CapelDodger
Penultimate Amazing
Ataturk was no bleeding-heart liberal, that's a fact.Some elements were there, like the intolerance of criticism but that is pervasive in Turkish culture. The Kemalists had laws that would see you locked up for insulting Ataturk or Turkishness.
It's religion, rather than conservatism, that seems to be the problem: in this context they may be synonymous. Secular Turkey has been very conservative for most of its history.I have no interest in making a defence of the AKP and I have said all I want to against the claim that any conservative government was doomed to fail.
They could have come straight from Lenin, I agree. As has been mentioned before, they could have come from Erdogan just as well.The only point I care for above is the important context for the words in Gullen's sermon.
Religious parties seem unable to recognise constitutional limits to power. Presumably because they answer to a higher authority - indeed the highest there is.
