Originally Posted by
ORAC
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ay-e-k...Hk6xMk.twitter
..."Joining the echo of the calls to prayers were the loud noises of military jets flying over Istanbul skies. The combination of these sounds made me think that yes, these were the sounds of the funeral of free speech, critical thinking, and any other remnants of liberal democratic process in Turkey. I realized in fear and agony that whether the coup was successful or not, one thing was certain: there would no longer be room in Turkey for people who can listen, read, analyze, and think critically. With the siren-like echoes of calls to prayer and military jets, Turkey was becoming a land only for true believers.
This did not happen suddenly. With the crackdown on media, academic freedoms, random arrests, and the increasing violence in the southeast provinces, citizens in Turkey have been facing major limitations on their basic freedoms for the past few years. The attempted coup d'état of July 15 is like the last nail in the coffin. Lying dead in the coffin was the courage to use one’s own understanding (as in
Sapere Aude) that relentlessly resisted the rising tide of categorical thinking typical of true believers."........
There was
something like a coup in 1997 after Erbakan got elected. It was during this time that my boss, a one star Turk, (NATO job) explained to me how in the Turkish constitution, the military is charged with ensuring that Turkey remains a secular and modern nation. (It's more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it). For three days we saw little to nothing of our Turkish colleagues due to the understandable "national issues" and their sincere concerns about "what happens next." They all eventually came back to work, and things moved along pretty well.
The Islamism of the National Outlook Movement (Milli GörüSHareketi), led by Necmettin Erbakan, embraced an anti-Western/European stanceand championed an orthodox conception of Islam from the 1970s to the 1990s. Although the prominent founders of the AKP emerged from this pro-Islamic movement, they learned the "limitation of Islamic politics" from the military's intervention during the February 28 postmodern coup. Subsequently, they departed from the National Outlook Movement, referring to themselves as the "innovators" and by embracing a liberal conception of Islam instead.
The Virtue party looks a lot like a repackaged form of National Outlook: and I'd offer that the latest Islamist party (Erdogan's compatriots) aren't "liberal" in their conception of Islam, nor in its role in the state. Erdogan's recent palace: hmm, something like Saddam's palaces, or is that as much office building as residence?