My Turkish friend told me the Turks have been aware of attempts of destabilize their country. It was mostly the general population that came out and stopped the military coup.

The Turks don't want another Syria or Libia where western backed rebels have made those places no-go countries. Turkey at least has a very friendly and thriving tourism eco system.

Yet they voted the same type of guy/party who ru(i)ned syria or libia to power?

And enough of that evil western/jew outsiders scapegoats conspiracy theory's to avoid the realization that a whole culture produces failing governments on a regular basis.

Those rebels are mainly backed up by local powers- Saudi arabia, Iran and yes turkey.

Something in these cultures is unable to keep institutions and democracy alive. And the scapegoats all sound so old, shall i list them? The western media, decadence, capitalism, socialism, christianity, judaism, budhism, sports, TV, music, the internet the list of evildoers is endless. They where all eliminated in experiments, and the evidence is there, that they are not the things holding these societys back.

Why not for once, own these mistakes and realize all those creepy crawly's from outside are just fleas biting a already diseased dog.

And yes, its everywhere the same symptom, in every country that becomes islamic. And the deflection-method that the social reality produced by a cultural system are not connected to the very system, has gone out of the window too by the way.

Here is the question wanting a answer:

What in these culturs undermines institutions to work correctly?

What destroys the ability of judges to oppose governments?

What creates this wish to go back towards a perfect time- and time where the lack of modern medicine would have killed half of those wishing back to these times?

What undermines the concept of a human live being sacred?

I hate cheering for the military here, but they released turkey back into democracy several times. Islamic dictators did this nowhere.

<edited to be less inflamatory.. i really want this discussed>

Poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunity would be my trio of undermining traits. It's a lot harder to convince someone with a 9-5 job, a family and a mortgage to overthrow the government.

If we think of this as Islamic nationalism, it fits the pattern where things get really bad for common people, and someone rallies them against a perceived other in order to consolidate his own power.

Be wary of anyone who wants to blame an out-group for your economic issues, be it Muslims, Mexicans, infidels, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc. (Why I'm afraid of Trump).

I think sitting at our cushy desk jobs in the west it is hard to empathize with the real hardship people have been experiencing in that region for a long time.

I have no knowledge of the causal direction here, honestly. I think there's an assumption by some vocal pundits that it's Islam -> holy war -> poverty.

I don't think that's clear. More likely it's poverty -> malleable population -> some cause promises to make things good again (Like they were in the caliphate, like they were in any fabled past) -> people believe it and fight for it. There's historical precedent for this.

(Which of course exacerbates the poverty because of wanton destruction of capital/infrastructure, people not being able to leave home, intelligentsia flight, etc). Eventually you get some version of an autocracy. The type of autocracy is to some extent irrelevant, although theocratic autocracies appear to be disproportionately brutal...

Other parts of the world had the same loop and broke out of it. Money exists, and even poverty is not universal to the region. Why is there no middle-eastern- tiger state? Lack of Education is unconvincing, the Internet is now available for 20 years. Education is in parts of the region actively rejected as western influence. Late-Medieval Peasants where poor. Yet, in the citys the Renaissance could happen. There is not even this "aristocratic" attempt for improvement by "showing off" intellectual achievements or art showing in Saudi Arabia. No "big familys" trying to outdo one another with the fame of there universitys. And they could have done so.

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/491501/will-the-middl...

Israel is a relatively rich middle-eastern democracy. Jordan should probably count too (it has its problems, yes, but so do most of the tiger states). Qatar too, to a much lesser extent and esp. if you prioritize wealth/stability over democracy per se. And Saudi Arabia is at least stable and wealthy, if not ticking off the other boxes.

But it's also worth pointing out that outside of the west and regions where the local population was so thoroughly decimated as to make the population effectively European (e.g., US and Canada), free market secular democracies are pretty rare.

Actually Iran and Turkey would be on my list for close but not yet "Tiger States"- Israel falls under "displaced, but Europe", even in the DVD-Release market.

I know some pretty awesome Pakistani programmers- but they all left there home-country to live somewhere else. They had some "doing well" family background though.

If poverty eats it all, via corruption, would it help to help founders in these states to hide there (relative) "wealth", and the existence of there company/products? Could IP be protected from illegal seezing of governments, by market pressure? Is that even possible - a stealth startup?

Depressing as hearing people in the British Empire wondering why Indians don't like freedom.

Ironically, anyone who googles "Rojava" or "north kurdistan democracy" will discover people far ahead of the western powers in terms of democracy. Absolutely fundamental to understanding Turkey.

Furthermore, anyone can read things like: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...), or about US support of Saudi Arabia's dictatorship, etc. What's their real problem? Living on top of the oil.

Truly basic things, easier than anything in software.

I fell for the romantics of the revolutionary underdog early on in my life. By now i know, they will be corrupt and evil if they get to power- they just cant be it - yet.

The Kurd's will build another formidable dictatorship once there first state is really officially established, and the outside pressure is gone. There are power hungry psychopaths in every society, and not having plans for institutions that keep those at bay and busy will allow them to gain control.

Everyone can be a saint without woman and vine available.

Erdogan has been destabilizing Turkey for years.

> Turkey at least has a very friendly and thriving tourism eco system.

The main airport was bombed in a terrorist attack this month.

Yeah, none of my friends from outside the country even wanted to attend my wedding, let alone going there for vacation.

There is a theory that Erdogan was aware of something like this and was prepared, let the military faction walk into honeytrap. Its a theory, but the purges that will happen in turkey, god bless them!

That's a very complicated honey trap to set up. And it's a failure on both the accounts that elected leaders should protect its people before things escalate and secondly elected leaders aren't supposed to set up trap like this in the first place.

I'm probably lacking in imagination, but I don't understand why it has to be complicated. Under the right circumstances, it would just entail to NOT act upon intelligence about an impending coup attempt? Just check that you have support from other key parts of the military, then wait.

To engineer something like that, yes, that sounds very complicated. But to see an opportunity rise and grab it, does not sound impossible. It's plausible, I'd say. I look forward to watch the documentary in 30 years... ?

Leaders democratically elected or otherwise are people seeking power, in general the democratic leaders do not cross a line, but Erdogan has proven he is not your "normal" elected leader.

Nobody benefits from a failed coup like Erdogan, he now has the license to make Military in his image and the last pillar of secularism in Turkey is Kaput!

The coup failed, at least in part, because either the plotters and their allies were deluded about getting support from the population, or they had simply failed to prepare the ground by promoting secularism in the population. The other side of the coin is that the population sees secularism as the hallmark of a military that is co opted by liaisons with NATO and foreign intelligence agencies.

I see this latter failure as a general failure throughout the way the West interacts with Islamic nations. We've allowed secularism to become a tarnished brand, associated with military strong-men, instead of promoting it as the way to rights and education for women and freedom from religious totalitarianism.

The general feeling on reddit seems to be of pro-coup. However many have highlighted that coups are long processes and haven't been positive in the long run at least in the middle east.

That's probably a risk in every coup attempt, though to be fair the results of this one failing probably won't be worse now than they would have been in centuries gone by.

Agreed. I've already seen masses of pro-Gov supporters chanting all using the ISIS hand signal.

This shall not end well.