Turkey Again

I am keeping up with the news on Turkey daily.  What I see makes me more and more concerned.  Something that started as a protest over a public space has turned into an issue big enough to rend a nation.

I do not really feel qualified to comment much on the events I see there.  I am at best an interested outsider.  I can't understand some of the things I see, though, and feel compelled to ask a question.  How do leaders get so out of touch that they refuse to hear the voices of those who put them in power?  If unrest suddenly breaks out in large sections of a nation, I'm not sure I think an elected official should use threats and force to keep themselves in power.

I can't form absolute opinions about Turkey's current situation because everything I'm getting about it is from a few sources, and, of course, both sides are accusing each other of editing for greatest political currency.  As I scroll through images of tear gas, emergency hospitals, water cannons, and the like, though, I wonder if it looks the same to us on the outside as it does to the people affected.  I throw my mind back to the Occupy Wall Street protests, and I remember how divided my own nation was about that.  All I guess I can say with any certainty is that it looks an awful lot like a situation that will end in many more people being wounded or killed.

In addition to thinking about the situation in general, I am also concerned about my upcoming trip. I don't mean to be selfish.  Surely the events that are unfolding are so much more important than just one trip for one group of foreign tourists.  However, I have been excited about this trip for a long time now, and as I have come to know more about this country, so too has my eagerness to see and experience it all increased. I can't help but wonder if we will even get to go at all, if all this will just wind up being a place I yearn to see and never have access to.  I also have to say that I sometimes wonder if we do go if we'll wind up caught in the riptide of this particular moment in history.  I wonder if, once again, being an American will be an uncomfortable thing abroad.

Mostly, though, I am just wondering if Turkey will manage to find a middle way or if it will collapse into the same sort of partisan turmoil that devours the land to its south.  I can only hope that the different groups can come together and somehow find peace.