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    #26
    Turkey

    The position Erdogan holds, in terms of strong electoral performances, as well as how he's acting now, probably finds a comparator in Viktor Orbán's actions over the last few years in Hungary. I fear that he'll continue, as per that precedent, to push through his and the AKP's plans without any real regard to either the protests, nor international condemnation of how things are being handled. Turkey not being in the EU makes this even easier for him (not that the EC were able to sway Fidesz at all)

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      #27
      Turkey

      Cameron's clever plan of supporting Turkish entry to the EU as a negotiation tactic v Germany seems to be going a bit awry. It's looking about as relevant as the "cosmic clause" in the record contract Bad News sign.

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        #28
        Turkey

        ad hoc wrote: If I thought French opposition to Turkey's membership was for good reasons, I'd agree, but it was so obviously driven by simple racism that I can't call it sage.
        Racism and that Germany doesn't want it, and the two were very close at the time. As I say, Cameron thought he was being clever in supporting it, but that's utterly irrelevant now.

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          #29
          Turkey

          This is an excellent and well balanced piece I think: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/03/taksim-square-istanbul-turkey-protest

          Comment


            #30
            Turkey

            Top work Tubby in managing to get Ian Duncan Smith and Bad News into this thread.

            Comment


              #31
              Turkey

              If you've got a while, Democracy Now's special report on Turkey is worth watching http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/3/a_turkish_spring_over_1_000?autostart=true

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                #32
                Turkey

                a short video by the protestors

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                  #33
                  Turkey

                  Top work Tubby in managing to get Ian Duncan Smith and Bad News into this thread.
                  He just needs to crowbar in a ribald anecdote or two about Ian Gilmour and Mudassar Nasar now. Eminently achievable on this thread, I'd have thought.

                  Comment


                    #34
                    Turkey

                    These sort of things will not help

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                      #35
                      Turkey

                      This is an excellent blog post outlining some of the history and background of the current situation http://cartist.edublogs.org/2013/06/04/talking-turkey-in-troubled-times/#.Ua4HSRI8d3I.twitter

                      Comment


                        #36
                        Turkey

                        E10 Rifle wrote:
                        Top work Tubby in managing to get Ian Duncan Smith and Bad News into this thread.
                        He just needs to crowbar in a ribald anecdote or two about Ian Gilmour and Mudassar Nasar now. Eminently achievable on this thread, I'd have thought.
                        That might be hard. But watch out for an allusion to the 1979 World Cup Final, and the rather slow partnership between Brearley and Boycott.

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                          #37
                          Turkey

                          Of the likely possible outcomes of all this, Erdogn being ousted by his own party and replaced with Gul or A.N.Other would seem the best

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                            #38
                            Turkey

                            The police go in.

                            Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote: I am sorry but Gezi Park is for taking promenades, not for occupation
                            How will anyone take a promenade when the thing's been built on?

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                              #39
                              Turkey

                              All credible reports suggest that the whole thing this morning is a set up - police go into to Taksim, and then, for the first time Turkish national media starts covering it live, and suddenly up pop a bunch of about 30 previously unseen people (who suspiciously seem to be carrying police issue pistols in holsters under their clothes) and start throwing molotov cocktails at the police, who then turn the water cannons on them, but at low levels of pressure so they are not actually sent back, and this little drama can continue on TV for an hour or so.

                              Meanwhile the actual protestors sit in Gezi park and watch, but are not on the TV.

                              Tayyip is a cunt.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                Turkey

                                Meanwhile a slightly bizarre and I presume not terribly scientific article about Erdogan's neuropsychological problems http://professorianrobertson.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/could-the-10-year-illness-be-afflicting-turkish-prime-minister-erdogan/

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                                  #41
                                  Turkey

                                  Thread revival alert. Well, not that Erdogan has been quiet all this time, what with the embezzlement accusations, railing against co-ed universities, etc etc, but it's all flown under the radar a bit.

                                  Our democratic friend is back at it though.

                                  Was only skyping a friend of mine this week telling her she's living in a banana republic. She's actually starting to look at her options for leaving Turkey if all this continues.

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    Turkey

                                    Sorry to hear about your friends AE.

                                    The sad thing, related to that article, is that when they say 'if he wins the elections', it's actually almost certainly 'when'. No doubt Izmir and Edirne/Thrace will stay CHP but I doubt the AKP will fail too much in Anatolia.

                                    Not sure how much this is just hearsay, but apparently the CHP had said they will no longer refer to Erdogan as 'Prime Minister' or even as 'Erdogan', rather they will only call him 'Tayyip'. That's about as strong an action they can take I guess, the useless bastards

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      Turkey

                                      via vicaria wrote: Thread revival alert. Well, not that Erdogan has been quiet all this time, what with the embezzlement accusations, railing against co-ed universities, etc etc, but it's all flown under the radar a bit.

                                      Our democratic friend is back at it though.

                                      Was only skyping a friend of mine this week telling her she's living in a banana republic. She's actually starting to look at her options for leaving Turkey if all this continues.
                                      Like Greece or Spain, which have nearly three times Turkey's unemployment rate?

                                      The urban turmoil in Istanbul seems a bit like the student protests in France or the US the late 60s, except that there is no colonial wars being waged by their government. What exactly are the protestors' main grievances, a shopping mall and new regulations about sale of alcohol, or the lifting of restrictions on the access of veiled women to public life?

                                      In fact Erdogan's government has had a very positive regional role, standing both against the horribly brutal Russian-backed Assad dictatorship and the western-backed military putchists in Egypt. Domestically, he got rid of the budding Turkish Pinochets, something that all other southern European countries got rid of decades ago.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        Turkey

                                        Wow Linus. Where to start with this.

                                        Agreed with the regional role especially regarding Egypt but the policy towards Syria has created large numbers of radicalized Sunnis that is going to come back to haunt Turkey in the same way that the military policy of creating Hezbollah as a counterweight to the PKK in the 80s an 90s did.

                                        As for his economic policies he has created a consumer society reliant on producing very little and building shopping centres to fuel domestic growth.

                                        Basic freedoms in Turkey have disappeared as can be seen with the ridiculous number of journalists locked up.

                                        Finally he may have got rid of military power but has replaced that with his cronies in positions of power. As can be seen with the recent purges in both the police and the judiciary.

                                        The cost of this regime to Turkey and its near neighbours is huge and is again a major misjudgment of the West in dealing with political Islam.

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          Turkey

                                          Yesterday the young Alevi boy who had been in a coma since last June sadly passed away. His funeral today has reignited the protests and there are reports of fatalities.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            Turkey

                                            It's delicious. In New England you can often get cranberry sauce on a rost turkey sandwich. I highly recommend it. That doesn't seem to be available elsewhere.
                                            I got some really good sliced turkey from the grocery deli the other day. It was $8 for a lb but I already ate it all.
                                            Not as much of a fan of the smoked turkey, however.

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                                              #47
                                              Turkey

                                              Well done Reed

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                                                #48
                                                Turkey

                                                Twitter getting blocked in Turkey - Facebook and others next?

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                                                  #49
                                                  Turkey

                                                  You Tube (which is the home of a number of corruption exposes) now blocked.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Turkey

                                                    I liked this piece by Zeynep Tufekci on the context of these bans.[/url]

                                                    Erdogan used the same strategy in Gezi: government-controlled mass media portrayed it as a movement which attacked and beat up women wearing the hijab even when they had their babies in their arms, and one in which protesters went into Mosques to have alcohol-fueled orgies—stories which turned out to be false, but which the prime minister has repeated in almost every rally since (I suspect the housewife with malicious porn impersonators will be the new constant story).

                                                    It worked. Many people were scared off from going to Gezi to check it out themselves, where they would have found a peaceful, colorful and safe protest, except from occasional tear gas from the police.

                                                    This is what Erdogan is now doing to social media: portray it as a place from which only ugly things come from, and which poses a danger to family and to unity. Given that Turkey has a civil war that has erupted on its border with Syria, and is housing millions of distraught refugees, it is not hard to understand why people fear anything that they see as fomenting “disunity.”

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