And removing 2700 judges is democratic?

But that's not the choice is it.

What civil war are you talking about, Turkey was not heading for civil war.

All the opposition parties and even The self exiled cleric, Fethullah Gulen came out condeming the coup attempt, that was not the reason for the coup.

The reason was that some elements of the military, still want the society to be totally secular, harking back a 100 years ago to the ideals of a much loved dictator. That despite the fact that the people voted for change.

They have had opportunity to change the current govenment, they voted on a new constitution, They have elected their first President and had general elections. That's a mandate in my book.

They got the mood of the country very wrong and will now pay the price. They have damaged their own cause by trying to use violence because that is what they have always done when they didn't like what was going on.

Turkey has moved on since then after nearly 40 years of Democracy. No one in the country wanted to see Turkey slide back to the old ways of military dictatorship and in this modern age, Military coups are not the way to bring about positive change.

In addition, I will always say "good luck" to any attempt to establish a democratic ideal.

"You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead"

Stan Laurel

Lots thrown about conerning how the country is a 'democracy'. Yes one where the government runs the TV stations and freedom of speech and information is heavily restricted. When people make decisions based on a 'lack of' information, they often do not even fully know what they are supporting. Fear plays a part too. Those trying to stage this coup were brave. I am willing to acknowledge that and I wish they had succeeded.

Edited by blackpalacefan (17 Jul 2016 4.12am)

Too little is known about who was behind this attempted coup. I wouldn't jump to conclusions and assume that it was to 'restore' democracy just yet, let's see who main players are, it's quite possible that if it succeeded it could have been a tilt towards an official dictatorship rather than one that would lead towards a better more democratic society.

Indeed the front of the queue would have been Cyprus, Greece and Germany

Turkey was headed down the same democratic road as Russia. The problem of democracy is that it requires that the state and majority are controlled by the rule of law, and rights, otherwise it simply becomes a tyranny of the majority - and that requires a clear separation of state and religion.

As for the coup, I'm not entirely sold on the idea it was in the right, but then the Turkish governments of recent years have been undermining the secularity of the state and the concept of democracy.

Clearly, a large section of the military were involved and considered that the regime, and its policies, were sufficiently damaging to need to act, and co-ordinated a fairly large scale conspiracy to implement a coup aimed at toppling the regime.

Now whether the military were right is contentious, shades of grey is the morality of coups, revolutions and the like, but its certainly not the case that these actions are always wrong because they 'aren't democratic'.

For democracy to be democracy, it has to be more than just most popular opinion rules.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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