More Echoes of Anti-Imperalist Discourse

In following up yesterday's post, I would like to separately include recent comments made by CHP Deputy Chairman Onur Öymen: "The government cannot resist pressure by European countries to amend Article 301 of the TCK. The AK Party presented a proposal to amend this article to please the EU." Öymen did not mention the substance of the reforms nor their effect. He did not even mention that Article 301 serves an important role in protecting the state from dissent that might cause political unrest. Instead, he simply asserted that AKP is introducing Article 301 reform at the behest of the EU as if this is a reason to oppose the measure.

And, just to expand on yesterday's post, this sort of argument is non-unique to Turkey and should be considered along the same lines as that of other regimes that emerged out of anti-imperalist struggles and then resisted criticism by human rights organizations by claiming them instruments of modern-day imperialism. Turkey was never under imperial rule, but this does not change the fact that certain factions within Turkish politics use similar language when dismissing human righs criticisms.