Maybe things aren't that different after all

The last few weeks in Turkey have been interesting, especially in the area of politics. On May 1 protests for the International Day of Labor paralyzed much of the city, just a few days before 750,000 people had gathered to rally in support of secularism, later in the same week by the use of a technicality the Islamist presidential candidate was not elected by the Parliament as everyone thought he would be, and the constitutional court made a controversial and divisive ruling to turn the course of national politics. It would appear from the outside, and maybe to a foreigner living on the inside, that Turkey is falling apart! Huge protests, political controversy, court decisions of dubious political basis. This could never happen in America!

Wait. Election 2000, hanging chads, Bush vs. Gore in the Supreme Court. Anti-war protests and legal immigration protests all over the country numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The Ten Commandments and "one nation under God". Maybe the two countries aren't THAT different after all. Sure, 500 people don't usually get arrested at a protest in the US and live television coverage isn't temporarily suspended to hide police brutality. But, I think we are really only talking about degrees here. As a proud America living overseas it can be easy to judge and subtly mock another country for its problems ("you think they'd. . .", "haven't they figured out. . .?"). But, I don't think we are really all that different.