Ataturk must be turning in his grave

Submitted by Carlos Malleum (United Kingdom), Dec 19, 2014 at 05:22

What Erdogan has done to Turkey over the last decade is disgusting. He has betrayed the legacy of Ataturk. Turkey was once a shining example of a state with a great deal of pride in its secular status and in its democratic history in the 20th C. 20 years ago you could go to Istanbul and the veil wearing thobe wearing orthodox muslims were looked upon as odd and backward by most of the population. They rarely ventured out of the area around the Fatith Mosque and were a rare site in the cosmopolitan areas of the city. The Aya Sophia's status as a museum was enshrined.

Ataturk knew how dangerous the lure of Islamism was to progress and therefore he created a culture in the army that guaranteed the secular state and intervened when it saw this being threatened. This upset the EU who were not happy about democracy being undermined by the army but democracy only works if the voters share a national principle.

Erdogan has systematically undermined the secular state and is dragging Turkey kicking and screaming back to the dark ages of the Ottoman Caliphate.

a tragedy

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