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The real solution off course is to rid your country of the embarrisment of Erdogan. Vote. If thats still legal coming next election.

by ralfn 10y ago

batuhanicoz 10y ago
I think we are not that close to having theatre elections. I hate admitting it but democracy works pretty well in Turkey. There are just too many uneducated people here that are influenced by power and religious-themed party platforms. I'm not sure if I'm being elitist but a good democracy requires good, educated people. The ruling party is systematically fucking the education system here, creating more religious schools, adding more voluntary religious classes. ProTip, in Turkey voluntary classes means it's probably mandatory since school headmasters tend to pick whatever they please for the students, citing scheduling problems and being understaffed. I've made peace with the fact Erdogan is not going anywhere soon but I still hope for the country. I have an opinion about him and his party which is not popular among my peers. Erdogan is not a stupid bigot. He is not Trump, for example. From the first day, AKP always hired the best minds in the country. The party had a culture of being reasonable, the founders were good, educated people with the right mindset. They were conservative, which I hate as an atheist, but also social democrats. They supported most things Bernie Sanders supports in the U.S. with a good balance for free market and capitalism. But they attracted stupid bigots as a result of being a religious party. They've done a good job bringing conservatives in Turkey together (also a result of hiring the best, their PR was always good[0]). AKP has a rule where their members can only serve 2 terms in the parliament. As time went by, good ones were replaced by the new generation of party leaders who are just puppets for the President. All the good people were pushed out of the party because they started to disobey orders from the top. They are bigots and too religious. Time to to time, I catch glimpses of Erdogan, supporting our secularism, saying "it's unacceptable to create an Islamic constitution". As they push religion more on Turkey, more they'll lose support. Because educated people are looking to get away. Investors included. This is hurting the economy. President Erdogan or his advisors soon will see they need to be merging the country not separating it. They'll act more secular and sane. Because as it stands now, AKP will be lost in history after the President dies. They don't want that. They are also scared of religious powers here since the coup attempt. Only people they trust right now is the people they alienated and sentenced to life in prison. Kemalists. All this combined, we'll see worst days after we see the light but I have hope we'll see it. [0] The owner of agency which handled most things for the AKP lost his life, along with his son on the Bosphorus Bridge on the night of the coup attempt. Which is why I don't believe AKP was behind the attempt. He was always loyal and a good friend to the President. He cried at the funeral which is something I've never saw him do and not the best political action if it was a role. (Quick note, I'm sorry if this is too political. I started writing a sentence but I wanted to say something like this for a while, I just had to get it out I guess.)
- bogomipz 10y ago
  >"Erdogan is not a stupid bigot. He is not Trump, for example" There are more than a handful of bigoted statements that have come from Erdogan: Some examples: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/06/is-armenian-an-insult-turkeys-prime-minister-seems-to-think-so/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/06... https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/196265/understanding-turkish-pm-erdogans-racist-crack-daniel-greenfield https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/196265/understanding-turk... "On 5 August 2014, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a televised interview on NTV news network, remarked that being Armenian is "uglier" even than being Georgian, saying "You wouldn't believe the things they have said about me. They have said I am Georgian...they have said even uglier things - they have called me Armenian, but I am Turkish" Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Turkey
  - afsina 10y ago
    For what it is worth, that quote was totally misunderstood and turned into a smear campaign. Context is this, some people in Turkey loves to attack people/politicians for their ethnicity. And I guess some people called him Georgian or Armenian descendant. However, some said it as "Ermeni dölü" - a little hard to translate - "from Armenian seed (or semen)". During his speech he says exactly this: "They called me Georgian. They called me, excuse me, in a very ugly way, Armenian". This is a typical conservative way of talking. He refrained himself using the term "döl-semen" and terms "excuse me" and "very ugly way" was for that word, not for "Armenian". Of course, to me correct way of talking about this issue could be "they call me this and that.. who cares!"
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      Before down voting me, please provide a source that includes the whole context then and substantiates your claim. And this is not the only one. I have provided exampled of at least two others.
      - afsina 10y ago
afsina 10y ago
Well, No. This is the culture here. Youtube was closed for years because of Ataturk related videos. One goes another comes. Besides, those leaks are really BS by the way. Those so called Redhack hackers are as idiot as the people who shuts down whole sites for nothing.
- batuhanicoz 10y ago
  Legally, yes, YouTube was banned because of those videos. But they stopped the ban after Google started paying taxes here, which IMHO is worse. I wish we still had good investigative reports who'll read those e-mails and summarize it for us.
  - afsina 10y ago
    Google is not paying taxes here. Those e-mails are as empty as recent Wikileaks AKP e-mails.
- clydethefrog 10y ago
  What makes you think it's BS? If I had leaks showing that my country's government has nepotism on high position, a big influence over the media and actively silencing opposition and dissent I would be pretty worried. Just part of culture? http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/redhack-turkey-albayrak-censorship/ http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/redhack-turkey-albayrak-censo...

The real solution off course is to rid your country of the embarrisment of Erdogan. Vote. If thats still legal coming next election.

by ralfn 10y ago

The real solution off course is to rid your country of the embarrisment of Erdogan. Vote. If thats still legal coming next election.

batuhanicoz 10y ago

I think we are not that close to having theatre elections. I hate admitting it but democracy works pretty well in Turkey. There are just too many uneducated people here that are influenced by power and religious-themed party platforms. I'm not sure if I'm being elitist but a good democracy requires good, educated people. The ruling party is systematically fucking the education system here, creating more religious schools, adding more voluntary religious classes. ProTip, in Turkey voluntary classes means it's probably mandatory since school headmasters tend to pick whatever they please for the students, citing scheduling problems and being understaffed. I've made peace with the fact Erdogan is not going anywhere soon but I still hope for the country. I have an opinion about him and his party which is not popular among my peers. Erdogan is not a stupid bigot. He is not Trump, for example. From the first day, AKP always hired the best minds in the country. The party had a culture of being reasonable, the founders were good, educated people with the right mindset. They were conservative, which I hate as an atheist, but also social democrats. They supported most things Bernie Sanders supports in the U.S. with a good balance for free market and capitalism. But they attracted stupid bigots as a result of being a religious party. They've done a good job bringing conservatives in Turkey together (also a result of hiring the best, their PR was always good[0]). AKP has a rule where their members can only serve 2 terms in the parliament. As time went by, good ones were replaced by the new generation of party leaders who are just puppets for the President. All the good people were pushed out of the party because they started to disobey orders from the top. They are bigots and too religious. Time to to time, I catch glimpses of Erdogan, supporting our secularism, saying "it's unacceptable to create an Islamic constitution". As they push religion more on Turkey, more they'll lose support. Because educated people are looking to get away. Investors included. This is hurting the economy. President Erdogan or his advisors soon will see they need to be merging the country not separating it. They'll act more secular and sane. Because as it stands now, AKP will be lost in history after the President dies. They don't want that. They are also scared of religious powers here since the coup attempt. Only people they trust right now is the people they alienated and sentenced to life in prison. Kemalists. All this combined, we'll see worst days after we see the light but I have hope we'll see it. [0] The owner of agency which handled most things for the AKP lost his life, along with his son on the Bosphorus Bridge on the night of the coup attempt. Which is why I don't believe AKP was behind the attempt. He was always loyal and a good friend to the President. He cried at the funeral which is something I've never saw him do and not the best political action if it was a role. (Quick note, I'm sorry if this is too political. I started writing a sentence but I wanted to say something like this for a while, I just had to get it out I guess.)

bogomipz 10y ago
>"Erdogan is not a stupid bigot. He is not Trump, for example" There are more than a handful of bigoted statements that have come from Erdogan: Some examples: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/06/is-armenian-an-insult-turkeys-prime-minister-seems-to-think-so/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/06... https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/196265/understanding-turkish-pm-erdogans-racist-crack-daniel-greenfield https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/196265/understanding-turk... "On 5 August 2014, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a televised interview on NTV news network, remarked that being Armenian is "uglier" even than being Georgian, saying "You wouldn't believe the things they have said about me. They have said I am Georgian...they have said even uglier things - they have called me Armenian, but I am Turkish" Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Turkey
- afsina 10y ago
  For what it is worth, that quote was totally misunderstood and turned into a smear campaign. Context is this, some people in Turkey loves to attack people/politicians for their ethnicity. And I guess some people called him Georgian or Armenian descendant. However, some said it as "Ermeni dölü" - a little hard to translate - "from Armenian seed (or semen)". During his speech he says exactly this: "They called me Georgian. They called me, excuse me, in a very ugly way, Armenian". This is a typical conservative way of talking. He refrained himself using the term "döl-semen" and terms "excuse me" and "very ugly way" was for that word, not for "Armenian". Of course, to me correct way of talking about this issue could be "they call me this and that.. who cares!"
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    Before down voting me, please provide a source that includes the whole context then and substantiates your claim. And this is not the only one. I have provided exampled of at least two others.
    - afsina 10y ago

afsina 10y ago

Well, No. This is the culture here. Youtube was closed for years because of Ataturk related videos. One goes another comes. Besides, those leaks are really BS by the way. Those so called Redhack hackers are as idiot as the people who shuts down whole sites for nothing.

batuhanicoz 10y ago
Legally, yes, YouTube was banned because of those videos. But they stopped the ban after Google started paying taxes here, which IMHO is worse. I wish we still had good investigative reports who'll read those e-mails and summarize it for us.
- afsina 10y ago
  Google is not paying taxes here. Those e-mails are as empty as recent Wikileaks AKP e-mails.
clydethefrog 10y ago
What makes you think it's BS? If I had leaks showing that my country's government has nepotism on high position, a big influence over the media and actively silencing opposition and dissent I would be pretty worried. Just part of culture? http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/redhack-turkey-albayrak-censorship/ http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/redhack-turkey-albayrak-censo...