(Turkey)Occupy Gezi crackdown spins out of control

[K. A. Pital]

Indeed - and as I gathered, the prostests are now not really focused on Gezi - rather, the goal is "Tayiip must GO", and it would delight me greatly to see him fall. People I know from Turkey describe him as a Turkish Putin - a strongman who is reliant on big business, who blurs the church and state separation and who is obsessed with glorifying himself in a myriad ways. Also, an oligarch. No person would be a better pick to lose his power this Summer.

Plus, the question of democracy is not as simple as one thinks. Are those who fight representative democracy to install direct democracy "anti-democratic"? Are the ones who fight direct democracy, which they think is "mob rule", anti-democratic? Democracy itself says nothing about human rights, so are those who protect human rights by force, sometimes abolishing democratic rule, "anti-democratic" or are they not?

[Thanas]

Pictures from Turkey

The third picture....Holy crap.

[K. A. Pital]

Turkey's "democratic leader":

1) In the evening: "I'll go talk to the protest representatives"
2) Protesting folk go to sleep
3) In the morning tear gas and water cannons to clear the area

Nice, niiice.

[Zixinus]

On a related note, I'd like to show two youtube videos by a Turkish person who decided to expand his vlog to include the protest. What he said so far seems to coincide with what other news sites say. He lives in Istanbul.

He is also known as Nemo Ramjet on deviantart and he made Snaiad and All Tomorrows. If you want a little rundown from his view on what's going on, he made videos by going among the protestors. It seems fitting that on a sci-fi forum, we have a sci-fi guy from Istanbul tell what he sees and thinks on what is going on there.

The first video he and his girlfriend go out to distribute some water among the protestors, before the police baked out. He got caught with some of the tear-gas, but he only shows the after-effect of that (hence the swimming goggles).


The second is a bit of a tour of the protestor-occupied area after the police backed out.


He made a video previous to either two, but he was in his room and just commented a little while he edited out a window-view of the protest from his home.

[Lictuel]

Does anyone have an idea what the explosions were that could be heard in the first video?

[CaptHawkeye]

Alyeska already talked about how for many, many people, the idea of democracy is conflated with social, cultural and political ideas to mean 'like it is here' rather than 'government determined by majority vote'. It's possibly even a normative thing - it's easy for people to imagine all those bizarre differences and scary cultures exist because of BAD LEADERS and those would obviously go away if the people who are JUST LIKE ME could vote the buggers out.

Decades of trying to "bring democracy" to various third world nations would, one would think at least, make it clear that most of the people living in a country at any given time are more concerned with eeking a living out of what few livelihood options they have than what installed government is making irrelevant laws and policies they don't care about.

The ugly truth is that "bringing democracy to foreigners" is to Americans what "bringing civilization to savages" was to Europeans in the 19th century. At best a horribly misguided attempt to impose incompatible values on different people, at worst a blatant and tired front for imperialistic power struggles.

[madd0ct0r]

it's when those irrelevant laws and policies start hitting on the normal people.
Like the Minister of transport in Vietnam, who last year issued a decree that men with a chest size smaller than Xcm were to be banned from using motorbikes for their own safety.
(remember, motorbikes are the standard transportation method since cars are incredibly taxed)

[Saxtonite]

They're quoting Les Mis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FctAww-4p9k

I guess Riot Police are peopel too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8YbYbX4tPE

[Thanas]

The french version is much better.

Bad protestors.

[Thanas]

So apparently to Erdogan, this was a successful defence of Turkey against on an organized conspiracy of foreign interests. Progressing to dictatorspeak 101, I see. Next there will be proclamations of Turkey being a "strong nation" which needs to defeat "terrorists".

[salm]

It´s funny how the word "terrorist" has lost its meaning because of inflationary use of it world wide.

[Saxtonite]

The french version is much better.

Bad protestors.

So apparently to Erdogan, this was a successful defence of Turkey against on an organized conspiracy of foreign interests. Progressing to dictatorspeak 101, I see.

That's something relatively specific to Turkish political culture. The "Deep State" theory that the state is on the verge of collapsing from foreign influences, it comes from Ataturk's revolution and how they desperately held off the Allies etc.

Next there will be proclamations of Turkey being a "strong nation" which needs to defeat "terrorists".

Erdogan has....changed his opinion on the Kurdish question, he was originally reconciliation like.....then he became a bit more authoritarian re. the Kurdish issues.