Modern Turkey: Ottomanism vs Secularism

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  • vicsinad
    Senior Member
    • May 2011
    • 2337

    #91
    Originally posted by Amphipolis View Post
    I don’t know if Golden Dawn has a marriage policy because they’re banned from TV, but the average marriage age for Greece is 33 for men and 30 for women now. This is “fully developed brain and body”, and… probably a little too developed. For women, 30-35 is usually the last chance if they schedule to have a baby.
    You misunderstood my comment about the primitiveness of Greeks / Golden Dawn.

    Comment

    • Amphipolis
      Banned
      • Aug 2014
      • 1328

      #92
      Originally posted by Karposh View Post
      No matter how you look at it, any adult man (or adult woman, for that matter) who has sex with a minor is a rapist and a paedophile.
      Not... any.

      Gavin Daly (Pete Davidson) testifies about having an inappropriate sexual relationship with his teachers (Ronda Rousey, Cecily Strong) -- happily. [Season 41...

      Comment

      • Soldier of Macedon
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2008
        • 13670

        #93
        Erdogan's Referendum in Turkey

        Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrates what he says is a clear win in a referendum to grant him sweeping new powers, but opponents say they will challenge the vote count which gives a narrow 51.3 per cent lead to Mr Erdogan's supporters.


        Turkey referendum: President Recep Erdogan celebrates victory, opponents pledge to contest
        Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has celebrated what he said is a clear win in a referendum to grant him sweeping new powers, but opponents said they would challenge the vote count which so far gives a narrow 51.3 per cent lead to Mr Erdogan's supporters. The "yes" campaign won 1.25 million more votes than the "no" campaign, the head of the country's High Electoral Board said, and with only about 600,000 votes still to be counted meant the constitutional changes had been approved.

        Speaking to supporters in Istanbul, Mr Erdogan struck a conciliatory tone, thanking all voters regardless of how they cast their ballots and describing the referendum as a "historic decision". "April 16 is the victory of all who said yes or no, of the whole 80 million, of the whole of Turkey of 780,000-square kilometres," Mr Erdogan said. Mr Erdogan reportedly called Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and the leader of the nationalist MHP party, which supported the "yes" vote, to congratulate them — Mr Erdogan was quoted as saying the referendum result was clear.

        But the result appeared short of the decisive victory that Mr Erdogan and the ruling AK Party had campaigned aggressively for. In Turkey's three biggest cities — Istanbul, Izmir and the capital Ankara — the "no" camp appeared set to prevail narrowly, according to Turkish television stations.

        Addressing a crowd outside the AKP's headquarters in Ankara, Mr Yildirim maintained that the "yes" camp had won. "A new page has been opened in our democratic history," Mr Yildirim said. "We are brothers, one body, one nation." Convoys of cars honking horns in celebration, their passengers waving flags from the windows, clogged a main avenue in Ankara as they headed towards the AKP's headquarters to celebrate. A chant of Mr Erdogan's name rang out from loudspeakers and campaign buses.

        A "yes" vote would replace Turkey's parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency and may see Mr Erdogan in office until at least 2029, in the most radical change to the country's political system in its modern history. The outcome will also shape Turkey's strained relations with the European Union. The NATO member state has curbed the flow of asylum seekers — mainly refugees from wars in Syria and Iraq — into the bloc, but Mr Erdogan says he may review the deal after the vote.

        The opposition People's Republican Party (CHP) said it would demand a recount of up to 60 per cent of the votes, protesting against a last-minute decision by the electoral board to accept unstamped ballots as valid votes. "We will pursue a legal battle," CHP deputy chairman Bulent Tezcan said. "If the irregularities are not fixed, there will be a serious legitimacy discussion." But Mr Erdogan and his supporters say the changes are needed to amend the current constitution, written by generals following a 1980 military coup; confront the security and political challenges Turkey faces; and avoid the fragile coalition governments of the past. "This is our opportunity to take back control of our country," said self-employed Bayram Seker, 42, after voting "yes" in Istanbul. "I don't think one-man rule is such a scary thing. Turkey has been ruled in the past by one man," he said, referring to modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

        Opponents say it is a step towards greater authoritarianism in a country where some 47,000 people have been jailed pending trial and 120,000 sacked or suspended from their jobs in a crackdown following a failed coup last July, drawing criticism from Turkey's Western allies and rights groups. "I voted 'no' because I don't want this whole country and its legislative, executive and judiciary ruled by one man," said Hamit Yaz, 34, a ship's captain, after voting in Istanbul. "This would not make Turkey stronger or better as they claim. This would weaken our democracy."

        Turkey's High Electoral Board said that official results should be expected in 11-12 days.
        In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

        Comment

        • Risto the Great
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 15658

          #94
          Erdogan fuelling his cult of personality.
          I see no good in it.
          Risto the Great
          MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
          "Holding my breath for the revolution."

          Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

          Comment

          • tchaiku
            Member
            • Nov 2016
            • 786

            #95
            Originally posted by Risto the Great View Post
            Erdogan fuelling his cult of personality.
            I see no good in it.
            He is a really bitter person.

            Comment

            • Gocka
              Senior Member
              • Dec 2012
              • 2306

              #96
              You know they fudged the numbers at least a little bit, and in the end they won by a hair.

              Either way I want to meet that 50% who want to be part of a dictatorship. Idiots.

              Comment

              • Amphipolis
                Banned
                • Aug 2014
                • 1328

                #97
                Turkey blocks Wikipedia in all versions (including Turkish one). No reasons are announced yet.

                Turkey on April 29 blocked all access inside the country to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the communications agency said

                Comment

                • Soldier of Macedon
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 13670

                  #98


                  A Turkish TV blockbuster reveals Erdogan’s conspiratorial, anti-Semitic worldview

                  “The Last Emperor” is Turkey’s newest television blockbuster, consistently rating among Turkey’s top dramas since its February premiere. Every Friday night, 1 in 10 viewers tunes in to relive the last years of Abdulhamid II — an absolutist, pan-Islamist Ottoman sultan who resisted the secular-reformist Young Turk movement until it finally overthrew him in 1909. The series, airing on state television in three-hour episodes, promotes a worldview uncannily similar to that of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: A free press, secularism and democracy are the work of foreign powers, religious minorities and godless liberals, and ultimately serve to erode national identity, honor and security. Of all the series’ villains, none are more sinister than the Jews. Two minutes into its very first scene, Abdulhamid is riding in a procession in Istanbul when a mustachioed onlooker flips a coin into the hand of one of the royal guards. The soldier opens his hand to find the coin is etched with a Star of David surrounding a squat cross in the style favored by Crusaders and Freemasons. The signal thus received, dozens of his fellow guards turn around and open fire on the royal carriage. The screen fades to black — and to the crescent moon that accompanies the mournful opening theme.

                  Later in the episode we learn that underneath the coin-flipper’s Ottoman fez is a black skullcap of a Catholic priest, for he is a Vatican emissary working for none other than Theodor Herzl, the Jewish Austrian journalist who founded modern Zionism. Herzl, his beguiling assistant Sarah and their various co-conspirators are forever haunting Istanbul, meeting with wayward members of the sultan’s family who are themselves intoxicated by deviant, imported ideas such as popular sovereignty. Herzl is the series’ arch-villain, so perfidious as to hold his penniless father imprisoned without his mother’s knowledge — all because the old man opposes Zionism. As with much of “The Last Emperor,” most of it is fiction. Herzl’s father wasn’t poor but a wealthy businessman, and differed with his son not on the necessity of Jewish statehood but only on the methods for achieving it. Sarah, Herzl’s sidekick, doesn’t appear to be based on any real-life figure. At the First Zionist Congress, held on the show in Vienna (the actual one was in Switzerland), bearded delegates evoking the Elders of Zion applaud Herzl’s stump speech. “Soon all humankind will only live to serve us Jews, chosen by Jehovah,” Herzl intones, then paints the Zionist flag, a blue Star of David, for the assembled, braying crowd. Not satisfied, a red-dressed Sarah calls out from the audience, insisting that he flank the star with two horizontal blue stripes to mark the Jews’ supposed territorial ambitions: no less than the Nile to the Euphrates. To the delegates’ delight, Herzl complies.

                  That episode, which aired in March, provoked a surge in anti-Jewish invective on social media. One Twitter user vowed to turn the supposed Jewish homeland into a “Jewish graveyard.” Another, citing the same purportedly vast territorial objectives, declared, “The more I watch ‘The Last Emperor,’ the more my enmity to Jews increases — you infidels, you filthy creatures.” Both users identify in their bios as Erdogan supporters. The real Herzl is known to have visited Istanbul only a handful of times and obtained an audience with the sultan only once. Though he failed in his chief objective — obtaining a sultanic charter for the already-nascent Zionist settlement enterprise in then-Ottoman-controlled Palestine – he was given a first-class induction into the Order of the Medjidie, a prestigious honor the Ottomans only ever granted to 50 people. Herzl hadn’t exactly made a Zionist out of the sultan, but the notion of a rivalry between the two leaders — one of a sprawling empire and the other of a minuscule Jewish-nationalist movement — is revisionist in the extreme. Herzl’s attempt to curry favor with the sultan was brief and unsuccessful, and he soon resumed his activism, journalism and fundraising in London and Vienna.

                  This revisionism would be less egregious if the show portrayed itself accurately –as historical fiction. Instead, a split-second screen at the start of each episode declares that the program is “inspired by real historical events.” In the words of a descendant of Abdulhamid who serves as a historical adviser to the series, “history repeats itself … these meddling foreigners now call our president a dictator, just as they used to call Abdulhamid the ‘Red Sultan.’ ” And Turkish officials go further still. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus even visited the set in February, lauding it for “shedding light” on the sultan’s life “in an objective manner.” Last month, just two days before a referendum granting himself vastly expanded presidential prerogatives, Erdogan added his own praise, telling state TV, “The same schemes are carried out today in the exact same manner … What the West does to us is the same; just the era and actors are different.”

                  One prominent journalist even quoted a television critic telling him that officials from the presidential palace had encouraged the show’s producers to scour Erdogan’s past statements on the perils of foreign meddling and place them in the sultan’s mouth. Indeed, when Abdulhamid discovers a British plot to sabotage his plans for a railway to Mecca, his Koran-inspired remark (“If they have a plan, God too has a plan!”) just happens to be one of Erdogan’s signature lines. The villains in “The Last Emperor” also bear a keen resemblance to Erdogan’s own bogeymen. In the show, Jewish conspiracies often meld together with those of Britain and other European powers, the Catholic Church, socialists, Young Turks and Freemasons into one overarching scheme (the Vatican emissary, for example, goes by Hiram, a name closely associated with the Masons). Erdogan himself often refers to such a grand conspiracy, overseen by a nebulous puppet-master he calls “the Mastermind.” In turn, “Mastermind” was the name of a documentary aired on a leading pro-government news channel, which among other insights revealed that Jews have dominated the world for the past 3,500 years.

                  For many Turkish Islamists, the 1908 Young Turk revolution and post-World War I creation of the secular republic were themselves the work of world Jewry (a long-running conspiracy theory holds that Ataturk was himself Jewish), Freemasons and a few weak-kneed Ottomans seduced by Europe’s wiles. In the 1970s, while a youth leader of the main Islamist political party, Erdogan staged a play called “Mason-Communist-Jew” about a Turkish factory owner who sends his son to Europe, where he drifts from Islam and adopts the continent’s dissolute ways. In it, a Jewish agitator poses as a Muslim Turk to incite workers against the owner, who pays with his life. At one climactic moment, one devoutly Muslim character recites the moral of the play: “All evil regimes are Jewish inventions!” Erdogan both directed the production and gave himself the starring role. “The Last Emperor” may have superior production values, but its message is much the same. It is state propaganda designed to appeal to viewers’ worst instincts and leave them with a revisionist, conspiratorial narrative of Turkish history. Worst of all, while this account of Abdulhamid’s reign is almost pure fiction, the plight of Turkish citizens living under Erdogan’s increasingly sultanic rule is very much real.
                  In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                  Comment

                  • Gocka
                    Senior Member
                    • Dec 2012
                    • 2306

                    #99
                    If you look at Erodgan's domestic maneuvers, coupled with their external maneuvers in their region, coupled with their financing of mega mosques around the Balkans, it's not a stretch to suggest that Turkey is reviving the Ottoman empire.

                    Comment

                    • vicsinad
                      Senior Member
                      • May 2011
                      • 2337

                      Erdogan's bodyguards, security detail and supporters clashing with protesters against Erdogan in Washington DC. Typical of Erdogan. Extension of his dictatorial rule into the streets of US...

                      Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

                      Comment

                      • Phoenix
                        Senior Member
                        • Dec 2008
                        • 4671

                        Originally posted by vicsinad View Post
                        Erdogan's bodyguards, security detail and supporters clashing with protesters against Erdogan in Washington DC. Typical of Erdogan. Extension of his dictatorial rule into the streets of US...

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcuCZemRo84
                        Pretty well handled by the police, of what was really only a very minor scuffle.

                        It's a bit difficult trying to sort out the who's who of combatants in these situations...If you want to make a statement in these protest situations it's gotta be..'go hard or go home'.

                        Comment

                        • vicsinad
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2011
                          • 2337

                          Originally posted by Phoenix View Post
                          Pretty well handled by the police, of what was really only a very minor scuffle.

                          It's a bit difficult trying to sort out the who's who of combatants in these situations...If you want to make a statement in these protest situations it's gotta be..'go hard or go home'.
                          The minor uproar here in the US is that most of the men in suits were Erdogan's security detail and bodyguards and they went out of their way to clash against protesters. I mean kicking people while they are on the ground is just unfair and unnecessary. Erdogan wasn't under any physical threat, there were just a couple of people with megaphones shouting at him and his supporters.

                          Comment

                          • Phoenix
                            Senior Member
                            • Dec 2008
                            • 4671

                            Originally posted by vicsinad View Post
                            The minor uproar here in the US is that most of the men in suits were Erdogan's security detail and bodyguards and they went out of their way to clash against protesters. I mean kicking people while they are on the ground is just unfair and unnecessary. Erdogan wasn't under any physical threat, there were just a couple of people with megaphones shouting at him and his supporters.
                            It was very unprofessional conduct from his security people...they've come across as a bunch of amateur thugs...seriously, in this day and age of everyone having the ability to record events and post them instantly via social media and security act like that is pretty appalling behavior.

                            A couple of suited guys even missed when they tried kicking people on the ground...lol

                            I thought the cops did a good job.

                            Comment

                            • Soldier of Macedon
                              Senior Member
                              • Sep 2008
                              • 13670



                              No Protests After Dark in Ankara as Erdogan's Crackdown Deepens

                              May 26, 2017

                              Turkey’s capital banned “all acts of protest” after dark, including press events and group singing, deepening a crackdown on dissent triggered by last year’s coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The governor’s office in Ankara said on its website Friday that it was exercising powers granted under Turkey’s state of emergency to eliminate risks to “public order,” including events that create targets for terrorists by attracting large numbers of people. Shouting and chanting slogans are also proscribed after sunset. The curbs on assembly are the widest yet since Turkey declared emergency rule after the failed putsch last July, suspending some constitutional rights. The new legal system, which allows for rule by decree and was originally instituted for three months, will continue to be extended until peace and tranquility are achieved, Erdogan said this week.

                              “This is happening in the context of an unprecedented clampdown on free speech that scoops up both people who are known and have a high profile on social media, like journalists, as well as unknown people," said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the country chief for Human Rights Watch. The Ankara ban comes after two teachers, Nuriye Gulmen and Semih Ozakca, were arrested and jailed on the 76th day of a joint hunger strike to protest losing their jobs. More than 100,000 public-sector workers, including some 40,000 educators, have been fired by decree since the failed coup. Gulmen and Ozakca are facing prison terms of as long as 20 years on charges of belonging to a leftist terrorist organization, the DHKP-C, which they deny. “We don’t send our children away to have them educated as terrorists,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said of the case on Thursday, calling the hunger strike a publicity stunt. “They eat at home and they’re on a hunger strike. Now they’ll be in jail. We’ll see the hunger strike now.”

                              Erdogan’s intolerance for protest became an issue in the U.S. last week when members of his security detail were filmed attacking protesters outside the Turkish diplomatic residence in Washington during a state visit. One man was kicked by at least three different guards after being knocked down. The Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution condemning the violence. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, called for Turkish leaders to apologize. “Erdogan is busy turning his own country into an authoritarian state, but he needs to know that his thugs are not welcome here,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican from California. Turkey rejected the U.S. resolution, calling it “one-sided” and attacking what it said were insufficient U.S. security measures. Turkey’s foreign minister has said the protesters were affiliated with Kurdish terrorist organizations. Several U.S. lawmakers, including Republican Senator John McCain, have called for a tougher response, including by pressing charges against members of Erdogan’s entourage, banning their entry to the U.S. and expelling his ambassador.
                              In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                              Comment

                              • Soldier of Macedon
                                Senior Member
                                • Sep 2008
                                • 13670

                                TURKEY plans to build huge walls along its borders with Iran and Iraq as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mounts a security crackdown.


                                GREAT WALL OF TURKEY: Erdogan plans to build HUGE barrier on Iran and Iraq border

                                3 June 17

                                TURKEY plans to build huge walls along its borders with Iran and Iraq as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mounts a security crackdown. The Turkish president said Ankara plans to build walls along its borders with southern neighbours Iraq and Iran in addition to the wall currently being built along the Syrian border. Construction is well underway on the wall along the Turkey-Syria border with 403 miles of the wall already completed. The wall will stretch the distance of the 566 mile border as Turkey bids to protect its national borders and boost security. Work on the Syria wall started in 2014 with Ankara determined to stop ISIS militants, illegal immigrants and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters from entering Turkey. A ceasefire between the Turkish state and the PKK broke down in July 2015 with violence gripping the region. Announcing plans for the Iraq and Iran border walls, Mr Erdogan said: “We’ll do the same along the Iraqi border and in appropriate places along the Iranian border.” It is thought the Iran wall will stretch 43 miles with towers, iron fences and round-the-clock surveillance installed along the remaining border. One official told Hurriyet Daily News: “The PKK has the Maku, Dambat, Navur, Kotr, Keneresh and Sehidan camps inside Iran near the Turkish border. There are some 800-1,000 PKK terrorists in those camps. "They enter Turkey, carry out attacks and leave… As a precaution against this, we are going to build a wall along 70 kilometers of the border near Agrı and [the eastern province of] Igdir.”

                                Security officials are said to believe large numbers of PKK militants are hiding out in the Qandil Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey's military killed six members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in air strikes in northern Iraq on Thursday, the army said in a statement. Turkish warplanes hit the Avasin-Basyan region in northern Iraq, killing PKK militants believed to be in preparation of an attack, the military said. The PKK, which has carried out a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, has camps in the mountains of northern Iraq, near the Turkish border. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. A ceasefire between the Turkish state and the PKK broke down in July 2015 and the southeast subsequently saw some of the worst violence since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984. Iranian political analyst Hassan Hanizadeh branded the construction plans “absurd”. He said: "The construction of the wall on the Turkish-Iranian border will have no impact on the security within Turkey and is in itself absurd. "Iran is one of the very few stable and secure countries in the Middle East. Iran has defied international terrorism and is waging war against this evil.”
                                In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

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