Modern, Moderate, Secular Turkey

In his latest posting on his blog, Andrew Bostom notes:

This past Sunday (posted at WorldNet Daily, Sunday July 17^, 2016), I deconstructed the sheer uninformed nonsense endlessly spewed forth about the so-called “secular, democratic Turkish military” in the wake of Turkey’s failed military coup at the end of last week.

And when Bostom refers to the “sheer uninformed nonsense” about the Turkish coup (and about Turkey more broadly) I would hope he also includes much of what we find in the Counter-Jihad Mainstream -- as for example, a piece published at the mainstream counter-jihad site, Gates of Vienna, titled “The Coup in Turkey and Why It Failed” written by the writer(s) at the Joshua Pundit blog.  That piece is subtly riddled with generous assumptions about Turkish Muslims and their Islamic regime.  For example:

After noting this reported fact --

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was reported to be ‘in a secure location’ and inciting people to go into the streets and attack the soldiers attempting to pull off the coup… which they did.

-- the Joshua Pundit writer(s) opine(d)s:

The next odd note was for Erdoğan to call for civilians to attack elements of the Turkish military, and for them to comply eagerly. With the downward spiral of the Turkish economy, multiple instances of political corruption involving Erdoğan and with Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian ways, he’s not the most popular leader, especially in more cosmopolitan Istanbul.

It's as if Joshua Pundit writer(s) don't know that 98% of the Turkish people are Sunni Muslims; and/or that, as Sunni Muslims, we can (or should) assume that they are all fanatics who, deep down, want more Islam, as all Muslims do.

As the Turkish Christian nun Hatune Dogan put it so eloquently not long ago:

“The Turkish people are the most fanatic there is… To others — when they speak — it’s secular, liberal, European rights, but when they act, it’s the most fanatic people on earth.”

(quoted in my essay from February of 2014, “But Turkey is secular...”)

And Sister Dogan knows wherefrom she speaks; she grew up in Turkey and suffered the hatred of ordinary Turkish people until her family finally fled Turkey for Germany when she was still young.  When one watches her video which I linked in my essay and when one notes that for years she has been an intelligent activist traveling around the world and even into hot spots of the Muslim world trying to help Christians in their current plight of a veritable genocide against them by Muslims in various regions of the Muslim world, one would be hard pressed not to take her word about the supposedly “cosmopolitan” Turks.

That essay of mine also links to a long video discussion Bostom had with Spencer, in which Bostom articulates a complex wealth of information about the history of modern Turkey which must be taken into account before one speculates generously about Islamic Turkey and its Muslims. I urge my readers to watch that video, and to read both Bostom articles I linked up top.  Or, if you don't, then please at least refrain from making glib statements about Turkey & Turks.

If there were an actual A.I.M. (Anti-Islam Movement), it would mandate that no one of its members would be allowed to opine & pronounce upon Turkey & Turks until 1) after they had watched both videos (of Sister Dogan and of Bostom & Spencer) and read both articles and 2) after they had written a 3,000-word essay detailing why those four sources thoroughly discredit the “Turkey is secular” meme -- or, if the person disputes that, then construct an argument (based upon those four sources) on why they supposedly don't discredit that meme.