Tuesday, May 01, 2007

THE SECOND POSTMODERN COUP

"Last Friday midnight, anybody watching any Turkish TV channel could easily come to the conclusion that a military takeover has taken place."
~ Cengiz Candar.


A friend and I were talking last night. He said that if the Constitutional Court upheld the parliamentary vote over Gul, it would be a radical change for Turkey that would bode a better future for the country generally, at least as far as Turkey's attempts at democracy. I had to agree; for one thing, at least if the civilian government got the hand over the military elite, they would be more inclined to address the Kurdish situation in creative, possibly even successful ways that have less to do with security solutions than political solutions . . . and political solutions to the Kurdish situation are the only ones that are going to work.

It is not to be, however. The Constitutional Court upheld the military rule of the Paşas, proving yet again that Turkey is no democracy.

For more info, check the following:

International Herald Tribune

The Economist--Their unnamed "experts" are always so funny, especially when they write things like, "Outsiders are looking on astonished. Investors have been startled."

Cengiz Candar has a pretty good op/ed at TDN, but note that it's a pre-new-postmodern-coup op/ed. TDN (as well as TNA) always seems to be at least 24 hours behind the power curve.

Remember over the weekend that the Paşas called out their "pro-secularism" demonstrators to protest the government? Remember how the Western media presented this as such a wonderful thing? Remember how the police stood back and did nothing during those demonstrations? Well, today was May Day, and the leftists, who are generally hard-core secularists, were out to demonstrate against the government today.

They got a very different reception from the police, from the BBC:


Officers fired tear gas and used batons to stop the crowd marching to Taksim Square, where they were due to mark the 30th anniversary of "Bloody May Day".

Thirty-four people died in 1977 after a gunman fired, triggering a stampede.

[ . . . ]

After some violent clashes in one area of the city, a handful of trade union leaders were allowed into the square to lay red carnations in memory of those who died in 1977.

But police stopped television crews setting up satellite dishes in the square - one channel did however film events from a nearby building.

Meanwhile, public transport was paralysed, as the authorities sealed off main roads, cancelled ferries and closed underground stations

Although the march was not specifically linked to the ongoing tension over the election, correspondents say some protesters raised their fists and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - who supports Mr Gul as president.


More from ABC (Australia) News:


Almost 600 people have been arrested in Turkey as police fired warning shots and fought with left-wing May Day marchers intent on holding a banned rally in a symbolic Istanbul square.

Istanbul governor Muammer Guler said 580 people were detained, while a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Association (IHD) said more than 1,000 were held and four were injured.

[ . . . ]

Police tried to prevent union groups marching to Taksim Square to mark the 30th anniversary there of "Bloody May Day", when 34 people died after unknown gunmen fired on a peaceful crowd, triggering mass panic.

[ . . . ]

After police ended the first skirmishes in one section of the city, near the Inonu Stadium, they struck a deal with unions allowing a small group access to Taksim, where they held a brief ceremony.

But the violence spread to other areas surrounding the sprawling square as protesters confronted some 17,000 policemen deployed to block their path.

Police fired warning shots in front of the Army Officers' Club in the upmarket Harbiye district when they came under attack from a stone-throwing crowd, the Anatolia news agency reported.

On the other side of the square, in the popular Okmeydani neighbourhood, some 1,500 riot police and about as many demonstrators armed with sticks, stones and slingshots fought a pitched battle for more than one hour.

Police sprayed the demonstrators, believed to be members of ultra-leftist groups present in the area, with water cannon and tear gas.

[ . . . ]

Suleyman Celebi, president of the main organising group, the DISK labour confederation, said the demonstration was meant to be peaceful, but the police made it violent.

"We have not seen such repression since the days of martial law," he said.


Welcome back to the bad old days, Suleyman.


Also, in honor of May Day, check out Paul Street's reflections on the fact that democracy takes time, something that precious few in the US actually have.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, this was a surprise to read. I never imagined a Kurd would want an Islamist president in Turkey. This is a surprise to me considering that the Islamists have been the only eliminate to successfully and forcably assimilated vast portions of the Kurdish population, convincing them to give up their language, culturel, and ethnic identity. Chiang Kai-Shek said that the Japanese were a disease of the skin, but that the Communists were a disease of the heart. I know you're a leftist, but the implications of the statement stand: the Japanese lost, the Communists won. The Turkish military is a disease of the skin, but Islamism is a disease of the heart, and it will entirely destroy the Northern Kurds if it catches on in Turkey.

Mizgîn said...

Anonymous, it's not a matter of wanting an Islamist president; it's a matter of wanting civilian government rule as opposed to the military oligarchy that rules now.

Of course, military rule is an old Turkish tradition that goes back to Ottoman times, and it's the only rule that the TC has had during the last 84 years.

Which would you prefer to deal with if you had to bother about obtaining full and equal political rights for yourself? A civilian government or an army?

Now, who is it that brought about Turkish-Islamic Synthesis? Who is it that created Turkish Hezbollah, encouraged it and armed it? Who is it that enforces compulsory religion instruction in schools? The Turkish military.

The greatest amount of propaganda that regularly gets printed or broadcast in the West is the lie that the generals are "Kemalists," i.e. "secularists. They are not. Who is it that murdered Hrant Dink or those three bible publishers recently? Or that priest last year in Trabzon? It was Deep State and Deep State is the Turkish military . . . and Islamists.

There are no Kemalists in Turkey anymore and, in fact, the only real secularist in Turkey is sitting on Imrali. So if you support real secularism in Turkey, by default the only one you can rationally support is Ocalan. Otherwise, you don't support real secularism in Turkey.

See Lenin's comment and post from the Rasti Wednesday post.

Anonymous said...

helo im a kurd in a iran
in this contury is 10 milion turk
and persian always makes jokes for their and all of the turks ashame from their ethnic
and almost all of their invis their ethnic from other
all of the iranian people recognize the turks as donkey(Eşek)
then you can use my goke for turks of the turkey and slight the turk for increse your aplomb in face by turks
you can go to persian site (joke ) and translate the jokes from farsi to kurdish or turkish

plaese send my letter for other kurds


bji kurdistan bji sehidani regai azady
nnc_mc2000@yahoo.com
mehrdad


TÜRK ve MOĞUL GERÇEĞİ
Zamanın birinde
Dağda gezen bir Moğul Hatunu
Bir Boz ite eş olmuş
Ondan Doğan TÜRK olmuş
Bozkurt kelimesi ve
Türkler bu itten gelme
TÜRK dediğin arsız olur
Eli yüzü Nursuz olur
Beşikteki hırsız olur
TÜRK dersin mırıldanır
Bey dersin yere yatar yuvarlanır
EY ALLAH' ım Sen TÜRKÜ mort eyle
Ayağını dört eyle
Ya Eşeği TÜRK eyle
Ya TÜRKÜ Eşek eyle..