That's democracy in action!
Turkey’s president is destroying the democracy that Turks risked their lives to defend
The coup represents the two flawed sides of the same coin. On the one hand, the president, elected democratically, is continuously ripping away the nation’s democracy. On the other, parts of the military revolted for the purpose of returning democracy. The nation is fighting to maintain democracy in nondemocratic ways.
A bit ironic, isn’t it?
The failed putsch may well become the third shock to Europe’s post-1989 order. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 destroyed the idea that Europe’s borders were fixed and that the cold war was over. The Brexit referendum last month shattered the notion of ineluctable integration in the European Union. Now the coup attempt in Turkey, and the reaction to it, raise troubling questions about the reversibility of democracy within the Western world
It seems more and more, with everything, that people are not afraid of the different changes and events that are taking place–however benign or not they may be. The world is coming to realize that the “permanent” peace that came about in Europe at the end of the 20th century is not permanent at all, and that is what terrifies it. The war in the Middle East is one thing, but the shattering of long-held, presumptively successful institutions, borders, and governmental systems in Europe, seem to be too much for the West to handle…
So what does that really tell you about out our “perfect” world?