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[Morrigi]

Turkey is hardly part of the Middle East, culturally at least.

[Owlbread]

Turkey is hardly part of the Middle East, culturally at least.

I think that is very debatable.

[AlmightyOne]

Maybe Turkey seems secular when compared to Middle East but non-Muslims are still being oppressed. I know lots of people keeping their true beliefs secret. It's not enough.

People, please don't compare Turkey to Middle East just because this is a Muslim country. Compare Turkey to the political history of itself. You can see Erdoğan turning normal schools into Islamic schools. The dude is building mosques and erecting long minarets everywhere. I don't think he is just compensating for something.

Leatra himself said so before...

[10ebbor10]

Besides, it's not like there's something like a united Middle Eastern culture. It has always been a friction/ collision point.

[Morrigi]

Adding on to that, Turkey is incredibly westernized compared to countries like Iraq or Iran.

[pisskop]

hmmm, how did I miss this thread?

[Dutchling]

Adding on to that, Turkey is incredibly westernized compared to countries like Iraq or Iran.

It's too bad Turkey can only be considered (incredibly) westernised when you compare it to countries such as those you just mentioned.

[Morrigi]

Adding on to that, Turkey is incredibly westernized compared to countries like Iraq or Iran.

It's too bad Turkey can only be considered (incredibly) westernised when you compare it to countries such as those you just mentioned.

Exceptionally? Extraordinarily? Extremely?

[Dutchling]

At all.

[10ebbor10]

Besides many countries are/were westernized similar to Turkey.

It's a top down change, and hence it's not that stable.

[Furtuka]

Found a video of protesters singing. It's about a week old but I found it pretty inspiring.

[DWC]

So... Turkey has a pretty long history of secular governance, right? Since 1920 or so?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemalist_ideology

Why is it regressing into theocracy now?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

religious rural communities elected an islamist government that's been steadily breaking away the secularist safeguards

[10ebbor10]

More specifically, the Secularism is/was a top down thing imposed by the cultural and intellectual elite, and has been enforced by multiple military coups, and quite a bit of meddling with the democratic system. For some reason, that doesn't make them very popular.

So when they finally decided to just see what would happened, the AKP got in power. (Rural support helped a lot here). Then again, do note that this is not really a regression into theocracy. Rather, they seem to be moving towards a strong presidency, like Russia. The AKP fixed Turkey's economy, pushed through several democratic reforms*, and got reelected 3 times. They do have popular support.

*Installing popular election for several offices and such.

[Willfor]

A rural population backing a party that has strong religious ties inside a democracy, I wonder where I've seen that political situation before.