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Wow, Turkey is really going nuts. I am surprised, because normally you hear "social media ban" and you think some dictatorship. One thing is certain, while this

Wow, Turkey is really going nuts. I am surprised, because normally you hear "social media ban" and you think some dictatorship. One thing is certain, while this is going on, Turkey can kiss EU membership ambitions goodbye.

kaonashi 13y ago
>Turkey can kiss EU membership ambitions goodbye. Probably all the better for Turkey.
- s_dev 13y ago
  I doubt that. Turkey would be better off in the EU as would Ukraine or at least the popular opinions of common people would suggest. Turkey is in NATO so it's a completely different ball park to Ukraine. They would be better off economically and culturally. Europe is more harmonious than the the other spheres of influence surrounding Turkey namely the Middle East and Russia.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    Nope, not the case. The Turkish economy is very strong, and the workforce is young and energetic. If Turkey joined the EU, the aging European population and the crumbling economies of Greece, Italy and Spain would be a drag on the growth of the Turkish economy. Essentially, the only major benefit EU membership would give Turks is the ability to freely travel around Europe without needing passport visas.
    - mkuhn 13y ago
      And maybe free access to a huge market to sell all the goods your growing economy produces to!?
    - Ygg2 13y ago
      While workforce being young and energetic is helpful, it's not the sole reason of someone's economy being strong. I'm pretty sure most African countries have way younger population. It's not like Turks already don't go to Germany to work.
    - binarycrusader 13y ago
      The Turkish economy isn't going to remain strong if they keep doing stupid things like this. The free flow of information is vital to the growth and sustaining of an economy.
      - enraged_camel 13y ago
        That's actually our greatest hope. If foreign investment dries up as a result of political instability, enough people might stop voting for him that he might be outed in a semi-democratic process (if he doesn't rig the elections as usual, that is). Otherwise, things will end in violence.
      - pknerd 13y ago
        Really? What do you say about China?
        oblio 13y ago
        When you have 1.5 billion people the game is played at an entirely different level. One which Turkey is highly unlikely to reach.
        stevoo 13y ago
        and have every single kind of mineral deposit in the world, with some that are only mined there. China is on a completely different level as oblio already said :)
      - theverse 13y ago
        I think Erdogan sees China as a model for the future, as a provider of cheap labor. So, Turkey doesn't need to intellectually integrate with the rest of the world.
    - weavejester 13y ago
      There's a big difference between being able to travel to a country without a visa, and being able to freely emigrate there, which is what EU membership provides. Turkey's economy may be growing, but the GDP per capita is a quarter that of wealthier countries like the UK or Germany. Joining the EU would also give Turkey a seat at the table. Turkey has a large population, and would therefore get a large representation at the European Parliament.
  - kaonashi 13y ago
    > They would be better off economically Considering the experience of Spain, Italy, Portugal, Italy, etc. in the EU thus far, I highly doubt that conclusion.
    - s_dev 13y ago
      Those experiences are commonly attributed to the EMU not the EU.
    - mercurial 13y ago
      Are you contending that the EU did not have a huge positive influence on the Spanish economy from the time it joined the EU until the economic crisis? The fact that the Spanish government, much like the Irish, let a bubble form, isn't, as far as I know, the fault of the EU. I agree that the current policy of austerity is an extremely bitter pill to swallow, but seeing the influence of the EU on the southernmost member states only in light of recent events is mistaken. Of course, it is possible that you simply dislike market economy, but that's a very different debate.
      - kaonashi 13y ago
        Here's an excellent run-down of the inherent flaws in the EU institutional arrangements. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v14/n19/wynne-godley/maastricht-and-all-that http://www.lrb.co.uk/v14/n19/wynne-godley/maastricht-and-all... tl;dr everyone can't be a net exporter at the same time
- seanccox 13y ago
  I tend to agree. Though the carrot of EU membership has been instrumental in motivating a few, minor reforms, mostly it just becomes a distracting process (for both parties). It was the dream of Ataturk that Turkey be a European nation, but it doesn't seem particularly plausible now.
josefresco 13y ago
Hopefully because Turkey is "democratic" they'll simply vote out the idiots who made such short-sighted decisions.
- egeozcan 13y ago
  Democracy is not pluralism but people with enough money/connections can keep abusing the ignorance of the masses on any subject to gain so much power that they stop caring about the minorities. My political knowledge is very limited so I wonder what kind of measures exist in modern democracies to fight that? Is it just a matter of education? And, what happens when education becomes just another tool for propaganda?
pjc50 13y ago
Exactly how democratic it is is very much in question: http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/halil-gurhanli/can-turkey-handle-free-and-fair-elections http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/halil-gurhanli/c... It's a good example of how pluralism is a more important aspect of democracy than the actual voting. People like to complain about the US two-party system and condemn obvious one-party states, but the reality of a lot of recent or fragile democracies is that they are one-and-a-bit party states. There's an establishment and an opposition, and the opposition are allowed to exist but have a limited influence on actual control.
- redthrowaway 13y ago
  For an example of this, look at how the ANC has dominated South African governance for the last 20 years, and the cost that's had in terms of corruption and development of civil society.
- saraid216 13y ago
  I wonder whether or not it'd do any good to enshrine opposition factions in a government. I have a vague notion of requiring budgetary support, but I can't really imagine any specifics I'd be happy with. AFAIK, opposition parties (and political parties in general) haven't been included in any constitutions at all. #thoughtexperiment #whimsy
hospes 13y ago
I think Turkey has a lot more complex issues before they can be seriously considered as a EU candidate: - Occupation of Cyprus (EU member state) populated mostly by Greeks (Greece is EU member as well) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus) - Armenian Genocide of 1915. 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Turkish government, because of being Christians. 21 Countries and 43 U.S. states have recognized the Armenian Genocide. Turkey denies the Armenian Genocide. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide) They constantly suppress rights of Kurds.
- egeozcan 13y ago
  Yes, no other European country has any similar issues. Greece should close its borders immediately to prevent us barbarians from entering the EU again! Seriously, I agree that Turkey needs to do a lot to rise up to the European standards but I don't think it helps the conversation to bring these sensitive issues up every time you see the words EU and Turkey in the same sentence. edit: Dear down-voters, I understand your sensitivity on the issue but please try to understand what I'm arguing against. I actually accept the Armenian Genocide, and support Kurdish rights, and the rights of any other minorities. What I'm arguing against is this continuous flame-war. See my other comments on those issues if you challenge my honesty. Thanks.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    Many other countries had or still have difficulty coming to terms with their past: France until relatively recently with its colonial past, the UK (or so it seems seen from continental Europe), Japan with its numerous warcrimes during WWII, Algeria, or even the US. I can understand why repetitive, double-standard bashing would become tedious after a short while.
  - stevoo 13y ago
    The problem with this sensitive issues is that they are still un-resolved. Unfortunately your goverment does not want to do anything about them and keep on doing what they fucking want. When Erdogan steps down, and hopefully a more civilized, non-military person takes over then nothing will change. In the mean time, Kurds are still gonna suffer, Cyprus will still be divide in half, and everything else that they keep on doing.
gioele 13y ago
> Turkey can kiss EU membership ambitions goodbye. Why? Single EU countries have widespread censoring infrastructure in place and IP-based bans are common and normal. They are just not at stupid to ban hi-profile sites yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Italy#Internet_censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Italy#In... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Denmark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Denmark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Repu... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Unit... Please note the common pattern of the justifications: censorship starts often with "terrorism/children abuse/pornography", then covers "counterfeit goods/media", finally "libel/hate speech".
- tootie 13y ago
  Those are almost cases of illegal content being blocked or removed. Classified information, copyright violations. No one is having opinions or new repressed. Turkey is proactively silencing dissent that has no other channel. PM Erdogan was caught red-handed taking bribes and it seems the Turkish MSM is already intimidated into quiescence and now they try to block whole sections of the internet to hide the truth.
  - pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
    in america, we call "taking bribes", "working with lobbyists"... corruption all the way down. feel free to complain all you want. it doesn't stop.
  - yk 13y ago
    Turkey is also just blocking "illegal content."
- thisiswrong 13y ago
  Very well said. This, and the EU's encouraging the fascist overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian president has made me strongly opposed to the current form of European 'Union'.
toyg 13y ago
Erdogan, in practice, gave up EU membership a long time ago. He initially used that mirage as a wedge to remove old power structures... and then replaced them with his own Islamist versions. In the last 5 years, I don't think EU membership for Turkey has ever been seriously brought up in mainstream debate (in Europe, at least). Erdogan is just a tinpot dictator of the Islamic variety, but he seems to be happy to keep in NATO a country that is absolutely critical for NATO operations in the Middle-East, so we keep pretending he's just a "conservative-minded" democratic leader. Unless Europe is happy to give Putin's supporters more ammunition for "double standard" arguments, it's time to call a spade a spade.
- sentenza 13y ago
  In all fairness, many EU leaders are scared shitless of Turkey. It is not so much that they have something against Islam (well, at least most of them), but they are acutely aware that Turkish society might blow up once the power of the military is reduced to a sufficient degree. Nobody knew what exactly could/would trigger chaos in Turkey, but there are many candidates: The Kurdish question, the post-Kemalistic resurgence of Islam, the Alevites... I sincerely hope that these expectations were to pessimistic. If Turkey could somehow "capture" all its societal tensions within the framework of a stable parlamentary system, we (both Turkey and the EU) could greatly benefit from Turkish accession.
  - stevoo 13y ago
    i disagree with EU leaders scared of Turkey. They just want Turkey to behave more like a civilized country as Turkey is the bridge between Europe and the rest of the Muslim world. But with the way they are acting, they are not really helping out much. All the scandals left and right, the Kurdish and still holding under military occupation half of an EU country ( Cyprus ) then that is not how a democratic country should rule.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    > In all fairness, many EU leaders are scared shitless of Turkey. It is not so much that they have something against Islam (well, at least most of them) If they aren't, many of their voters are, and the question of the demographic weight of Turkey is a real one, considering how awkward the political aspect of the EU already is. Not to mention that I can't imagine many politicians fighting to share a border with Syria at the moment.
tripzilch 13y ago
> I am surprised, because normally you hear "social media ban" and you think some dictatorship. One thing is certain, while this is going on, Turkey can kiss EU membership ambitions goodbye. If only it was that easy. Dutch ISPs were forced to censor The Pirate Bay, but we're still in the EU! (j/k)

kaonashi 13y ago

>Turkey can kiss EU membership ambitions goodbye. Probably all the better for Turkey.

s_dev 13y ago
I doubt that. Turkey would be better off in the EU as would Ukraine or at least the popular opinions of common people would suggest. Turkey is in NATO so it's a completely different ball park to Ukraine. They would be better off economically and culturally. Europe is more harmonious than the the other spheres of influence surrounding Turkey namely the Middle East and Russia.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  Nope, not the case. The Turkish economy is very strong, and the workforce is young and energetic. If Turkey joined the EU, the aging European population and the crumbling economies of Greece, Italy and Spain would be a drag on the growth of the Turkish economy. Essentially, the only major benefit EU membership would give Turks is the ability to freely travel around Europe without needing passport visas.
  - mkuhn 13y ago
    And maybe free access to a huge market to sell all the goods your growing economy produces to!?
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    While workforce being young and energetic is helpful, it's not the sole reason of someone's economy being strong. I'm pretty sure most African countries have way younger population. It's not like Turks already don't go to Germany to work.
  - binarycrusader 13y ago
    The Turkish economy isn't going to remain strong if they keep doing stupid things like this. The free flow of information is vital to the growth and sustaining of an economy.
    - enraged_camel 13y ago
      That's actually our greatest hope. If foreign investment dries up as a result of political instability, enough people might stop voting for him that he might be outed in a semi-democratic process (if he doesn't rig the elections as usual, that is). Otherwise, things will end in violence.
    - pknerd 13y ago
      Really? What do you say about China?
      - oblio 13y ago
        When you have 1.5 billion people the game is played at an entirely different level. One which Turkey is highly unlikely to reach.
        stevoo 13y ago
        and have every single kind of mineral deposit in the world, with some that are only mined there. China is on a completely different level as oblio already said :)
    - theverse 13y ago
      I think Erdogan sees China as a model for the future, as a provider of cheap labor. So, Turkey doesn't need to intellectually integrate with the rest of the world.
  - weavejester 13y ago
    There's a big difference between being able to travel to a country without a visa, and being able to freely emigrate there, which is what EU membership provides. Turkey's economy may be growing, but the GDP per capita is a quarter that of wealthier countries like the UK or Germany. Joining the EU would also give Turkey a seat at the table. Turkey has a large population, and would therefore get a large representation at the European Parliament.
- kaonashi 13y ago
  > They would be better off economically Considering the experience of Spain, Italy, Portugal, Italy, etc. in the EU thus far, I highly doubt that conclusion.
  - s_dev 13y ago
    Those experiences are commonly attributed to the EMU not the EU.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    Are you contending that the EU did not have a huge positive influence on the Spanish economy from the time it joined the EU until the economic crisis? The fact that the Spanish government, much like the Irish, let a bubble form, isn't, as far as I know, the fault of the EU. I agree that the current policy of austerity is an extremely bitter pill to swallow, but seeing the influence of the EU on the southernmost member states only in light of recent events is mistaken. Of course, it is possible that you simply dislike market economy, but that's a very different debate.
    - kaonashi 13y ago
      Here's an excellent run-down of the inherent flaws in the EU institutional arrangements. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v14/n19/wynne-godley/maastricht-and-all-that http://www.lrb.co.uk/v14/n19/wynne-godley/maastricht-and-all... tl;dr everyone can't be a net exporter at the same time
seanccox 13y ago
I tend to agree. Though the carrot of EU membership has been instrumental in motivating a few, minor reforms, mostly it just becomes a distracting process (for both parties). It was the dream of Ataturk that Turkey be a European nation, but it doesn't seem particularly plausible now.

josefresco 13y ago

Hopefully because Turkey is "democratic" they'll simply vote out the idiots who made such short-sighted decisions.

egeozcan 13y ago
Democracy is not pluralism but people with enough money/connections can keep abusing the ignorance of the masses on any subject to gain so much power that they stop caring about the minorities. My political knowledge is very limited so I wonder what kind of measures exist in modern democracies to fight that? Is it just a matter of education? And, what happens when education becomes just another tool for propaganda?

pjc50 13y ago

Exactly how democratic it is is very much in question: http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/halil-gurhanli/can-turkey-handle-free-and-fair-elections http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/halil-gurhanli/c... It's a good example of how pluralism is a more important aspect of democracy than the actual voting. People like to complain about the US two-party system and condemn obvious one-party states, but the reality of a lot of recent or fragile democracies is that they are one-and-a-bit party states. There's an establishment and an opposition, and the opposition are allowed to exist but have a limited influence on actual control.

redthrowaway 13y ago
For an example of this, look at how the ANC has dominated South African governance for the last 20 years, and the cost that's had in terms of corruption and development of civil society.
saraid216 13y ago
I wonder whether or not it'd do any good to enshrine opposition factions in a government. I have a vague notion of requiring budgetary support, but I can't really imagine any specifics I'd be happy with. AFAIK, opposition parties (and political parties in general) haven't been included in any constitutions at all. #thoughtexperiment #whimsy

hospes 13y ago

I think Turkey has a lot more complex issues before they can be seriously considered as a EU candidate: - Occupation of Cyprus (EU member state) populated mostly by Greeks (Greece is EU member as well) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus) - Armenian Genocide of 1915. 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Turkish government, because of being Christians. 21 Countries and 43 U.S. states have recognized the Armenian Genocide. Turkey denies the Armenian Genocide. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide) They constantly suppress rights of Kurds.

egeozcan 13y ago
Yes, no other European country has any similar issues. Greece should close its borders immediately to prevent us barbarians from entering the EU again! Seriously, I agree that Turkey needs to do a lot to rise up to the European standards but I don't think it helps the conversation to bring these sensitive issues up every time you see the words EU and Turkey in the same sentence. edit: Dear down-voters, I understand your sensitivity on the issue but please try to understand what I'm arguing against. I actually accept the Armenian Genocide, and support Kurdish rights, and the rights of any other minorities. What I'm arguing against is this continuous flame-war. See my other comments on those issues if you challenge my honesty. Thanks.
- mercurial 13y ago
  Many other countries had or still have difficulty coming to terms with their past: France until relatively recently with its colonial past, the UK (or so it seems seen from continental Europe), Japan with its numerous warcrimes during WWII, Algeria, or even the US. I can understand why repetitive, double-standard bashing would become tedious after a short while.
- stevoo 13y ago
  The problem with this sensitive issues is that they are still un-resolved. Unfortunately your goverment does not want to do anything about them and keep on doing what they fucking want. When Erdogan steps down, and hopefully a more civilized, non-military person takes over then nothing will change. In the mean time, Kurds are still gonna suffer, Cyprus will still be divide in half, and everything else that they keep on doing.

gioele 13y ago

> Turkey can kiss EU membership ambitions goodbye. Why? Single EU countries have widespread censoring infrastructure in place and IP-based bans are common and normal. They are just not at stupid to ban hi-profile sites yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Italy#Internet_censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Italy#In... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Denmark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Denmark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Repu... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Unit... Please note the common pattern of the justifications: censorship starts often with "terrorism/children abuse/pornography", then covers "counterfeit goods/media", finally "libel/hate speech".

tootie 13y ago
Those are almost cases of illegal content being blocked or removed. Classified information, copyright violations. No one is having opinions or new repressed. Turkey is proactively silencing dissent that has no other channel. PM Erdogan was caught red-handed taking bribes and it seems the Turkish MSM is already intimidated into quiescence and now they try to block whole sections of the internet to hide the truth.
- pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
  in america, we call "taking bribes", "working with lobbyists"... corruption all the way down. feel free to complain all you want. it doesn't stop.
- yk 13y ago
  Turkey is also just blocking "illegal content."
thisiswrong 13y ago
Very well said. This, and the EU's encouraging the fascist overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian president has made me strongly opposed to the current form of European 'Union'.

toyg 13y ago

Erdogan, in practice, gave up EU membership a long time ago. He initially used that mirage as a wedge to remove old power structures... and then replaced them with his own Islamist versions. In the last 5 years, I don't think EU membership for Turkey has ever been seriously brought up in mainstream debate (in Europe, at least). Erdogan is just a tinpot dictator of the Islamic variety, but he seems to be happy to keep in NATO a country that is absolutely critical for NATO operations in the Middle-East, so we keep pretending he's just a "conservative-minded" democratic leader. Unless Europe is happy to give Putin's supporters more ammunition for "double standard" arguments, it's time to call a spade a spade.

sentenza 13y ago
In all fairness, many EU leaders are scared shitless of Turkey. It is not so much that they have something against Islam (well, at least most of them), but they are acutely aware that Turkish society might blow up once the power of the military is reduced to a sufficient degree. Nobody knew what exactly could/would trigger chaos in Turkey, but there are many candidates: The Kurdish question, the post-Kemalistic resurgence of Islam, the Alevites... I sincerely hope that these expectations were to pessimistic. If Turkey could somehow "capture" all its societal tensions within the framework of a stable parlamentary system, we (both Turkey and the EU) could greatly benefit from Turkish accession.
- stevoo 13y ago
  i disagree with EU leaders scared of Turkey. They just want Turkey to behave more like a civilized country as Turkey is the bridge between Europe and the rest of the Muslim world. But with the way they are acting, they are not really helping out much. All the scandals left and right, the Kurdish and still holding under military occupation half of an EU country ( Cyprus ) then that is not how a democratic country should rule.
- mercurial 13y ago
  > In all fairness, many EU leaders are scared shitless of Turkey. It is not so much that they have something against Islam (well, at least most of them) If they aren't, many of their voters are, and the question of the demographic weight of Turkey is a real one, considering how awkward the political aspect of the EU already is. Not to mention that I can't imagine many politicians fighting to share a border with Syria at the moment.

tripzilch 13y ago

> I am surprised, because normally you hear "social media ban" and you think some dictatorship. One thing is certain, while this is going on, Turkey can kiss EU membership ambitions goodbye. If only it was that easy. Dutch ISPs were forced to censor The Pirate Bay, but we're still in the EU! (j/k)