Interesting-Bigoted Developments from Turkey

[Pennywise 36,080]

So, in Turkey - where I live - there is an election in about three years. The extremely-right-wing government started its campaigning for its base support with bigotry.

Attacks on "rainbow"
-Prominent politicians from the ruling party started to shun rainbow imagery because "it promotes immorality"
-Some local retailers decided to stop producing/promoting clothing items with rainbows/rainbow colors
-The people supporting that party eat this all up

Attacks on Netflix
-The right-wing government wants to be able to censor Netflix in order for "immoral" content to be banned.
-There is already zero representation on regular TV, but they want to be able to remove content from Netflix too
-Examples of this include the fact that the writers for some Turkish-Netflix shows had to write out gay characters - some plans for other shows were cancelled completely

Declaring Hagia Sophia as a Mosque
-Literally nobody, including Erd*gan from last year, wants this. He made it so he can appease the religious zealots that make the most of his fanbase.


Also, all LGBTQ+ events are met with police force - and it has been like this for the last 4-5 years or so. 



Have I ever talked about how much I despise humanity? What's with the right wing rise worldwide? Can we FINALLY have that nuclear war and kill off everyone? Is that too much to ask? 

Ugh. 

Note: I don't know if any international news outlets covered these so I can't provide, like, "sources" for y'all, but this is what has been happening recently. 
 

[BUtterfield 8 41,818]

Yeah I’m not sure what’s happening but the “far right” is basically starting to rule the world

and it’s really scary.

i pray you stay safe in turkey 

[Pennywise 36,080]

Just now, Blue Lagoon said:

Yeah I’m not sure what’s happening but the “far right” is basically starting to rule the world

and it’s really scary.

i pray you stay safe in turkey 

Thank you. 

I am relatively safe, as where I live is overwhelmingly left-wing and my university is probably THE most left-wing-Marxist place in the whole country, but I fear for many people, including many friends, here. 

This is actually why I ALWAYS act very open with my sexuality, just so people around me who feel the need to be closeted can see that it is okay.

Soon it might be too hard to do that, though. I mean, I have my own plans, but it all still sucks. 

[Luc 4,776]

To spread some positivity: in very polarized societies (like Turkey, and Poland), camp A being heavily against something makes it much more likely that camp B gets in favour of said thing. The more Erdogan focuses on homophobia, the more the Turkish left will be inclined to be against homophobia. In a society that is still >90% homophobic, that's really good news, because Erdogan is despised by ~40% of Turkish people, and this polarization will make those people more inclined to dislike homophobia (because the person they hate is homophobic). It happened in a lot of countries (especially in Poland, where a pro-LGBT candidate got 49% of the vote, unimaginable just a few years ago), and always ends with the gays winning. Stay hopeful, stay proud, keep fighting the good fight and spreading the good message. I believe that, eventually, all countries will have same sex marriage legalized and homosexuality accepted. It gets worse before it gets better. It will first get better in Izmir, then in Istanbul and Ankara, then in other big cities, and then the rest of the country.

[Delulu Rogers 7,664]

God I’m Greek and I have some serious beef with the your president. Especially what he did last week. I actually have so many question for you @Pennywise because I would love an inside perspective than what I read on the news

[River 127,559]

I know what you mean, in Israhell Netanyahu is in a progress to become a dictator, it's scary, those f-cked up leaders needs to go asap, just to think that Erdogan and Netanyahu did the best to make Turkey and Israhell "enemies", after years of being closed friends.. I hate the far right, so much, they are leeching on the democracy and using it against us.

[Pennywise 36,080]

12 minutes ago, Delulu Rogers said:

God I’m Greek and I have some serious beef with the your president. Especially what he did last week. I actually have so many question for you @Pennywise because I would love an inside perspective than what I read on the news

Ask away! Not that I follow the news that much but I'll answer what I can 

[Delulu Rogers 7,664]

16 minutes ago, Pennywise said:

Ask away! Not that I follow the news that much but I'll answer what I can 

Okay. From what I understand the current president can’t be re-elected again cause his term will be up right? Do most Turkish people actually support him or is he just popular among the older/religious population? 
Also, how do you guys feel about the Hagia Sophia being turned into a mosque? All my Greek friends were burning Turkish flags the other day and I know Europe is increasingly getting fed up with the president. Oh, and are you guys a super religious country or does the youth dislike the Islamization of the country? Isn’t he also restricting freedom of the press and any critique against his rule? Do you think the left party has a chance of winning next election or do you think most liberals will just emigrate and Turkey will slip further into conservatism? Thanks in advance! 

[Pennywise 36,080]

Just now, Delulu Rogers said:

Okay. From what I understand the current president can’t be re-elected again cause his term will be up right? Do most Turkish people actually support him or is he just popular among the older/religious population? 

He has around 40% support I think. Some would say it is lower and he's skewing the election results - because there certainly are weird stuff happening around elections. I worked in the last elections and before we sent the results they had already started to announce the results from our district, for example.

His base is mostly religious/old, but there is a dangerous amount of young people as well, mostly because of their families I would say. 

Anyone who can think independently hates him, though.
 

 

2 minutes ago, Delulu Rogers said:

Also, how do you guys feel about the Hagia Sophia being turned into a mosque?

Again, his base is eating this up, while the rest of us are mad as **** about it. Since it is a totalitarian regime, though, we can't do much, and even the opposition parties in this country are not really "opposing" at all. The funny thing is, just last year he was talking about how this would never happen. Anything to appease his base, I guess.

 

3 minutes ago, Delulu Rogers said:

Oh, and are you guys a super religious country or does the youth dislike the Islamization of the country?

The youth is increasingly atheist these days, because most of them have resources their parents did not have access to. However, as I say, the children of his own base are zealots as well. For me? I hate every single religion out there.

 

4 minutes ago, Delulu Rogers said:

Isn’t he also restricting freedom of the press and any critique against his rule?

Yup. Every time something happens like a bomb going off or an attack, they immediately shut down access to Twitter and stuff. And if you criticize him publicly, you usually get sued or worse. This is, like, legit. There are SO many journalists in prison.

Lately, for example, an 11-year-old child was killed and thrown from the roof, possibly raped as well, by someone from the ruling party. They shut everything and everyone who opposes it down, they first put the father who investigated into an asylum, then prison. Then they had the building the child was found near destroyed in order to prevent any future investigation. And the case was dropped 2 days ago. This is just one story, there are many, many more. 
 

 

5 minutes ago, Delulu Rogers said:

Do you think the left party has a chance of winning next election or do you think most liberals will just emigrate and Turkey will slip further into conservatism?

If the old ****s stop clinging to their positions and caring about their salaries more than the country's future, sure, the opposition CAN win. Do I think that will happen? I think this whole region will destabilize once again before that ever happens. I, for one, am planning to emigrate. I am a gay, atheist academic. I'd be one of the first ones to be attacked if it ever happened. 


All of this is from my personal perspective, though. I love this country itself, but never its people. There are a lot of people - even friends - who are much more positive about the future, for example. But I am kinda done with all. This country never gave me ANYTHING if I did not fight tooth and claw against everything and everyone. I am a strong person, but I don't know how long I can keep doing so, or even if I SHOULD. I want a life where I don't get whiplash from the rapid change of ****ed up news, honestly. 

[Delulu Rogers 7,664]

3 hours ago, Pennywise said:

He has around 40% support I think. Some would say it is lower and he's skewing the election results - because there certainly are weird stuff happening around elections. I worked in the last elections and before we sent the results they had already started to announce the results from our district, for example.

His base is mostly religious/old, but there is a dangerous amount of young people as well, mostly because of their families I would say. 

Anyone who can think independently hates him, though.
 

 

Again, his base is eating this up, while the rest of us are mad as **** about it. Since it is a totalitarian regime, though, we can't do much, and even the opposition parties in this country are not really "opposing" at all. The funny thing is, just last year he was talking about how this would never happen. Anything to appease his base, I guess.

 

The youth is increasingly atheist these days, because most of them have resources their parents did not have access to. However, as I say, the children of his own base are zealots as well. For me? I hate every single religion out there.

 

Yup. Every time something happens like a bomb going off or an attack, they immediately shut down access to Twitter and stuff. And if you criticize him publicly, you usually get sued or worse. This is, like, legit. There are SO many journalists in prison.

Lately, for example, an 11-year-old child was killed and thrown from the roof, possibly raped as well, by someone from the ruling party. They shut everything and everyone who opposes it down, they first put the father who investigated into an asylum, then prison. Then they had the building the child was found near destroyed in order to prevent any future investigation. And the case was dropped 2 days ago. This is just one story, there are many, many more. 
 

 

If the old ****s stop clinging to their positions and caring about their salaries more than the country's future, sure, the opposition CAN win. Do I think that will happen? I think this whole region will destabilize once again before that ever happens. I, for one, am planning to emigrate. I am a gay, atheist academic. I'd be one of the first ones to be attacked if it ever happened. 


All of this is from my personal perspective, though. I love this country itself, but never its people. There are a lot of people - even friends - who are much more positive about the future, for example. But I am kinda done with all. This country never gave me ANYTHING if I did not fight tooth and claw against everything and everyone. I am a strong person, but I don't know how long I can keep doing so, or even if I SHOULD. I want a life where I don't get whiplash from the rapid change of ****ed up news, honestly. 

Wow so much of this shocked me. I can’t believe how much censoring is going on and the covering up of that child murder. I hope Turkey is able to have some sort of revolution or something to help it become more free. I hope it can at least become secular again with better human rights. Where do you want to move to?

[Pennywise 36,080]

12 minutes ago, Delulu Rogers said:

Wow so much of this shocked me. I can’t believe how much censoring is going on and the covering up of that child murder. I hope Turkey is able to have some sort of revolution or something to help it become more free. I hope it can at least become secular again with better human rights. Where do you want to move to?

Well, there is so much potential so I hope it turns into something good. Still, I don't see a future for me here. I'm currently doing an MA, and am planning to do my PhD in Ireland, though it may change depending on scholarships, etc.