Hat tip Campus Watch and Inside Higher Education
Even before the recent attempted coup in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been taking Turkey down a dark path of Islamism, hostility toward Israel and Jews, and a drift from the West. Of course, none of that matters to President Obama who has a close relationship with this tin pot dictator. Not only is Erdogan trying to reverse the achievements of Turkey's national hero, Mehmet Ataturk, who instituted secularism and modern thought after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, he is an anti-Semite.
Subsequent to the coup, Erdogan is conducting a purge of his opponents, real and imagined. He is demanding the extradition of Fetullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania accusing him of instigating the attempted coup, which Gulen denies.
In addition, Turkey's universities are now being purged. That is the subject of this article from Inside Higher Education, which has been cross-posted by Campus watch.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/07/29/how-crackdown-turkey-affecting-international-academic-collaboration
It may be premature to make comparisons, but if we can make an analogy between Erdogan and Hitler, the former seems to be using the attempted coup as his own Reichstag fire. What is now occurring in Turkey's universities sounds strikingly similar to what the Nazis did the same year (1933) that they took power when Jews were purged from government and the universities. Turkey's democracy is being severely threatened. This does not bode well for the country's long-held desire to join the EU, and it also questions Turkey's role in NATO.
The Erdogan problem calls for skillful diplomacy by the West. As things stand now under this leader, Turkey cannot be considered a reliable partner.
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