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"Modern Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal, a general in the Turkish Army who was later formally granted the surname “Ataturk,” or father of the Turks. Ataturk
by whack 10y ago
"Modern Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal, a general in the Turkish Army who was later formally granted the surname “Ataturk,” or father of the Turks. Ataturk set about an aggressive program of modernizing and “Westernizing” the country, pushing religion to the margins, banning certain apparel like headscarves and fezes, and converting Turkish from Arabic to Latin script. But that secularism has always remained tenuous. Many Turks, especially rural ones, are religious, and not all of the reforms have remained popular.
The military has long seen its role as safeguarding Ataturk’s secularist agenda, and when it worries the government is shifting too far away, it has tended to take action.
Turkey has thus occupied a strange position in world politics: Although it is prone to coups d’etat, Western governments have often cheered the coups on, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, because they are in the service of a secular agenda. Periodic deposition of democratically leaders has, somewhat paradoxically, been treated as a small price to pay for ensuring liberalism."
That's actually a very interesting system of government. A democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles". Such a model would arguably have served Iraq better than the pure democracy that was attempted and failed.
- tdaltonc 10y agoBut how do you make sure that the military has the right "fundamental principles"?
- x3n0ph3n3 10y agoI don't think anyone is advocating military coups in the general case.
- padmanabhan01 10y agoThe same way you make sure democracy or the majority has the right "fundamental principles"..
- beachstartup 10y agowell, it's a government, so it basically just works until it doesn't. then you get a revolution. and a new government, that works until it doesn't. nothing is guaranteed. it's just humans.
- lumberjack 10y agoReduce the standing army and replace it with conscripts.
- zappo2938 10y agoControl Hollywood.[0] [0] http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm#Memo http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm#Memo
- atmosx 10y agoDemocracy was attempted in Iraq? Is that Fox News?!
- jvm 10y agoSed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- CobrastanJorji 10y agoUt semper, supercustodes.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoIs "ut semper" really Latin? It seems a little too cute as a word-for-word fake equivalent of "as always". I searched perseus for "ut semper" and found two results that might have relevance. The first was this: > But the expression does not imply that he conceived them as 50 miles in perpendicular height, but that there is a continuous ascent of 50 miles to get to the summit. This explanation of the passage is adopted by Alexandre; Lemaire, ut supra. Unfortunately, that is evidently English, not Latin. The second was this: > Quid quaeris? Est consul φιλόπατρις et, ut semper iudicavi, natura bonus. (emphasis added) Which I tentatively translate as "What are you asking? He is a filial consul and, as I have always judged, a good man by nature." http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ut&la=la http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ut&la=la lists ut as having, among many, many other senses, the sense of "adverb of manner", which is the one at play in the above example and would also be the sense relevant to "ut semper". The dictionary entries give a large number of examples, but as far as I can see there are no examples in which the clause following ut does not contain a verb.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoIt's tortoises, all the way down.
- nostrademons 10y agoThe U.S. separation of power is based on similar ideas. Congress makes laws on a day-by-day basis, but when the will of the people contradicts certain fundamental principles enshrined in the Constitution, the courts have a right to strike down and nullify laws.
- cperciva 10y agothe courts have a right to strike down and nullify laws. And, at least theoretically, the military oath to defend the constitution could require them to overthrow a government which does not conform to the constitution. In practice, of course, issues are likely to be resolved before they reach that point.
- jwhitlark 10y agoIt's also notable that there are many different militaries in the US: the 5 main national branches, the national guard units of the various states, as well as the state defense forces, that some states also maintain.
- Spooky23 10y agoThat's pretty nominal. Good luck to the governor trying to muster the national guard to confront federal troops.
- int_19h 10y agoIt provides a framework that can be filled if and when needed. NG and SDF may very well answer the call - it all depends on what exactly it is in response to.
- nl 10y agoNote that during the Little Rock crisis in 1957[1] it wasn't inconceivable that this could have happened. The state governor initially used the Arkansas National Guard to block black students from attending Little Rock Central High. Eisenhower federalized the Guard and ordered them to protect the students and let them integrate, and also sent in the 101st Airborne. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_the_integration_of_Central_High_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_th...
- pingec 10y agoIt's how Thailand is run...
- ugh123 10y ago>A democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles" Sounds a lot like Iran, although their "democratic arm" is very much a farce.
- dragonwriter 10y agoSounds more like the US. Turkey's unelected group which intervenes when the elected government violates established norms consists of officers ultimately appointed by (and who can be removed by) the elected organs of government . Same as in the US, though for us it's the judicial branch rather than the military. Now, there's a pretty enormous difference, both in abstract structure and practice, between the US and Turkey here, but it's still a close analogy than the Turkey-Iran one, IMO.
- ugh123 10y agoNot seeing any similarity there other than being a separate group. At least the judicial branch has to follow procedure and constitutional law, whereas a military can just rule via force.
- dragonwriter 10y agoThe judicial branch decides what Constitutional Law means. Its constraints on doing that are largely that it had traditions of applying certain principals developed by the judiciary itself, and, of course, that it is constrained by what people will follow when it issues its dictates. But, yes, the similarity is quite distant, as I said; just less distant than that in the offered comparison between Turkey and Iraq.
- argonaut 10y agoWell, the "enormous difference" is so enormous this really isn't a good comparison. The judiciary is the weakest branch of government. The judges can be impeached by Congress. Congress can arbitrarily expand the size of the Supreme Court and then, with the President, start appointing whoever they want (e.g. there are 9 justices right now. Congress could constitutionally pass a law making there be 21 justices). Finally, and most damning, the judiciary has no power to enforce its decisions. It relies on the respect of the executive branch to enforce its decisions. There are plenty of (fortunately long-past) historical examples of the executive branch blatantly ignoring the judiciary. Contrast this to the military, which has very obvious ultimate power to enforce itself.
- kiba 10y agoIt's certainly a strong reminder that a democracy does not necessarily support liberalism like ours do in the West. It has to be a core tenant that the population believes in.
- golemotron 10y ago> That's actually a very interesting system of government. A democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles". Such a model would arguably have served Iraq better than the pure democracy that was attempted and failed. Technically, the Queen can do the same thing in England. Not an uncommon check valve.
- ENGNR 10y agoAnd in many commonwealth countries too via the governor general. For example the Australian governor general has dissolved government and called an election when it all got too rowdy.
- petercooper 10y agoA democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles" Exactly (part of) why I'm in support of the monarchy in the UK. If push came to shove, the armed forces swear their allegiance to the British monarch, not the government (I'm from an army family and know this is taken seriously). We have attained an interesting stalemate where a corrupt/crazy monarch would struggle to assert power, yet a grossly malfunctioning government can still, in theory, be replaced by one if the people were to allow it.
- Jugurtha 10y ago>We have attained an interesting stalemate where a corrupt/crazy monarch would struggle to assert power, yet a grossly malfunctioning government can still, in theory, be replaced by one if the people were to allow it. Could you elaborate, please?
- desas 10y agoThe monarch can suspend parliament. The monarch can dismiss a prime minister (not happened for > 100 years). The monarch can appoint a new one. Every law has to be signed by the monarch (it's not been refused in 300 years). The monarch is commander in chief. Power resides where people believe it resides. The monarch can only do any of that if people believe in the monarch.
- jonny_eh 10y ago> Power resides where people believe it resides Also, sometimes power resides where the military decides.
- throwaway-hn123 10y agoThe monarch can do all those things, but in reality if she tried to dismiss a PM or refuse to sign a bill, it would be a matter of days or weeks before the monarchy ceased to be an institution.
- 10y ago
- 55555 10y agoThailand has something similarly interesting. They basically have three branches of the state which balance power: the Monarchy, the Government, and the Military. When the government steps out of line, the Monarchy will approve of a coop by the Military. Laypeople, not knowing whether the coop will be good or bad, will look to the Monarchy to see whether it approves. > A democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles" Huh. It would be nice if we had that here in the US.
- adventured 10y ago> Huh. It would be nice if we had that here in the US. That would never function well in the US. It would result in a massive civil war. The general population has hundreds of millions of guns and is very far apart on ideology - that's a lethal combination if unleashed in terms of a violent internal conflict. US culture is also far more aggressive than Turkey's, and the behavior of the government in the US is far more militaristic and violent (and the same is true of the police forces in the US). Such an event would be more likely to permanently rupture the US.
- 55555 10y agoI think you're probably right. I wasn't seriously suggesting it. I simply meant to state my feeling that our "democratic arm" has been violating our country's "fundamental principles."
- makmanalp 10y agoWith Turkish politics, nuance is the name of the game. The nuance that's missing from that paragraph is in the next one: > But what is not clear yet in the latest coup is whether it fits the same pattern of secular Kemalists clamping down on Islamism. There is speculation that the coup’s leaders may in fact be loyal to Fethullah Gulen, an enigmatic Muslim leader who’s currently in exile in Pennsylvania—that’s certainly what Erdogan claimed in his FaceTime address to the nation. Gulen is a former Erdogan ally who was essential to his rise, but the men have since broken.