Turkey’s Downward Spiral

Well, it's not Islamic, so, I'm going to vote my approval for France as a reliable ally. They did knife us in the back during the retaliatory airstrike against Libya, following the discotheque bombing, though.
French are still neo-colonialists

Macron isn’t about to loosen France’s paternalistic grip in Africa
https://qz.com/africa/998126/emmanuel-macron-will-not-change-frances-francafrique-grip-in-africa/

he 2017 French election was watched with great nervousness by millions across Francophone Africa. That’s because the French president remains a pivotal figure in about 20 former French colonies on the continent.

Over the past 60 years France has maintained disproportionate influence over its former African colonies. This has included control over their military and currencies.

Despite being led by different presidents over the past six decades, the French government’s policy on Africa has been faithful to its neo-colonial roots and grounded in a yearning for the lost Empire.
 
Before Erdogan Turkey was very secular.. and had basically rooted out all extreme Islamic ideas. I am curious at what caused the shift.

The failure of the EU to accept Turkey, essentially because it was a Muslim country.
 
Turkey has been on a downward spiral,every since White men brought Chickens to the Americas.
Before that Turkey was the main poultry!
 
fter Mr. Erdogan took office in 2003 and began reforms, Turkey looked set to become a model Muslim democracy with aspirations to join the European Union, a path similar to that taken by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk a century ago when he founded Turkey as a pro-Western, secular republic.

Mr. Erdogan, who heads the country’s largest Islamic party, probably was never a real democrat. But over the years, he has shown his true colors as an autocrat, skilled at promoting economic populism, militant nationalism and social conservatism — all while cultivating his own cult of personality. He has all but crushed independent media, jailing journalists and other critics, and fosters corruption. He effectively took control of all government institutions when he was re-elected in June under a new, more centralized presidential system.

Experts offer a number of reasons for Turkey’s democratic implosion. Ataturk imposed democracy from above, focusing on the elite, as opposed to cultivating it organically, from the citizenry up. In June’s election, a few credible candidates emerged to challenge Mr. Erdogan. Still, in general, Turkey’s political opposition has for years been fractured and feckless, detached from much of the population and offering no compelling alternative to Mr. Erdogan, who has been the only leader to effectively appeal to religious communities that have long felt marginalized.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/...-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
Mr. Erdogan was emboldened in 2007 when the military,......

Erdogan is the Turkish version of Trump
 
"top to down" democracy

Turkey has a secular constitution for more than 90 years. That means the state doesn’t have a religion and it has the same tolerance and respect for all beliefs, officially.

Wearing hijab/scarf/turban (whatever you call it) is optional in Turkey just like other secular states such as UK, USA, France, Canada etc.

Look at political demographics in Turkey, there’s roughly a 20% hardcore religionists, 50% hardcore secularists and 30% mid-right floaters .
 
Well, it's not Islamic, so, I'm going to vote my approval for France as a reliable ally. They did knife us in the back during the retaliatory airstrike against Libya, following the discotheque bombing, though.
Yet France opposed our invasion of Iraq
 
Turkey has a secular constitution for more than 90 years. That means the state doesn’t have a religion and it has the same tolerance and respect for all beliefs, officially.

Wearing hijab/scarf/turban (whatever you call it) is optional in Turkey just like other secular states such as UK, USA, France, Canada etc.

Look at political demographics in Turkey, there’s roughly a 20% hardcore religionists, 50% hardcore secularists and 30% mid-right floaters .

I'm glad you said "officially" Erdogan thinks he is a sultan or something.
I don't know how he holds a coalition, muchless how he isn't overthrown in a coup

Obviously he gets the Islamists votes -but that's only 20%.
He must be getting a bunch of the middle and enough secularists...darn if i see the coalition though
 
That's fine. Didn't hurt us like they did with Libya.
French were the leading advocate of the UN "no fly", and went along with NATO (unlike Germany) for full scale bombing to regime change of Qadafi. They are despicable neocolonialists
 
French were the leading advocate of the UN "no fly", and went along with NATO (unlike Germany) for full scale bombing to regime change of Qadafi. They are despicable neocolonialists

March 2011

The UK, US and France have attacked Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces in the first action to enforce a UN-mandated no-fly zone.

Pentagon officials say the US and the UK have fired more than 110 missiles, while French planes struck pro-Gaddafi forces attacking rebel-held Benghazi.

Col Gaddafi has vowed retaliation and said he would open arms depots to the people to defend Libya.

Cruise missiles hit air-defence sites in the capital, Tripoli, and Misrata.

Libyan state TV said 48 people had been killed and 150 wounded in the attacks. There was no independent confirmation of the deaths.

continued

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12796972
 
Turkey, though, is in a class of its own. An economic and financial crisis that has been brewing all year has finally come to a head. Inflation has hit 15% and will inevitably be pushed higher because the lira is in free fall, dropping 14% on Friday alone. As Capital Economics have noted, when the rouble fell by a similar amount in 2014, the Russian central bank responded by raising interest rates by 6.5 percentage points and announced measures to support the banking system.

Russia had learnt lessons from its previous crisis, not least the need for ample foreign currency reserves to help defend the exchange rate. Turkey does not have deep pockets and has a president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has decided that the conventional response to a plunging currency – higher interest rates – is not for him.

Erdoğan is one of the world’s current crop of self-styled strongmen leaders but has the misfortune to come up against someone who is a lot stronger than he is. Relations between Turkey and the US are not good. The White House is unhappy that Erdoğan has put in an order with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian rather than American missiles. When Donald Trump announced economic sanctions against Iran last week, Erdoğan pointedly refused to take part. And, so far, Turkey has refused to release an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, held on disputed terrorism charges.

Trump chose his moment well. On Friday, when Turkey was in chaos, he announced that he was doubling tariffs on imported steel and aluminium, vital to the Turkish economy. Talk about kicking someone when they are down.

Erdoğan has insisted that he will not be browbeaten into submission but has few realistic options. To be sure, Turkey can seek to put pressure on Trump by saying that it will quit Nato and forge closer ties with Russia. Erdoğan could warn the EU that it will face a new inflow of migrants unless it intervenes on his behalf.

But what the financial markets are looking for are not diplomatic moves that demonstrate Turkey’s geopolitical importance but rather economic measures to prevent a potentially ruinous tsunami of selling over the coming days. In that respect, failure to tackle the signs of trouble earlier will now prove costly.

Erdoğan’s answer to the financial crisis – that his followers should do their patriotic duty and exchange rapidly appreciating US dollars for ever-more worthless Turkish lira – is laughable. Indeed, it will merely add to the belief in the world’s financial markets that Turkey is being led by a man who has lost touch with reality.

It is clear what needs to happen. Turkey has to tackle the three causes of its current predicament: an overheating economy; Erdoğan’s attempts since his re-election in June to prevent the central bank from taking the necessary action to deal with rising prices; and the stand-off with the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/12/turkey-crisis-widen-and-options-running-out-erdogan
 
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