From: deniz@prometheus.ctr.columbia.edu (Deniz Akkus)
Subject: Re: Greece had only 17.5 years of democracy in its entire history.
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:49:28 GMT
X-Posted-From: prometheus.ctr.columbia.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <BxJson.6EC@hermes.hrz.uni-bielefeld.de> iptsiant@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Panagiotis Tsiantopoulos) writes:
>
>Then: What 's with the 4th or 5th time, your prime minister had to announce that noone shall leave the house after 21.00 or the censoring newspapers or ...
>Without having really a reason to do so?!?!?
>

Have things changed in Turkey since the last few months I have been
there, or are you dreaming?  Is this a reference to the coup d'etats we
have had?  I don't understand your reference to people not leaving their
houses after 21:00.  If this is in the regions where the PKK is
terrorizing civilians, I am not sure you would want to.  

Turkey has not had a totally rosy picture in democracy.  We have had a
few coup d'etats, the last in 1980.  However, the likelyhood of another
coup d'etat is not very great.  Turkey has changed quite drastically in
the last 12 years,  very much for the better in a lot of things in my
opinion.  The favorite non-democratic finger pointing item, the
forbidding of Islamic parties and communist parties has been removed
from the constitution.  That they were in the first place in the
constitution is also I think understandable.  When the original
constitution was written, the threat of Soviet occupation or the threat
of Islamic rule returning was very much real.  Not so right now.  

The people themselves, are very politically oriented in Turkey.  All the
papers, all the coffeeshop talk, all chitchat basically involves
politics, be it sophisticated reasoning or slogan reciting.  This simply
does not jive with the picture of a non-democratic repressive society.  

>Concerning the multi-party democracy : Read the posting of Deniz Akkus (490)! I 'm sure you know of it, too, that the communistic party wasn 't allowed ( and I 'm not so sure it is know ). Is that multi-party democracy with 42 years history?? Surely not.
>
>Panos Tsiantopoulos.
>

I must comment on something.  Obviously, I make my opinions public.   On
the other hand, I don't particularly like being quoted out of context,
or being used as an argument that Turkey has problems. Nobody is denying
that Turkey has problems.  On the other hand, what a lot of people are
not looking at is that Turkey, when looked at in a context of  a decade
or two, has been steadily improving on all counts.  I don't think
enough consideration is given to Turkey when it comes to acknowledging
the strides it has taken. Unfortunately, there is a limited amount of
patience and meeting half way that us Turks are going to be willing to
do, and to continue to attempt somewhat constructive communication
without any such acknowledgement is not really possible.   

Despite its problems, I see Turkey as very much a model of what a lot of
countries have not been able to accomplish -- a democracy thriving in a
predominantly Muslim people.  

regards,
Deniz Akkus deniz@ctr.columbia.edu