The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Turkey bans YouTube
Aldo
Hippo HoorayRegistered User regular
Hippo HoorayRegistered User regular
BBC wrote:Access to the popular video-sharing website YouTube has been suspended in Turkey following a court order.
The ban was imposed after prosecutors told the court that clips insulting former Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had appeared on the site.
Read on
tl;dr Turkey bans YouTube because there were clips on there offending the Turkish culture, which is forbidden in Turkey.
---
I used to be in favour of letting Turkey join the European Union, but it's this sort of shit that makes me want to push Turkey far far away. Turkey needs to shape up and become a country where people are allowed to make fun of their and other cultures. It doesn't look good for Turkey:
1) Death penalty
2) "battle" against the Kurds
3) Denying all claims that Turks killed Armenians
Is there anyone who would allow Turkey in the EU? Is Turkey even serious about wanting to join the EU?
Or in short: WTF TURKEY?
Aldo on
0
Posts
They jailed a Kurd for referring to Abdullah Ocalan as "Mr Ocalan".
300
Aaaaah Gotya!
Something like that anyway. They've got a lot of history.
I kinda don't like turkey, and am currently a little pissed that my mom is going to Istanbul to visit again. She won't buy nestle products, but she will spend money in turkey. :roll:
Because I am a silly American who has no idea who Abdullah Ocalan is, I saw your post and figured he was being jailed for showing disrepect (by not using his full name)to Mr. Ocalan, who I assumed was a prime minister or something. Then I read the story, and realized two things:
1. I don't know anything about Turkey.
2. What the fuck? They jailed him for adding a standard linguistic article?
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
I suspect that was just the pretense. They really jailed him for being a Kurd, and that gave them an excuse.
Turkey has a major hardon for messing with Kurds.
Article 301: "A person who, being a Turk, explicitly insults the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years."
He'd be all up on this denying it ever happened.
Don't ask unless you want to spend six months in a Turkish prison.
Which I've heard is nothing at all like a Turkish spa.
Another frequent argument is that only 3% of Turkey is actually in Europe. The rest, including the capital, is a part of Asia.
that's right. My bad. I knew there was something with Cyprus and them having domain over it. But it is an independent state, not part of greece. duh.
As far as I know, Cyprus itself is not at all geographically in Europe, though it is in the EU.
There is a school of thought where people reasonably say "Hey, wtf Turkey? If you want to be a part of the EU, maybe you should work on those European values." But there's also another with the idea that Turkey is a country with two futures: they could teeter to their secular, moderate side or their nationalist, islamic side. Maybe EU membership would set them on the right path.
But when you read about shit like honor killings and arresting Kurds for... well, being Kurds, the first argument seems better. And yeah, the whole Cyprus situation is really really hurting Turkey. How do they expect to negotiate with the EU when they don't fully recognize the other party they're negotiating with. I mean, why do they even give a fuck about Cyprus? Wouldn't it be beyond worth it to say fuck the island and give it back to the Greek nationals? But from the sounds of it they're hung up on great Turkishness which I'm sure translates to these colors don't run.
We could also go cynical and see that the EU is rapidly becoming a society of old people, and Turkey being a big, young, poor country could give the union a shot in the arm. Plentiful cheap labor will be much needed down the line and Turkey seems to be the best source of that.
Putin won't have it.
The European Union also has its own people to care for, since they allowed half of Eastern Europe in, it is already difficult to get them all in line and act like reasonable Western powermongers. Last thing we want is give Turkey any kind of vote in things that affect all citizens. And seriously, what will they do once some Frenchy or Dutchy will make a joke about Turkey? Intifadah Intifadah waah waah?
PS: Oçalan is the leader of the Kurds who is facing the death penalty, the only reason he is not dead yet, is because of constant pressure from the EU.
Anyway, I´m torn on this issue. I normaly see it like Jeffe, but then some shit like this happens I tend to be afflicted by doubts.
Laws that get in the way of looking long and hard upon ones questionable past?
Wow, just wow.
300 is Persians.
Persians != Turks
More like 15%. But that's silly details.
--
Aside from this this whole thing is pretty fucked up.
You haven't known me very well.
When bullshit like this happens I'll be the first Turk to ever speak out against Turkey. I don't agree with a lot of Turkish laws, I don't agree with the way Turkey is run, I fucking hate the way most Turks are such hardasses about everything.
However, you gotta be fair. Turkey might have a lot of fucked-upness but its picture is actually not half as bad as most media sources paint (mostly because only the bad shit is talked about in Western media). When you say shit like "unfortunately these are our best allies in the region" you're just being ignorant.
But if Turkey was allowed in they'd be your people too, right?
But yeah, Turkey would be what, the second or third largest state in the EU? So they'd be heavy-hitters up there with France and Germany. I could see how that prospect is scary.
It's probably a poor example, but what about the U.N.? It allows both depraved totalitarian states and liberal democracies to play in the same sandbox, but it doesn't really care about what your government is like, or how you treat your people, just that there's a modicum of sovereignty, and I don't really see any incentives for countries to change their ways. Would the E.U. be different? Would there be incentives for Turkey to be liberalized?
Haha, do you have any idea how the EU works? I certainly do not see myself as "European". It's handy (and less handy in some ways) to be in the EU but it certainly doesn't make me feel closer to a Frenchman or a German.
Edit: ElJeffe, has the US ever invited Cuba to join them?
There are billboards for vacations to Turkey all over town here, and when the plans were first launched to let Turkey in the EU, a lot of people were pleased. It would be of great value to the EU if a Muslim country would join us.
Why?
t Coldred: comparing Turkey to Cuba is a bit of an extreme example, considering Turkey doesn't have any missiles pointed to our major cities. ^^
Dude, Hagia Sophia.
In other news, how is accepting Turkey into the EU in any way saying that the EU endorses their behaviour when most of them will/would publicly decry some of this shit. (Germany would probably imprison any citizen who posted a holocaust denial video or something but not try and get the site restricted) The silent treatment simply doesn't work, let alone in the geopolitical scene. You want things to change you have to engage them. Hey, EU membership would be a great way to engage them.
I realize, but in regards to Jeffe's comment, would there be any incentives to liberalize and discard harmful nationalistic/cultural artifacts?
I guess. Still, I'm not keen on allowing people to join the EU and then saying "now, you really need to be nicer." Enough messed up things happen in the European Parliament as it is.
Also, Turkey isn't a muslim nation it's a nation of muslims.
I didn't want to go into that in that post, because it would be a rather large chunk of text, but I'll do it now.
First off: all countries in the EU are Christian, even if religion and state are divided, this still has a major impact on the decisions we make (most shops are closed by law on Sunday, for example). If we would have the opinion of Muslims in these matters, it could benefit the EU to be less centred around one particular Relgion.
Second: A lot of migrants go from Turkey to mostly Germany, although it is understood that there is a certain need for migrants in the future, it is considered important that we can slow down this stream of immigrants. If Turkey is part of the EU, we can aid them like the EU has aided Spain and Italy in the past, once Turkey would get richer, the "need" to move would dwindle down. We can get our needed migrants from Africa, should the need ever rise, so to say.
Third, We would get a foothold in the Middle-East. This is mostly a geopolitical reason, it's pretty much the same reason Alaska is part of the United States.
My last reason would be a naive, but a lot of people have the hope that we can "fix" some problems down there, mostly with the Kurds. A lot of people support the struggle for freedom of the Kurds and have advocated for the creation of Kurdistan. We could force Turkey to give in and let go of some of their territory. The rest of Kurdistan could be in Iraq, which shouldn't be a big problem, considering the state that country is currently in.
Then I don't get Coldred's example.
He was confronting Jeffe's idea that a liberal democracy encorporating a totalitarian regime to liberalize it with America being the democracy and Cuba being the totalitarian. The only issue there is the 14th amendment and the lack of soverignty of states like Kentucky.