TELEGRAPH BLOGS – COLIN FREEMAN: Watching the turmoil in Istanbul in the past few days, it’s easy to see why there is talk of Turkey hosting its own version of the Arab Spring. The scenario, at first glance, seems very familiar. First of all, thousands of protesters, mainly but not exclusively young and metropolitan, accuse their government of being authoritarian. The police respond with tear gas and truncheons. Then the country’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, denounces the crowds as “bums and extremists”, and insists that this is not a “Turkish Spring”, thank you. Such blunt responses to people power elsewhere in the Middle East recently have often heralded a leader’s imminent demise.
Yet we in the West should perhaps be careful what we wish for in Turkey. For one, Mr Erdogan is democratically elected, with popularity ratings that many of his European counterparts would envy. And for another, whatever its shortcomings – and judging by the size of the crowds on Turkey’s streets in recent days, there are plenty – his Justice and Development Party is the nearest thing we have to an Islamist government that the West can work with. Read on and comment » | Colin Freeman | Thursday, June 06, 2013
My comment:
Another whitewash of Islamic Turkey! Colin Freeman clearly doesn't have a proper understanding of what Islam is all about. You can't compare Protestantism with Islamism, for goodness' sake. How naïve!
It seems to me that this blog post was written to soften us up for the accession of Turkey into the EU. No, Sir! We don't want Turkey in the EU. I don't care what an economic stick of dynamite it is. Europe has already got enough Muslims residing in it. It doesn't need any more.
I think I speak for the many when I say that I am tired of Muslims, Islam, the Jihad, the Prophet Muhammad, and all that goes with that political ideology wrapped up as a faith. For Christ's sake (and I am not blaspheming or swearing when I write that; I'm being literal), leave us alone! Islam has been allowed into the West by ignorant fools, by people who should have known better. Our forefathers did; alas people today do not.
This is not to say that all Muslims are bad; they are not. I have worked for many years with many delightful ones. But my experience of working with them, and my knowledge of Islam tell me that Islam and Western liberal democracy are immiscible: they cannot co-exist. That should be clear and obvious to most people by now.
Let Muslims do their thing in their own countries; and let us do our own thing in ours. – © Mark
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