We, Turks -and Muslims in general-, have got an interesting characteristic. Probably because of our emotional nature, most of the times we react in a way that justifies the action that we rightfully oppose.
Complicated? I'll give you two examples.
Take the latest televised address of General Ilker Basbug, the head of Turkey's armed forces.
Responding angrily to a newspaper report accusing the military of plotting to overthrow the government, Basbug simply told: "We aren't organizing a coup d'etat. But if you keep testing our patience like this..."
Responding angrily to a newspaper report accusing the military of plotting to overthrow the government, Basbug simply told: "We aren't organizing a coup d'etat. But if you keep testing our patience like this..."
Basbug's fill-in-the-blanks sentence reminded me of the Cartoon Crisis. A racist cartoonist in Denmark had insulted Prophet Mohammed by portraying him as a terrorist.
He should certainly be condemned, but how did a significant portion of the Muslim world react?
By ravaging neighborhoods and threating the cartoonist with death, while still chanting slogans like "Islam is a religion of peace."
So it's the same story. The systems and the institutions (like Islam and the Turkish army) are generally OK, but not the mentality of some individiuals, whether they're Islamist fanatics or secularists...
