Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Turkish immigrant in Germany, I really find the word "expat" irritating. Why should I make it explicitly clear that my immigration happened on my own terms? Apart from that, the sheer amount of Turkish immigrants who left the country in the last decade (including me) are not Erdoğan supporters. However, many of us refrain from heavy criticism as we occasionally go to Turkey to visit our relatives and we don't wa…
> many of us refrain from heavy criticism If the people who can speak up don't speak up then how is change ever to be expected? This is btw not what usually happens in such situations (immigrants fleeing authoritarianism are generally vocal against it)
Do I like Putin or what Russia is doing? Hell no. But at the same time I'm not going to saying anything negative in public about Russia. If I got on the Russian governments radar forget what they will do to me, I live in America, what will they do to my Grandmother, my uncles, my nieces, my cousins?
I don't know what they will do, and for that reason I cannot risk saying anything.
The same applies in places like Turkey, China, etc. Yeah you might not like what the govt there is doing, but at the same time you can't risk speaking up and having the blowback taken out on your family that still lives there.