If you have read or watched the news over the past few days, you will have read about protests in Turkey.

They started over an infrastructure project over a park but when the Police went in forcefully, they spread and became massive.

A lot of people have wondered if this is an extension of the "Arab Spring", and that this is "the voice of the people rising up against their authoritarian regimes".

As the protests have taken journalists by surprise, there has been some loose talk and weak attempts to understand what is happening in Turkey. Others have tried to give the normal voices to the protesters.

There have been full page ads taken out in the New York Times and the message has also been posted on the Guardian website. Go read this. It reads as innocous enough.

But not everything is what it seems. Let me explain why.

First one of the mentions in the "message": the sale of alcohol has been limited. This is true and a recent law has been passed limiting the hours in which alcohol can be sold. However, most people in the western world will be used to this as licensing hours are a rule, not the exception - and what has happened in Turkey is normalisation, even though the limiting hours are still quite small - alcohol cannot be sold after 10PM and before 6AM. So those that want a pint with their breakfast can still have it. If it is after 6AM. Go to much of Europe and you will find stricter laws in relation to alcohol and when it can be sold.

Now onto the bigger picture, it boils down to this line in the message:

"The people protesting bravely throughout Turkey are the proud inheritors of Atatürk's legacy."

Once again it sounds pretty innocuous, and mentioning the founding father of the nation doesn't seem to have many problems. But when you look deeper, you will see problems.

"Attaturk's legacy" is anything but liberal or democratic. He was a dictator and he forces his views upon the people. His followers continued the same. While they were the majority, they considered themselves elevated into position to tell how others should live their lives. Over time a political elite emerged and when this was not enough to keep power, the military elite also joined in.

Turkey was a police state. The Military and the Kemalist elite were ultra-secular to the point of extremism, and tried to force a secular ideology onto the people.

They did not do this through liberal means and they were never the majority.

What this meant was that the "Muslim" camp was always either the liberal camp or allied to the Liberal camp.

There were always bried instances where the Muslim/Liberal camp came to power, but they were always contained.

First there was Adnan Menderes, who was popularly elected in the 50's and through his popular policies, he allows the call to prayer to once again be called in Arabic. Yes, the Kemalist elite had banned this before him. He was taken out in a military coup 10 and executed.

Secondly there was Turgut Ozal who became president in the late 80's, early 90's. He was a liberal and there are many theories that his death ending his presidency was not natural, but that he was poisoned.

Then the Islamic minded "Welfare Party" came into power in a joint coalition, but the military could not accept this - an ultimatum was made, tanks were rolled through the streets and in 1997 the government resigned. The party was also banned and some of its members arrested, imprisoned and banned from politics. One of these was the current Prime Ministed, Recep Tayyip, Erdogan.

During this period, the time that the message posted in the New York Times, and The Guardian alludes to a time where those who attended Islamic schools were banned from going to university, and women who wore the headscarf were also banned from education and any public service job.

In 2002, a splinter party from the "Welfare Party", the "Justice and Development Party" won elections, and then laws were changed to allow the current Prime Minister to re-enter politics and he became politics.

This is not the end of the story and here is where conspiracy enters the picture.

The military, which was deeply secularist and had despatched of the previous coalition with a Muslim party in it was not happy at all.

In the Turkish military, each year there would be investigations, and if a member was found to be someone who prayed, or was married to someone who wore a headscarf, the person would be removed from the armed forces in order to keep its ideology intact. The Military had its own policies, it has its own rules, and it had its own education system. It was accountable to no one.

In its planning committees two plots were formed that would be used to replace the government. The plots involved causing civil strife through bombings of different places including mosques to panic people, and to get Greece involved in destroying some of its warplanes.

A second part of the old Kemalist regime that was stopping the government was the Judiciary, which also had its own rules, and kept its own people in charge.

Facing all this, the elected government moved slowly, and increased freedom for the people by adopting the EU normalisation process which could eventually allow it to become an EU member state (which was never going to happen if France and Germany had their ways as was shown later in the process).

What this process allowed was for old oppressive rules to be slowly and methodically removed. However while the majority of the country appreciated this, those who had been given privilege by the past regimes resented their loss of position, honour and power.

Various blockades were created, such as total refusal to have dialogue with the government if there were women present who wore the headscarf.

In circa 2007, the old Kemalist elites tried to prevent the new government from appointing a president. They failed and in a referrendum they were given a bloody nose. Following this, there were also general elections, in which the government well increased its share of the vote from around 33 % to around 47% mainly due to good governance but also because others who were afraid so that it wasn't the bogeyman its opponents had presented it as.

The government, brimming full of confidence, tried to undo one too many oppressions of the kemalist elite that had once been in charge - it passed a law allowing veiled women (along with unveiled women) to take part in public life. How dare they.

There was massive chaos, and the full force of the old Kemalist elite sprung into action, including the judiciary and a case was opened in court to revoke the law, disband the governing party and ban their members from politics for life.

The governing AKP survived. By one single vote. If one additional extra judge on the judicial panel had sided against the government, the governing party that had won 47% of the vote would have been forcibly disbanded and its members banned from politics for life.

But it survived.

Around the same time, there were leaks of the two coup plots mentioned earlier. These involved the military and some other Kemalist elites and even journalists who would have been the mouthpiece of the coup.

Once these leaks became public, the police and the Judiciary got involved and slowly, the elites lost more power.

Due to EU Reforms, the Judiciary was reformed to become more liberal and while the old elites could not be reomved, the main board was expanded, diluting the influence of the old elites.

Due to arrests of military personnel, the military lost its power to meddle and eventually the prime minister and the President were allowed to attend the military council - something they always ought to have been able to do but were banned from doing.

The military was forced to remove its policy of removing anyone that had any links to being religious from its forces.

A third elections followed in 2011 and the governing AKP once again increased its voterbase -  now at 49%. A ruling party increasing its vote percentage following coming to power for the next two elections is unheard of.

While for the majority, this is a breath of fresh air, there is maybe 15% of the population that was served well by the old regimes and their policies of keeping them in power, relevant.

Further, around 10% of Turkey are what you would consider ultra nationalists and this is relevant as the governing AKP has tried to stop the Kurdish insurgency, and pacify the south east of Turkey through democratic and peaceful means, which involved recognising Kurds as a race, and the Kurdish language.

These 10% ultra Nationalists find it hard to digest the acceptance of Kurds and the Kurdish language as the founding father of Turkey along with its elite had always denied the existence of any Kurdish problem, despite the death of 30,000 - 40,000 people in the past 3 decades.

A third group against the government at the moment is the leftists, who had in the past supported Bashar Al-Assad of Syria and are against their Prime Minister's opposition of the Syrian Regime.

(The greens on the other hand are principled. They oppose the government for relying too much on coal power... and for for trying to get away from coal power by pushing hydro electricity...)

While Muslims and Liberals have either been one and the same or at a minimum allied during the reign of this government, the Prime Minister has always been a foreceful individual who has "charged into battle" against all the hurdles that have been placed infront of him. Some of these now also have worries, as since the old hurdles are being removed (they are not gone yet), they do worry if Erdogan would eventually turn on them - he is not exactly known for mincing his words and actions.

The liberals are also worried by the process to replace the old constitution to make the system more presidential. The current constitution was drafted by a military junta 30 years ago and is oppressive and needs to be changed. However some worry that changing it could give the current Prime Minister too much power.

All of this has caused a "rainbow coalition" of different parties that either have legitimate concerns in the government (these mostly being the liberals) or are worried about their position in society now that they are less likely able to rely on an unfair hand from the Kemalist elite, the Judiciary or the Military.

The current protests started from the despicable over reaction by the Police to peaceful protesters who had legitimate converns, however most of the protesters that have since caused chaos are not part of the original protest.

The ultra nationalists, the Kemalists and the Leftists have opportunely joined the protests as the current government has disempowered them from their lofty positions and they have been unable to regain lost power through legitimate means.

Most of Turkey is Muslim, many Muslim women in Turkey wear headscarves, but look at the footage of the protests and you are unlikely to find a single woman who is wearing a headscarf present.

While maybe some turks may feel disenfranchised due to the defanging of their elites, 50% of Turkey voted for the current Prime Minister in the last general elections. This is what the Prime Minister alluded to when he stated that he could get more supporters out into the streets.

The protesters call for more freedom, but it has to be asked more freedom for who? Those convicted of attempting to carry out coup's? or those that have lost their elite status and now have to deal with others on an equal pegging?

It certainly is not for the ordinary person, who is more free now than has been since maybe the execution of Adnan Menderes in the 60's.

While people can point to problems in Turkey, it is disingenuous to suggest that Turkey has become less free over the past decade. It has become more free and the process continues. It has not completed yet.

These protests and the forces behind them could undermine the process of change in turkey and this will result in a darker, less free future.

It is important to not get lost in the propaganda and lazy journalism that is on display.