Turkish Spring ?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This is a thread about a strong protest of its own kind where people of every ethnicity, religion, ages and ideals or those with none at all are flocking to Istanbul, and if they can't they gather in their hometowns.

So please drag your personal agendas elsewhere.

I've checked all Turkish TV channels a few minutes before and it's all your "ordinary Sunday" while the protests are getting stronger reinforced with people from other cities whereas police forces are rumoured to have called for an extra 10.000 to "manage" the incidents. Social and international media are the only windows opening to the outside world right now. We've read news of certain police forces from other cities refusing to reinforce their "colleagues" in Istanbul and those that have quit their jobs.

The undercover cops are told to be smashing ATMs and damaging mass transportation vehicles so as to later condemn the protests and justify the rageful conduct of the police.

If you still like Erdogan and AKP, sorry but you and I have distances as I am a Turkish citizen living in this almost-hellhole.

Surely this is not all new, though. The Turkish Republic has always had a problem balancing liberty with a perceived need to enforce fraternity. Previously, that was aggressively enforced Secularism, now it appears the current government is enforcing Cronyism with an Islamic twist.

Which is obviously worse.