They take to the streets. Violence resulting in death and injury as well as destruction of property becomes nationwide.
P.M. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had done much for Turkey. He is a charismatic leader with widespread support from most of the Turkish Electorate. Turkey has become a powerful economic power and Erdogan must be credited for this.
The demonstrations over Gezi Park for economic development and the uprooting of trees is just an excuse or perhaps a catalyst for violent demonstrations against Erdogan. There is a lesson from the past that we should never forget. This may or may not be true in Turkey's case. Time will tell when more information becomes available about Erdogan's leadership and his human rights record despite the fact that Turkey is the only democratic Muslim state in the Middle East and Europe. Is it possible that Erdogan is becoming autocratic and insensitive to his people's demands?
In the early 1930s, Germany was considered one of the most democratic states in Europe. There were Elections in 1933 and the Nazi Party used the democratic process to gain power. Adolph Hitler received an overwhelming majority and the Holocaust was the result. Much has been written about this bleak period in Germany under Hitler's barbaric regime. A question that comes up - although hypothetical - should the Germans have had violent demonstrations against Hitler to overthrow him and his Nazi Party, or wait patiently for the next general elections while democracy in Germany was being destroyed? Obviously, with hindsight, the former would have been justified.
Bearing this in mind, there is an unknown factor about Erdogan, whether he is using Turkish democracy to consolidate his power base by packing his party with bureaucrats and corrupt croneys. It looks as if Turkey is in a kind of a dilemma over the future of its democracy.
We cannot be sure about this. The demonstrations started from the Gezi Park being developed for industry and trees being chopped down. It seems a rather strange reason to initiate violence on a national scale. There must be more to that than meets the eye. Turkey's constitution is secular. There is no Sharia law that is binding on a largely secular population. The question is whether Erdogan's party is trying to convert Turkey into a religious Muslim state at the expense of the reforms of Kemal Ataturk is unclear.
Turkey is a pluralistic society ranging in views from the conservative religious to the secular. In between this are many groups in Turkish society that are between the two. The hard core demonstrators who wish to continue their fight against Erdogan have pledged to carry on the battle despite Erdogan's appeal to negotiate. Nobody seems to know the goal of the demonstrators. There are communists and right wingers all having a free for all in the streets. There is no leadership that represents the demonstrators. This is what makes the situation volatile.
Not even the most democratic country on earth would tolerate demonstrations that Turkey has had. The police would come in with tear gas, water canons and even rubber bullets. Israel would not tolerate it. So the use of the term "excess police force" is relative. One cannot have rampaging demonstrators setting fire to public property and destroying everything in their path. This would lead to total destruction of Turkey's economy and only the Turkish people will suffer.
This is not a "Turkish Spring" as there is no united motive in an alternative government to Erdogan. The demonstrations will decrease in its violence apart from a few hard core demonstrators. There has been loss of life and many injuries but this is nothing compared to what is happening in Syria.
Where are the "humanists" who are the first to condemn Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians? There is a dearth of these humanists who have united with anti-Semites and pseudo-communists who are no less racist than Nazis and fascists in their hate for Israel and the Jewish people. They do not condemn the massacres of Syrians who are being slaughtered in their tens of thousands. Even the UN is conspicuous by its absence in condemning the slaughter in Syria apart from a few impotent, stuttering, condemnations by the Secretary- General, Ban Ki-Moon. These double standard hypocritical, anti-Semitic "humanists" are silent over human rights abuses in Iran, Hamas-controlled Gaza, Hezbollah controlled parts of Lebanon under the "great humanist" Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Why this double standard towards Israel? The occupation and the abuses of Palestinians in Israel has not reached the epidemic proportions of the torture by Bashar Al Assad of his own people, creating a severe refugee problem of Syrians fleeing their country of birth to neighboring Arab countries like Jordan, as well as Turkey. Not a word uttered by the "humanists" condemning this gross inhumanity. These "great watchdogs of human rights" subscribe to the same ideology as their "humanist mentors" in Hamas, Hezbollah and possibly other "benefactors of mankind" in Iran with its mock meaningless elections and its desire to develop nuclear warheads "to kill the infidels" with Israel and the US as its main targets.
Oh! I forgot to mention the "wonderful regimes" in Darfur in Sudan, where slaughter carries on unabated with hardly a blip on our TV screens. The anti-Semitic "humanists "of the various NGOs dedicated to human rights are notoriously silent on this ethnic cleansing as well.
While the occupation is morally unjustifiable there is no whole scale "massacre" or "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians as these hypocritical, double standard "humanists" claim. No human rights abuse should be conveniently over looked or condoned by sucking up to the Jihadis, which is what the "watch dogs of human rights" are doing by their statements of condemnation and hate for Israel. Eventually they themselves will be the victims of their own follies and naivety.
