What is Happening in Istanbul?

(I am re-posting my comment on about this article on this thread to make it shown since the comments got much larger for the top entry too long. Apologies if I am breaking any rule.)

This article is grossly misleading. Papers and televisions are showing what is going on, one can read from internet [11, 12, 13], and express his opinion. I live in States and even I can access all these information from here. Turkey is a democracy with multi party system similar to France since 1946. Unfortunately the minority group who held the power in Turkey for decades lost their control of most of the government and state after years of corruption with 2002 elections. In 2001 Turkish economy experienced a similar economic meltdown after a "soft" coup of the people who support and make the current demonstrations. The economic repercussions was so deep it effected almost everyone similar to what has been going on in Greece and Spain. Since then the new government handled economy and democratic process so well, even in the current terrible economic situation of the world Turkey managed to become the fastest growing economy in Europe. Turkey has made the last debt payment to IMF couple of weeks ago. For the first time her existence Turkish economy's credit rating became investment grade by Moody's on May 17th this year[1]. Most importantly the clash with the Kurdish minority ended with a new peace process. This is by far the most important achievement of the current government given the 30 years of history of violence in South Easy of Turkey. Over 40K people have died since it started in 1980.

The person who wrote this article and those demonstrators are hoping to show their anger towards the government akin to Egypt's Tahrir Square demonstrations. However this is all reading it backwards. Current government is popularly supported by the people and the support has increased with each consecutive poll since 2002, leading to 50% [3] of the popular vote the last time. This government is leading a commission and effort to write a new constituition to raise the standards of human rights in Turkey. This is one of the biggest selling point to end the Kurdish violence since they now feel their rights will be protected better in the future. Current constitution is put together in 1980 by the people who engineered the last "hard" coup in Turkey [5], a coup literally executed with brute force, guns and tanks. With this government the efforts to get into EU increased tremendously [6] and actually it has been their strategy to balance the power in Turkey against Military's long standing anti-democratic ambitions and practices.

Recent demonstrations at a park in Istanbul got bigger by exploiting the grossly wrong police brutality. Unfortunately where there is demonstration be it in US [7], Spain [8] or Greece [9], in any country the police is very heavy handed. Otherwise the park that is in middle of the city is part of project [10] that will transform the area and close all the motor vehicle traffic and allow only pedestrians. This is going to be done by diverting traffic to underground roads that will be build as part of the project. Decision for the project taken by the people who was elected including members both from ruling and opposition party, and was voted unanimously.

Author of this article and those demonstrators are supporting the old regime. A regime that dictates certain ideology build around a cult leader like the ones in former Soviet Union, China and North Korea. Ours is Ataturk. You have to think like them, act like them, speak like them, live like them. During my mandatory military service I was forced to memorize who is Ataturk which was a list of 10 items that goes like this: 1) Ataturk was the best person in the world 2) Ataturk was best statesman in the world 3) Ataturk is the best military leader in the world. And thise list goes on and on...

Let me give you an example of what this people againts. Can you buy liquor after certain hours in States? Can you walk with an open beer can, alcohol bottle? No, because in States, varying by state, shops can not sell alcohol after 10pm or 2am. For example in England even places where liquor served as part of the service has to close by 1am. When this government made a similar, banning sale of alchol from 10pm to 6am, these people made a big noise. This is one of the arguments they have been telling during these demonstrations.

edit-1: I added some more references.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-16/turkey-raised-to-in... [2] http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/25/turkey-justice-central-ku... [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13740147 [4] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-10/turkey-s-kurtulmus-... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d%C3%A9tat [6] http://www.cfr.org/turkey/turkeys-eu-bid/p8939 [7] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/UC-Davis-pepper-spraye... [8] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/29/spain-riot-polic... [9] http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-police-brutality-2011-6 [10] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opean5HeR-8 [11] http://gundem.milliyet.com.tr/basbakanlik-a-yurumek-isteyen/... [12] http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/23426620.asp [13] http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/gosterilerde_ilk_can_kaybi...

I agree that force is real and that legal equality is an ideal - this is the best argument I know of for a broad interpretation of the right to bear arms. But the fact that democracy is not a state of nature is hardly an argument against it. "The most workable system we have" is all it usually claims to be.

Incidentally, why would you think that a universal moral ideal would be something that happens by itself? Isn't it abundantly clear that humans never fulfil any of their ideals?

When the events were escalating, while there were clashes between the police and thousands of protesters and hundreds were walking across a bridge over the Bosphorus only one TV channel reported these. And you are dismissing this neglect of the media by "Some press reports things less than you like. Some reports with exaggeration."???

The events unfolding at the moment shows that it was possible to celebrate the May Day in Taksim. "This year there is construction so it was not allowed." does not hold water.

As I gave an example (the journalists being fired), it is not my opinion, it is a fact. And if you do not observe other examples around you then you are simply not looking. Of course every government benefits their supporters to some extent, but getting journalists fired? When was the last time did that happen? And regardless of this happening before or not, is it not suppression of free speech?

You say, "To me, Turkish Academy of Sciences issue is overrated", to me it is not. To a lot of my scientist friends it is not (For the record, I am an astrophysicist). People spent a lot time and energy to build the Turkish Academy of Sciences and the Feza Gürsey Institute. And I know these developments did hurt scientists for a fact; I work in a university and I am personally affected. They may be pouring more money into R&D but did you look at the projects in the last science project fair? http://www.sendika.org/2013/05/kuran-mucizesinden-seriat-huk... Do you recall what the Science and Technology minister said about faculties of science or the theory of evolution? That's where a lot of money is going. It is hard to quantize how much real science is getting.

The satellite is in the sky and the team that built that satellite is mostly fired. Pardus was an independent distribution, the team that built Pardus is also gutted and the distribution is now a (badly) translated Debian.

When he was doing his first campaign, Erdogan portrayed himself a liberal. Even after he became president he distanced himself from his old fundamentalist islam friends and followed relatively liberal politics.

Oh, also he had portrayed himself as a victim. This is the achilles heel of Turkish people. They love you unconditionally if they think you are victim. (I am Turkish)

AFAIK, general population is no more or no less liberal compared to 10 years ago. Honestly they weren't/aren't quite liberal.

The problem with using Singapore as an example of anything is that it's a sovereign city-state, as opposed to a more geographically and demographically dispersed nation.

Absolute power can scale up to a certain point. At the end of the day, the dictator-for-life can drive around and see things in his city that need fixing. He can also limit rivals to the throne by centralizing authority.

In a larger country, you can't scale up the dictatorial machine as effectively... you're dependent on the bureaucracy or governors/viceroys to run things in the provinces, which creates a raft of other problems.