" Ever since the Gezi Uprising in 2013, Turkey has witnessed a whirlwind of events: popular upsurges, a coup attempt, pivotal elections, changes in the political system, war within the country, war in Syria, bombing attacks. The country has been under an official state of emergency since a failed coup in July 2016, and the country’s economic model hit the fan in 2013. Erdoğan and his ruling clique have responded to these various crises in the same way: by holding ever tighter onto power and using increasingly oppressive and brutal means to consolidate their standing — a process of outright fascization , if a very fragile one. The upcoming snap elections are just latest attempt by Erdoğan to stabilize his dominance, this time by quasi-democratic means." The Turkish elections
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51