Cyprus-Forum.com

[Lordo]

i wish happy republic day to all are terggish cousins in the north med.

[Tim Drayton]

I hope the secular republic survives the current onslaughts and goes on to flourish.

[Lordo]

who ever is in power ultimately is answerable to the americans. i am afraid the problem is so long as they do what america expects they are free to do as they wish. this was the same with the secular governments in the past, especially the military governments. they slaughtered thousands.

[Tim Drayton]

You are right, and some people claim that what is now happening is just a mirror image of what used to happen when the Kemalists were in power, except the secularists are now being persecuted. I certainly blame the old Turkish establishment for doing nothing to foster true secularism in Turkey, which is about a prevailing state of mind among people and not just empty slogans. It was this failure that paved the way for the Islamists to take over - well, that and the fact that global capital trusts them to look after its interests. I wonder about that, though. Especially after Gezi, I don't think Islamists ever suffered the kind or persecution that we have seen. Yes, the old Kemalist establishment really paid little more than lip service to secularism, and of course secularism in Turkey has always been flawed in many ways. Even so, I support secularism as a universal value, and think that flawed, half-baked secularism is still better than mixing religion and politics. I have no doubt that the ultimate goal of Erdoğan and his band is ultimately to return to Sharia, and there is nothing much more reactionary than that. Hopefully, the Islamists will be expelled from power one way or another eventually - the latest opinion poll I saw puts the AKP vote at 41% - and perhaps Turkey can then move in a genuinely democratic and secular direction.

[Lordo]

The problem with the system is that 41 per cent converts to 60 percent in the election because of the systematic transfer of votes at the behest of the system rather than send and third choice which should be given any decent democratic system. Whiles in the past it may looked as though the army took control when ever it felt like it, until ameirca gives the nod, they will do nothing. one worry is that perhaps america has lost that control now but the indications are that they have not.

[Tim Drayton]

The problem with the system is that 41 per cent converts to 60 percent in the election because of the systematic transfer of votes at the behest of the system rather than send and third choice which should be given any decent democratic system. Whiles in the past it may looked as though the army took control when ever it felt like it, until ameirca gives the nod, they will do nothing. one worry is that perhaps america has lost that control now but the indications are that they have not.

I don't think the USA wants any more coups in Turkey. As to whether they are really still in control, that is an interesting question. When the Cemaat-backed anti-corruption investigations started in December, I thought this meant that the US was gunning for Erdoğan and his mob, but I was either wrong or they really have given the Americans the slip. I think that 41% is only the start of the slide, but I wonder if they will go even if they are voted out - they may just rig the poll. The shine really is coming off the AKP, though, and they are resorting to ever more repression. I hope the recent elections in Tunisia are a sign of trends to come. The Islamists there seem to have accepted defeat.

[Tim Drayton]

Hot off the press from the Washington Post and relevant to some of the above discussion.

The increasingly hostile divergence of views between Turkey and the United States over Syria is testing the durability of their 60-year alliance, to the point where some are starting to question whether the two countries still can be considered allies at all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mid ... story.html

[GreekIslandGirl]

May I remind the happy-clappy fanatics that Cyprus is under illegal Turkish occupation with some 40,000 of those disgusting troops keeping the native people out of their properties by exercising continued racist policies.

[miltiades]

May I remind the happy-clappy fanatics that Cyprus is under illegal Turkish occupation with some 40,000 of those disgusting troops keeping the native people out of their properties by exercising continued racist policies.

You obviously mean that a part of ...saibrous is under fucking tergggggish occupation

[Cap]

The ErDog is obviously doing a wonderful job.
Pushing TC's away from the foreign Anatolian sickness.