{"id":3914,"date":"2017-01-02T10:18:50","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T09:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3914"},"modified":"2017-01-02T10:18:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T09:18:50","slug":"of-posters-and-murders-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/3914\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Posters and Murders in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

The picture below is of a poster which appeared in Istanbul in the run-up to Christmas, and a Turkish friend has confirmed its authenticity after I saw it on Twitter. \u00a0The writing is to the effect of “We’re Muslims, we don’t want Christmas and New Year celebrations!”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is safe to say that such a poster would not have been tolerated by the Turkish authorities prior to\u00a0Recep Erdo?an’s ascension to power and his subsequent\u00a0efforts to move\u00a0Turkey away from the secularism of Ataturk and towards some sort of Islamic theocracy.<\/p>\n

On \u00a0New Year’s eve a gunman murdered<\/a> 39 people in a nightclub in Istanbul that was popular with secular Turks and foreigners. \u00a0News is breaking that ISIS is claiming responsibility. \u00a0Following the murder of the Russian ambassador to Turkey a couple of weeks ago by a Turkish policeman, I said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What must now be causing\u00a0Erdo?an to break out in a cold sweat is whether by neutralising all threats from the secualrists in Turkey he has overlooked the threats posed by extremists, who are now seeing opportunities to make inroads into that country which didn\u2019t exist before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Erdo?an has shifted Turkey to a position where large posters promoting violent Islamist intolerance against secularists are\u00a0permitted on the streets of Istanbul (and presumably other cities) because his political power is strongest with the nation at this point on the spectrum between secularism and religious fundamentalism. \u00a0However, in doing so he has severely weakened the institutions which protected Turkey from fundamentalist religious elements such that he might now be unable to stop any slide along the spectrum from the position of his choosing to one much worse. \u00a0In short,\u00a0Erdo?an has allowed the extremist camel to stick its nose inside the Turkish tent.<\/p>\n

According to the news reports, the perpetrator of the nightclub attack is still at large. \u00a0In my earlier post I speculated as to what degree Turkey’s security forces have been infiltrated by extremists like the one who shot the Russian ambassador:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all very well him chucking secular journalists in jail and kicking professors out of universities, but this isn\u2019t going to make\u00a0Erdo?an any more secure if Turkey\u2019s riot police has been infiltrated by ISIS. \u00a0And what about the army? \u00a0Who replaced all those secular officers that were purged? \u00a0Officers who were on board with\u00a0Erdo?an\u2019s programmes, presumably. \u00a0But were they screened for extremism? \u00a0I doubt it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder how many Turkish policemen are helping the nightclub gunman to evade capture?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The picture below is of a poster which appeared in Istanbul in the run-up to Christmas, and a Turkish friend has confirmed its authenticity after I saw it on Twitter. \u00a0The writing is to the effect of “We’re Muslims, we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,15,73],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3916,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions\/3916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}