Turkey Coup Reflection

Throughout the past couple months, Turkey has experienced a lot of changes in its post-coup times. The coup created quite a bit of tension within the country because President Erdogan went towards a much more totalitarian government afterwards. In the first post, we discussed the issue of the Turkish coup, its background, and its implications for the future. Then we discussed the issues that arose in the form of the detainment of 38,000 teachers and other nonviolent people. This led us to question to future of Turkey’s role in Global Politics as a newly more progressive nation, and where the government may be going with the new attitude of Erdogan and his supporters. Finally, we looked at the History of Kurdish/ Turkish relations which plays a large role in the politics of the whole nation and the coup as well. This long-lasting conflict is also effecting relations in Syria and Iraq as well, and connects well to all aspects of Global Politics.

Throughout the blog writing process, the sources I predominantly used were websites, including Aljazeera, BBC, and CNN. I also looked at more localized news outlets within Turkey and the Middle East. Through this process I hoped to gain a wide lens of the events to truly get the most accurate depiction of the issues we chose to focus on. Through searching for news outlets in the Middle East, I was able to see another form of media other than the mass media platforms that rule the United States news, and compare the two narratives being told.  

Throughout this project I have learned a lot about long term organization and group work as well as how to work with a group without meeting in person for all aspects of the project. I also learned a great deal about news sources and how to research for topics on a variety of different platforms to formulate the best version of the truth I can find. In addition, I had the opportunity to learn the history of a country whose importance in Global Politics is often overlooked in basic World History classes.