Turkish Canadian Society

Posted by Vi Hughes on Aug 17, 2016
 
Before our featured speaker arrived, Patrick Gibson brought us up to date with the club's micro finance endeavor featuring Kiva.
Since late in 2014 the club has lent more than $22,800 in 856 loans. The loans went to borrowers in 59 countries and Agriculture and Education topped the categories. The gender split is 60% female and 40% male.
 
watch the details on Kiva's website
 
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Our speaker on Tuesday was Sim Senol, External relations Co-ordinator, and also present was Zafer Koprulu, from the Turkish Canadian Society. They had been invited to give us some insight into the recent events that have been taking place in Turkey.
 
The Turkish Canadian Society in Edmonton is the oldest Turkish Canadian Society in Canada. They have over four hundred members in Edmonton, made up of Turkish people from all ethnic and religious groups, and is primarily a social group that promotes all kinds of cultural events. Sim had just returned from Turkey, where she was in Istanbul the night that the military coup took place. She said that Turkey has a short history of democracy that has been interrupted by military coups several times, and that although, in each instance, it may have solved some short term problem, in the end, a democratically elected government always did a better job of governing the country.
 
She described how, late in the evening, a small group of military officers tried to take over the communications networks in the country, along with several key government ministry offices. Fortunately, the modern internet and cell phone systems of communication were able to prevent the blockade of news and within minutes, many thousands of people were aware of what was happening. The elected President, Erdogan gave a short speech using Face Time and called for the people to take to the streets to oppose the coup. He also called the parliament into session, and shortly after, the parliamentary members assembled together in the Parliament building for an emergency meeting. The streets also began to fill with people. The military and police loyal to the elected government also began to mobilise. Before the coup ended several bombs had exploded, some of them in the Parliament while it was in session.
 
There are known to be several underground groups operating in Turkey and abroad that have tried in the past to take over Turkey. In Turkey itself, it is suspected that some of these cult-like groups have infiltrated the civil service and the military with many of their followers. One of these groups is headed by Fetullah Gulan, a muslim cleric who is currently living in the US, in order to avoid being put on trial in Turkey. He and his followers have founded many religious boarding schools both in Turkey and in the US and profess to be only interested in education. However, their organisation has a very opaque hierarchy, which is almost impossible to discern, and the actions of some of their followers do not mesh with their professed beliefs.  They also form a very strong political lobby both in Canada and the US.  She ended by asking us, what would we do here in Canada if a break off military group bombed our Parliament while it was in session, and how would we go about cleaning up a civil service and military that had been infiltrated over the years by all kinds of secret followers of various cults. This would be a very difficult task for any government to take on.
 
Sim Senol Patrick Gibson