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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that if I was Turkish right now, I would be fucking terrified?

93 replies

Bogeyface · 21/07/2016 01:06

By declaring a State of Emergency, Erdogan has basically written himself a mandate to do pretty much anything, with no comeback. If there is any truth in the rumours that he knew about the coup and allowed it to go ahead in order to get rid of his enemies then this is where it all starts to go bad.

This feels wrong for reasons I cant really articulate but, to quote Star Wars, I have a bad feeling about this.

OP posts:
Globetrotter100 · 21/07/2016 08:35

timegate

What exactly is your definition of "fine", just out of interest?

peaceloveandtwirlywoos · 21/07/2016 08:36

DH's Turkish colleague and our good friend who lives and works in the UK and was in Turkey on holiday has been ordered to remain and won't be allowed to fly home today. We're really worried about him and his wife, and hope they're home again soon.

twofingerstoGideon · 21/07/2016 08:36

Everything
Should we be very worried about it as France is much closer to the UK? Do they have a dictatorship there too?
Has France been forcing university deans to resign and ordering them not to leave the country?
Is France sacking school teachers and civil servants en masse?
Is it holding thousands of people like this: source of picture

esornep · 21/07/2016 08:37

Will they still be considered to join the EU?

Does anyone on here seriously believe that there was ever any chance of Turkey joining the EU in the coming decades?

Even leaving aside the recent issues, there is no way that Turkey could join the EU without the Cyprus situation being resolved (Greece and Cyprus would veto).

SlowComfortableShrew · 21/07/2016 08:40

It could be Syria all over again Sad

SuburbanRhonda · 21/07/2016 08:40

Oh Jesus gideon, that image is horrific. I can't imagine what fate awaits them.

And has anyone seen the footage of the protester being run over by two tanks (on Channel 4 news last night)?

He escaped uninjured after the first tank by being in between the treads but the second tank crushed his arm. Neither tank stopped.

StealthPolarBear · 21/07/2016 08:45

Gideon has asked exactly what I wanted to. Are you seriously suggesting the situation in France compares to turkey?

StealthPolarBear · 21/07/2016 08:47

And so you know what I'm a little bit cautious of writing anything derogatory about the person in charge. Stupid I know.
I very much appreciate living here where we have free speech and that extends to criticising the royal family and the ministers.

NaffOffMartha · 21/07/2016 08:51

peace that is really shocking.

I've got everything crossed for him.

twofingerstoGideon · 21/07/2016 08:52

Everything
Believe me, I have lived through events that have been described in similar ways than the coup in Turkey. A revolution, everything destroyed, people allegedly hunted down. It was nothing like it what so ever.
So because it didn't affect you, it wasn't really happening?
I was in Turkey during the 1980 coup, travelling along the south coast and blissfully oblivious to what was going on in the cities. As far as I could see, life was 'normal': the sun shone, people went about their business as usual... Apart from jandarma checking people's ID on the buses (I was always waved on with a pleasant smile as a young, blonde, blue-eyed foreigner) everything seemed calm. I can assure you, things were far from calm elsewhere in the country. People were being locked up without trial, summarily executed, sacked from their jobs, etc.

Please don't minimise what is happening in Turkey.

Hoppinggreen · 21/07/2016 09:06

No idea if the coup was genuine but I find it odd that the "Rebels" missed assassinating Erdouan by minutes several times. Bombs went off just after he left a restaurant and a bar and they turned up at a hotel just after he left.
Over 45000 have been sacked or asked to resign which is incredible.
Don't forget this is a nation who carried out genocide on The Kurds and continue to deny it.

EverythingWillBeFine · 21/07/2016 09:49

I'm not minimising anything. I'm saying that if people living there are saying it's fine, then we should believe them first because newspaper dont always give a true picture of what is happening.
This doesnt mean that a coup wasn't on its way. It doesn't mean that the situation isnt unstable. It means it could well be not as horrible as the news tell us.
Unless, of course, you know better than people living there.
And in my example I WAS in the right in the middle of it, not in a different part of the country like you were. Hence my caution about how the news are reported C
(note: I don't. This was in response to Mouse, trying to say she should trust her own ds views!)

And I am not saying that the current president us all white. He isn't. But it's not because he has declared the state of emergency that he us becoming a full on dictator. You can have a state of emergency in a democracy. The issue with other decisions that have nothing to with it.

peaceloveandtwirlywoos · 21/07/2016 09:50

Thanks Martha. DH has just told me he's hoping to try again on Sunday.

That photo is utterly terrifying.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 21/07/2016 09:52

Does anyone on here seriously believe that there was ever any chance of Turkey joining the EU in the coming decades?

Obviously not, amongst those that follow politics. As a remain campaigner, who actually campaigned on the doorstep, I can see no possible reason why Cameron could not have flatly stated that he would veto Turkish accession and he would recommend his successors to do likewise. It would be superfluous, because Turkish accession was never going to happen in the working lifetime of anyone currently in politics, but it would be unambiguous. The problem with the way things were left was that basically every EU leader was nudging and winking and saying "well, everyone has a veto, so someone is bound to use it so long as it isn't us" while at the same time being seen to pander to Erdogan (as Cameron did in several speeches early in his premiership).

It was an entirely self-inflicted wound. Fears of Turkish accession cost Remain votes. Turkish accession is not going to happen. So why not simply say the obvious "it isn't going to happen, and we will veto any attempt" and neutralise it as a political issue? Instead, Leave were able to make hay with it, while Erdogan's fascist tendency remained precisely the same; the claim that holding out the bait of accession moderates him is the sort of stuff that would make Chamberlain blush, because Erdogan knows accession won't happen and doesn't care anyway.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 21/07/2016 09:53

You can have a state of emergency in a democracy.

Yes, but not one which allows the president to pass legislation without scrutiny. That's an enabling act, and you might recall that in Germany that didn't end well.

Buttock · 21/07/2016 11:20

The Turks are fucking terrified. I can't believe the west is sitting back and watching turkey become and Islamic dictatorship. That's the region fucked then.

This made me laugh!

Yeah...I mean the west did a brilliant job in Iraq, getting rid of the evil dictator...not to mention Libya. A million times better off those countries now aren't they? 🙄

Buttock · 21/07/2016 11:23

Also that region was fucked up when George fucking Bush and His sidekick Tony decided to wage a war against a country that didn't have WMDs. They fucked up the whole area and the world with that.

Auti · 21/07/2016 13:14

OK I'm worried.
Erdogan locks US airmen, nuclear arms in Incirlik

''Some 1,500 US airmen and their families have been locked in the southern Turkish air base of Incirlik together with a stock if tactical nuclear bombs since President Reccep Erdogan crushed an attempted coup on Saturday, July 16. In the four days up until Wednesday, July 20, therefore, no air strikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq have been staged ''

How safe are US nukes in Turkey?

Auti · 21/07/2016 13:20

oh and bojo won Boris Johnson won the 'most offensive ErdoÄŸan poem' competition back in May.

Marvellous.

LuluJakey1 · 21/07/2016 14:23

I can't believe anyone is bothered about Boris's limerick. I have read worse on here about Cameron and the pig.
Angela Merkel has made some very odd decisions in the last year- if she has lost her clarity of thought about her country, many of whom are at odds with her thinking and actions.
Like many male dictators the Turkish leaders are very sensitive to public criticism which they find personally humiliating and yet commit atrocities which they have no conscience about.

LuluJakey1 · 21/07/2016 14:24

'as if' not 'if'

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 21/07/2016 14:28

Angela Merkel has made some very odd decisions in the last year

You can take the girl out of the Stasi, but you can't take the Stasi out of the girl.

ChardonnayKnickertonSmythe · 21/07/2016 14:42

I'm saying that if people living there are saying it's fine

What is fine though?

The purged thousands of people, the beaten up and tortured detainees?
The calls for Sharia Law?
The State of emergency?

If you think that's fine....

dailymaillazyjournos · 21/07/2016 15:03

It's very frightening. If Sharia Law is enforced, the consequences are horrible to think about. It doesn't sound or feel 'fine' at all imo.