12 ms·

As a german I really have to wonder what's wrong with our government if we continue to cozy up to Erdogan's turkey. I really don't think having turkey as a mig

As a german I really have to wonder what's wrong with our government if we continue to cozy up to Erdogan's turkey. I really don't think having turkey as a migration buffer is worth paying the price of making the european union look like a club you can buy your way into regardless of ethics. What's the use of values if we're starting to ignore them so easily?

venomsnake 11y ago
Turkey cannot be really migration buffer. But for Germans - i think that the internalized guilt that was whipped into the German society after WWII just prevents them from thinking - EU and his people/interests first, Germany first or criticizing foreigners. We all will pay dearly for supporting "religious freedom" Erdogan against his army in the early 00s
- newjersey 11y ago
  I can't disagree with you at all. The rise of religion in government does us no good. However, we have to face reality as it exists. There'd be someone else if not him. Turkish people are clearly religious Muslims. While it would be nice to have a secular army in control of Turkey, we know the situation wouldn't be viable long term. I for one am glad when politicians take roads sustainably in the long term rather than a band aid until the next election. As much as we all hate the growth of Islam, we can't really do much about it. If we suppress the Islamic populists for too long, we risk creating more caliphates around the world.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    The army upheld the secular character of Turkey for nearly a century. That is long term-ish enough. And they would have deposed Erdogan again in 2004 (I think), when it was clear he had no respect for the secular values of Ataturk. But the coup failed due to a preemptive strike. It was Kemal Ataturk himself that set up the things that way.
tim333 11y ago
A lot of the cozying up is for military reasons I think. Turkey is part of NATO and has 612,900 active personnel against 180,676 from Germany and 205,851 from the UK and also a strategic position bordering Syria, Iraq and Iran so we're kind of forced to be a bit friendly in spite of Erdogan's failings.
- kiyundai 11y ago
  Well don't forget france with around 250,000. Add spain + italy and not sure we should be that afraid
egeozcan 11y ago
I'm a Turkish expat (read: immigrant) working in Germany as a software engineer since 7 years. This situation disturbs me two folds: 1) For the reasons you mentioned already, 2) The power gained through this dirty game being used to suppress the already heavily weakened opposition further in my once democratic country (However, I feel more attached to Germany, to be honest).
- Udo 11y ago
  > However, I feel more attached to Germany, to be honest As a fellow German, it's encouraging to hear that immigrants sometimes still feel they can identify with Germany as their new country, despite all the obvious hurdles. My ex girlfriend's parents moved back to Turkey recently after spending pretty much their entire working lives in Germany, which got me thinking a lot. They said their primary reasons were that they could do more with their retirement money in Turkey and that the weather is nicer - but at the end of the day it means a liberal, secular couple felt like they would be better off moving into a country with a failing democracy, increasing religious fundamentalism, with a wannabe Putin in charge, as opposed to staying where they spent most of their lives.
  - cm3 11y ago
    That's because Turks are treated in Germany the same way Moroccans are in Netherlands. Both parties are to blame, but no matter what a Turk does, it will at least be another 50 years before they're accepted as Germans. Just look at the German media. When somebody with a migration background would get some award, they're quick to point out (s)he is from Germany, hiding the background. But when (s)he does something people disagree with, they're easy to isolate the person as someone with a migration background. I've always seen this as a way of the German Germans (aka Christians and Jews) to feel better, being able to separate those people's behavior from their German German behavior. This basically goes back to the defeat in Vienna, basically. The mistake most of non-Turkish German population does is to conflate descendants of Turkish immigrants with Turks from current day Turkey. It's almost like comparing an African-American from Georgia with someone from Nigeria. So, I can totally understand why the parents would want to move to Turkey for their retirement. And to be fair, there are many English and German retired couples who move to Turkey just as they do to Spain or France.
return0 11y ago
It's still a long way for turkey to join the EU. You don't want to alienate the turks against the EU however. It's one of the few relatively peaceful muslim countries in the region and still very much looking westernwards. Erdogan is also alienating his own people so hopefully he won't be there for long.
matt4077 11y ago
It just goes to show that politics is really really hard. You never get to hear about the decisions that are easy. If it's reported in the media, it's almost by definition an issue with multiple viable options (or, in this case, only bad choices). Having seen a bit of German politics from the inside, I can assure you that everyone grapples with choices like this. I've witnessed ministers of finance changing their opinion on life-or-death (for Greece) matters three times in a day. Not because they lack conviction or idealism, but because they have a set of believes that are sometimes conflicting. Plus lack of sleep, incomplete information etc. I wish more of that process could be shown on TV, but politicians who actually voice these ambiguities are unfortunately seen as weak and thus at some point a decision is made internally and is then communicated with absolute confidence publicly. Regarding Turkey: rest assured, they're never going to be an EU member if things don't change dramatically. Medium-term, Turkey does actually belong in the EU: it's got enormous economic potential, could be a bridge to the middle east etc. Maybe that should have actually happened in the 1995-2008 timeframe and we'd have a different Turkey today. But EU leaders closed the door back then, possibly b/c Turkey was too poor, probably also because there's always one EU head of state who's a fucking racist.
- sydneysider 11y ago
  Blaming this on 'racism' is a poor argument. Maybe it has something to do with the incompatible cultures and values.
  - Cenk 11y ago
    "incompatible cultures and values" are almost exactly the words these racists have always used to keep Turkey out. Britain, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia are all compatible, but Turkey is a step too far?
    - tim333 11y ago
      In Germany Holocaust denial is illegal and you can get imprisoned for it. In Turkey it is required to deny the Armenian Genocide where the Turks killed a million or so Armenians, an act the word genocide was invented to describe. In Turkey you can get imprisoned for saying it happened. That's a fairly major incompatibility to deal with.
tiatia 11y ago
What do you expect from a government run by to former East German state security members (IMs)? IM "Erika" and IM "Raupe" Erdogan is an idiot. He overplayed his cards and does not realize it. I hope Turkey stays out of the EU forever.
- tiatia 11y ago
  Why is this getting downvoted? https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+Raupe+gauck https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+Raupe+gauck https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+erika+merkel https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+erika+merkel There is one famous picture, showing Merkel at a very young age in the outskirts of Berlin in front of a house of a dissident that was under observation. WTF was she doing there? And why did she forbid any further publication of this picture, after is was shown by a Magazine from Switzerland? I saw this picture myself and it is not available anymore in the internet.
  - tiatia 11y ago
    Google translate: The case Havemann A concrete clue look at the Merkel-critics for their presumption that it does not take quite as accurate the Chancellor in describing their past with the truth. It concerns Robert Havemann, a famous regime-critic who had to live under house arrest in the GDR since 1976 and was under permanent Stasi observation. The authors of a television documentary for WDR met in 2005 at the Search for a film about the Stasi secret to the Act of Robert Havemann - and in there was a controversial detail: a photo of Angela Merkel. The picture was in a series of Stasi shots that people showed who were staying around the plot of Robert Havemann over the years or those visited. What did Angela Merkel there? Was she the officers conducting the observation? Visited them the critics of a harmless reason? Not likely, because the access to the house only selected people were allowed. Visited they him so in an official capacity to pump him? From Merkel herself there to little enlightening. She was taken by a fellow student from the Havemann Family with the plot. That was all, no further comments. Spicy is in this context, however, a fact that is occupied. During her time in the Academy of Sciences she shared an office with Havemann's son, also worked as a physicist. Just a coincidence? Angela Merkel claimed that it had practically to do with Havemann Junior hardly anything. Merkel prevented publication Assuming the already discussed WDR documentary "In the Eye of the power the images of the Stasi" in any case wanted to disclose the relevant Merkel photo, but got from the Chancellor office a rejection. For "reasons of protection of their privacy" permission was refused. In the film, then the photo of Merkel has shown herself but defaced. In some Swiss magazines, however, the controversial photo was published. There you suspect the Chancellor in numerous articles then, more practically, to have been active as a Stasi informant. A claim that would establish the authors of the WDR-Reportage otherwise not in their documentation. For this process to derive a spying activities Merkel, is quite wrong and untrustworthy, the author wrote Holger Kulick to the makers of the "Chronicle Berlin", had constructed such a relationship. Indeed, Merkel did Posted therefore not agreed to, because they do not want to fall in the back her political mentor Helmut Kohl, who at the time publicly against it struggled to publish his Stasi file. But is this statement? Is that really the only reason? Here alone is Angela Merkel's words.
cm3 11y ago
Keep in mind that Turkey has often and for long stretches been a buffer/ally between the west and middle and far east. Right before the French and English invaded Turkey in WW1, it was used as a friendly buffer state. So, it's not some place that can be ignored easily. The fear of Turks in Europe solidified after the defeat in Vienna and left a deep mark that predisposed the idea of Europe as a Christian club. Go look around statues and stuff in Vienna to see what I mean. I have Turkish friends in Germany who, given the treatment, experience being called a Turk as a racial slur. In some sense it's good that so many real arabs are in Germany right now, which should show the broader population the difference between Anatolians and Middle-Easterners. The Turkish population is of quite a mixed ethnic background, even today. This is normal for a place that's not tiny and partly due to cross-pollination too. The way the EU has evolved is highly questionable and the memberships of many are even more dubious to say the least, so there are much deeper problems than whether another place like the UK, just with almost no Christianity, should get laxer trade agreements or not. Think about why some very central European Christian countries don't use the EURO or in the case of Iceland aren't even fully in the EU but could have been.
- jbmorgado 11y ago
  Sorry, but you are wrong. Turkey was the hearth of the Ottoman empire with whom most of Europe had been at intermittent war for centuries until it was dissolved already after WWI (in fact, because of the outcome of WWI). They were certainly not a friend and the main historical current is that the rulers of Europe accepted the dangers of the existence of the very powerful Austo-Hungarian empire exactly so that they would act as a military barrier between the Ottoman empire and Europe, otherwise the other European kingdoms would never accept the Austro-Hungarians to have such power inside Europe.
  - cm3 11y ago
    Of course they were at war and did things that were deemed acceptable for the time. Today we do other things that you and me might see as acceptable but our grandchildren will view as atrocities. That's humanity. What I meant is that after the defeat in Vienna the fate was sealed and it put the final nail into the box for votes of acceptance into the Euro club. It wasn't as clear before. The UK doesn't fear Turks because they didn't have the experience Hungary and Austria had for example. WW1 and WW2 are both the result of mainly one mis-educated and ill-suited German ruler as the main initiator of the conflict(s), funny enough. WW1 it was the relative of the English king who was just plain stupid and thought war is better than economic dominance and didn't wait a couple days longer for some Austrian correspondence I forgot the details about or it would have been avoided in that year at least. WW2 was funny enough initiated by Austria, who have always wanted to rejoin Germany. The way I see it it's a family of monarchies across Europe and Russia who had their quarrels and caused the world devastating losses.
Inthenameofmine 11y ago
It might have something to do with all those German-Turkish corporate joint ventures in the Balkans. I can't remember a 6 figure corruption scandale in Kosovo and Albania that did not have a German-Turkish corporation involved.

venomsnake 11y ago

Turkey cannot be really migration buffer. But for Germans - i think that the internalized guilt that was whipped into the German society after WWII just prevents them from thinking - EU and his people/interests first, Germany first or criticizing foreigners. We all will pay dearly for supporting "religious freedom" Erdogan against his army in the early 00s

newjersey 11y ago
I can't disagree with you at all. The rise of religion in government does us no good. However, we have to face reality as it exists. There'd be someone else if not him. Turkish people are clearly religious Muslims. While it would be nice to have a secular army in control of Turkey, we know the situation wouldn't be viable long term. I for one am glad when politicians take roads sustainably in the long term rather than a band aid until the next election. As much as we all hate the growth of Islam, we can't really do much about it. If we suppress the Islamic populists for too long, we risk creating more caliphates around the world.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  The army upheld the secular character of Turkey for nearly a century. That is long term-ish enough. And they would have deposed Erdogan again in 2004 (I think), when it was clear he had no respect for the secular values of Ataturk. But the coup failed due to a preemptive strike. It was Kemal Ataturk himself that set up the things that way.

tim333 11y ago

A lot of the cozying up is for military reasons I think. Turkey is part of NATO and has 612,900 active personnel against 180,676 from Germany and 205,851 from the UK and also a strategic position bordering Syria, Iraq and Iran so we're kind of forced to be a bit friendly in spite of Erdogan's failings.

kiyundai 11y ago
Well don't forget france with around 250,000. Add spain + italy and not sure we should be that afraid

egeozcan 11y ago

I'm a Turkish expat (read: immigrant) working in Germany as a software engineer since 7 years. This situation disturbs me two folds: 1) For the reasons you mentioned already, 2) The power gained through this dirty game being used to suppress the already heavily weakened opposition further in my once democratic country (However, I feel more attached to Germany, to be honest).

Udo 11y ago
> However, I feel more attached to Germany, to be honest As a fellow German, it's encouraging to hear that immigrants sometimes still feel they can identify with Germany as their new country, despite all the obvious hurdles. My ex girlfriend's parents moved back to Turkey recently after spending pretty much their entire working lives in Germany, which got me thinking a lot. They said their primary reasons were that they could do more with their retirement money in Turkey and that the weather is nicer - but at the end of the day it means a liberal, secular couple felt like they would be better off moving into a country with a failing democracy, increasing religious fundamentalism, with a wannabe Putin in charge, as opposed to staying where they spent most of their lives.
- cm3 11y ago
  That's because Turks are treated in Germany the same way Moroccans are in Netherlands. Both parties are to blame, but no matter what a Turk does, it will at least be another 50 years before they're accepted as Germans. Just look at the German media. When somebody with a migration background would get some award, they're quick to point out (s)he is from Germany, hiding the background. But when (s)he does something people disagree with, they're easy to isolate the person as someone with a migration background. I've always seen this as a way of the German Germans (aka Christians and Jews) to feel better, being able to separate those people's behavior from their German German behavior. This basically goes back to the defeat in Vienna, basically. The mistake most of non-Turkish German population does is to conflate descendants of Turkish immigrants with Turks from current day Turkey. It's almost like comparing an African-American from Georgia with someone from Nigeria. So, I can totally understand why the parents would want to move to Turkey for their retirement. And to be fair, there are many English and German retired couples who move to Turkey just as they do to Spain or France.

return0 11y ago

It's still a long way for turkey to join the EU. You don't want to alienate the turks against the EU however. It's one of the few relatively peaceful muslim countries in the region and still very much looking westernwards. Erdogan is also alienating his own people so hopefully he won't be there for long.

matt4077 11y ago

It just goes to show that politics is really really hard. You never get to hear about the decisions that are easy. If it's reported in the media, it's almost by definition an issue with multiple viable options (or, in this case, only bad choices). Having seen a bit of German politics from the inside, I can assure you that everyone grapples with choices like this. I've witnessed ministers of finance changing their opinion on life-or-death (for Greece) matters three times in a day. Not because they lack conviction or idealism, but because they have a set of believes that are sometimes conflicting. Plus lack of sleep, incomplete information etc. I wish more of that process could be shown on TV, but politicians who actually voice these ambiguities are unfortunately seen as weak and thus at some point a decision is made internally and is then communicated with absolute confidence publicly. Regarding Turkey: rest assured, they're never going to be an EU member if things don't change dramatically. Medium-term, Turkey does actually belong in the EU: it's got enormous economic potential, could be a bridge to the middle east etc. Maybe that should have actually happened in the 1995-2008 timeframe and we'd have a different Turkey today. But EU leaders closed the door back then, possibly b/c Turkey was too poor, probably also because there's always one EU head of state who's a fucking racist.

sydneysider 11y ago
Blaming this on 'racism' is a poor argument. Maybe it has something to do with the incompatible cultures and values.
- Cenk 11y ago
  "incompatible cultures and values" are almost exactly the words these racists have always used to keep Turkey out. Britain, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia are all compatible, but Turkey is a step too far?
  - tim333 11y ago
    In Germany Holocaust denial is illegal and you can get imprisoned for it. In Turkey it is required to deny the Armenian Genocide where the Turks killed a million or so Armenians, an act the word genocide was invented to describe. In Turkey you can get imprisoned for saying it happened. That's a fairly major incompatibility to deal with.

tiatia 11y ago

What do you expect from a government run by to former East German state security members (IMs)? IM "Erika" and IM "Raupe" Erdogan is an idiot. He overplayed his cards and does not realize it. I hope Turkey stays out of the EU forever.

tiatia 11y ago
Why is this getting downvoted? https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+Raupe+gauck https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+Raupe+gauck https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+erika+merkel https://www.google.com/search?q=IM+Raupe#q=IM+erika+merkel There is one famous picture, showing Merkel at a very young age in the outskirts of Berlin in front of a house of a dissident that was under observation. WTF was she doing there? And why did she forbid any further publication of this picture, after is was shown by a Magazine from Switzerland? I saw this picture myself and it is not available anymore in the internet.
- tiatia 11y ago
  Google translate: The case Havemann A concrete clue look at the Merkel-critics for their presumption that it does not take quite as accurate the Chancellor in describing their past with the truth. It concerns Robert Havemann, a famous regime-critic who had to live under house arrest in the GDR since 1976 and was under permanent Stasi observation. The authors of a television documentary for WDR met in 2005 at the Search for a film about the Stasi secret to the Act of Robert Havemann - and in there was a controversial detail: a photo of Angela Merkel. The picture was in a series of Stasi shots that people showed who were staying around the plot of Robert Havemann over the years or those visited. What did Angela Merkel there? Was she the officers conducting the observation? Visited them the critics of a harmless reason? Not likely, because the access to the house only selected people were allowed. Visited they him so in an official capacity to pump him? From Merkel herself there to little enlightening. She was taken by a fellow student from the Havemann Family with the plot. That was all, no further comments. Spicy is in this context, however, a fact that is occupied. During her time in the Academy of Sciences she shared an office with Havemann's son, also worked as a physicist. Just a coincidence? Angela Merkel claimed that it had practically to do with Havemann Junior hardly anything. Merkel prevented publication Assuming the already discussed WDR documentary "In the Eye of the power the images of the Stasi" in any case wanted to disclose the relevant Merkel photo, but got from the Chancellor office a rejection. For "reasons of protection of their privacy" permission was refused. In the film, then the photo of Merkel has shown herself but defaced. In some Swiss magazines, however, the controversial photo was published. There you suspect the Chancellor in numerous articles then, more practically, to have been active as a Stasi informant. A claim that would establish the authors of the WDR-Reportage otherwise not in their documentation. For this process to derive a spying activities Merkel, is quite wrong and untrustworthy, the author wrote Holger Kulick to the makers of the "Chronicle Berlin", had constructed such a relationship. Indeed, Merkel did Posted therefore not agreed to, because they do not want to fall in the back her political mentor Helmut Kohl, who at the time publicly against it struggled to publish his Stasi file. But is this statement? Is that really the only reason? Here alone is Angela Merkel's words.

cm3 11y ago

Keep in mind that Turkey has often and for long stretches been a buffer/ally between the west and middle and far east. Right before the French and English invaded Turkey in WW1, it was used as a friendly buffer state. So, it's not some place that can be ignored easily. The fear of Turks in Europe solidified after the defeat in Vienna and left a deep mark that predisposed the idea of Europe as a Christian club. Go look around statues and stuff in Vienna to see what I mean. I have Turkish friends in Germany who, given the treatment, experience being called a Turk as a racial slur. In some sense it's good that so many real arabs are in Germany right now, which should show the broader population the difference between Anatolians and Middle-Easterners. The Turkish population is of quite a mixed ethnic background, even today. This is normal for a place that's not tiny and partly due to cross-pollination too. The way the EU has evolved is highly questionable and the memberships of many are even more dubious to say the least, so there are much deeper problems than whether another place like the UK, just with almost no Christianity, should get laxer trade agreements or not. Think about why some very central European Christian countries don't use the EURO or in the case of Iceland aren't even fully in the EU but could have been.

jbmorgado 11y ago
Sorry, but you are wrong. Turkey was the hearth of the Ottoman empire with whom most of Europe had been at intermittent war for centuries until it was dissolved already after WWI (in fact, because of the outcome of WWI). They were certainly not a friend and the main historical current is that the rulers of Europe accepted the dangers of the existence of the very powerful Austo-Hungarian empire exactly so that they would act as a military barrier between the Ottoman empire and Europe, otherwise the other European kingdoms would never accept the Austro-Hungarians to have such power inside Europe.
- cm3 11y ago
  Of course they were at war and did things that were deemed acceptable for the time. Today we do other things that you and me might see as acceptable but our grandchildren will view as atrocities. That's humanity. What I meant is that after the defeat in Vienna the fate was sealed and it put the final nail into the box for votes of acceptance into the Euro club. It wasn't as clear before. The UK doesn't fear Turks because they didn't have the experience Hungary and Austria had for example. WW1 and WW2 are both the result of mainly one mis-educated and ill-suited German ruler as the main initiator of the conflict(s), funny enough. WW1 it was the relative of the English king who was just plain stupid and thought war is better than economic dominance and didn't wait a couple days longer for some Austrian correspondence I forgot the details about or it would have been avoided in that year at least. WW2 was funny enough initiated by Austria, who have always wanted to rejoin Germany. The way I see it it's a family of monarchies across Europe and Russia who had their quarrels and caused the world devastating losses.

Inthenameofmine 11y ago

It might have something to do with all those German-Turkish corporate joint ventures in the Balkans. I can't remember a 6 figure corruption scandale in Kosovo and Albania that did not have a German-Turkish corporation involved.