Turkeys Army Warns of Coup

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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The less said the better, I am sure this is being done in the name of freedom:)

Turkey’s military chief warns pro-Islamist government of possible coup

Jonny Dymond in Istanbul
Tuesday May 27, 2003
The Guardian

The head of Turkey’s armed forces warned the government yesterday that the possibility of military intervention still existed and that the government should be sensitive to the country’s secularist constitution.
General Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of the Turkish general staff, told a selected group of Turkish journalists that the government’s policy of re-employing those expelled from the army for their Islamist activities was offensive.

The armed forces fear the government is appointing religious radicals to important positions in the bureaucracy.

Gen Ozkok also appeared to reject changes to the role of the military in reforms intended to ease Turkey’s entry into the EU. The army has carried out four coups in four decades. It still plays a big role in the government through the national security council - an advisory body whose pronouncements are closely monitored in the country.

Criticising the military was until recently a criminal offence. But commentators have now begun to question its role in the government and its secretive nature. Since the Justice and Development party (AKP) was elected last November the relationship between the military and the government has been tense.

The military sees itself as the guardian of Turkey’s secular constitution. The AKP is publicly committed to secularism but contains MPs from banned Islamist parties.

In January, Gen Ozkok said the government should halt its attempt to loosen restrictions on the wearing of the headscarf - a flashpoint in the battle between Islamists and secularists - and that it should stop meddling in internal military affairs concerning the expulsion from the army of those accused of Islamism.

Last week Gen Ozkok met the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The proceedings of the meeting were leaked to the media as a series of warnings from the military leader to the head of the government.

Mr Erdogan denied that the meeting was anything like that. But no such denial was forthcoming from the military.

At yesterday’s briefing Gen Ozkok repeated the Turkish military’s desire to join the EU. But he suggested that the military’s role in the government would not change.

He denied suggestions that junior officers were calling for a tougher line to be taken, reportedly saying that all ranks were “sensitive” to the government’s policies.

But his most incendiary remarks were on the question of a repeat of the kind of military intervention which saw an openly Islamist government eased out of power with the military’s help in 1997.

“That was cause and effect” he said, “and if the cause is still there then the effect will be there also.” Asked if the military would intervene again, he refused to answer.

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Now I gotta dig up Wolfowitz's comments.. A few weeks back he hinted, on behalf of America, not too shyly that it would be nice if the military would keep the Islamists in line...

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Re: Turkeys Army Warns of Coup

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Zakk: *
The less said the better, I am sure this is being done in the name of freedom:)

[/QUOTE]

military reaches for power using freedom, independence, etc as excuses, mullahs use islam as an excuse :) whats the diff really

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Re: Re: Turkeys Army Warns of Coup

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fraudz: *

military reaches for power using freedom, independence, etc as excuses, mullahs use islam as an excuse :) whats the diff really
[/QUOTE]

Could you expand on the "mullahs use Islam as an excuse bit", thanks. I hope you are not referring to Islamic governance as being entirely fabricated. Contrary to "Pakistani" beliefs, Islam is not limited to the mosques :)

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Re: Re: Re: Turkeys Army Warns of Coup

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mushi: *
..Contrary to "Pakistani" beliefs, Islam is not limited to the mosques :)
[/QUOTE]

But thats what "the world" wants, to contain Islam into mosques and have no other influence, esp in governance.

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Re: Re: Re: Turkeys Army Warns of Coup

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mushi: *

Could you expand on the "mullahs use Islam as an excuse bit", thanks. I hope you are not referring to Islamic governance as being entirely fabricated. Contrary to "Pakistani" beliefs, Islam is not limited to the mosques :)
[/QUOTE]

Oh not at all, I have no issue with the type if islamic state which existed under the prophet, the khulfa e rashideen and even variatiosn of it under people like Umar bin abdulaziz.

But the idiots running around today, ranging from JI, JUI etc in Pakistan to bigger idiots like mohajiroun keep on yip yapping.

The lack of any real plans...practical plans to improve the life of an average citizen are missing in their charged rhetoric.

Islam is not limited to the mosques, just like mosques are not limited to be a place of worship but whereas our mullahs will agree whole heartedly with the former statement, their lack of acceptance of the second statement explains the situation fairly well.

if they were not using religion for personal power ambitions, why else do you think we had numerous religious-political parties, and with umptees different wings of those as well. read up on the list of political parties which ran for election,a nd those who were disqualified and see how many wings of JI and JUi were there to begin with. if an islamic system of governance was the key, why did they have that many diff groups..everyone was working on a different release of islam?

am I against a system of governance..representative of people, with social justice and a government's duty to place its citizen's interest in sight at all times..which is what I consider an islamic system of government to be..The anser is nt, I am not against such a system at all.

What I am against is two bit hypocrates like noorani, fazl ur rehman and hussein ahmed playing defender of the faith.

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Ah, that clears things up a bit.

I had the good pleasure of meeting Prof. Khurshid Ahmed who is a representative of the JI. Many of his books and articles are related to Islamic governance, his works are somewhat recognised as the authority amongst many scholars today.

Although the media under "secular" governments of the past did well to chuck dirt in the face of JI and its leaders, in my opinion an organisation who's roots and structure lie on the teachings of Maulana Maududi and Sheikh Hassan Al-Banna, in parallel to the Islamic Movement in Egypt by the name of Ikhwaan al-Muslimoon, has the right idea and model of implementation. Governance of the Pakistani people must be by the Pakistani people and not the "elites" of the country who are far less aware of problems closer to home.

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Mushi

I have met prof Khurshid Ahmed as well and find him to be a knowledgeable person.

However, scholars/acedemicians are not always the right leaders. the challenge in some cases is that they are verynarrowly focused just on divinity studies, which is fine in itself, but the level of expertise with other issues within these parties is limited. Try finding a real world class economist, or a technologist, someone with a background in infrstructure or international trade..you will be hard pressed to find any. To further complicate these matters they dont really try to bring people with that expertise in, and that is why their plans are limited to what they think they know best i.e. religion.

if you look at the qualificatiosn of majority of MMA leaders they have some sanad from a divinity school. there are exceptions there but there is strength in diversity, these guys seem to be each other's clones when it comes to back ground.

as far as secular govt throwing mud on JI, they did that to each other as well, JI ans JUI were not the only ones who got that treatment, as a matter of fact JI and JUI have done plenty of mud slinging themselves. It was also interesting to see fazl and his cronies try to link up with BB, while if you really ask them, they would say that hey dont want a woman leader. So why can they pick and choose which beliefs of theirs will they compromise on and not allow people to do the same.

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Bro Fraudia

I understand what you're saying. Much the least, my perspective of such governance and such study is limited to what I've seen in the UK and off hand I have never been to Pakistan often enough to see "all talk" in action, I guess my scope is very narrow. Bare with me on the next few paras, I'm trying to make a point :)

Coming from the background of a scientist , an engineer, I did set out last month to write two psychology essays as part of one of my electives on Intelligence and Creativity. Being a Muslim and seeing how the western taught history of psychology consisted of a huge gap between the 2nd century and the 1800s I set out to find Islamic works on psychology. Google, books and various people, I endeavoured to find out what Islam said about the study of psychology, in particular about Intelligence and Creativity in human beings. Limited to a week's research predominantly from my PC at uni I found absolutely nothing.

This worried me a bit, the fact that a largely important aspect of science, with absolutely no work done by any Muslim in the past x many years. I discussed my problem with a friend of mine who is more knowledgable in Islamic matters esp shariah. He expained that in the west, expertise in a certain field is so specialised that the western system creates absolute dons in one minute aspect of a certain phenomenon. This is true, hence you get various experts dealing with subjects such as Intelligence testing etc. He told me that the study of psychology at the time of the Islamic period was not such an issue because all mental ailments were linked and diagnosed in parallel to the relationship with the Quran. Eg depression and grievance linked to lack of iman etc. I went away with food for thought and spoke to some final year medics who could probably shed some light on this. They told me that in the study of psychology, latest research shows that the diagnosis from a certain ailment esp a mental disorder is usually linked to not one but many facets of human anatomy and events. I concluded from my little voyage of adventure that according to the shariah, the gift of intelligence has been stated by Allah to be a tool to realise His great bounties on earth and that the gift of creativity was to benefit mankind. All this aside.

My friend, I've probably confused the issue here. I realised at this point that the approach and paradigm for approaching any problem is very different in the west as it is set out in the Islamic way of thinking. I, being a product of western education and society had to struggle to even scratch the surface of such an approach. It is difficult to put into words. You mentioned various experts in the fields of International Relations that the JI lacks at this point in time. This may be true, I am not aware of the facts. But surely, is it not better to have experts in the Quran and Sunnah, who when put in a certain role of governance, are able to derive purely "home grown" solutions to problems and not ones that they may have picked up while studying PPE at Oxford?

My opinion suggests that the ideal personality who is an expert in the Quran and Sunnah and an expert in any particular field is able to mix the two together to extrapolate useful solutions that western civilisations can model.