181–190 of 519 posts
"These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its…
I have sympathy for the protesters but I do wish they had protested just as vehemently when the government began to silence the Press. A Free Press does not guarantee democracy but it does bark loudly and fiercely when it senses danger to the democracy.
today the minister called, 'there is this damned twitter, ruining our society...'
so turks use now, twitter, facebook, foursquare, ustream tv, tumblr as 'the media'..
I recommend - http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/ What puzzle me the most, is the voluntary cooperation of the media with the government. Even if the media does not support this event, how they not cover it at all? sad, I always thought of Turkey as the most successful example of a Muslim democratic state.
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> Muslim democratic state. There are very, very few religious democracies, and if you only consider those both officially and effectively religious, I won’t be able to name a single one.
I think this description was more akin to describing the USA or Germany as “Christian democratic states” as a majority in both of those are Christians. It doesn’t mean that Christianity is the state religion or something. Turkey has been a successful majority Muslim but very secular and democratic state for a very long time. Maybe that’s changing … (Ah, decisions, decisions. Sometimes I think the EU should have accel…
Uhm. Military coups in: 1960, 1971, 1980, as well as substantial intervention in the succession of power in 1997 that many considers a coup.
The secular nature of the Turkish state has largely remained as secular as it is because the Turkish military has a tendency to conduct coups whenever they deem someone is trying to introduce religiously motivated laws, coupled with a legal system that is frequently used to shut down political parties that mix politics and religion.
Turkey does not exactly have a very solid democratic tradition yet.
We have yet to see if the "Memorandum" issued in 1997 and allowing the current government is a sign the military has softened it's stance, but it's very clear that so far at least, the elected Turkish governments serve at the mercy of the military.
The tearing down of trees for commercial and residential areas is happening here too. It's called urban sprawl. Land developers wipe out natural habitats like forests and leave sterile, artificial suburbs and plazas in its stead. Most citizens never hear about it until it's too late because it's not easy to find out about the latest zonings. Trying to have a say in the process? Well, that's a whole new level of obfus…
This isn't urban sprawl, this isn't the tearing down of forests. This is removing a park in the middle of the city. Imaging if they came in and bulldozed Central Park.
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Well, I've been to both cities for two weeks and I didn't find any mall in NYC (I'm sure there must be some, I just didn't find them) while in Istanbul they are really everywhere, you cannot ignore them if not only because they are usually guarded by security people with riffles. Here's a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shopping_malls_in_Istan... They are usually huge. I was very surprise because in my hom…
I don't have any trouble believing there are many malls in Istanbul. I do have some trouble believing you can reasonably answer whether they are too many by just checking on the internet. In fact, as you point out, it's possible to visit NYC and not notice how many there are. I also have some difficulty with the idea that people are heading out to the streets, risking life and limb, in multiple cities across Turkey j…
* The original claim on the blog
* Some research a poster here helpfully did using Google maps and web searches to verify
* Stories from multiple people who have visited Istanbul in person and can compare to other european cities
... you are still banging the drum of "You can't answer a question just by checking the internet!"
I wonder: what kind of evidence would get you to the point where you might believe such a claim?
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> Muslim democratic state. There are very, very few religious democracies, and if you only consider those both officially and effectively religious, I won’t be able to name a single one.
> I won’t be able to name a single one. UK?
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"We" don't really do anything consistently. When it's Hollywood or SOPA or NSLs or wiretaps "we" are passionately anti-government, when it's AirBnB or Uber flaunting local restrictions, "we" are very skeptical and when it's Google not paying enough tax, "we" are government cheerleaders. That said: > A dying model of Governance could take things to a rather unprecedented level of nastiness and cruelty. You haven't pai…
Doesn't that just sound like "we're" pro citizen?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemalism Ideology that Kemalism brings defines the fundamental principles of Turkish Republic.
The revolutionism part is kindof odd, don't you think? A tradition that calls for the rejection of traditions.
"Court suspends planned Artillery Barracks project to replace Gezi Park. An administrative court has suspended the conversion project in the lung of Istanbul."
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/court-suspends-planned-arti...