European Politics

I don't know a single joke that we do about Greeks. We don't really make fun of them, either.

The Turkish style of doing things is either cursing them out, rubbing the conquest of Istanbul in, or talking about how we drove them to the sea in Izmir.
 
You probably wouldn't have Istanbul if we, their christian brothers the Most Serene Republic(TM), didn't sack and loot most of their wealth.
 
The honeymoon is over. AKP has openly started to target non-Gülenist opposition. Journalists from social democratic newspaper Cumhuriyet were taken into custody.

This is huge, Cumhuriyet fought bravely against the AKP-Gülen cooperation for years when it was a thing and paid the price for it. (Their journalists were jailed) Now they're being accused of being Gülenists. Utterly ridiculous and sad.
 
I assume the news of today have gone international.

Dark days for Turkey. Darker days are ahead for my poor country.
 
Except for the part about Erdogan turning Turkey into a dictatorship (which many here suggested would happen since the coup but some didn't believe ) I'm not sure what has happened either? :D
 
I don't think anybody said it would not turn into a dictatorship. In fact, it already was a dictatorship, but in the eyes of some it gets more blatant. And it does get worse everyday, yes.
 
https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/33173854/serbian-radicals-prevent-eu-diplomats-address

I hate this guy so much. Absolute human garbage that makes Trump seem rational and calm in comparison. He was pretty sick in Hague and I was hoping he's not gonna make it out alive from there but he seems to have healed and being only 62 he can still wreak havoc on the country. If you thought America is fucked under Trump, we'd be million times more fucked if this guy came into power. That's stuff of worst nightmares.
 
Not opening the link, I presume Seselj?
I would personally execute the guy and bear any sentence for that. It would be a joy.
 
Leader of this party is gonna be on my uni next week for a class or something (some likeminded cunts invited him). I'm tempted to piss of the disgusting little cunt and his hate party with some question, just can't think of anything witty enough:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dveri

P.S. Same cunts invited Seselj, but our Dean said that he won't allow it as long as he's in charge :applause:
 
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Sometimes I'd like to think that students, being in the business of studying and learning, would be more open minded.
 
Well let me tell you. My uni is called Faculty of Political Sciences. It has 4 courses - Journalism, Social Politics and Social Work, Politicology (mine) and International Relations.

Journalism is pretty much a girl course. I think there's something like 95% girls and 5% guys. Girls are generally way more open minded and tolerant here and I only met a few bigots. So that course is normal. Social Work and International Relations are even in terms of genders and stuff that's studied really isn't made for bigots.

Politicology is the cesspool of bigots. I'd say half of them or more are history denying bigots who support the idiots I mentioned above and who argue about everything. That half is politically active and takes part in all these presentations and honestly we're fucked if that's the future of our politics. It's the kind of people I've been mentioning in my posts for years here, like the guy who goes to a mosque and tells the imam that their Prophet was the spawn of Satan, or the guy who thinks Osama Bin Laden never existed, or the guy who claims we never actually killed anyone in ex-Yu countries in the 90's, or people who think we should take up arms and assault Kosovo, or idiots who parade around with the Confederate flag, or a student representative who openly mocks gay students... I could go all day long. The other half is mostly people interested in political analysis, like me.
 
Don't the intolerant ones ever have to write on subjects that deal with these issues? How do the lecturers mark their work?
 
Professors tend to avoid controversial topics when they give out essays and exams. Bringing up the 90's almost always ends up in shouting (between students, of course). Or Kosovo's independence.
 
It's easier to not challenge them and prolong the argument since they won't change their opinion anyway. Plus I try to keep a low profile at uni anyway. As for other reasonable people, we recognize each other thanks to all the eyerolling and facepalming the arguments cause :p
 
Professors tend to avoid controversial topics when they give out essays and exams. Bringing up the 90's almost always ends up in shouting (between students, of course). Or Kosovo's independence.

Pff. What could possibly have happened in the Balkans in the nineties that is relevant for political sciences?
 
A piece I wrote today about the ongoing EU-Turkey issue, entitled Erdoğan Versus Europe...But for How Long?, if you're interested.

As Erdoğan's anti-European -or rather, anti-Everyone else- rhetoric gets stronger, he's showing a complete nonchalance towards possible consequences for his actions that have been pointed to him by European leaders. Erdoğan's tavern talk might please the Turkish conservative crowd who's had an "Us Against Them" mindset ingrained in them after years of Ottoman rule and positioned Europe as the enemy, but their implications might be in for a rude awakening.

The political climate in Turkey has been toxic under Erdoğan's authoritarian tendencies and it without a doubt affects Turkey's place as an intriguing market for investments. Turkey's foreign direct investment has plunged more than 50% compared to last year and its credit ratings are dropping on just about every index. While the U.S. Dollar gains value against currencies all over the world, it gains more on the Turkish Lira than just about any other relevant currency. Only the Mexican peso, which is losing value in light of Trump's election; the Brazilian real, which is losing value due to mass corruption scandals and political gloom; and the South African rand, which is losing value due to controversies surrounding Jacob Zuma and the attempted impeachment against him, are bigger losers than the Turkish Lira. USD/TRY parity jumped from 2.8 to 3.5 in the last five months and the tide isn't expected to turn any time soon, as tensions between the EU and Turkey continue to rise. European Parliament voted to suspend talks with Turkey on EU membership on November 24th, and the first embargo towards Turkey came from Austria, whose parliament voted to impose an arms embargo the day after the European Parliament vote. The two actions received a response from Erdoğan that can be described as shrugging his shoulders violently. It would be one thing if he simply left it at shrugging his shoulders -and EU membership negotiations really do more harm than good to his country- But he moved onto threatening European countries by opening the borders and letting the refugees move to European soil, using the EU incentive to use Turkey as a buffer zone for migrants as a blackmail. It's a tough pill to swallow for Europe, but such aggressive behaviour is risking the possibility of serious sanctions and Turkish economy might be too fragile to withstand such a battle.

It's patently obvious that Erdoğan has a fair bit of confidence in himself and his country's economy. However, history shows that Erdoğan's power trips tend to cause quite a bit of harm to Turkish economy. The months following Turkey's shooting down of a Russian fighter jet in Syria oversaw Erdoğan being very adamant in his stance towards Russia; however after the sharp decline in tourism -due to Russians being the leading visitors of Turkish tourist destinations- and exports acted as a slap to the face on the Turkish economy, Erdoğan soon had to back off and apologize to Putin. Turkish economy won't see a turning point towards positivity as long as Erdoğan continues to ignore worldwide public and political opinion and adamantly defends fanatical positions. And a buck of trend doesn't seem very near.

Erdoğan may trust the fanatical devotion of his voter base to get him through anything, and granted, he has survived quite a bit of scandals and flip-flops, but Turkish political history shows that if there's one thing that will make the Turkish conservative voter jump ship, it's an economic crisis. Nobody will care about a "religious revolution" when their businesses are getting shut down. And Erdoğan should be well aware of this, considering the fact that he first came into power in 2002 following a period of inflation in the 90s during a coalition led by conservative parties that culminated in an economic crisis in 2001 by promoting a pro-Western, pro-privatization agenda.
 
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