Human Rights Watch Warns of 'Authoritarian Drift' in Turkey

[Jacob]

Ok well here is the thing though: most of these theological Islamic states are shitholes with little redeemable about them. I have a hard time seeing people growing up in Germany, even the children and grandchildren of Muslims immigrants, being convinced that that is a good idea in mass numbers.

63 % of the Turkish voters in Germany voted for Herr Dogan's in the last referendum. If that's not a mass number, I don't know what this is.

65 % in France, cocorico! 

Yeah, it's not a pretty picture.

Do note, of course, that there was only about 50% participation (in Germany) and of the 3.5M Turks living in Germany, about ~1.5M have Turkish citizenship (and so can vote). So we're talking about 63% of 50% of 1.5M, so about 470,000 votes in favour out of the 3.5M Turks in Germany.

Still way too many, of course, and there's nothing that indicates whether the non-participating eligible voters or the non-eligible Turks share the sentiment in similar proportions or not.

[Jacob]

I have to admit that does make it hard to have much sympathy for them. Granted my perspective is a tad colored from the fact that many of my personal friends are Gulenists.

Sympathy for whom, in what context?

The 3.5 million Turks in Germany, or the 470,000 of them who voted for increasing Erdogan's power?

Presumably there are Gulenists in Germany as well.

[Valmy]

I have to admit that does make it hard to have much sympathy for them. Granted my perspective is a tad colored from the fact that many of my personal friends are Gulenists.

Sympathy for whom, in what context?

The 3.5 million Turks in Germany, or the 470,000 of them who voted for increasing Erdogan's power?

Presumably there are Gulenists in Germany as well.

Sympathy for those who would live in a liberal nation but vote for dictatorship and tyranny in another country. How contemptible can you be?

[Duque de Bragança]

Ok well here is the thing though: most of these theological Islamic states are shitholes with little redeemable about them. I have a hard time seeing people growing up in Germany, even the children and grandchildren of Muslims immigrants, being convinced that that is a good idea in mass numbers.

63 % of the Turkish voters in Germany voted for Herr Dogan's in the last referendum. If that's not a mass number, I don't know what this is.

65 % in France, cocorico! 

Yeah, it's not a pretty picture.

Do note, of course, that there was only about 50% participation (in Germany) and of the 3.5M Turks living in Germany, about ~1.5M have Turkish citizenship (and so can vote). So we're talking about 63% of 50% of 1.5M, so about 470,000 votes in favour out of the 3.5M Turks in Germany.

Still way too many, of course, and there's nothing that indicates whether the non-participating eligible voters or the non-eligible Turks share the sentiment in similar proportions or not.

It would be interesting to see how "Mountain Turks" vote too. 
I would say non registered people are more driven by apathy than anti-Erdogan sentiment. Plus Turkish authorities have been flexible enough to allow some double (not dual) citizenship voters.
I am not optimistic though, using the Gezi park troubles, Syt mentioned there were 10 times more Turks demonstrating in favor of Erdogan than against. Granted, those are the most motivated, in both cases but still...

[Valmy]

Why would Erdogan supporters be MORE motivated? Wouldn't those forced out of the country by Erdogan be more motivated? I mean now they will have a hard time even visiting.

[Oexmelin]

It's a common feature of the emigrant/ ex-pat experience in my observation. The culture and outlook of emigrants regarding their land of origin tends to freeze in time at the point of departure. Seems to me it's a psychological thing that has little to do with the availability of communication.

I disagree politically with Crazy Ivan on many things, but there is something to his argument. Sure, the old Italians who lived in the neighborhood where I grew up with were still somehow watching the RAI - and Irish expats may indeed still politically self-identify with the political conflict that structured their youth. But Turkey is a dynamic producer of media of all kinds, from news to drama - and Erdogan has silenced media opposition and replaced it with propaganda that self-presents as true news. It is now much easier to keep in touch with the country of one's birth, and its subsequent evolution. The conservatism of old Italians was frozen in the past: that of current immigrants can much more easily evolve with the time. Worse: immigrants are also being asked to remain politically active. Sure: this situation happened before - in times of mass 19th c. immigration, and these communities eventually, and contentiously, assimilated. Books circulated, and newspaper were printed in a variety of languages in the US, Canada, or France. But newspaper reached few people then, and slowly at that; and 19th century states were both much less delicate in handling "troublemakers", but had also much less police power at their command.

I don't have any good answer, but I fear that the reflex of turning to the past as evidence that things are happening as they always did, and turned out fine in the end, may not help us confront contemporary challenges. . 

[Duque de Bragança]

Why would Erdogan supporters be MORE motivated? Wouldn't those forced out of the country by Erdogan be more motivated? I mean now they will have a hard time even visiting.

The big purge had not started yet in 2013, year of the Gezi park troubles. Of course, people forced out by the poverty in hinterland Turkey and living in much more advanced societies should not be so pro-Erdogan, if they were rational but identity politics shun that.

[celedhring]

Why would Erdogan supporters be MORE motivated? Wouldn't those forced out of the country by Erdogan be more motivated? I mean now they will have a hard time even visiting.

I have no idea how this particular process worked, but Erdogan may have facilitated participation of sympathetic voters vs. others.

[Jacob]

I disagree politically with Crazy Ivan on many things, but there is something to his argument. Sure, the old Italians who lived in the neighborhood where I grew up with were still somehow watching the RAI - and Irish expats may indeed still politically self-identify with the political conflict that structured their youth. But Turkey is a dynamic producer of media of all kinds, from news to drama - and Erdogan has silenced media opposition and replaced it with propaganda that self-presents as true news. It is now much easier to keep in touch with the country of one's birth, and its subsequent evolution. The conservatism of old Italians was frozen in the past: that of current immigrants can much more easily evolve with the time. Worse: immigrants are also being asked to remain politically active. Sure: this situation happened before - in times of mass 19th c. immigration, and these communities eventually, and contentiously, assimilated. Books circulated, and newspaper were printed in a variety of languages in the US, Canada, or France. But newspaper reached few people then, and slowly at that; and 19th century states were both much less delicate in handling "troublemakers", but had also much less police power at their command.

I don't have any good answer, but I fear that the reflex of turning to the past as evidence that things are happening as they always did, and turned out fine in the end, may not help us confront contemporary challenges. .

In no way am I suggesting that "things turned out fine in the end", nor am I suggesting that this pattern that I've observed is particularly constructive. It is simply a heuristic that I've observed to hold fairly well and it may be part of an explanation for the apparent conundrum of "people who benefit from a liberal state voting to curtail liberal rights in the country of origin."

Thinking on it a bit further as I write this reply a couple of things occur to me:

1) Perhaps the people voting to curtail the liberal foundation of the Turkish state do not feel they benefit from the German, Dutch and other liberal states where they reside, in spite of our general agreement that they in fact do benefit. It is a pretty common feature of reactionaries (see the religious right in the US f. ex.) to not value the benefits of liberal rights as they apply to themselves - because they feel it's only natural that they should have them and more simply by virtue of their inherent qualities and not due to some liberal principle, while those same rights are over-generous to other groups.

2) You suggest, along with CrazyIvan, that modern communication technology (not to mention the ease of travel) should put the reactionary voters in a better position to compare and contrast the two countries, and that makes their reactionary votes more inexplicable somehow. I think recent history is replete with examples of more information doing little shift behaviour and values in a liberal direction. Rather it seems that while there is more information available, people tend to consume and agree with information that already fits their preconceptions. If our hypothetical slightly Conservative Turks in Germany and the Netherlands use the ease of communication to absorb reactionary propaganda originating from Erdogin operatives and independent nationalist groups who want a "Strong Turkey" (or whatever), then the ease of getting information works against the liberal perspective. Seems good solid agitprop is king these days.

[Jacob]

Why would Erdogan supporters be MORE motivated? Wouldn't those forced out of the country by Erdogan be more motivated? I mean now they will have a hard time even visiting.

A lot of the original Turkish immigrants to Europe (in the 60s and 70s) were deliberately recruited from backwards rural areas. The succeeding waves of immigration, as is often the case, plugged into the now established network. Most Turks in the EU are not refugees of any sort, as I understand it, but people in search of a better quality of life and their descendants.

[mongers]

This thread needs a new name.

I agree.

What about "Looking up at Erdogan sole" ?

[Oexmelin]

2) You suggest, along with CrazyIvan, that modern communication technology (not to mention the ease of travel) should put the reactionary voters in a better position to compare and contrast the two countries, and that makes their reactionary votes more inexplicable somehow. I think recent history is replete with examples of more information doing little shift behaviour and values in a liberal direction. Rather it seems that while there is more information available, people tend to consume and agree with information that already fits their preconceptions. If our hypothetical slightly Conservative Turks in Germany and the Netherlands use the ease of communication to absorb reactionary propaganda originating from Erdogin operatives and independent nationalist groups who want a "Strong Turkey" (or whatever), then the ease of getting information works against the liberal perspective. Seems good solid agitprop is king these days.

Apologies - I did not mean to say that their reactionary vote was inexplicable (which, politically, is a way to paint them as dangerous). On the contrary, I think there are many ways to explain their vote. What I meant to suggest is that the move to normalize the immigrant experience - which has the laudable goal of making immigrants of today similar to those of the past - often glosses over the changes in communication, connection, and feeling of belonging that happened in the last hundred years. In short, if the "liberal perspective" is just to wait until assimilation "happens", I fear it may not be sufficient to address the political challenges of our times. 

[grumbler]

When someone's Autism spectrum disorder flares up and creates a post like this, I usually resist the temptation to respond as I would have in my youth, but I'll (regretfully) wade into this one. There are obviously parallels between Christians and their behavior in Western society and Muslims and their behavior in Middle Eastern societies vis-a-vis religion's role in the state and public life. But the differences are many-fold. Particularly for example a court system is fundamentally different as a check against religiosity in public life versus the military, because for courts to function for over 200 years (as they have in the United States, to varying degrees) to check religious encroachments in government, suggests a base level of societal legitimacy and acceptance of the law and the court system, and the idea of secularism. The courts would no more last than civilian government if they lacked said legitimacy over a prolonged period of time. The fact that Turkey has had to resort to the military suggests that it has a long, persistent lack of institutional respect for democratic norms that conflict with Muslim teachings.

I'm not a theologian, but I think there are both structural reasons within Islam and cultural reasons throughout the Middle East that make acceptance of secular government far less a cultural norm in those societies. It's really telling that America's people 240 years ago were less desirous of a religious state than Turkey's people in 2017. Despite some odd hiccups in conflicting directions, the United States has only become more secular with time, also (for example prior to incorporation of the first amendment, many states had state churches, usually Episcopalian.)

When someone's Nazi spectrum disorder flares up and creates posts that have obviously just been salvaged from an antisemitic screed by changing every appearance of "Jew" to "Muslim," mockery will ensue.  You clearly don't know fuck-all about Islam, and seem to think that the Middle East is as fucked up as it is because it is majority Muslim.  I am no fan of Islam (even less than a fan than I am of Christianity, which is pretty telling), but I know enough to know that speaking of "Muslims" as a monolithic group and ranting about how "the focus should be on making it so we don't have Jews Muslims in Western society" is based on bigotry, not fact.  You are smart enough to know better, but play the card anyway.

[grumbler]

Well we had this thing called the 'Wars of Religion' in the 16th and 17th centuries that were pretty influential on how Christians relate to their governments. Pretty sure Grumbler has heard of them so I am not sure why he is acting like that whole business never occured.

  I just took Otto's words and changed "Muslim" to "Christian."  If you think my statement was over the top, you might want to consider the possibility that I am mocking bigots, not joining them.

Lots of lands with religions have had wars of religion.  I'm pretty sure Valmy has heard of organizations like The Moral Majority (that survived the Treaty of Westphalia) and was aware that, e.g. The Life of Brian was subject to Christian government censorship on the grounds of blasphemy.  Not even he would argue, I'll wager, that the actions of a few should be assumed to be the attitude of the whole, and that the West should ban entire religious beliefs.

[DGuller]

Ok well here is the thing though: most of these theological Islamic states are shitholes with little redeemable about them. I have a hard time seeing people growing up in Germany, even the children and grandchildren of Muslims immigrants, being convinced that that is a good idea in mass numbers.

I think being a fervent supporter of the system that fucks you the hardest is a fairly common phenomenon.  We don't have to look far to see it.  Some people just like it rough.