Turkey's Largest City Is Rattled By Growing Signs Of ISIS Support
Source: AP via Business Insider
Istanbul University student Aysegul Korkut is outraged by the images coming out of Syria. But these days the Islamic State group's horrors seem closer to home: She recently faced off against masked supporters of the brutal militants on her own campus.
"I couldn't understand what was happening at first," the 21-year-old said of the moment she first spotted baton-wielding youths striding across the Department of Literature, shouting: "Allahu Akbar!" Within minutes, she and other leftist students had been sucked into a fight, with both sides hurling glass bottles at each other and trashing a science fair set up in the main hall.
<snip>
The fights are one of many signs of support for the Islamic State which have popped up across Istanbul, a cosmopolitan metropolis better known to tourists for its vibrant nightlife and Ottoman-era glories.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/turkeys-capital-is-rattled-by-growing-signs-of-isis-support-2014-10
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Ash_F
(5,861 posts)I thought one of ISIS' goals was Arab nationalism. Are these students Arabs or Turkish? The Article does not explain why they support ISIS.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Anti-modernism. Not so much about Arab or not Arab. But reason will only take you so far with these issues.
JCMach1
(27,556 posts)and has provided support for ISIS against Assad.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)And the Sunni Shi'ia thing applies too, but you can't always go by any of those either. Anyway, the point being that Arab or not-Arab is not the issue.
cali
(114,904 posts)I've been trying to find information on that but haven't had any success.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)To speculate a bit, I think Erdogan likes the caliphate idea a lot, with guess who as the new caliph, and Assad and the Shi'ia-Iran linkage is in the way. Notice the ranting about Sykes-Picot. And he is in bed with the Saudis some, because they don't like the Shi'ia-Iran linkage either. But they disagree about the Muslim Brotherhood,
starroute
(12,977 posts)The Alevis of Turkey are the same as Assad's Alawi in Syria. These two articles explain the basis for the tension.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4834f8fc-134e-11e4-84b7-00144feabdc0.html
Many local Alevis have felt marginalised during the 11 year rule of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and are bracing for his expected victory in Turkey’s first directly elected presidential ballot – a two-round contest that begins on August 10. . . .
No authoritative figures exist on Turkey’s Alevis but they are often assumed to form between 8m and 15m of the country’s 77m strong population – many coming from the working class.
Alevis differ from Turkey’s majority Sunnis and according to some are not Muslims at all. They drink alcohol, worship on Thursdays rather than Fridays, and doubt the existence of heaven and hell while revering the Imam Ali, central to Shia Islam.
“Ours is a kind of secular religion,” says Vedat Kara, a spokesman for many of Istanbul’s Alevi organisations, who emphasises that men and women worship together. “But they are trying to assimilate us into mainstream Islam.”
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/turkey-alevis-erdogan-policy-rift-sectarian-politics-speech.html#
Now, particularly after the Gezi Park events of last summer, the sectarian chasm is replacing the ethnic one that pitted the security forces of Turkey against the Kurdish insurgency led by the PKK. By what may have been an extremely bizarre coincidence, all those who lost their lives during the Gezi protests and their aftermath were Alevis, some of them children.
This fueled centuries-old misgivings in Turkey's huge Alevi community, which constitutes roughly one-fifth of the population of nearly 80 million.
This schism, which has the potential of deep social and political fissures and goes back to glory days of Ottomans in the 16th century, was re-triggered and accelerated by recent events. What Erdogan did was to pour oil on the fire.
It is not only because of his unrelenting and uncompromising stand against the Syrian regime, whose main constituency is Alevi (in English, there is an arbitrary distinction to call the Syrian co-religionists Alawites and the Turkish ones Alevis; for both, the distinction has no legitimate grounds), or that he has provided semi-covert support to jihadist Sunni forces ranging from Salafists to al-Qaeda to topple the Damascus regime. It is also because his persistence in using language that is guaranteed to offend the Alevis in his discourse in Turkey.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)I have to say that I like how the Alevi are. More secular, humanitarian. Why does the U.S. and it's ME allies support those that are conducting these atrocities, allowing ISIS to gain entry to Syria and Iraq, and with funding? We have enabled ISIS to thrive by our policies. Obama is part of this now, it is no longer Bush. He can wave one finger and Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or Qatar will obey. He is a weak president, or an immoral one.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Seriously, that is the reversal of a long policy of conciliation, and I think it's going to bite him in the ass too. He has serious conflicts in his relations with the various Kurdish groups. He doesn't like the idea of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria, and that is one reason Erdogan hates Assad, I think Assad did that (autonomized the Syrian Kurds) just to annoy Erdogan.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)permanently damage relations with Europe or is he angling to align Turkey with China. He obviously doesn't think much of Russia, going after Putin's client Assad.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)I don't think he thinks like that at all, I think he thinks about squalid little things like him being a bigger big shot in his neck of the woods, the new Attaturk, that sort of thing. He's not thinking that much about what anybody else wants, he is down in the mud grubbing for nickels.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Why doesn't Ankara worry more about the collapse of the peace process with the PKK that has maintained a ceasefire since 2013? It may believe that the PKK is too heavily involved in fighting Isis in Syria that it cannot go back to war with the government in Turkey. On the other hand, if Turkey does join the civil war in Syria against Assad, a crucial ally of Iran, then Iranian leaders have said that "Turkey will pay a price". This probably means that Iran will covertly support an armed Kurdish insurgency in Turkey. Saddam Hussein made a somewhat similar mistake to Mr Erdogan when he invaded Iran in 1980, thus leading Iran to reignite the Kurdish rebellion that Baghdad had crushed through an agreement with the Shah in 1975. Turkish military intervention in Syria might not end the war there, but it may well spread the fighting to Turkey.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)There is a fairly large group of Muslims in Turkey who are closely allied with the Alawi Shia offshoot to which Assad belongs. They're called Alevis, and may be as much as 25% of the Turkish population. They are not well-treated by the majority Sunnis. IIRC, most of those shot in the youth uprising a couple of years ago at the park in Istanbul belonged to the Alevi group. Some Kurds are also Alevi.
If Erdogan directly attacks Assad and the Syrian Alawis, it would not surprise me if the Alevis were to give Erdogan problems at home. Perhaps that's one reason why Erdogan has been hesitant to get too involved in the fighting at his border.
On edit: Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alevism
bemildred
(90,061 posts)He got big ideas. Now he is just doubling down on his failed big man policy. I think there is every chance this will blow up in his face before it's over. "Internal problems" may not cover it.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)and made peace with all Kurdish factions.
He seems to wish to reconstruct the glory days of the Ottoman Empire. But times have changed.
Perhaps Erdogan thinks that because Turkey controls the Bosporus through which NATO vessels must transit on their way to ports in Bulgaria and Romania (and Ukraine) he will not be allowed to fall. I wouldn't count on it if I were him.
My initial reaction to ISIS was to stay out of it, let the locals settle it, and offer humanitarian aid when the opportunity presents itself. Although I've wandered from this stance, I always come back to staying out of it.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)I really like staying out of it, you know, humanitarian help and peacekeepers and mediation all day long, but no getting too attached to one side or another or supplying advanced weapons etc.
But of course "we can't do that", we have to try to patch things up so they look right, and the dustup to follow over ISIS and Syria and their future, if we stay out of it, is going to threaten all sorts of existing arrangements of ours. Which will happen anyway, we can't stop it.
Politicially, it is just so difficult to do nothing, so we are going to get into it.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)If things get too bad, the US will go all-in, too much oil at stake. Better air strikes than Operation Desert Fustercluck III.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Regardless of what we may do, we may still get results that we don't like at all. We don't know if we will do better to wait for better opportunities, or not, and just jump all in now. Whereas, if you look back 15 years say, we have it all under control, everybody wanted to suck up to us. That's the Neocon's work, that change.
And it's all from short-term thinking, and greed, and domestic politics games, and expediency, the "cure" for one problem leading right on the the next. There is never time or motivation to take the inexpedient but necessary in the long-term steps to reform our own system, and it is never a good time to admit old policies were foolish and have failed.
So onward we go ...
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Whether the equipment and supplies can be hauled out or destroyed before the assault is not known. Isis is also setting up for an attack southeast of Baghdad.
The President isn't going to want to announce boots on the ground before the election, but things seem to be moving quickly. I hope someone is firming up plans to evacuate from Baghdad and withdraw south.
We have friends in the area, and cannot get out of some of the handshake deals, but I don't know where the money, the personnel and the supplies and equipment will come from. Our armed forces are depleted from years of multiple deployments, and no one seems to want a war tax. What a mess.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)And it probably won't do a lick of good anyway. Wish I was wrong.
Edit: Call it the early stages of the First War of the Modern Caliphate, perhaps.
cali
(114,904 posts)I imagine that will read up the ante.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Last edited Wed Oct 15, 2014, 12:02 AM - Edit history (1)
Greece is an economic mess, so the Greeks can NOT provide support for the Kurds. The Greeks have been the main source of support for the Kurds with weapons and supplies since the 1980s. Iran, Iraq and Syria all have Kurdish minorities so they have no incentive to support the Kurds, so that left the Greeks.
The Greeks still consider their main city to be Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) and had a large population in that city till the 1950s. when domestic riots forced most of them to leave.
More on the 1955 Anti_Greek Istanbul riots:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_pogrom
People tend to forget the Ottoman Empire was more a Greek-Turkish empire then a Turkish empire. Yes the Turks ruled and controlled the Army, but the Greeks ran everything else (and this started BEFORE the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, see the legend of Osman below). This started to change around 1600 as the Empire decline and the Turks decided to make more and more position Turkish as opposed to Greek. The Greeks ended up revolting against this movement and you have the present Greek-Turkish problems (Yes, like a problem of two feuding ex-spouses).
The legend of Osman refers to Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, ruled 1281-1326:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osman_I
One of Osman adviser was a Greek by the name of Michael Cross (Turkish name Kose Mihal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6se_Mihal
Even before he converted to Islam (i.e. while still an Orthodox Christian) Kose Mihal worked with Osman. Other Greek local governors and rulers followed Kose Mihal, through, unlike Kose Mihal most did NOT change religion (through, their families did centuries later, many only after the 1600s when the Ottomans adopted a more strict attitude to being Moslem).
With the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 (the only Crusade condemned by the Pope as it was occurring) the Byzantine Empire broke up. One part re-took Constantinople in 1261, but the city had gone into rapid decline after 1204 (Constantinople was considered the largest city in the world in 1204, with Baghdad its nearest competitor, Baghdad would be sacked by the Mongols in 1258, leading to its decline till the 19th century).
One of the comments of the Ottoman Empire, its two capitals, Constantinople and Baghdad were mere shadows of what they had been in 1200, which made the Ottoman Empire the shadow of both the Byzantine and Islamic Empires it claim to be. Part of this was the shift in trade routes that started with the Crusades. Prior to the Crusades the main trade route was Baghdad to Constantinople and then Russia to Spain. Starting with the Crusades, the trade routes shifted to Lebanon and then to Kiev. The Mongols destroyed Kiev and Baghdad breaking up East-West Trade and it never was reestablished till the Portuguese managed to sail around Africa around 1500. That trade ended any need to trade with the Turks and trade through Turkey came to a halt and the main reason the Ottoman Empire could NOT duplicate what the Byzantine and Arab Empires had done between 600 and 1200.
Yes, East-West Trade existed between 1258 (and the Destruction of Baghdad) and 1498 when the Portuguese under Vasco da Gama reached India by ship but it was strictly controlled by the Arabs of Basra who took the items to Baghdad and then to Lebanon. This was a shadow of the previous trade between Baghdad and Constantinople, but the Greeks and Arabs kept up the trade even as the Turks ruled.
Thus the Ottoman Empire was from 1281 to about 1800 was a Greek-Turkish-arab Empire. It started to become a more Turkish empire around 1600 when its Turkish rulers found that its income had dropped for the trade routes had shifted to Spain and Portugal via the sea. Like most empires in Decline who do NOT want to accept the decline but also do not want to do any real changes, they turned inward and started to attack the roles the Christians (and to a lesser extent the Arabs) had within their Empire. This lead to a long a bitter divorce, that did NOT end with the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1921. The Greeks in that war wanted Western Asia Minor for they claim it was majority Greek. The Turks said it was majority Turkish. The Greeks seems to more correct, but after the war the area became solidly Turks as the Turks kicked out the Greeks along the coast (This seems to be the heart of the dispute, along the coast the population appears to have been Greek, but as you moved inland, often just by miles, the population became Turkish).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%9322)
Thus the Greeks and Turks have NOT had good relations since at least the 1600s (Before that they were the best of friends, even if they were two different religions). Any enemy of the Turks can look to the Greeks for support.
Another area of Greek_Turkish disagreement was the treatment of the Pontic Greeks who use to live along the Black Sea coast of Turkey near the Caucasus mountains:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greeks
This was part of the Ethnic Cleaning of Turkey in the 1920s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide
Please note the Turks accuse the Greeks of Genocide in their invasion of Western Turkey in 1919 and 1920 and while they is evidence of some such massacres, there no evidence has even been produced that it was actual Greek War Policy (Given the history of Turkish massacres of Greeks between 1900 and 1919, Greeks soldiers and civilians seeking revenge for such treatment seems to be the better explanation then it being a policy of the Greek Government).
The Greek War Policy of 1919-1923 appears to have been to take Western Turkey but only that part that could be defended AND had a Greek Population (and maybe some extra to exchange for Constantinople). The problem was given the 400 years since the Ottoman Empire had ruled both Turks and Greeks the populations had intermix and they was NO firm line of demarcation between the two groups, thus the Greek Army blundered forward till it ran out of supplies at which point France, Italy and the Soviet Union decided it would be better for the Turks to win, so they supplied the Turks with arms, while maintaining an arms embargo against the Greeks. That combo lead to the Greek Army being driven out of Turkey AND the Greeks living in Turkey being viewed as Traitors that had to leave Turkey, even through their families had lived in their villages for 2500 years).
List of massacres in the Turkish-Greek War of 1919-1923:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_during_the_Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%9322)
Of the Turkish massacres, while Charges were brought up on some officers the numbers involve do NOT seem to indicate locals and some groups doing the massacre (the numbers are to large, it is rare to find someone who can kill hundreds of people, let alone thousands, thus when you start to see numbers in the thousands it is the result of Government policy, often unwritten as oppose to acts of small or even large group of people killing people on their own).
The Turks supported Hitler during WWII (more do to fears of the Soviet Union, but they stayed neutral like Spain, pro-Hitler but Neutral). Greece was overrun by the Germans and suffered under that rule.
Greek-Turkish relations has NOT improved since WWII, look at Cyprus for example. Turkish Nationalism is also the heart of the Turk's attack on the Kurds, the Turks want everyone in Turkey to be a Turk, either by birth or belief (and at least by language). Being Moslem would be helpful, but it is a minor issue in Turkey today compared to nationalism.
Such nationalism, given the intermixing of Greek and Turkish population over the last 800 years is contraying to the interchange between those two people over the last 800 years and is the heart of the problem between the two nations and it appears the heart of the dispute between the Turks and the Kurds AND the people of Syria.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Isil is Sunni
but/and
Alawhite Shia differs markedly from other Shia
and Isil sunni differs from other Sunni.
Essentially, you have a small ( 13%)Alawhite/Shia group in Syria ruling over a much larger population,
so that is a big deal for Syrians
plus
you have Isis/Isil who hate the other sects of Sunni that are different than their own interpretation of Islam.
(plus they hate non-Muslims and esp. Jews, and esp esp esp. Americans)
This may be helpful overview:
http://middleeast.about.com/od/syria/tp/The-Difference-Between-Alawites-And-Sunnis-In-Syria.htm
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Worse, it is a tightly interbreed tribal group. It retains certains aspects of Christianity and Zoroastrianism while saying it is Sunni Islam (while also holding in high esteem Ali, the son in law of Muhammad who the Shiites claim should have been the first caliph and that title should have stayed in his family NOT gone to other moslems).
Shiite can be translated as "party of Ali".
Thus the Turks do NOT like the Alawites because they are a separate religion, but they are a tight net tribal group that have long opposed Turkish design in the Middle East.
When the revolt against Assad first started I remember reading about Moslem radicals going to fight Assad and other "Christians". In the eyes of these Radical Sunni Moslem the Alawites were "Christians" and this non-moslems.
Thus you can NOT call the Alawites Moslem, Shiite, Sunni or Christian, the best term is Alawites AND you have to understand it is a close net tribal group that uses its religion to keep itself close net.
More on the Alawites AND Assad reliance on them for support:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawites
Please do NOT confuse the Alawites with the Alevi of Turkey, that is a true off shoot of Shittism and seems NOT to be anywhere near as tribal as the Alawites of Syria (some of whom live in Turkey). Alevi consists 15-25% of the population of Turkey, but most consider themselves Turks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alevism
Map of Alawites in the Mid East:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawite_State#mediaviewer/File:Alawite_Distribution_in_the_Levant.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawite_State
bemildred
(90,061 posts)A senior Member of Parliament from Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has slammed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party over Kurdish policies, the BBC Turkish reported Oct. 18.
The AKP deputy, who spoke to BBC correspondent Paul Moss in Istanbul on condition of anonymity, directed "harsh criticism" at Erdoğan and the AKP, according to the report.
"It is very hard to understand why the government decided to attack the PKK. President Erdoğan is focused on increasing his votes, not to solve the Kurdish problem. I believe that the peace process may soon collapse and this would drive the country into chaos," the AKP MP reportedly said.
Extraordinary off-record interview with #AKP MP today, "President #Erdogan ruining everything...peace process at risk...chaos on the way."
— Paul Moss (@BBCPaulMoss) October 15, 2014
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/senior-akp-deputy-slams-erdogan-his-party-over-kurdish-policies-report.aspx?pageID=238&nid=73158&NewsCatID=338
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)that had nothing to do with Islamism. Nasser, Arafat, Saddam and Gadaffi were Arab Nationalists. They included both muslims and christians in their ranks.They wanted the arab people to come together regardless of religion.
ISIS is an anti-nationalist movement because their aim is to bring in people from all over the world and destroy the local culture. They want muslim fundies to come together regardless of race.
So they are pretty much opposite philosophies.
We've seen the finger pointed at Saudi Arabia and Qatar as being sponsors of this group but I'm beginning to wonder if that's been overstated and there is a gorilla in the room...
it's interesting to look at various countries' actions and inactions.
SkyDaddy7
(6,045 posts)Ridiculous!!!!
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Erdogan's power-base are the religious parts of Turkey's society. He plays to them, whips them up and in return uses them.
In the US, the GOP has unleashed the Tea Party and used it as a campaign-tool for permanent attack.
In Turkey, Erdogan is now confronted with islamists who are anathema to the very founding-history of Turkey as a secular state.
In the US, the GOP-establishment has driven its base so crazy that new, crazy GOP-upstarts threaten to replace the GOP-establishment.
cali
(114,904 posts)the two phenomenons have little in common. And what is the point of this comparison? What point are you trying to make? How does this have anything to do with the topic of the OP?
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)The parallel I'm trying to draw is not in the violence. It's that a power-structure used fanatics to further and cement its rule and then lost control of the fanatics.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)It's meant to keep growing and consume everything in its path.
It's perfect for someone trying to bring back the Ottoman Caliphate and for neocons who want a supply of enemies for their generational wars.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)What would be the difference?
Let's say that the NATO-bombings either fail or stop and that ISIS thrives. Which regional player could stop ISIS?
- Assad wouldn't be able to fend ISIS off: He would have to ally with the secular syrian rebels for that.
- Erdogan refuses to attack ISIS because this would help the Kurds. ISIS is infiltrating Turkey, but Erdogan can't counter that with intelligence-operations because this would alienate his religious backers.
- Jordan? Rich, but their army is not big enough.
- Saudi-Arabia? ISIS was born from the doctrine of a saudi-arabian cleric and the monarchy has only adopted that strong religious stance to not give the religious extremists an excuse for attacks. ISIS will have no problems infiltrating their spiritual home-turf.
- Iran? Not interested in a foreign intervention.
The result are neverending wars either way. The only difference would be whether the US is in or not. Lebanon and Hezbollah (=shiite!) are the only regional players that would offer ISIS a real war, no holds barred.
ISIS would grow, stabilize and establish itself as a training-ground for terrorists and as a new safe haven for everybody who loves beheadings and slavery.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)They can't handle people choosing how to live their own lives without having allah ackbar shoved down their throats.
The ISIL and caliphate supporters should be arrested and dis-positioned if they incite violence or try to force others to follow their insanity, mayhem and cowardice.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Really not smart to allow free access through one's borders for an incubator of ISIL radicals.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)He and his country need to take a firm stand against ISIS and islamic extremism in general, no matter what sort of stupid pro-extremist shit he allowed to transpire up until now--and back it up with real action.
cali
(114,904 posts)Kurds (the PKK)
Yupster
(14,308 posts)and how it would change history.
There was a long chapter about Turkey.
The basic story was that Turkey has always been two different countries. There was the coastal region along the Mediterranean including Istanbul where the people were generally educated and western-leaning. Many have Greek heritage or at least a history of intermarriage.
The other half was the hinterlands of Anatolia. The people there, mostly farmers, are much less educated and Islamic-leaning.
The book told of a huge demographic change going on right now. The coastal people are having two babies each. The inland people are having six babies each. The result was this current president was the first one elected without the support of the more educated coastal regions. One result has been an emigration of educated people leaving Turkey for other parts of Europe.
It doesn't bode well for Turkey.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)14 October 2014 - 18H05
Netherlands says OK for biker gangs to fight Islamic State
I'm not doing a good job of cutting and pasting from France24, so I'll summarize.
The Dutch public prosecutor (sounds like an AG) said that Dutch nationals may fight with the Kurds against ISIS. The Dutch nationals in question are biker gangs of ethnic Dutch, probably right wing types. The only restriction is that they cannot join the PKK, because the PKK is on the terrorist list, like ISIS.
So . . . we have PKK, other Kurds, Alawis, Hezbullah, Shia generally and Dutch bikers against ISIS, AQ remnants and maybe some religious Sunni Arabs, ex-Baathists and some Turks on the ground.
I know that this is bad in so many ways, but it is starting to look like a WWF free-for-all.
Meanwhile, a couple of Americans were shot up at a gas station in Saudi Arabia. One of them
died:
http://www.france24.com/en/20141014-usa-citizen-shot-dead-saudi-arabia-capital-riyadh/
Maybe we should just steel ourselves for $10 gasoline, and excuse ourselves from this situation.
Bragi
(7,650 posts)Why wouldn't right-wing Dutch bikers travel to the middle east to pick up AK-47s and fight alongside Kurds against ISIS? Seems inevitable now.
/joke
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)The whole situation is so dispiriting. The Dutch bikers just seem to be the finishing touch.
Bragi
(7,650 posts)This is the PM's policy advisor giving a big Erdogan hello to a protester/mourner after last May's tragic mine collapse.
Rhinodawg
(2,219 posts)hey, I'm sure it will be peaceful and democratic to all people in its domain.
from now on it will be called Islamic state of historical Iraq , turkey and Syria...ISHITS.
get the red out
(13,462 posts)Rhinodawg
(2,219 posts)you're a woman
LGBT
infidel
Shia
Jew
ex-Muslim
Christian
or any of a hundred other groups.
too late now.
Bragi
(7,650 posts)The OP here was really interesting, there have been some terrific links posted in response, and the commentary here has been more informed than one often finds in, ah, some other places. Thanks to all for this.
For my part, I had the opportunity to pass more than a month in Turkey last May, enjoying the welcoming generosity of the people who live there. My wife and I both remember having a wonderful walk through the secluded and beautiful campus of the University, which is a tranquil oasis smack inside the high-energy center of old Istanbul.
Sadly though, I cannot say I was surprised to read of the student unrest, and the ISIS thuggery, now going on on Istanbul campuses. Why? Because Erdogan and his regime have built their political fortunes and their futures on breeding ever-increasing social and religious divisiveness within Turkish society.
For this reason, the nightmare described by the student in the article is sadly, but accurately, consistent with how I interpret Erdogan's vision and politics, no big surprise there. It will not be surprising if he now use the ISIS riots to further promote mistrust and division between his properly pious and good followers, and the suspiciously secular leftovers.
Anyway, as I imperfectly understand recent Turkish history and what's going on now it, Erdogan is the first anti-Ataturk ruler of modern Turkey. This is a problem not just for Turks, but also for the region, and for the international community at large (if such a thing exists.)
Which makes me glad we visited Turkey when we did. I'm not sure I'd head back next May.
sabbat hunter
(6,829 posts)is supposed to be in a figurehead position now as President of Turkey, but it appears that he has a puppet in place as PM, and he is still in charge. Much like Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.
Davutoğlu's cabinet is loaded with allies of Erdogan, and Davutoğlu was hand selected by Erdogan to replace him as leader of the party (even though as president Erdogan is supposed to sever all ties with his political party)
Erdogan also has long advocated pushing Islamization of the society, away from the secular route it has taken since Ataturk. That is a dangerous and bad route to take IMHO.