Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked • Hacker News Board

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#41

Post by lettergram » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

spriggan3 wrote: post #24

sickbeard wrote: post #7

Why was everyone screaming democracy when they never had one in the first place?

> Why was everyone screaming democracy when they never had one in the first place? Political correctness. Turkey is defacto ruled by a brutal dictatorship now, the failed coup was the last chance of restoring actual democracy in Turkey. The Turkish constitution is actually good and acknowledge the danger of an Islamic theocracy. The role of the Turkish army is/was to prevent it.They failed.

I honestly don't believe it was a coup at all, or at least it was known before hand. There's no way the presidents plane was allows to just flying in circles around the city.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#42

Post by ebiester » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

omegaworks wrote: post #17

Betcha they're all Kurdish.

...or at some point had links to the Hizmet (Gulen) movement - whether it be staying in one of their dorms, or...

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#43

Post by imartin2k » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

glass_of_water wrote: post #32

mcbits wrote: post #9

It's starting to seem like they had these lists made up ahead of time and have been waiting for the right time to start cleansing the ranks.

It's possible the coup was staged as an excuse to purge the opposition and seize more power. Edit: changed "quite likely" to "possible" to address valid criticism.

In my book, "quite likely" would be, say, 80-90 %. And that is absurd.

It is imaginable that the coup was staged, but it is not more likely than the other, more realistic explanations. In fact, it is still rather unlikely, even if one cannot rule it out completely.

That being said, as another commentator mentioned: These lists have existed before, since tensions have been going on for years. So now Erdogan just had to pull them out of the drawer.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#44

Post by random28345 » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

mcbits wrote: post #9

It's starting to seem like they had these lists made up ahead of time and have been waiting for the right time to start cleansing the ranks.

> It's starting to seem like they had these lists made up ahead of time and have been waiting for the right time to start cleansing the ranks.

Kind of how the 342-page US Patriot Act was introduced days after the September 11th terrorist attacks?

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#45

Post by vkou » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

frandroid wrote: post #29

zymhan wrote: post #15

Turkey's civil service is not going to be in good shape after this purge. It seems hard to run a modern society in a very precarious neighborhood with undermanned services and not risk your own citizens getting angry or outsiders using the opportunity to strike.

Also difficult to run a modern society when you purge people capable of critical thought.

Seems to work just fine for most state operations. The people really capable of critical thought will quickly learn to keep their mouths shut.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#46

Post by ilostmykeys » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

Obama and Hillary made a huge error in judgment by siding with a fascist. It's amazing how we haven't gotten ourselves in deep sh!t already given how badly our leaders judge situations. But maybe we have, and we just don't know it yet.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#47

Post by mtgx » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

This after Erdogan has already purged 2,700 judges and 8,000 police officers:

http://www.reuters.com/article/turkey-security-judges-idINKC...

http://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-dismisses-8000-police-...

This looks very much like a real-world version of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's "Execute order 66":

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Order_66

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09n0qd_n4c0

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#48

Post by morgante » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #40

JohnStrange wrote: post #22

The coup was a last chance effort. Now Turkey has become a totalitarian dictatorship, there is no doubt about that. To be more precise, it already lost its status as democracy years ago when Erdogan had hundreds of prosecutors and policemen fired who dared to investigate corruption within his family. But with the latest purges you've got to wonder where they want to get the replacements from. Any sane person will pro…

> totalitarian Probably the most misused term/epithet in international relations. At its worst Turkey is no more repressive than Russia or China and less repressive than Iran. Once you use "totalitarian" to describe authoritarian regimes, you run out of room to describe those that actually qualify as totalitarian, such as North Korea or Eritrea.

I don't think anyone claims Russia or China are democratic. Nor are we planning to add them to the EU or NATO anytime soon.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#49

Post by Kenji » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

What a shame. Erdogan is cementing his position and thus totalitarianism and islamofascism. Driving out the intellectuals and freethinkers is a significant step. Every month he and people like him are in office will take Turkey years to recover from. If this isn't stopped now, and it seems like it isn't, I doubt I will see a free Turkey in my lifetime.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#50

Post by scholia » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

zymhan wrote: post #21

jayess wrote: post #10

How Turkey could possibly still be in accession talks to join the EU is baffling and appalling to me.

They barely were to begin with, and they are highly unlikely to continue in the current atmosphere.

Agreed. There's no way Turkey can get into the EU, first, because it will never meet EU rules; and second, because any other EU member can veto it. In this case, Greece probably would.

Quoted from https://fullfact.org/europe/turkey-likely-join-eu/

Turkey first applied to join what was then the EEC in 1987. It was declared an eligible candidate in 1997. Negotiations were formally opened in 2005.

Now, in 2016, negotiations have closed on just one out of 35 chapters—‘science and research’, which was completed in 2006, the year after it was opened.

Of the remaining 34 chapters, 14 have been opened for negotiation.

In 2006, the EU decided that until Turkey agrees to remove obstacles to free movement of goods (including transport restrictions) between it and Cyprus, no more chapters will be provisionally closed. Eight chapters (including areas fundamental to EU law, such as free movement of goods and right of establishment and freedom to provide services) will not even be opened.