunk of the population don't love him or his policies and start dialog with them, not treat them as extremists.0 -
Maybe, but personally I'll wait a bit before I fit it neatly into an agenda.
cordially,
Scofflaw
From reading the papers yesterday, it seems that Edrogan makes no secret of his desire to run for the presidency of Turkey and transform the country from a parlimentary democracy to a presidental 'democracy' allowing him to further concentrate power in his hands.
He seems rather Putin-esque in both his desire for power and his attitude to dissent, there are no shortage of journalists in prison in Turkey that underline that point.0 -
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You obviously have no clue about Turkish history. The Armenian Genocide was committed by republican Turkish government forces under Kemal Atarturk. Once the Armenian population had been wiped out Kemal then turned his attention to promoting a secular Turkish national identity.
Westerners are sold the story that secular=good and because of our lack of knowledge of other societies we take the bait ,hook line and sinker.
The Armenian genocide happened in 1915 while WW1 was on. At this time Attaturk was a general in the Turkish Army fighting the triple entente.
Attaturk did not start his campaign until the war was over and left the Armenians alone until he annexed half of Armenia in the early 1920's abolishing the treaty of Severes alongside the Soviet Union.0 -
From reading the papers yesterday, it seems that Edrogan makes no secret of his desire to run for the presidency of Turkey and transform the country from a parlimentary democracy to a presidental 'democracy' allowing him to further concentrate power in his hands.
He seems rather Putin-esque in both his desire for power and his attitude to dissent, there are no shortage of journalists in prison in Turkey that underline that point.
IF that's the case ( & I am not doubting You for one minute) then we are looking at a potential dictatorship here. Turkey will NEVER get into the EU if Erdogan goes ahead with these plans.0 -
Not sure if this is in reference to the democratization I mentioned; democracy is not an on/ off switch, clearly there are degrees to which a country is open and democratic. It is in this regard that the current regime doesn't seem to be wholly satisfying in the eyes of the protestors, and a process of democratization is sought.I don't see how this would produce "democratisation" in a country which is already democratic, and for whom most of the blocks to EU membership are to do with geopolitics.0 -
Same reason the Japanese don't recognise a lot of their atrocities. Don't want to, and haven't been made to.
cordially,
Scofflaw
Pressure has been put on them, most recently by our friend Sarkozy. They have also pressurised the yanks on a few occasions over it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/world/europe/10iht-10turkey.7834745.html?_r=0
Bush urges Congress to reject Armenian genocide resolution
WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush and two top cabinet members urged lawmakers on Wednesday to reject a resolution describing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide - a highly sensitive issue at a time of rising U.S.-Turkish tensions over northern Iraq.
"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915," Bush said in a brief statement from the White House. "But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror."
Passage would be symbolic - but the symbolism, the administration asserts, could seriously jeopardize the delicate relationship with Turkey.
Turkey has been a vital way-station for fuel and materiel shipments to U.S. forces in Iraq, and the administration has spared little effort to lobby against the resolution.0 -
Cody Pomeray wrote: »Not sure if this is in reference to the democratization I mentioned; democracy is not an on/ off switch, clearly there are degrees to which a country is open and democratic. It is in this regard that the current regime doesn't seem to be wholly satisfying in the eyes of the protestors, and a process of democratization is sought.
As I said earlier, I'm not yet sure what's being looked for - and I don't think the protestors necessarily are yet either - but dissatisfaction with a government is not the same as dissatisfaction with the state of democracy. Dissatisfaction with a government, even governments being direly unpopular, is a normal part of democracy. In some democracies, rioting is de rigeur, even.
So I'm leery of anyone fitting what's happening in Turkey into a "people want more democracy" template, because I feel it's quite likely to be a template.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
Okay, I'm not sure what threshold of evidence is required in to establish this. I can't personally claim to vouch for it, I can't claim to know anyone in Turkey, I don't even follow any of them on twitter.As I said earlier, I'm not yet sure what's being looked for - and I don't think the protestors necessarily are yet either - but dissatisfaction with a government is not the same as dissatisfaction with the state of democracy. Dissatisfaction with a government, even governments being direly unpopular, is a normal part of democracy. In some democracies, rioting is de rigeur, even.
However I would have thought most media watchers would have noted a visible trend, and that trend is a reference to democratization and a inclusive policymaking generally.
In any case, the central point was that democratization does not come down to whether or not the country is broadly democratic. Even broadly democratic jurisdictions like Ireland could do with a democratizing programme, it seems to me.0 -
Cody Pomeray wrote: »Okay, I'm not sure what threshold of evidence is required in to establish this. I can't personally claim to vouch for it, I can't claim to know anyone in Turkey, I don't even follow any of them on twitter.
However I would have thought most media watchers would have noted a visible trend, and that trend is a reference to democratization and a inclusive policymaking generally.
Unfortunately, though, that may be exactly the kind of templating - that is, fitting the Turkish protests into the pre-existing "Arab Spring" narrative - that I'm wary of. Journalists are actually the worst for that.Cody Pomeray wrote: »In any case, the central point was that democratization does not come down to whether or not the country is broadly democratic. Even broadly democratic jurisdictions like Ireland could do with a democratizing programme, it seems to me.
In every democracy, those who disagree with policy almost inevitably feel they're "not being listened to" and that there is therefore a fundamental flaw in their democracy. Sometimes they're right, but more often what's happening is either (a) they are being listened to, but are actually in a minority, or (b) they will be listened to, but the government is engaged in reflexive rejection of the inevitable.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
Pride Fighter wrote: »The Armenian genocide happened in 1915 .
It happened between the years 1915 and 1923 and Ataturk was the consummator of the genocide.Mustafa Kemal completed what Talaat and Enver had started in 1915, the eradication of the Armenian population of Anatolia and the termination of Armenian political aspirations in the Caucasus.
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/kemal.htmlThe expulsions and massacres carried by the Nationalist Turks between 1920 and 1922 added tens of thousands of more victims. By 1923 the entire landmass of Asia Minor and historic West Armenia had been expunged of its Armenian population.
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocidefaq.html
And from the Guardian:"Historical documents proved Atatürk committed "war crimes" against Armenians and other groups in his drive to create an ethnically homogeneous Turkish state"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/22/turkey0 -
Okay, regardless of the merits of individual cases of disillusion, I'm more clarifying the term democratization- or at least, as it was intended - as a recognized term in political science.In every democracy, those who disagree with policy almost inevitably feel they're "not being listened to" and that there is therefore a fundamental flaw in their democracy. Sometimes they're right, but more often what's happening is either (a) they are being listened to, but are actually in a minority, or (b) they will be listened to, but the government is engaged in reflexive rejection of the inevitable.
It does not refer to turning democracy 'on' or 'off', as was highlighted by the Turkish President's comment "democracy does not mean elections alone", which was viewed as a rebuttal to his PM.
Whether or not Turkish protestors are ultimately justified in the enhanced level democracy they are seeking is irrelevant to the fact that the protests do indeed appear to be a bid for democratization.0 -
cyberhog et al, enough history.
moderately,
Scofflaw0 -
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Cody Pomeray wrote: »Okay, regardless of the merits of individual cases of disillusion, I'm more clarifying the term democratization- or at least, as it was intended - as a recognized term in political science.
It does not refer to turning democracy 'on' or 'off', as was highlighted by the Turkish President's comment "democracy does not mean elections alone", which was viewed as a rebuttal to his PM.
Whether or not Turkish protestors are ultimately justified in the enhanced level democracy they are seeking is irrelevant to the fact that the protests do indeed appear to be a bid for democratization.
I wasn't actually addressing the question of whether they're justified, I'm pointing out that calls for "more democracy" are a standard part of any democratic protest, and therefore not a very good marker of what the protest is actually about. When we, or any other democratic state, have protests against, say, hospital cuts, those protests will inevitably be accompanied by calls for "more democracy", and complaints that there is something wrong with democracy currently. Such calls and complaints are trivial, in that they generally mean only that the protestors' positions are not being adequately catered for, which does not necessarily mean there is a democratic problem - and this is something most people are quite familiar with.
To assume that in Turkey these mean something different from their relatively trivial meaning in other democratic countries is to assume that Turkish democracy is inadequate. In other words, it begs the question "is Turkish democracy inadequate?" by assuming that the protestors' calls for it alone are sufficient to establish that fact, which they aren't unless one starts by assuming that Turkish democracy is insufficient.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
This is *EXACTLY* like what's just happened with Shatter v Wallace. Or the London Riots two summers ago.
If the police had just admitted that they were out of line, or if the government had opened an investigation into whether any officers did in fact assault protesters, the matter would have dropped.
These snowballings and explosions of waves of protest following allegations of police or government abuse only happen when people make legitimate complaints and instead of being listened to, are told "Go f*ck yourselves" by those in power.
Hell, the burning of the UK Embassy after Bloody Sunday was probably the same thing. If the British government had immediately condemned the violence and suspended all military personnel involved pending an investigation, I doubt tempers would have flared in that way.
The easiest way to throw a spark into a box of firelighters and escalate a small fire to a raging inferno is to be dismissive of someone's legitimate concerns. When you do that, anger turns to fury.0 -
There are plenty of reasons to assume that modern Turkish democracy is inadequate, not least amongst these a string of European Court of Human Rights rulings against Turkey, which include, in effect, the attempted banning of specific political parties (Communists, predictably).To assume that in Turkey these mean something different from their relatively trivial meaning in other democratic countries is to assume that Turkish democracy is inadequate. In other words, it begs the question "is Turkish democracy inadequate?" by assuming that the protestors' calls for it alone are sufficient to establish that fact
In any event, this doesn't answer the point I was making. It is clear that there are calls for increased democratization of the institutional structures in Turkey.
Now I agree that protestors' demands are not, in themselves, adequate to justify a damning, impartial judgement of Turkish democracy. I don't think anybody was claiming that, rather trying to explain the genesis of the protest, at least from the protestors' point of view.0 -
Cody Pomeray wrote: »There are plenty of reasons to assume that modern Turkish democracy is inadequate, not least amongst these a string of European Court of Human Rights rulings against Turkey, which include, in effect, the attempted banning of specific political parties (Communists, predictably).
In any event, this doesn't answer the point I was making. It is clear that there are calls for increased democratization of the institutional structures in Turkey.
Now I agree that protestors' demands are not, in themselves, adequate to justify a damning, impartial judgement of Turkish democracy. I don't think anybody was claiming that, rather trying to explain the genesis of the protest, at least from the protestors' point of view.
Again, while I agree that an impartial judgement on Turkish institutions would find plenty wrong (and indeed has), that's slightly to the side of the point I was making, which was that the protestors' calls for "greater democracy" do not mean that "greater democracy" is necessarily the point of the protests, any more than it would here or in France.
And ECHR judgements against Turkey don't necessarily show a problem with Turkish democracy by the sheer weight of numbers, because judgements by the ECHR relate to breaches of (agreed ECHR) human rights, not democracy.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
No, but cases like I mention, the human rights violations led onto a greater concern about questions over democratic legitimacy within Turkey - sometimes implied, sometimes explicitly stated by the ECtHR, e.g. Cox v. Turkey. That court ruling also referenced the need for "tolerance in the face of controversial opinions" - this 'opinion intolerance' is what has been getting Turkey intro trouble in the European Courts, which is a de facto statement of Turkish democratic inadequacy.
I'm not sure what kind of evidence people are expecting. Personally, yeah, I've heard enough to be satisfied; the protestors seem legit., the inadequacy of Turkish democracy seems equally to have been established. If people are unsatisfied with this evidence, fine, that's a personal matter for themselves.0 -
Cody Pomeray wrote: »No, but cases like I mention, the human rights violations led onto a greater concern about questions over democratic legitimacy within Turkey - sometimes implied, sometimes explicitly stated by the ECtHR, e.g. Cox v. Turkey. That court ruling also referenced the need for "tolerance in the face of controversial opinions" - this 'opinion intolerance' is what has been getting Turkey intro trouble in the European Courts, which is a de facto statement of Turkish democratic inadequacy.
I'm not sure what kind of evidence people are expecting. Personally, yeah, I've heard enough to be satisfied; the protestors seem legit., the inadequacy of Turkish democracy seems equally to have been established. If people are unsatisfied with this evidence, fine, that's a personal matter for themselves.
Protestors are legit + problems with Turkish democracy != protests are primarily about increasing democracy in Turkey.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
On the balance of probabilities, I think there is a logical connection between the protestors' complaints and the democratic inadequacy there exists in Turkey from an objective standpoint.
It is reasonable to assume that individual accounts of the problems, and what protestors have written on their slogan boards, for example, are broadly equivalent to what is being protested or resisted.
We make that assumption on pretty much every protest, from the Tea Party march on Washington to the medical card protests in Ireland.
It represents prima facie evidence. The obligation to prove that the protestors are protesting something other than the stated problems falls on those who are making that claim.0 -
Cody Pomeray wrote: »On the balance of probabilities, I think there is a logical connection between the protestors' complaints and the democratic inadequacy there exists in Turkey from an objective standpoint.
It is reasonable to assume that individual accounts of the problems, and what protestors have written on their slogan boards, for example, are broadly equivalent to what is being protested or resisted.
We make that assumption on pretty much every protest, from the Tea Party march on Washington to the medical card protests in Ireland.
It represents prima facie evidence. The obligation to prove that the protestors are protesting something other than the stated problems falls on those who are making that claim.
It's prima facie evidence, certainly, but susceptible, for the reasons I've outlined, to other interpretations. And I'm not making any claims regarding what they are or aren't protesting, but reserving judgement - my concern, as I said, is that people are rushing to frame the protests within narratives they already know.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
hatrickpatrick wrote: »This is *EXACTLY* like what's just happened with Shatter v Wallace. Or the London Riots two summers ago.
I wouldn't say the protests in Turkey are "exactly" like the London riots.
In fact, both are quite dissimilar. One a looting and vandalism overreaction and spree by teenagers and thugs taking advantage of a lack of police presence sparked by an isolated incident.
The other, protests and marches against the ruling party, spurned to violence by an overreaction of the government.
Opportunism vs political statement0 -
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I wouldn't say the protests in Turkey are "exactly" like the London riots.
In fact, both are quite dissimilar. One a looting and vandalism overreaction and spree by teenagers and thugs taking advantage of a lack of police presence sparked by an isolated incident.
The other, protests and marches against the ruling party, spurned to violence by an overreaction of the government.
Opportunism vs political statement
This. The comparison is ridiculous. The London riots were kids and hooligans wrecking the place/terrorising people just because they could. In Turkey, peaceful protestors are getting lumps kicked out of them by the police and its corrupt government. Nowhere during the London riots did I see protestors cleaning up after themselves, passing around food and taking care of one another. Quite the opposite.0
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