7 Comments »

1. 1 Jonathan Wilson

   July 19, 2008 @ 6:34 pm CEST

   Blaming the Army of a nation for the nations stability is like blaming voting and democracy for election of a candidate.

   Each and every Coup d’etat happens for a reason, a response to something going wrong. In my opinion it is a part of democracy.

   If a leader elected through democracy decides to start a war with a large nation for a very stupid reason, a coup d’etat would be very valid response. In the case of Turkey, the fascist Islamists have attempted evil in many ways and they were hanged as a result by the Army following a coup d’etat.

   For those of you who don’t know. In Turkey, Menderes was hanged by the army for crimes against the nation, he was also the man who planned the attack on Greeks in Istanbul in the 1950s. These wretched Islamists need to be dealt with.

2. 2 Nihat

   July 19, 2008 @ 8:53 pm CEST

   For the record, Menderes was not an Islamist. He was a mainstream conservative rightist. It is fair to say, I believe, he got dizzy by the electoral successes and resorted to McCarthy-ish autocratic excesses against the opposition; a chronic problem of Turkish politics, and yes, a fundemantal misinterpretation of democracy as ‘majority rule’. Still, many middle-of-the-road ordinary people supported him, and some reactionary currents found new life under him, too. That he and his two ministers were executed by the 1960 junta is not something to be taken that lightly Jonathan.

3. 3 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief

   July 19, 2008 @ 11:55 pm CEST

   That he and his two ministers were executed by the 1960 junta is not something to be taken that lightly Jonathan.

   I agree very much with that, and with much else Nihat writes in that comment. Menderes was not a saint, to put it mildly, but his execution was, in my opinion, a crime.

4. 4 Jonathan Wilson

   July 20, 2008 @ 12:17 am CEST

   You guys are way too liberal, especially you Michael.

   Menderes planned a progrom against Greeks, that’s a crime. He was judged by the military and executed. Menderes was an Islamist, only an Islamist would change the Turkish "call to prayer" established by Ataturk back into an "Arabic call to prayer". Like as if Arabs own Islam.

   Menderes can be summarized with one word: Islamofascist. His execution, while it may not have been the fairest way to be punished, was a lesson to radical islamofascists out there that forcing religion fascistly onto others is a crime that leads to hatred, genocide, and death, as Menderes proved.

   "Still, many middle-of-the-road ordinary people supported him, and some reactionary currents found new life under him, too."
   The same can be said about Adolf Hitler or Stalin.

5. 5 wj

   July 20, 2008 @ 12:54 am CEST

   Whatever the flaws of particular individuals, the sheer number of times that the Turkish military has been moved to toss out the elected government is a bit eye-catching.  Unless you buy the thesis (which I do not) that some peoples are simply incapable of governing themselves, you have to ask what is going on, that the Turkish military keeps feeling impelled to take over from governments elected by the Turkish people.

6. 6 Jonathan Wilson

   July 20, 2008 @ 1:15 am CEST

   It’s eye catching yes wj. You’re right.

   "Why cut my fingernails, they’ll grow back" (from the movie Munich)

   The same thinking can be applied to Israel "Why does Israel always have to invade or do something about Palestinian terror?", or the war on terror "Why do we have to fight these terrorist organizations can’t we all just get along?", or war in general "Why do we keep having wars, can’t we just talk it out?". It can be applied to democracy as well, "Why do we keep having elections, why can’t we simply have one good leader forever."

   The answer is simple… People have different opinions. Sometimes they have common goals, but different methodologies.
   Coreligionists and Secularists both have the goal of creating the perfect society, but they have different methods to do it.
   Fascists and Communists both have the same goal of creating a stable government, but they have different methods.

   The reason why the Turkish military has had to take over the Turkish government numerous times is because the Turkish military is a military. It’s job is war, not government or politics.

   Coup d’etat’s DO NOT usually work, unless it is done by extremely intelligent people and even then the problems may never be solved. Coup d’etats are revolutions, they can be bad things, but they can also lead to future good.

   The American revolution, was a military event, many died, it was caused by a tax on TEA. Some may argue, "Well was that really necessary?" but look at the good it has done (aside from the bumps in the road). Each Turkish military coup d’etat is just another revolution to stop the fundamentalists from taking over. They keep taking over because fundamentalism is infectious. Like a virus it takes over education it takes over mosques and finally creates the grassroots and money to develop a political machine.

   The reason the Turkish military coup d’etats keep happening is because each time they fix the problem temporarily not by the long term. Instead of spending every dollar on education reform to educate the whole region of Turkey without exceptions, money was spent fixing the problems of the religious administration or the economy in many cases. It was not incompetence that made these coup d’etats fail, it was simply too difficult a problem to fix.

   You may fall from your skateboard thousands of times, but eventually you may become a professional that earns a living out of it.

   One reason for these failures, is that Turkey, continuously has a growing population, but the education system is weak. Politicians that gain power and the government are not the most smart individuals, they are simply the most cunning and charismatic ones.

7. 7 Elif

   July 30, 2008 @ 4:55 pm CEST

   Jonathan as much as I agree with some of your comments over Turkey as a 30 years old Turk living in Turkey for all her life, I must say that some of your comments are way too extreme.

   Menderes had been hung (which I agree with Micheal and Nihat that it was a crime) for the position he took Turkey in, severing its foreign politicial relations through trying to become an ally of Soviet Union through contradicting the leftists mostly. It was not more than a right / left contradiction.

   Even Turkish Goverment acknowledged that the court result of 1960 was to severe and tried to honour Menderes and his family by building a grave for him many years after.

   As for the second coup, it had nothing to do with Islamism at all, it was related to extreme socialists thinking that they were defending labour rights. To me hanging Deniz Gezmiş was also a crime.

   As for the 3rd coup, you may somehow call it related partially to Islamists but the sole factor was never fundamentalism.

   The first recent soft intervention of Army to fundamentalists is ‘28Şubat Muhtırası’ (I assume you know about it)  and it worked in the end but can we say that a coup free Turkey in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s could survive without being drawn to fundamentalism in the end , I doubt so. This is not however because Menderes or Deniz Gezmiş were fundamentalists, it is because of the chaos the country were being drawn to where extreme groups would have freedom to act.

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