Closure Case Erdogan’s Fault
European Parliament: Erdogan only has himself to blame for the closure case against his party, the AKP. The reason, according to the enlightened members of this fake Parliament? “The government put on the brakes on reforms. Article 301 [of the penal code, which criminalizes insulting Turkishness] still stands and no step has been taken in terms of freedom of speech. Now the AKP suffers the consequences of its own mistakes.”
Partially true, of course, but there’s more to it than that, as anyone who knows a little bit about Turkey knows. Namely, it’s also Erdogan’s fault in the sense that he has pushed through Islamic reforms, even though he knew that the country’s Kemalists opposed those reforms, and that they were willing to go to war for the Kemalist principles. They told him, he knew it, yet he was arrogant enough to say ‘well, we were the winners during the last elections, so the Kemalists will simply give in to our mandate. They have to.’
No they don’t.
Stupidity and arrogance are more to blame than ’stalling reforms proposed by the European Parliament.’
Topics: Europe
Posted by Michael van der Galien at 10:37 am Comments (1) on Thursday, April 24, 2008
One Response to “Closure Case Erdogan’s Fault”
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April 24th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Erdogan’s attempt to move the country in a more Islamist direction is akin to trying to break the constitution, justifying the move on the basis that he won the election. To put it in American terms, it’s like the Democratic party winning the White House and the Congress next November, and deciding in 2009 that Congress and the Administration can pass a statute to eliminate those inconvenient and irritating First and Second Amendments of the Constitution.