The Roots of the Turkish Uprising

WSJ ^ | June 3, 2013 | Michael Rubina @AEI

[Wuli]

[more background info on events in turkey; read the article at WSJ.Com, with the link provided]

[Wuli]

I am not sure if the link will work.

I have a paid WSJ subscription.

I do not know if that is required for access to this oped.

Some highlights are the sizeable Alevi minority Erdongan has angered; charges of corruption, including financial corruption of Erdogan and his party (with 13 corruption cases against Erdogan from his tenure as mayor of Istanbul suspended because he has "parliamentary" immunity]; CNN Turkey showing a cooking show instead of the protests; Erdogan's many attacks on press freedoms and journalists.

The best line takes a quote of Erdongan about democracy as a possible guide to what he actually thinks of democracy.

[Jeff Head]

Well, from what I have seen, it appears these protests are occurring in numerous cities...and spreading. What started in Istanbuhl over a shopping Center, spread to Ankara over a plan to remove a park that is a known gethering place for people wanting to demonstrate and turn it into a Mosque and a Ottoman Empire Barracks replica. They turned violent and has since continued to spread to other cities.

Here are four videos over the last few days. Apparently the Turkish President, who has accomplished a lot for Turkey over the last years in terms of infrastructure and economic improvement, felt strongly enough about it to address it directly, calling for calm...but also giving a warning.

Turkish Protests errupt in Istanbul

Protests Spread away from Istanbul

Football Players and Fans Join the Protests

Turkish President Responds

[Bluestocking]

The Turkish rebellion is not a mere uprising against tyranny; it also involves a not-in-my-backyard protest movement against destroying a park in order to replace it with a military barracks.

Imagine if Mayor Bloomberg demanded that a Walmart be built in Central Park.

It would be wonderful if boatloads of American liberal activists traveled to Istanbul to show solidarity with their environmentalist brothers and sisters, and stayed there.

We know American liberal activists have been happy to participate in flotillas to protest Israel’s desire to stay in existence. But would they also be willing to join forces to protest a Turkish dictator’s desire to destroy valuable urban parkland? Which would thereby show that they’re not merely anti-Semitic but also pro-the-environment, as they always fervently claim to be? Probably not.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Erdogan’s method of consolidating power seems familiar to anyone monitoring the Obama Administration.

From Daily Caller, Nov. 2, 2012:

Beneath the surface, however, Erdogan was already working to replace Turkey’s stabilizing secularism with an Islamist social and foreign policy agenda. He replaced all members of Turkey’s powerful banking board with alumni of Islamic finance, most of whom, like current President Abdullah Gül, had cut their teeth in Saudi banks. Once under Islamist control, Erdogan used the banking board to attack opponents’ assets, confiscating businesses and driving some into bankruptcy. AKP appointees, however, turned a blind eye to the influx of Saudi and Qatari money into AKP coffers and slush-funds.

Other bureaucratic manipulations had even greater reverberations. Tweaking admissions formulas opened universities to religious students long denied acceptance because they lacked a solid liberal arts foundation. In order to help these unqualified graduates then enter the civil service, Erdogan imposed a new interview process, transforming a meritorious civil service into a mechanism for political patronage.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/02/ten-years-later-turkeys-islamist-political-revolution-bearing-bitter-fruit/

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I do not have a subscription.. I hope they mentioned American citizen Fethullah Gulen and his movement helping to bring about the Islamization of Turkey.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Lest some think that it is mostly about land development.. well no it is not. Millions of Turks have long made it plain that they are not ready to give in to Islamism, Sharia law, and burkas..

". . . 32 percent to 38 percent of Turks (upward of 25 million people) would never support the [Islamist] AKP or want to live in a country shaped solely by its values." Tens of millions of Muslims in Turkey are "Islamophobes" like us?

Read and see more

The image on the banner is of Ataturk the founder of modern secular democratic constitutional Republic of Turkey. The photos are from demonstrations of a few years ago protesting the ruling AK Party's Islamist (political Islam & Sharia law) leanings and reminding the AKP that they promised the voters that they would respect Turkey's heritage of secularism.

[Wuli]

I think Fethullah Gulen was not mentioned directly but this was reported:

“Far more interesting is reporting from the Justice and Development Party’s traditional sources of support. Yeni Safak, a newspaper close to the ruling party, has condemned the park project and sympathized with the protesters. The same was seen in Zaman newspaper, run by followers of the moderate Islamist Gulen movement. The Gulenists form a crucial component of the ruling party’s broader support base but also keep their distance from the ruling party. The movement has been increasingly critical of Erdogan, strongly suggesting that he and his party have become too powerful.”

Notice, Stratfor refers to the Gulenists as “moderate” Islamists (whatever THAT means).

[Wuli]

thanks for the Erdogan background report; its important

[Brad from Tennessee]

From what I've read, Islamists have been quietly embedding themselves into the Turkish bureaucracy and military even before Erdogan.

The American Left undertook a quiet revolution when civil disobedience and violence failed. Beginning in the 1970’s activists found jobs in all U.S. institutions including public schools, colleges, the news media, local, state and federal government. Today they control it.