25% Of Children Are Poor

Turks love to bluster about their country, the reality is that despite the alleged AKP economic miracle, Turkey and Turks are still desperately poor.

Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (Betam): ONE IN EVERY FOUR CHILDREN IS POOR (PDF)

April 22, 2013

...

We use[d] the Survey of Income and Living Conditions 2006 and 2010 to study material deprivation, as measured by access to basic needs of nutrition, heating and clothing, of children between the ages of 0 and 15. The variables used are the ability to “eat meat, chicken or fish every other day”, “keep home adequately warm” and “afford new (not second-hand) clothes” respectively. Children who live in households that do not have the ability to meet any of these basic needs are defined to be poor children. According to this definition, 4.6 million children, i.e. one in every four children, are materially deprived (Table 1).

When we look at the basic needs separately, we see that 40.3 percent of all children who live in Turkey live in households that cannot keep their homes adequately warm and 40.8 percent of children cannot afford new clothes. 12.5 million children are not able to consume meat, chicken or fish every other day, i.e. their nutritional needs are not met. Given that two out of three children do not have access to main sources of protein, we can conclude that these children cannot have a healthy diet.

There have been significant improvements from 2006 to 2010. Share of materially deprived children decreased from 34.7 percent to 24.4 percent. Looking at the components of material deprivation, it is clear that the improvement stems from the clothing item. The share of children who cannot afford new clothes fell from 60.2 percent to 40.8 percent. One can guess that this striking improvement is a result of the decrease in the relative price of textiles. There has been some improvement in heating and in nutrition, albeit smaller.

...

Data points to stark regional differences. ... An overview reveals that child poverty deepens as we move from the western to the eastern regions. ...

One in every three children is materially deprived in East Black Sea and Northeast Anatolia. However, child poverty is more widespread in Southeast Anatolia. 42.1 percent of children who live in Southeast Anatolia are materially deprived. To reiterate, 1 million 200 thousand children in Southeast Anatolia cannot meet their basic needs as measured by nutrition, heating and clothing.

... 66.9 percent of children living in Turkey cannot eat meat, chicken or fish every other day. Even in the most privileged regions, such as Istanbul (57.4 percent) and Central Anatolia (55.6 percent), more than half of the children cannot satisfy their basic nutritional needs. In Southeast Anatolia, 80 percent of children cannot.

In Turkey, 40.3 percent of children live in households that cannot heat their homes adequately. Even though the share of children in such homes are lower in the western regions, in Istanbul, Central East and Southeast Anatolia, almost half of the children live in homes that are not adequately heated.

Moreover, 40 percent of children cannot replace their old clothes with new ones. This is more common in Mediterranean, East Black Sea and Central East Anatolia. In Northeast Anatolia and Southeast Anatolia, more than half of the children cannot afford new clothes.

...

Kemalism: Legal And Media Engineering To Develop An Ultra-Nationalist Population

Turks with very few exceptions are proud ultra-nationalist lunatics. Their state is structured by their war criminal military regime who act as overseers of the state ideology of Kemalism, the Turkish equivalent to the ridiculous North Korean Juche Idea. This is changing slightly in the present as the success of the Islamic oriented AKP Party has allowed them to  route out the traditional Kemalist deep state, media and other organs and replace it with their plants. However, they just want those who are more oriented into Sunni Islamic bigotry to control the state ideology, not abandon it or reform. Turks are fanatic nationalists because Kemalist ideology structures them to be so. This relatively old source from 1995 still holds largely true in most aspects:

Official ideology: Turkey is the only European State to have, written into its Constitution, an official ideology. This is based on: "the concept of nationalism and the principles and reforms brought about by Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, immortal guide and incomparable hero".

According to the Preamble to the Constitution "no opinion or thought can expect to receive any protection as against Turkish National interests, the principle of the indivisibility of the Turkish national entity, its State and its territory, the historical and spiritual values, inherent in the Turkish people or the nationalism, principles reforms and modernism of Ataturk".[1]

THE MEDIA:
On the Official State Ideology's Service

Foreigners passing through Turkey or observers critical of certain political aspects of the country, are often shocked by the ultra-nationalist and militarist content of the principle Turkish media and the virulence of the press campaigns they orchestrate. At the same time they notice that certain media don't hesitate to criticise on or other of the Ministers or even the Prime Minister. To understand the Turkish system one must bear in mind that, apart from some publications of the Left or islamic opposition, the principle Turkish media are at the disposal of the State and its official nationalist ideology (Ataturkism).

The political police (MIT) and the General Staff, who have a whole network of influential "honourable correspondents" constantly keep watch over what they consider "the superior interests of the State" and launch orchestrated press campaigns against "the internal and external enemies of the country". Amongst the more famous victims of their campaigns: Nelson Mandela, "guilty" of having refused an Ataturk Peace Prize, which seemed to him rather out of place in a country that was martyrising its Kurdish population; Mrs Mitterrand, Senator Kennedy, the German Social-Democratic Party leader R. Scharping etc... Their network covering the media is sufficiently subtle to allow each paper to have some liberal editorial writers who criticise official policy from the standpoint of another idea of "patriotism". Those who cross the thin red line(criticism of Ataturk or of nationalism, defense of the Kurds) are promptly sacked, like Koray Düzgören from Hurriyet, Ahmet Altan from Milliyet or Ismet Imset of the Turkish Daily News — often following a simple phone call from an official of the Joint Forces General Staff.

Concentration of ownership also helps ensure a more efficient control of the media. Two groups share the bulk of the market. The Dogan Group, with the two mass circulation dailies Hurriyet and Milliyet, each of which has its own television network, and the Ding Group whose main standard bearers are the two dailies Sabah and Yeni Yuzyil as well as the ATV television network. The industrialists who control these two groups also have large interests in sectors which depend heavily on State and Army contracts. The General Staff, also regularly calls the Managing Directors of the newspapers and television stations for "briefings" in which they are told how to treat matters affecting national interests and defense. It is, for example, "inadvisable" to publish anything on "events in the South-East" (Kurdistan) apart from official Army communiques.

Finally, by a very generous policy of subsidies and loans on advantageous terms, the Government has been able to ensure the support of these media and their huge audience. The police and the courts can be left to stifle the few dissident voices, like the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Grundem, which was banned after the assassination of ten of its journalists and the blowing up of its premises by the police.

Despite the diversity of papers, publications, radios and televisions, those that really form public opinion are, with a few rare exceptions at the disposal of the State, its security organs and its official ideology. The "organs" only have to whistle and this powerful brain-washing machine gets under way to denigrate or vilify any opponent judged too iconoclastic, or to present as an enemy of the Turkish nation any foreign personality who dares to criticise excess of the Turkish Army or Courts or express a wish for an improvement in the fate of the Kurds in Turkey.[2]

Sources:
[1.]The International Committee for the Liberation of the Kurdish Parliamentarians Imprisoned in Turkey(CILOEKT). Which Turkey for Which Europe(PDF). (December 1995) p.  8.
[2.] Ibid., p. 10.

The main difference is that in the present those who are against the AKP regime are complained against over the phone, fined, jailed, taken to court and otherwise silenced by the AKP regime, and not the militarists of the Turkish General Staff as in the past.

5.6 Million Illiterates, More Than The Total Population of Denmark

Bianet: 4.7 Million Illiterate Women in Turkey
Burçin BELGE
25 August 2010, Wednesday 11:34

...

According to data compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) based on the 2008 Household Workforce Inquiry, a total of 5.647 million people older than 15 years are illiterate. There are 4.742 million women and 932,000 men who are not able to read or write. Thus, the percentage of illiterate women amounts to 84 percent within this group.

...

The report was prepared by researchers Assoc. Prof. Gökçe Uysal Kolaşin and Duygu Güner from the Bahçeşehir University Economic and Social Research Centre (Istanbul).

...

Gender discrimination persists in education

...

- ... The disadvantages situation of women is not confined to a specific age group. 79 percent of all illiterate women are aged between 15 and 24 years. ...

- Illiteracy is a huge obstacle for the integration into social life. ...

- The number of illiterate women amounts to almost one tenth of the Turkish population. ...

- ... The vast majority of these women are being pushed out of economic life. Only a small minority is employed and 97 percent of these women work off the record.

- Most illiterate women cannot benefit from a stronger integration into economic life since they work as unpaid family workers.

- The situation of illiterate men looks better in comparison. Still, one third of them are self-employed and the remaining male illiterates are facing high rates of unemployment. (BB/VK)

For reference of comparison, in the third quarter of 2013, Denmark, had a population of 5,608,784. Thus the number of illiterates in Turkey is greater than the entire population of Denmark.

Here is the more detailed abstract by the Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research(Betam):
4 Million 742 Thousand Women Are Illiterate (PDF)

Related blog post:
Turks don't read: only 1 out of 10,000 are regular readers

Violent Nation: Almost Half Of Doctors & Hospital Staff Attacked By Patients' Families

Turks are massively violent even towards members of their own Islamic society whom they perceive as being there to help them. Just try to imagine how much quicker and even more prone to violence they are to those outside of their group, whom they do not consider as Turkish or Mahometan.

Hürriyet: Biggest hospital health threat: patient families

3/15/2011

Medicine is a dangerous profession in Turkey, where half of all doctors and more than a third of nurses working at polyclinics and emergency services say they have been exposed to physical and verbal abuse on the job. Patients’ families are often the perpetrators of violence, hospital personnel report in a survey, saying such incidents are on the rise, statements seemingly corroborated by a recent beating assault in Mardin and a stabbing case in Kars

When Erdal Aydoğan’s wife fell ill Sunday night, he took her to Kızıltepe State Hospital in Southeast Turkey’s Mardin province for treatment. But when he found out that treatment included a male nurse giving his wife an injection, Aydoğan reportedly exploded.

“How could a man give an injection to my wife,” Aydoğan yelled before allegedly beating and punching male nurse Cafer Cengiz, 25, in the hospital’s emergency services area. ...

Cengiz’s experience is not unusual in Turkey, where a recent poll by the Istanbul Medical Chamber showed that nearly half of all doctors working at polyclinics and emergency services in hospitals, and more than a third of nurses, are exposed to physical and verbal violence – often by family members of the patients.

Seventy-two percent of participants in the survey agreed with the statement, “Violent incidents have increased within the last year,” while 51 percent agreed that, “Violent incidents have gone up at the institution where I work.”

Another such incident occurred Saturday, when Bülent Öcal, a doctor at Kars State Hospital in Eastern Turkey, was stabbed in the hospital’s polyclinic by a patient and his two relatives for not taking good enough care of the patient, whose nose was bleeding.

...

Medical staff working in emergency services reported the most mistreatment, the Istanbul Medical Chamber poll said. Overall, 45 percent of doctors, 35 percent of nurses, 11 percent of administrative clerks and 7 percent of security guards said they had been exposed to violence at work. Twenty-nine percent of all health employees said they encounter physical and verbal abuse almost every day.

Following such incidents, 40 percent inform the police and 33 percent file a case.

A separate poll conducted by the Isparta and Burdur Medical Chambers showed that 45 percent of health employees have been exposed to physical violence in the last year.

...

The Lunatic Followers of the Kemalist State Religion in Photos

At a recent 2013 graduation at Ege University in Izmir, Turkey[1], 720 Atatürkist, fascist graduates, sending a message to the Islamist oriented AKP after their pathetic Gezi revolt, all put up portraits of Ataturk that covered their faces. The symbolism was obvious, they are an ultra-nationalist mob worshiping their state religion and not individuals. A photo:

Turkish columnist Mustafa Akyol observed that in Turkey the most racist, intolerant group in his country are the university grads who receive the most indoctrination into the Turkish state ideology-religion known as Kemalism:

Hurriyet: Beware of 'educated' Turks

9/3/2010

...

This week, Turkey’s Education Personnel Labor Union, or Eğitim Bir-Sen, revealed a survey that mapped out the political attitudes in Turkish society. ...

...

The more interesting part of the survey was the political categories that people identified with. The most popular tags were “democrat” and “nationalist,” which were equally shared by 22 percent of the population. After that, 17 percent defined themselves as “Atatürkist” and 10 percent preferred to be called “Islamist.”

Interestingly, the “Atatürkists” turned out to be the least supportive of the reforms to broaden Kurdish rights. They, for example, gave the lowest support to the 24-hour official Kurdish-language television channel TRT 6 that the government opened two years ago.

Similarly, the “Atatürkists” outperformed every other political category, including the self-declared “Turkish nationalists,” in their opposition to “teaching of mother tongues in schools.” Only 38 percent of the “Atatürkists” supported this right, in contrast to 75 percent of the “leftists,” 70 percent of the “democrats” and 63 percent of the “Islamists.”

The “Atatürkists,” in other words, were the least tolerant group in Turkey when it comes to cultural diversity.

But this was a surprising result (at least for the uninitiated foreigner) because the “Atatürkists” were also the more educated part of society. The survey underlined this paradoxical relation between “the level of education” and “the support for the democratic opening” for Kurdish rights: “As the level of education falls, the number of those who see the democratic opening as a positive step increases. Conversely, as the level of education rises, the number of those who see the democratic opening as positive declines.”

As I said, this might be surprising to foreigners, particularly Westerners, who tend to presume that “education” and “liberal values” go hand in hand. ...

So, one wonders, why Turkey is so exceptional?

The answer might be in the education system. In the West, education is designed mainly to raise critical and democratic-minded individuals. But Turkish education, from primary school to universities (yes, even the universities), is designed to raise generations “loyal to the principles and revolutions of Atatürk.”

Unfortunately, those “principles and revolutions” don’t include concepts such as individual freedom, cultural diversity, and, alas, even democracy. (In case you haven’t noticed, Atatürk has a zillion sayings about nationalism, secularism or “republicanism,” but hardly anything on democracy.)

That’s why a mind shaped by the Turkish education system, unless tainted by some other factor, will be a staunch nationalist, secularist, and “republicanist” — but hardly a liberal or democrat.

...

The education system is really the key. From age 7 to 18, a Turkish student hears the word “Kurdish” only once: When he learns about the “The Society for Kurdish Advancement,” as one of the “treacherous organizations” that arose in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. (The take-away message is that “Kurd” is something treacherous.)

...

Furthermore, the same “educated” Turks also believe that their co-nationals who question such national myths are either paid agents of the “imperialists” who want to destroy Turkey or wild-eyed Islamists who yearn for “the darkness of the middle ages.”

...

Again in Izmir in 2013, one of the strongholds of Kemalist fascists, a lunatic mob of Kemalists Turks wasted their time recreating a potrait of Ataturk[2] like the North Koreans of the Mideast they are:

Due to all the Kemalist brainwashing in Turkey, Kemalist Turks see the long-dead dictator and militarist, Ataturk, as an immortal father figure. Here are some photos of the North Koreans of the Mideast kissing the statue of the immortal father and seeing if his statue will whisper them advice[3]:

Finally from the 2007 Republic protests of the Kemalist fascists against the Islamic oriented AKP party, here are some North Koreans again showing they are not self regulating individuals but part of the homogeneous ultra-nationalist, Kemalist mob[4]:



[1.] Most of the photos in this blog post where gathered from the The World's Armed Forces Forum, Greece & Turkey subforum posted by North Koreanesque Turks themselves to actually gloat about their blind, slavish obedience to the symbol of a long-dead man. The forum is like a Wild West environment, but the Turks there are very open and proud of their national fascism, barbarism and atrocities so it is a good source on the North Korea of the Mideast. Instead of hiding or denying their crimes or dirty laundry they most often gloat over it!
This particular graduation is from this thread:
Greece & Turkey Forum: Ege University graduation July 16 2013

[2.] Greece & Turkey Forum Thread: This is why I love Izmir April 1 2013

[3.] Greece & Turkey Forum Thread: And they say Kemalists are like North Koreans, I've never seen a North Korean do this June 13 2013

[4.] The Pasha and the Gypsy Blog: The Second Anniversary of Disgust January 18, 2009

UK Parliament: Turkish military and legislators involved in aiding migrant traffickers

The UK government released this soft spoken, understated report that nevertheless slams the Turkish bandit state and its role in migrant trafficking.

UK Parliament: Home Affairs Select Committee: Implications for the Justice and Home Affairs area of the accession of Turkey to the European Union

Prepared 1 August 2011

... 

In 2010, more than 100,000 illegal migrants were arrested at the Greek borders, including the border with Albania. Prior to the Frontex Rapid Border Intervention Team operation at the Greek-Turkish land border, up to 300 illegal migrants were entering Greece every day by this route; the number has since fallen to 100-120. 

... 

In terms of people smugglers, out of 93 facilitators identified in 2009, the highest proportion were Bulgarian (30), Greek (19) or Turkish (15). In 2010, there were 28 Turkish facilitators out of a total of 73. The overall reduction in the number of people smugglers arrested in 2010 was partly because the modus operandi of the traffickers has changed. In 2010, the Evros authorities observed the development of a new route of irregular migration, whereby migrants make use of cheap flights from North Africa to Istanbul, then travel on to Greece. ...

... 

Since November 2010, there has been a marked improvement in interventions from the Turkish authorities before migrants cross the border. The Frontex operation is not doing anything significantly different from the role performed by the Greek authorities, apart from providing increased personnel and provision of technical assistance in the form of cameras, helicopters and so forth. However, its presence has put pressure on Turkey to act. The Greek authorities have noticed a military presence on the Turkish border which was not there prior to the Frontex operation, Turkish border stations are now manned continuously, and new informal cooperation has started between the Greek and Turkish military. They have also noticed a reduction in corrupt dealings between Turkish officers and people smugglers.

... 

It is very muted criticism and too diplomatic, as Western imperialist states like the United Kingdom have always abetted and enabled the second class imperialism of Turkey. However, the report acknowledges that the presence of Frontex has almost cut down by a third the number of migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece via the Evros river, from 300 a day to 100-120. It also admits that the corrupt Turkish military has dealings with smugglers and they have noticed a reduction in these double deals, now that Frontex is present to witness it. It also acknowledges that migrants from North Africa actually  prefer to transit to Istanbul to cross into Europe instead of plying the closer and more porous Mediterranean coastline of France, Spain or Italy. Turkish legislators legally and carefully engineered their country becoming an illegal immigrant hub, to fill Europe with Mahometans and earn black funds:

NYTimes: For Illegal Immigrants, Greek Border Offers a Back Door to Europe

July 14, 2012

... 

But the last staging area for most immigrants is really Istanbul, the teeming Turkish city that is a magnet for those who have often walked for months through the wilds of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. 

Turkey has come under criticism because of its liberal visa requirements, which make it easy for immigrants to legally enter the country and then move on. Citizens of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Syria and Iran, among many other nations, do not need a visa to enter the country. 

Once in Turkey, they share crowded apartments and try to find work and save enough to pay smugglers for false papers and passage across the border. 

...

Kemalism: the fascist Turkish state religion modeled after Islam

What the backward Turkish nation considers secularism is not the separation of Church and State of the Western model, rather a Turkish secularist is a type of rabidly fervent fascist that elevates the state and nation to the level of a religion, referenced after Islam. Ziya Gökalp, one of the most prominent Turkish nationalist theorists(who himself was likely a Kurd, but pretended to have pure Turkic origins), outlined the contours of what is now termed Kemalism, the omnipotent Turkish statism, imputed falsely to Ataturk today(as Turks are quite proud of their historic ignorance):

Gokalp gave "the nation" an important mystical component. In his work, "he transferred to the nation the divine qualities he had found in society, replacing the belief in God with the belief in the nation: and so nationalism became a religion."[43] The national is deified, thus expanding Durkheim's idea that "society can do as it pleases." So, if a nation perceives itself in danger, it feels no moral responsibility in its response to that danger. The Unionist "scientific approach" gained a "sacred" character through Gokalp's theories.

Source:

Heyd, Uriel. Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp. p. 57.

cited in: Akcam, Taner. A shameful act : the Armenian genocide and the question of Turkish responsibility. (Metropolitan Books; 2006) pp. 88-9.

Further the Preamble part of the Turkish Constitution contains this fascist screed:

Affirming the eternal existence of the Turkish Motherland and  Nation  and  the  indivisible  unity  of  the  Sublime  Turkish  State,  this   Constitution,  in  line  with  the  concept  of  nationalism  introduced  by   the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Atatürk, the immortal leader  and the unrivalled hero, and his reforms and principles;

...

That no protection shall be accorded to an activity contrary to Turkish national interests, Turkish existence and the principle of its indivisibility with its State and territory, historical and moral values of Turkishness; the nationalism, principles, reforms and civilizationism of Atatürk and that sacred religious feelings shall absolutely not be involved in state affairs and politics as required by the principle of secularism;

      

Brainwashed Turks kissing the marble at Anıtkabir, the memorial tomb of the immortal dictator of the Turkish nation, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,:

This more current article demonstrates how powerful in practice the official worship of the state with Ataturk, as it embodied, immortal, ever present Father figure is amongst the fascist Turkish nation:

New York Times: In Complex Times, Turkey Seeks a Reassuring Face

By SABRINA TAVERNISE, January 16, 2008

...

Almost 85 years after Ataturk formed the modern state of Turkey from the remains of the Ottoman Empire, millions of Turks still flock to the mausoleum that contains his grave here in the country’s capital. So many that 2007 was a record year for visitors, according to the Web site of the mausoleum, called Anitkabir.

Last year, a total of 12.7 million people visited the monument, a figure lifted by a large demonstration in the spring, but still a 50 percent rise over the previous year and more than in any other year in the 54-year history of the monument, according to the Anka news agency. 

Why the surge in visits to the grave of a man who died in 1938? For one, Ataturk is no ordinary man. He is referred to as the “immortal leader and unrivaled hero,” in the preamble to the Turkish Constitution. Insulting his memory is a crime in the penal code. The entire nation stops to mourn on the minute, each November, when he died.

... 

Newspaper headlines last week told of a group of high school students who painted a Turkish flag using their own blood and sent it to the commander of the military. Last year, the authorities were forced to discontinue a lottery scratch card because its design was an outline of Turkey, and scratching off the eastern part was seen as an act of sedition. ...

Note: 2007 was the year of the so called "Republic Protests" in Turkey, where millions of the more fascist fake secular Kemalist Turks backed by their politically meddling military protested when they realized the more Islamic oriented Abdullah Gul of the AKP party would likely win the Presidental elections(which he did).

Turkish involvement in the Balkan organ trade

Turks around the world and their bandit state have a huge involvement, in all manner of illicit activities from drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, nuclear weapons proliferation and even organ trafficking. The following excerpt from an article written back in May exposes the Turkish connection and liaison with Albanians also involved in the organ trade:

The New Yorker: Bring Up the Bodies

by Nicholas Schmidle, May 6, 2013

... Since the late nineteen-nineties, Istanbul—a short flight from Tirana—has been a destination for transplant tourism.

In late 2002, a K.L.A. member told Montgomery that the group had made “a fortune” by trafficking body parts, primarily kidneys. C., as Montgomery called the source, claimed that the K.L.A. received about forty-five thousand dollars per body. Most shipments involved body parts from “two or three Serbs,” though C. knew of an instance when the K.L.A. “did five Serbs together.”

...

That October, a young Turkish man, who had agreed to accept twenty thousand dollars for one of his kidneys, arrived at the clinic in Pristina. The kidney was removed and placed inside a seventy-four-year-old Israeli man, who had paid ninety thousand euros for it. The operations were performed by Dervishi and by a Turkish surgeon, Yusuf Sonmez, who is known in the Turkish press as Dr. Frankenstein, for his prominent role in the black-market organ trade. ...

"Secular" Turkey: 28% of marriages involve child brides

Flying Broom(woman's activist organization in Turkey): Child brides in Turkey

...

Flying Broom News Center

16/08/2011

"When my friends were going to school, I, as a little girl of 13 had been married with a man, a friend of my father, in his 30s. I was scared when he was at home. I could even not enter in his room. I'll never forgive my father," said an unnamed child bride from Van province, now in her 40s.

It is difficult to determine the exact number of child marriages in Turkey as many go unreported or are unofficial "imam" (religious) ceremonies. "This makes the situation more problematic as they are not registered officially, making it difficult to track them," attorney Vildan Yirmibesoglu told SETimes.

However, according to the Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies' data, the early marriage rate in Turkey -- defined as marriage at 17 years of age and younger in the 15-49 year-old age group -- is 28% on average. The number includes unofficial religious marriages and shows regional variation, with highs of near 41% in eastern and southeastern Turkey.

"When thinking of including women over 49 years of age it wouldn't be incorrect to say the numbers would be much higher," Dr. Ilknur Yuksel-Kaptanoglu of the Institute of Populations Studies told SETimes, adding that "Even though the numbers have been falling over the years, they are still high and continue to be a problem."

According to a recent report by parliament's Committee on the Equality of Opportunity for Women and Men, many families in eastern Turkey do not consider underage marriage a problem.

The Flying Broom Women's Communication and Research Foundation is one of the most influential civil society organizations campaigning against child marriage. They are active in 54 cities, meeting with child brides to give them a chance to tell their own stories.

...

The consequences of early marriages can be significant. It often leads to children dropping out of school and perpetuates the poverty cycle, but according to Guner it also contributes to domestic violence, incestuous relationships, health problems, and even death.

Girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are four times more likely to die in childbirth than adult pregnancies. According to statistics based on Yirmibesoglu's recent case studies, a quarter of women suicides in Turkey are from the age range of 14-16.

...

More info can found in the following PDF by the Flying Brides organization:
Flying News publication on ‘Early and Forced Marriage’

Turks don't read: only 1 out of 10,000 are regular readers

Zaman: Poor reading habits in Turkey due to exam-based education system

31 March 2013 /İPEK ÜZÜM, İSTANBUL 

...

As Turkey marks the 49th Library Week across the country this week, some librarians have stated that the poor reading habits in Turkey are due to the exam-based education system in which the cognitive and intellectual development of children is being neglected.

...

According to a study released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in January 2013, a smaller number of Turks read books regularly than people in European countries. The study states that in European countries 21 people out of 100 read books regularly, while in Turkey that same statistic is one person out of 10,000. Turkey ranks 86th in the world for the amount of time a country’s residents read, the study revealed. According to the study, Turks watch an average of six hours of TV a day and surf the Internet three hours a day but only dedicate six hours a year to reading a book. The UNESCO report also reveals that reading books is in 235th place on a list of things most valued in life by Turks.

Attributing the poor reading habits in Turkey to its education system, Turkish Librarians’ Association (TKD) Chairman Ali Fuat Kartal said during an interview with Sunday’s Zaman that Turkey has an exam-based system in which the students mainly only focus on preparing for the exams, adding that the students’ cognitive and intellectual development is neglected. “Another factor is that teachers at Turkish schools don’t read much. It is important for students to see their teachers reading, which might direct them to reading books. ...

‘Insufficient number of libraries’

Stating that the number of libraries is limited in Turkey, where the population is over 75 million, Kartal added that there are only 1,112 public libraries in the country, further stating: “The conditions of libraries are not very good as the books and other materials in the public libraries are not regularly updated. They are filled with outdated books. Libraries should be updated with newly published books at regular intervals to keep the interest of readers or visitors alive.”

...

However, a source from the same AKP that uses its state influence to get corrupt media moguls to self-censor their reporters so they can win state contracts for their holding company and when that fails arrest or charge journalists with terrorism, invents some creatively optimist facts about Turkish reading habits:

At odds with the first interviewee and the UNESCO report, Turkish Publishers’ Association President Metin Celal told Sunday’s Zaman that Turkey’s reading habits are not so much low as exaggerated. Pointing to a study conducted by the Culture and Tourism Ministry in 2011, Celal stated: “According to the study, 7.2 books are read per person a year on average in Turkey, which is not that low compared to some other countries in the world. Turkey has higher rates than most of the countries in the world. Despite this, Turkey’s reading habit rates are not yet sufficient.”

...

I will believe UNESCO and not the Turkish state's organs on this one.

13-year-old raped by 29 people in Western Turkey

Anadolu Agency: Turkish press review

        11 April 2013

A 13-year-old girl [was] raped by 29 people, including a petty officer and students, in western Golcuk. Daily Milliyet said with her teacher's efforts a secret investigation was launched and 29 people were taken into custody in charges of having intercourse with the underaged and blackmailing. 8 of them, including the petty officer, were arrested. The girl is under psychological treatment.

Note: Gölcük is in Western Turkey where the allegedly advanced white Turks of the fake secular type tend to preponderate.

Turkish colonists in Germany have a 30% unemployment rate!

Republic of Cyprus, Press and Information Office, Turkish Press Review: Study shows that 193 thousand Turkish migrants return back to Turkey from Germany in the last four years

Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (14.03.13) reports that according to a study conducted by the Germany-based Turkish European Foundation for Education and Scientific Studies (TAVAK) ...

According to the study, there are currently 2,950,000 people of Turkish origin living in Germany, of whom only 1,020,000 are in possession of German citizenship. Some 1,930,000 people keep their Turkish passports and hold foreigner status. 

Individuals of Turkish origin make up 31% of the nearly 9 million immigrants in Germany. Around 720,000 of these are tenants while 230,000 own their houses. Average household size is 3.9 and average income is 2,020 euro, meaning that the total income of Turks in the country amounts to 16.5 billion euro.

The unemployment rate among Turks in Germany is 30% according to TAVAK figures, compared with the overall unemployment rate of 5.90%. However these statistics do not tell the whole story, according to Sen.

“Nearly 2 million short term workers are not counted among the unemployed. In addition, nearly 1.5 million people taking vocational courses and the nearly 1.6 million women who have remained jobless for over 15 months do not have unemployed status,” he said, suggesting that the real overall unemployment rate in Germany was 14.5%.

...

Sen also claimed that excluding Turks from professional life was a regular practice in Germany. “Firms do not want Turks or other outsiders that are suggested for their positions by the Labor-Employment Exchange Institute,” he said, adding his opinion that the reason behind this, is rising “Islamophobia” and “Turkophobia,” especially in Germany. He said that the neo-Nazi attacks against Turks, were concrete results of discrimination.

Some 44% of the Turkish migrant population lives below the national poverty line (372 euro per month) in the country, according to Sen. ...

...

Turkey and Germany do not have a double citizenship agreement, which forces youngsters to make a choice between the two before the age of 23.

Turkey #1 for child porn searches, 400,000 children abused by relatives

Hurriyet: 400,000 minors abused by inner circle person in Turkey: Report 

July/22/2013

Up to 400,000 children have been sexually abused by family members or relatives in the past 20 years in Turkey according to official reports, Turkish daily Taraf reported July 21. 

Reports from Social Services and the Child Protection Institution, and the Children Bureaus of the Police Department have shown that the number of under-aged being sexually assaulted by a family member or someone close to the child or family lies between 350,000 and 400,000 in the last 20 years. Reports have shown that 80 percent of the perpetrators either directly know the child or the parents closely.

Only 27 percent of sexually abused children shared their situation with someone, though this usually happened long after the assault took place, while the larger part did not tell anyone about the abuse they underwent. A total of 32 percent of these children did not speak to anyone about the sexual assault even after they became adults.

Reports also showed that Turkey ranked number one in searches on sexual images of children within the 13-19 years age bracket, while Turkey tops the list in searches for the words “çocuk pornosu/child porn” on the Google search engine. The children aged between 13 and 19, who can be seen in sexual images and footage found online, number over 36,000. Of these children, 42 percent are under the age of seven, whereas 77 percent are aged nine or younger. Only one percent of the children whose images are put online could be identified.

Turkish nationalism/fake secularism: take only material civilization from the West

With the Gezi protests, many Western idiots have taken to believing in the fantasy of democracy in Turkey, because the Kemalist demographic doing most the protesting has decided to present it as a struggle of democracy to gain outside support. However in an Islamic society like the Turkish, democracy is not a goal held by any powerful segment of society. What Turks want is only the material civilization of the West, in the vain hope of gaining in some distant future enough national power to make new sieges against Vienna and Belgrade. They want to keep the spirituality and mentality Islam, no matter how secular they claim they are(by Turkish standards: which are low standards for secularism). Thus all that there can be in Turkish society is the powerful dictating and compelling the vulnerable.

Don't support the fake secular ideology of Turkey known as Kemalism and don't support Kemalists.

The theme that a patriotic Turk should try to achieve a balance between the benefits of the West and the East by opting for adopting the science and technology of the former and the spirituality of the latter is repeated quite often in the schooling system designed by the educational establishment in Turkey. This difficult endeavour is almost like a mission for every patriotic Turk. Hence, it is possible to argue that since the days of the early Westernization efforts. the Turkish psyche has been burdened with the difficult task of achieving a balance between the Western civilization and the Turkish culture. ... Patriotic Turks try to resolve this tension by achieving a balance between the materiality of the West and the spirituality of the East. However, the achievement of such a balance is quite enigmatic since a combination of Western civilization and Eastern culture, when transposed to the realm of nationalism renders itself as an insoluble problem.

...

A preoccupation with this balance between modernity and tradition, Western materialism and Eastern spirituality as well as Civilization -- based on the premises of Enlightenment -- and Culture -- based on the premises of Romanticism -- is a recurring theme accompanying Turkish modernization. The desire to achieve such a balance is nowhere better expressed than in Ziya Gokalp's (1876-1924) works. Ziya Gokalp's ideas were wavering between the three trends of Islamism, Turkism, and Westernism, hence, reflecting the political climate of the context in which he was located. As Niyazi Berkes puts it: `He was fighting within himself the battle that intellectuals and politicians were raging on other levels'.(20)

Ziya Gokalp produced his basic writings between the years 1911 and 1918 when he was associated with the Party of Union and Progress against the emotional background of the period laden with nationalist movements among the non-Muslim and non-Turkish peoples of the decadent Ottoman Empire. While on the one hand, there were those intellectuals and politicians who opted for a social reconstruction by way of reversion to Seriat (Islamic law), there were those who staunchly supported the idea of Westernization, on the other. In addition to these two groups, there were others who longed for the romantic ideal of the pre-Islamic Turkic unity. Ziya Gokalp was influenced by all of these trends. Yet, he envisaged a middle road in the tradition of Namik Kemal: `that only the material civilization of Europe should be taken and not its non-material aspects'.(21) Yet, contrary to Namik Kemal's thought, Ziya Gokalp did not think that the individual and his reason could be a criteria for social reconstruction. Ziya Gokalp rather signified a shift from Tanzimat rationalism inspired by the eighteenth century thinkers of the European Enlightenment to the nineteenth century Romantic thought in the tradition of the German philosophers by accepting the transcendental reality of society identified with the nation instead of individual reason. Berkes sums up Ziya Gokalp's convictions in the following manner: `As the ultimate reality of contemporary society is the nation, and as national ideals are ultimate forces orienting the behavior of the individuals, so the most urgent task for the Turks consisted of awakening as a nation in order to adapt themselves to the conditions of contemporary civilization'.(22)

Source:

Ayse Kadioglu, "The Paradox of Turkish Nationalism and the Construction of Official Identity," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 32, no. 2 (April 1996)

21.1% National Inbreeding/Consanguinity Rate in Turkey

Due to Islamic strictures and prohibitions against males and females inter-mingling with their unmarried peers of the opposite sex, Mahometan Turks have a high rate of inbreeding, despite the ruses of Kemalist modernists. When family forbids socialization with peers of the opposite sex or makes it difficult, the young have to narrow their focus amongst their related cousins and other relatives that they are allowed to socialize with and inevitably develop feelings there or have a family member notice "how well" they get along together, so why not arrange a marriage.

Ann Hum Genet. 1994 Oct;58(Pt 4):321-9.

Pubmed.gov: Consanguineous marriage in Turkey and its impact on fertility and mortality.

Tunçbílek E, Koc I.

Source

Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies, Ankara, Turkey.

Turkey has a high rate of consanguineous marriage (21.1%), indicating strong preference for this traditional form of marital union. Social and cultural factors are especially important in marriages between first and second cousins. Fertility is high, the closed birth interval is long, and the sterility rate is low among these couples. Post-neonatal, infant and under-5 mortalities are high in first cousin unions by comparison with non-consanguineous marriages. According to the results of the study, first cousin marriage is a significant determinant underlying the high total fertility and infant mortality rates in Turkey.

Sly Turks of the Kemalist variety will blame this high rate of inbreeding on Kurds, but even the Turks of Western Turkey or "white Turks", have a high rate of consanguinity:

Annals of Human Biology: SHORT REPORT Consanguineous marriages in Denizli, Turkey

1999, Vol. 26, No. 5 , Pages 489-491 (doi:10.1080/030144699282598)

M. TURE, B. TUGRUL, N. MERCAN, H. TURE, B. AKDAG

For the study 1000 families were interviewed during 1996 in the city of Denizli, which is situated in Western Anatolia and has a population of 79 211 families. The overall rate of consanguinity was 11.7% ... The principal type of consanguineous marriage recorded was between first cousins, which accounted for 49.6% of all unions. For both sexes, a significant negative association was observed between consanguinity and mean age at marriage and level of education.

But the rate is higher in Eastern Turkey:

The frequency of consanguineous marriage in eastern Turkey.

Akbayram S, Sari N, Akgün C, Doğan M, Tuncer O, Caksen H, Oner AF 

Department of Pediatrics, Yüzüncü Yil University Faculty of Medicine, Van, Turkey.

Genetic Counseling (Geneva, Switzerland) [2009, 20(3):207-214]

...

METHODS: This study was performed in Van region, Eastern Turkey, between September 2005 and April 2006. A total of 650 families from 24 districts chosen in accordance with the number of inhabitants were included in this study. First cousin marriages were accepted as a first degree CMs, sesquialter and second cousin marriages as second degree and marriages between distant relatives were accepted as a third degree CM. ...

RESULTS: Of all families, 224 (34.4%) had CM, and 168 (75%) had first-degree consanguinity. A lower CM rate was found in mothers who graduated from secondary school or upgrading (p < 0.01). However, no relationship was found between CM and fathers' education level. While a low CM rate was found in families who had two or less children (p < 0.01), high rate was observed in families who had five or more children. In addition, a high rate of miscarriage, stillbirth and mental-motor retardation was found in families with CM (p < 0.05). The rate of child mortality between the aged 0-2 years was found to be higher in families with CM (p < 0.01). The higher CM rate was observed in families who married due to pressure or insistence of their families than married voluntarily (p < 0.05).

...

According to another study, even on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, inbreeding is increasing amongst the rural populace, not decreasing.

Turkish Gendarmerie leaked documents: Al-Nusra, not Assad behind Reyhanli bombing

Redhack: Turkish Intelligence Services was aware of [the] bombs [that] exploded in Reyhanli

Gendarmerie (Rural Police) Intelligence Department documents obtained by Redhack reveals that Turkish State knew about the vehicles packed with explosives that was detonated in Reyhanli/Hatay, which resulted in 51 deaths (unofficial reports confirm more than 100 dead).

Documents outline the vehicle details including plate numbers of three cars and that they were prepared by Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front in Syria on 23rd April 2013. It also gives information about Turkey registered vehicles packed with explosives, small and delicate devices that was send to Syria from Turkey. 

We now know why the government censored the media reporting on the explosions took place on 11th May 2013. The documents indicate that the explosion was expected and known in advance. However it was disregarded. Subsequently after the explosion the blame is systematically targeted to be directed at the Alewites[Alawites] and left- wing organisations with malicious efforts to collapse the Syrian state.  ... Although the authorities and the Military received intelligence that an explosion was plotted in Reyhanli they failed to act to prevent this attack.

...

Did PM Erdogan knew it was planted by Al-Nusra before he met Obama to plan a possible war with Syria? 

...

Original documents marked as “Classified” and translations;

...

1. Kahraman Maras and Hatay Gendarmerie were provided with intelligence on 17.05.2013 that supplies were to be delivered via a vehicle with the registration of 63 E 3436 to Syria to support a group recognised as Al-Qaida militants. It was known that this group was in preparation to construct explosives. Detailed information in connection to the preparation of explosives was informed specifically detailed in documents received.

2. Technical/sensitive sources investigation: A Lancer make dark colour vehicle loaded with bombs, registration 022 506 (believed to be Syrian registration plate) and KIA Rio make, registration: 667512 (Damascus) Silver colour vehicle: These two vehicles and a black Saab, of which the registration is unknown but believed to be a Damascus registered vehicle, were informed to be loaded with bombs, and on standby in the town of Idlip Syria. Further across the Turkish border intelligence was received,that a vehicle was known to be loaded with explosives , small and sensitive devices. Gendarmeries have been informed that Syrian security forces were searching for those vehicles. Intelligence received has suggested that the vehicles at question were in preparations of an attack targeting Syria. On 25.04.2013 intelligence was again received specifying that, in the town of Rakka, Syria, active militants of El Nusra were known to load and assemble bombs in three vehicles on 23.04.2013. Vehicles were identified as a Mazda 323, Kia Rio and the third was unidentified. These vehicles were prepared to be part of an attack in our country.

...

The bombings at question are believed to be in parallel connection with these identified vehicles. In analysing the intelligence and information received it is known that the explosions have been ongoing in our borders and is known to effect our country. 

In a follow up Redhack posted that the gendarmerie officer who allegedly leaked those documents to them has been taken into custody, giving official credence to these leaked materials. Of course he was arrested since leaking those documents showing that the AKP's terrorist Al-qaeda ally, Al Nusra, was the likely culprit according to their own intelligence services undermines the Neo-Ottoman ambitions to set up a quisling fundamentalist Sunni state in Syria with the aid of such terrorists against Assad who is publicly blamed for the blast by the fascist-Islamic tribe ruling in Ankara.

In a past post on this blog, Orhan Kemal Cengiz, pointed out after the revelation of the Turkish state's involvement in Greek forest fires, that the Turkish state was a "bandit state":
Turkey, the bandit state

The only friend of a Turk: other Turkish Mahometans

A famous saying of the chauvinist Turkish nation is: "The only friend of a Turk is another Turk."[1] However since the fake Turkish nationalism/secularism is just a re-adaption and even greater narrowing of Islamic allegiance from a wider Islamic ummah to an even smaller Turkish national ummah, one finds that is just a nationalist re-adaptation of the following Surah:

Chapter 3 Surah 118

PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.[2]

Turkist theorist Ziya Gökalp elevated the elevated the national to a religious level, which explains their ultra-nationalist penchant as a nation:

Gokalp gave "the nation" an important mystical component. In his work, "he transferred to the nation the divine qualities he had found in society, replacing the belief in God with the belief in the nation: and so nationalism became a religion."[43] The national is deified, thus expanding Durkheim's idea that "society can do as it pleases." So, if a nation perceives itself in danger, it feels no moral responsibility in its response to that danger. The Unionist "scientific approach" gained a "sacred" character through Gokalp's theories.[3]

As Ali Osman Egilmez, observed in a previous posting on this blog, the Turks are modernist, seeking a modus-vivendi between Islam and the West, and not modern. Thus the Turkish saying admonishing Turks to take only as friends other Turks, is just a re-adaption and further narrowing of a Surah.

[1.] Wikileaks Cable: 06ANKARA6118, 26 Oct 2006
[2.] The University of Leeds: Qurany Tool: Al-Emran Verse No:118
[3.] Heyd, Uriel. Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp. p. 57.
cited in: Akcam, Taner. A shameful act : the Armenian genocide and the question of Turkish responsibility. (Metropolitan Books; 2006) pp. 88-9.

Higher youth unemployment even than crisis racked PIIGS, during alleged AKP boom

On April 27th 2013, the Economist published the following article: Generation jobless. One cannot help but notice the following graph which shows that the Turkish youth have even bleaker prospects than the worst crisis hit members of the Eurozone like Greece or Spain:

NEET: Not in Education, Employment or Training

Yet what we hear mostly in the Turkish and global media is about the alleged success of the Turkish AKP in the economic field and that on the contrary the sky is falling on the PIIGS.

Related post:
Cracks in AKP's El Dorado economy, no gold

Turks: the most jingoist, chauvinist and fanboy nation in the world according to Reputation Institute

Turks are a lunatic ultra-nationalist people indocrinated to be great chauvinists from cradle to grave, so the findings of this research are of little surprise, but unfortunately the rest of the world is ignorant about the hubris of the "North Koreans of the Mideast".

CNN Travel: Which country has the best reputation?

The Reputation Institute reveals the countries with the most cred, as well as the most narcissistic

By Hiufu Wong 21 September, 2012

...

The survey, titled "2012 Country RepTrak," asked 36,000 consumers in the world’s G8 -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- to rate the reputation of 50 countries worldwide.

...

The Country RepTrak measured perceptions of countries based on 16 characteristics in three categories: advanced economy, appealing environment and effective government.

...

In addition to the global score, the institution researched which countries love themselves the most -- the self-image score.

...

Turkey has the highest gap between global score (44.37) and self-image score (75.41), closely followed by China.

...

Turkish sexual pervert rapes duck

This is what happens due to Islamic prohibitions against male and female sexuality, perversion ensues to take up the void vacated by healthier sexual attitudes.

Hurriyet: Man rapes duck in Turkish village

September/14/2012

A man was detained in Bursa province in Turkey’s Marmara region for allegedly raping a duck, daily Habertürk reported.

...

The man’s father-in-law said he found "feathers and blood" in a bed with the duck.

The duck was "unable to walk," according to the father-in-law. The man’s mother-in-law told daily Habertürk she later discovered the man’s bloody shirt by a tree the next morning.

The 50 year-old suspect denied all accusations, calling them all "slander."

The duck was found to have suffered deformation and damage to its intestines and underwent several operations. It is now reportedly in good condition and remains in a vetrenarian’s care. 

Related blog posts on the sexual deviancy of Turks:
Turkish males misbehave amongst scantily clad female beach-goers
Turkish sexual morals and prostitution
Hollow secularism: Turkish males cannot share hotel room with non married female
Rape scandal in Turkish army stationed in their sandjak in occupied Cyprus

Rape scandal in Turkish army stationed in their sandjak in occupied Cyprus

Those who follow the Turkish military, should know that it is really a criminal organization poses as an Armed Forces.

LGC News: Turkish army in rape scandal

29 March 2013 

...

Staff Major Oktay, remained under arrest while the charges which related to incidents that occurred five years ago were being investigated. He was serving in the 28th Cyprus mechanised Infantry Division and used to order soldiers and non-commissioned officers to his room where he would indulge in massaging them. He then went further with the unsuspecting soldiers.

If any soldiers protested, he would tell them, “I am your commander, I order you. Otherwise I will finish you”. When the soldiers accepted his orders, he would have sex with them.

The soldiers involved kept these activities secret out of shame and fear of their commander. ...

At the prompting of Captain Suleyman, four of the soldiers who had been raped eventually filed a complaint with the military prosecutor. Six more soldiers also complained, saying that they had been deeply scarred psychologically, by their experiences.

... Staff Major Oktay was charged with sexual harassment and sexual assault.

...

However, Staff Major Oktay denied all the charges against him and instead said that he was the victim of a conspiracy. At the end of the trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to 2 years and 3 months imprisonment. He was also discharged from the army.

There was a twist to this story in that the military prosecutor, unhappy with the lenient sentence given, successfully petitioned for a re-trial.

...

Related blog posts on the sexual deviancy of Turks:
Turkish males misbehave amongst scantily clad female beach-goers
Turkish sexual morals and prostitution
Hollow secularism: Turkish males cannot share hotel room with non married female

Hollow secularism: Turkish males cannot share hotel room with non married female

Turks and their Western supporters like to harp greatly on the fact that Turkey is the only allegedly secular state in the Islamic world. However, the following by Ali Osman Egilmez, on his now defunct blog Twiceastranger.com, shows how hollow the Turkish conception of secularism is, as only an conscientious insider could describe(however most Turks lack his honesty and self-reflection):

... Turkey is a western oriented secular country that is in some practices, just a bullshit. There can be some secularist (be careful not secular, secularist) or westernist (be careful again not western but westernist) around but they are not the majority. Turkey is a conservative country. ...

... 

... In the mean time I wanted to take my beloved, a part of my soul, my girlfriend to show my country my beautiful my lovely bastard Istanbul to her. In the mean time I was afraid to show the ugly face that I wanted to forget all these times. I was afraid if she encounters with the unsuppressed sexual hunger and the obvious examples of it in the streets. (I believe the one of the reason of dis-ingenuousness of conservative stand of Turkish society is the unsatisfied sexuality of the men of the society which led them to be more wild in every manner of social life-from politics like being more nationalist to the obvious physical, verbal or just staring attacks to foreign or local girls in the streets, squares, or in police stations, etc. and of course as a result having a schizophrenic women race around calling themselves as the most western and modern, and trying to proof her western and modern character with drinking raki with men, having sex with men but until a point of virginity borders... [See the related post on this blog: Turk-Islamic sexual hypocrisy leads to anal fixation.] This is the girl who is modernist not modern. I am not talking about the conservative family girls at all)

... I couldn't a place to stay in my friends houses because of different reasons and started to search for hotels and hostels which would be reasonable for our student budgets. I couldnt find any. Not because of the full rooms but because of my passport. They all told me that I cannot stay in the same room with my girlfriend if I dont have marriage papers. Or I should show an other country passport which means as Turkish citizen, I cannot share a room with a woman in the same room. Or our surnames will be the same which means we should be sister and brother but I couldnt take myself to say to the reception after all these rules that 'If we would stay in Serbia little bit more we would all have the same surname since we Turks as you described are so dangerous for the women all around the world' he said ‘I didn’t say we Turks are dangerous’ then I replied to this vicious circle discussion ‘But you implied!’. Anyway, that is the reason pushed me to write all these things here. I made a very confused composition in the writing but the reader who is familiar with the topic will catch the main theme.

Shortly, I am going to Istanbul alone and thinking how to explain to my girlfriend this situation without creating a bad image of my country that I all the time tried to break the prejudices about her in the case of conservative, Islamist, eastern outlook. ...

Further sources that state that Turkish citizens cannot rent hotel rooms as couples when unmarried:  
http://merhabaforums.com/tourism-travel-sightseeing-f44/hotel-for-111-married-mixed-couples-t3911.html

 http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3167



Related blog posts:
Turkish males misbehave amongst scantily clad female beach-goers
Turkish sexual morals and prostitution

AKP: Take Turkish children back from gavurs and gays

The Islamic, chauvinist AKP Regime has began a campaign to retrieve Turkish colonist children in Europe from gavur(infidel) foster couples, starting with gay couples. They are particularly focusing on the case of 9 year old Yunus taken from the Azeroğlu family in the Netherlands after claims of abuse by his family. Ayhan Sefer Üstün, head of the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Commission, which was instructed to conduct research on the matter stated: "the child has been given to a foreign culture, to a lesbian family. Even if a child is taken from the family for the right reasons, he or she should be placed with a family closer to his or her culture.”[1]

Furthering, this line of Islamic bigotry, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ has stated that Turkey was waging a massive campaign, and mobilizing diplomatic effort for the 4,000 Turkish children in Europe given to Christian families. He said that European authorities do not respect either the sensitivities or values held by Turks and stated: "Turkish families do not want to give their children to gay and lesbian couples."[2] However, Aygul Özkan, Germany’s first female minister of Turkish origin, currently a minister for social affairs in Saxony since 2010 commented: “There are no Turkish foster families in Germany, and therefore the children of poor Turkish families who cannot afford to raise their children are adopted by families of other nationalities. There should be Turkish foster families instead of German ones."[3]

Thus the issue cannot be that Europeans infidels and sometimes gay ones are adopting Turkish colonist children, that apparently local Turks won't adopt anyway. The issue has to with Turkish identity: Islam and the concept of Turkishness. According to article 301 of the Turkish penal code: 

1. Public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.

...

3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.[4]

If you notice to keep the Turkish-Islamic identity or Turkishness intact for Turks abroad, it merits a greater judicial threat, since they cannot enjoy the oppressive Turkish bandit state threatening them daily! One Turkish, Gulenist religious authority is very unequivocal:

According to Imam al-Ghazzali, Islam’s legal principles seek to protect and secure five basic values in human life, namely, religion, life, intellect, personal property, and reproduction, and forbid acts that will nullify them. When we consider the Divinely established prohibitions (e.g., unbelief, hypocrisy, associating partners with God, apostasy, killing a person, taking intoxicants and drugs, usurpation, theft, adultery, fornication, and homosexuality), we can deduce that they have been given to protect and secure those values. ... 

Sexual Perversion: A Major Sin. Islam, while regulating one’s sexual drive, has prohibited illicit sexual relations and all ways that lead to them, as well as homosexuality. Homosexuality is considered a reversal of the natural order, a corruption of male sexuality, and a violation of the rights of women. The spread of this unnatural practice disrupts a society’s natural life. It also makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, thereby depriving them of decent taste, decent morals, and a decent manner of living. The Qur’anic account of Prophet Lut’s (Lot) people should be sufficient for us.[5]

At issue is that the AKP regime feels sacred values that uphold Turkish identity are being violated. One of the few Turkish colonists in Europe who actually fostered children, Nejla Buran, sums up the concern: “I think [children] are way happier if they are placed in Turkish families, who speak their language, cook meals like their mother does.”[6] This whole fiasco is because in the bigoted Turkish mind, the issue is not over who is a better parent than the abusive Turkish families, but who is a more Turkish parent. According to a poll by the Reputation Institute, Turks have the biggest gap between their self reported, self-image and their global score(what other parties think of their nation).[7]  Within their own sociology Turks associate Turkishness with goodness. A famous slogan of their eternal, fascist leader, Ataturk, that is oft repeated goes: "A Turk is equal to all the world."[8] 

The real loser in all this is likely Yunus. His lesbian foster family has gone into hiding over this row.[9] Do all the bigoted Turks in the AKP and their fans actually think the presence of Turkishness is more important than being free of abuse? Do they really believe that the anti-gay sentiments of illiberal Islam dating from the 7th Century AD are more apt than the investigations and determinations of the Dutch child social services? 

[1.] Hurriyet: Turkey attempts to retrieve child from foreign gay couple. February 18, 2013.
[2.] Zaman: Turkey working to bring Turkish children out of European foster care. February 18, 2013.
[3.] Zaman: German minister: Number of Turkish foster families should increase in Germany. February 26, 2013
[4.] Amnesty International: Turkey: Article 301: How the law on “denigrating Turkishness” is an
insult to free expression(PDF). p. 1. 

[5.] Büyükçelebi, İsmail. trans. Ali Ünal. Living In The Shade of Islam. (Fountain, 2003) p. 270, 272. (Which is digitized online here.)

[6.] Russiatoday: Turkey wants Turk-born kids brought up in native culture. February 27, 2013.

[7.] CNN Travel: Which country has the best reputation? Sept. 21, 2012. 

[8.] Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture: Ataturk Declares. 

[9.] Dutchnews: Lesbian couple go into hiding with Turkish foster child. March 15, 2013.

Turkish lies: massacre on Cyprus in the 50's, no 60's

According to the current official Turkish narrative, the Cyprus conflict was started during the 1960's by the belligerence of Greek Cypriots. A summation of their current position(from their official website):

Turkish Republic of Cyprus: Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

- Contrary to common deception, the Cyprus problem did not start in 1974, but in December 1963, following the destruction of the 1960 Partnership Republic of Cyprus by the Greek Cypriot partner through force of arms. ...

- Between 1963 and 1974, Turkish Cypriots outlived the agonies and losses of the Greek Cypriot armed attacks, were confined to small enclaves ... In fact, the inhuman living conditions forced upon the Turkish Cypriot population were described as a “veritable siege” by the Secretary-General in his report of 10 September 1964 (S/5950) to the Security Council. 

However, Fazıl Küçük, a Turkish Cypriot politician and journalist at the time who would go on to become the Turkish Cypriot Vice-President of the Republic of Cyprus, actually made the initial claim in 1955 that the Greeks of Cyprus would massacre Turks in Cyprus on August 28th of that year. So contrary to the deceptions of the Turkish narrative, the Turkish Cypriot side started the conflict and drew the first blood against Greeks, when one of the foremost leaders of their community created the pretext for the pogrom against the Greeks(and other gavur) of Istanbul. One can take that they like to conveniently forget that they initially made the claim of attacks and massacres against Turkish Cypriots a whole decade earlier as an admission of their sloppy lies. Here the eminent Greek-American historian, Speros Vryonis, belies their claims of virgin and innocent Turkish Cypriots:

The organization, legal incorporation, and sub rosa encouragement by Menderes and his colleagues of the Kıbrıs Türktür Cemiyeti[Cyprus is Turkish Association] in late August to early September of 1954 is rightly considered by many to mark a significant institutionalization of anti-Greek activities by the Turkish government and the second phase of the formation and mobilization of public opinion on Cyprus. It is at this point that the ktc becomes a new factor in Turkish politics. At the concluding session of the organizations first general meeting, the governing board proceeded to an open and systematic confrontation with Istanbul's Greek minority. The members of the new society invited Alexandros Chatzopoulos to join its governing council. It demanded that the patriarch admonish all Orthodox hierarchs to refrain from involvement in the politics of Cyprus. It further demanded that all the organizations of the Greek community in Istanbul issue printed statements that they took the side of Turkey in the Cyprus issue.[137] With these demands, the government, through the ktc, began to tighten the two separate jaws of a political and ethnic vise that now increasingly threatened to crush the Greek minority. On the one hand was the political friction between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, while, on the other, was the tradition of hatred, suspicion, and jealousy that many Turks—and many members of the Turkish government—inherited and harbored in their respective political outlooks.

Many of these attitudes were in evidence in the formal manifesto issued on October 17, 1954, at the annual meeting of the Organization for the Welfare of the Refugees from Western Thrace: "Since the Turks of Western [i.e., Greek] Thrace have remained as non-exchangeables [in Western Thrace] by virtue of the Treaty of Lausanne, as counterparts of the Greeks of Istanbul, they must be found to be in the same situation from every point of view [stress added] as the Greeks of Istanbul. This being the case, it is obligatory that equality shall be secured, and that the Turks of Western Thrace be raised to the level of the Greeks of Istanbul, or that the Greeks of Istanbul come down to the level of the Turks of Western Thrace."[138] The organizations statement, including the explicit threat to bring "the Greeks of Istanbul... down to the level of the Turks of Western Thrace," was repeated and expanded by the Turkish press. The latter insisted that though the Greeks of Istanbul had been allowed to prosper so that they remained in the city, the Turks of Western Thrace had become so poor that they had to abandon the region and come to Turkey. Thus, the Turkish press was led to a different conclusion from that in the statement above, namely, that the Greeks should be removed from Istanbul. Unfortunately, both the Organization for the Welfare of the Refugees from Western Thrace and the Turkish press had very selective memories. They chose to ignore the three decades of incessant and growing discrimination against Istanbul's Greek community, which had been restricted in the trades and professions it could exercise—indeed, had been financially destroyed through the wartime measures that had plundered Greek businesses, estates, and wealth—and had its men conscripted into the harsh labor battalions of Asia Minor, in which many perished.'

On August 30, 1954, the day of national celebration of the decisive victory of the Turkish over the Greek forces in Asia Minor in 1922, the National Federation of Turkish Students attacked the Greek stores of Istanbul that had failed to place Turkish flags outside their shops. After an oral admonition of displeasure with these actions, the vali of Istanbul let the matter pass, however.[139] In the event, despite the ups and downs in the continuing struggle between Britain and Greece in the United Nations over Cypriot self-determination, the intensity of demonstrations by students and regional organizations, and the stridency of the Turkish press, continued to increase. Throughout the winter of 1954-1955, this unrelenting pressure raised the temperature of Turkish internal political life and, in so doing, reduced the Greek minority of Istanbul to frightful despair.[140] From June 30, 1955, when Great Britain invited Greece and Turkey to a conference in London to propose its own settlement of the Cyprus issue, to the time that Turkey and Greece accepted the invitation (July 2 and 8, respectively), the Turkish press and various Turkish organizations pulled out all the stops in a frenetic effort to rouse Turkish popular feelings and therefore complete the general task that they had set for themselves since the latter half of 1954. The appointment of a new foreign minister, Zorlu, who had very different views from his predecessor regarding Cyprus, fit in with the general turn of events.

Indeed, Zorlu was crucial in the further evolution of the events that led to the London conference, to its failure, and to the pogroms timing. After his appointment, on July 27, 1955, as acting foreign minister and Turkey's representative to the London conference, he established a small committee of experts to study the Cyprus problem. The committee included Nuri Birgi (general secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs), who composed Turkey's White Book on Cyprus; Rüştü Erdelhun (second-in-command of the Turkish general staff); Settar İksel (Turkish ambassador to Athens); Orhan Eralp (general director of the ministry of foreign affairs); and Mahmut Dikerdem.[141]

Meanwhile, the press stepped up the frequency and intensity of its attacks on the Greek community, and the various organizations intensified their political activity in the same general direction.[142] In June, Türk Sesi, a newspaper in which the government often aired its views, proposed amending the treaty of Lausanne (1923) so that the Greek etablis in Istanbul, whose status was regulated by the treaty, could be expelled from Turkey.[143] In general, the subject of removing the patriarchate from Turkey, and a broad attack on the institution, had already become a set piece for the better part of a year and now began to appear in profusion.

This was to continue into August 1955, as the tripartite conference loomed on the horizon. With Zorlu's appointment, a new and more aggressive leadership infused Turkish policies toward Cyprus, Greece, and Great Britain with a vigorous and efficacious spirit.[144] In this penultimate and intense stage of "manufacturing consent," the government, acting discreetly through the student and regional organizations, fully applied the tactics of disseminating false news and manufacturing rumors so as to raise to the level of hysteria the pitch of public fervor and anger against Istanbul's Greek minority.[145]

A critical factor in this campaign of disinformation was the generation and diffusion of the false rumor, essentially manufactured by Fazıl Küçük, that the Greek Cypriots planned to massacre the Turkish Cypriots on August 28, 1955. Given the transformation of the Greeks of Istanbul into a helpless and hostage community, the rumor of a purported Greek plan (in fact, false) to massacre the Turkish minority of Cyprus required no daring conceptual leap on the part of belligerent Turks to consider the Greeks of their (mutual) city as future targets to be destroyed. Early on in its genesis, this rumor was exploited by Hikmet Bil, who issued a secret circular to the ktc's branch offices on August 16. Here, one can do no better than to quote from the transcript of the court-martial proceedings in February 1956 against him and other members of the society:

While Kamil Onal was making these trips and confusing opinion by boastings ignominious to his own country, Hikmet Bil took upon himself to send an urgent and secret circular directive to the organizations. In this circular, dated August 16, 1955, Hikmet Bil refers to a letter dated August 13, 1955, sent by the Cyprus is Turkish Party President General [sic] Dr. Fazıl Küçük to the central headquarters [of the society] in which the latter said that particularly recently the Island [i.e., Cypriot] Greeks had become intolerable and unfortunately the situation is becoming worse. If one can believe the news being spread around Nicosia, they [the Greek Cypriots] are getting ready for a general massacre [of the Turkish Cypriots] in the near future.

Dr. Fazıl Küçük added the following sentence in this letter:

My request of you is that as soon as possible you inform all branches of this situation and that we get them to take action. It seems to me that meetings in the mother country would be very useful. Because these [Cypriot Greeks] will hold a general meeting August 28. Either on that day or after conclusion of the Tripartite Conference they will want to attack us. As is known, they are armed and we have nothing.

Bil added his own order to the society's many branches, attaching it to the end of Küçük's message: "As might be suitable, with whatever additional observations that the headquarters wishes to make, please notify all organizations that our branches should choose whatever action they see fit, particularly with the view that London and Athens should be intimidated by the manly voices arising in the mother country."[146] It is of no little interest to observe at this point the enormity of the transmogrification of Küçük's letter at Bil's hands, his transformation of a general fear of an "attack" on Turkish Cypriots into a specific plan, and finally the carte blanche to respond given to the ktc's branches, without prior approval of the society's governing board but undoubtedly with covert approval from on high (as we shall see later). One of the military tribunals set up by General Aknoz that later charged Bil accused him of incitement to violence, as argued below by Major General Namık Arguç:

This circular that gives the branches a complete freedom in the matter of actions to be taken in the mother country as a counter to the activity of the Greeks who had announced they were preparing for a massacre will go down in our political history as a masterpiece of presumption on the part of the Cyprus Is Turkish Society President General who took upon himself the defense of the Cyprus problem. Whereas in a matter this important it would not be a question for the central executive committee or even a congress, nor a general assembly. First the line the government would follow in such a case should be established to the last detail and then a circular might be sent to branches. Noting good intentions and common sense of the executive committee of the branches, it was necessary that the President take into consideration that they could fall into error or that each branch would consider the question from a different angle and that therefore a complication would arise. Later, during the explanation of the roles played by the Kadıköy and Sarıyer branch presidents Serafim Sağlamel and Osman Tan, it will become clear how this very urgent and secret circular was understood and particularly how the directive regarding the "intimidation from the manly voice" was applied.

Bil was charged—along with other members of the ktc, and with officials and members of dp branch offices—with a variety of offenses, including the ktc circular, burning Greek newspapers, and drafting a ktc statement on the day of the pogrom. His colleague, Kamil Önal, was accused of making various statements to the press, burning Greek newspapers, a demonstration in Taksim, and destroying evidence.[147] (It should be added, in regard to these military tribunals functioning under the martial-law regime legislated on September 12, 1955, that they were clearly kangaroo courts. Hikmet Bil and his co-defendants were used as scapegoats by Menderes to deflect guilt from himself and his government. Still, the ktc did commit the acts of violence during the pogrom of which its leaders were accused. While Menderes bore the moral responsibility for the crime, his confederates were the actual perpetrators.)

Bil's secret circular to the ktc's branches helped considerably to inflame Turkish public opinion, but also to provoke acts of violence against the Greek minority, not only during the riots but, as we shall see, in the sporadic violence against Greeks that broke out even before the pogrom. Furthermore, his circular and its effects were tied to the violence of the local dp[Democratic Party] branch officers who were also officers of the ktc's local branches. Finally, Bil transformed the general anxiety of a segment of Turkish Cypriots—and the general, non-specific information passed on to him by Fazıl Küçük and Faiz Kaymak—into a definitive, planned, general massacre of Turkish Cypriots by their Greek neighbors on August 28. There is no evidence whatsoever that such a massacre was ever planned, and it was certainly never attempted either by eoka[National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters] or the Greek Cypriot leaders at the time. Nevertheless, through the circular and in an article that was published in Hürriyet on August 18, Bil gave the rumor of the massacre its final form, which, as such, was passed off to the Turkish people as a whole. Only two days after receiving the copy of Küçük's letter, he wrote in his newspaper that: "One can say today that the Greeks of Cyprus are fully armed. As for the Turks, they do not have weapons even for display. In this manner there has arisen today a paradoxical situation in Cyprus. According to special information that has been transmitted to us from Cyprus, the Greeks of the island will organize a major demonstration on the twenty-eighth of the present month, and they will attack the Turks. From all this, the Greeks have also given a name to this day: They have named it "The day of the general massacre'. ..."[148] Accordingly, from August 18, by virtue of both the circular and the article in Hürriyet, the rumor of the massacre became an established "fact," and was now adopted by individuals and groups devoted to creating an atmosphere of hysterical chauvinism and passionate hatred of the Greek minority.

On the day Bil's article appeared, the ktc's Bandırma branch telephoned the offices of the newspaper Tercüman, which published the branch's decision to send 1,000 ktc members to defend Turkish Cypriots, all to go before August 28. One day later, on August 19, Hürriyet published the declaration of Hüsamettin Canöztürk (general director of the National Federation of Turkish Students) and of the president of the Union of Turkish Students, according to which, "The Greeks cannot proceed to general massacre in Cyprus because they would reflect carefully on the consequences of such an act."[149] On the twentieth of the same month, the journalist Doğan Can published an interview with Bil in Yeni Sabah in which the Greek minority of Istanbul was depicted as hostages who would have to pay for the purported massacre of Turkish Cypriots, specifically on August 28 or 30: "I asked the General President of the organization ktc to inform me as to what his own opinion is in regard to the decision which the Greeks of Cyprus have taken in connection with the twenty-eighth of August, in which they have announced that that day will be the day of the general massacre of the Turks. To this question, Hikmet Bil gave me the following answer: 'The answer to such a question is the following: In Istanbul, there are many Greeks.'"[150] On August 20, Tercüman published a second news item from Bandırma, according to which Menderes himself had replied to the local ktc office's offer to send 1,000 volunteers to defend Turkish Cypriots: "I esteem your patriotic sentiments. At the same time that I express to you my respect, please remain certain that the Government is ever alert and that it shall not hesitate to take the required measures."[151] The following day, Yeni Sabah published a second statement by Faiz Kaymak: "The innocent and unarmed Turks fear that at any moment they will be massacred by the terrorists. We desire that Turkey provide every aid and that it ensure the lives and the property of the Turks of Cyprus."[152]

The Turkish government, aware of the sources of this rumor-become-"fact," did nothing to squelch it. On the contrary, the government validated it by giving it credence and, ultimately, used it to justify its new Cyprus policy. Given the fact that Menderes's liaison with the ktc was his close confidant, Ahmet Emin Yalman (who was on the ktc's governing board); that Bil and his organization had been handpicked by Menderes himself as the man and group to arouse Turkish national passions; and that, finally, the organization itself was financed by the government, it is clear that Menderes knew well what the organization was about in spreading such rumors, first covertly, and then openly through the Turkish press. Finally, such a rumor-become-fact would please both Eden and Macmillan at the London conference, during which time the pogrom had been calculated to erupt.[153]

On August 24, Prime Minister Menderes held a banquet at the Liman Lokantası (Harbor Restaurant) in honor of Foreign Minister Zorlu and of the members of his mission who were to depart for London to represent Turkey at the tripartite conference. Among the guests were various other ministers, members of parliament, businessmen, and newspaper editors.[154] Menderes would seize the occasion to make a strong public statement on Turkeys new policy on Cyprus. The process of transforming his previous, more circumspect policy vis-a-vis Greek claims in Cyprus and the issue of self-determination had ended as a result of the Turkish response to the British prodding of the preceding year. The intensified encouragement and support, often covert, of student and political organizations now gave way to a trumpeting of Turkeys overriding interest in Cyprus because of the former's "historical rights" in the matter and because the Turkish minority was supposedly threatened by massacre. The timing was excellent, as the new Turkish team of foreign-ministry specialists and officials were preparing for the trip to the London conference after having prepared and published the White Book that set forth Turkey's claims, indeed demands, which not only startled the Greek side, but made the British apprehensive at the Pandora's Box-like results that they had provoked, with a number of Foreign Office staff unsure as to what they had unleashed exactly. The Greek scholar, Neokles Sarres, has described the Turkish appearance at the conference as the "Turkish Premiere." The time and place were appropriate for Menderes's speech to the assembled banqueters. The speech formally announced Turkey's new policy and outlined the demands to be made in London. It also included the timeworn cliches about his opposition to Cypriot self-determination, the plight of Turks in Greek Thrace, the war between Greeks and Turks in Asia Minor, the old (and long-settled) "Cretan Question," and related subjects of random relevance. He gave his sharpest attention and force to Cyprus, however, still building on Bil's fabrications:

I wish to observe that our recently published diplomatic note to the British Government does not constitute the full and complete content of the actual importance and significance of this diplomatic note. In this diplomatic note, we expressed the malaise which we feel over the danger to which our fellow Turks in Cyprus are exposed.

The stance that the terrorists have taken on the question of Cyprus, and all that which is being said in regard to our subject, have plunged us into justified uneasiness. This malaise refers in part certainly also to the future. Among all these things, the major source of our malaise is constituted by all those things that are reported, somber events that will unfold in Cyprus from one day to another. We do not wish to consider these things certain, nor are we able to accept that it is possible that the matter may take such a turn. Nevertheless, those men announce uninterruptedly, with a terrorist air, that August 28 shall be a day of general massacre of our fellow Turks in Cyprus. We are certain that the British Government, based upon its legal rights, shall carry out its obligations thoroughly. It is said that the excitation of the Greek population of the island...has reached a peak. Consequently, a sudden undertaking, a criminal initiative devoid of all conscience, could provoke results of which the consequences would be inescapable and incurable. ... The local officials, it is possible, will be unprepared for this. And our population there will probably be found to be unarmed and unable to move against a majority which is extremely excited and armed. This does not mean, however, that these people, I mean the Turks, will remain, not even for a moment, undefended.[155]

This speech combined many of the weapons of political complaint from the traditional Turkish armory of diplomatic war on Greece. Nevertheless, it was based primarily on the fabricated Greek Cypriot plan to massacre Turkish Cypriots, combined with a new diplomatic offensive to wrest the previously existing advantage from the Greek side and transfer it to the Turkish side. This offensive would ultimately lead to the split of the Demokrat Parti, the pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, the destruction of the Greek community of Istanbul, and the poisoning of all hopes for some kind of rational and peaceful accommodation of two neighbors fated to live side by side. For Turkey and its people, the speech was the opening salvo in the dictatorialization of Menderes's government; it also led to the decades-long presence and interference of the military caste in Turkish society, politics, culture, education, and the economy that was inaugurated by the overthrow of Menderes's government by the military coup of May 27, 1960. For Menderes was to be destroyed in the end by his very success in subverting the structure of democratic government through the party structure of the Demokrat Parti, which, at the same time, was increasingly subjected to his personal authority.

137. Theodoropoulos, Semeioma, p. 3; Armaoğlu, Kıbrıs meselesi, p. 124; Robert Holland, Britain and the revolt of Cyprus, 1954-1959, Oxford, 1998, passim, especially Chapter 3, pp. 55-82; and Francois Crouzer, Le conflit de Chypre, 1946-1959, Brussels, 1973, Volume II, pp. 688-690.

138. Chrestides, Ekthesis, pp. 120-121.

Theodoropoulos, Semeioma, p. 3. See note 131 above.

141. For a detailed account, see Sarres, E alle pleura, Volume II Part I, pp. 51-71; Dikerdem, Ortadoğuda devrim, pp. 121-159, especially p. 125. Sarres, pp. 81-83, gives a detailed exposition of the new Turkish position on Cyprus as presented in London and in the Turkish White Book. Also, Armaoğlu, Kıbrıs meselesi, pp. 27-28; Burçak, Yassıada ve öncesi, pp. 124-125, like many other observers who wanted a more aggressive Turkish policy on Cyprus, warmly welcomed the replacement of Köprülü with Zorlu as foreign minister, and his evaluation of the two men represents the thought of all those who wanted Cyprus for Turkey. Whether Zorlu's "abilities" served his country well in the end or not remains in question.

142. Palaiologos, Diagramma, pp. 20-22, gives a representative sampling of the specific issues and tone of the Turkish press; for other references, see footnote 137 above.

143. Theodoropoulos, Semeioma, pp. 4-5.

144. Such was the opinion also of Nüsret Kirişçioğlu, Yassıada Kumandanına cevap, p. 149: "Köprülü, a man with no clear idea, was an incompetent minister. ...We almost lost Cyprus because of him. Finally, the late Fatin Rüştü Zorlu was elected to the Assembly and we were saved. ...We were saved but the blessed Fatin Rüştü Zorlu was not able to save his neck from the hands of the clever Fuat Köprülü. ..."

145. Sarres, E alle pleura, Volume II, Part I, passim.

146. National Archives, Dispatch No. 306, American Consul General of Istanbul to the Department of State, February 20, 1956. The memorandum is discussed in Armaoğlu, Kıbrıs meselesi, pp. 127-130. Dosdoğru, 6/7 Eylül olayarı, p. 220, quotes the text from the third trial at Yassıada. It is interesting that Chrestides, Ekthesis, pp. 152-153, translates from the Turkish newspaper Tercüman, August 19, 1955, a message by Faiz Kaymak in Ankara stating that the Turks of Cyprus are being threatened with destruction and asking for assistance from Turkey.

147. National Archives, Dispatch No. 306, American Consul General of Istanbul to the Department of State, February 20, 1956.

148. Chrestides, Ekthesis, p. 153 149 Ibid., p. 154.

150. Ibid., p. 155.

151. Ibid., p. 155. 

152. Ibid.,p. 156.

153. Sarres, E aile pleura, Volume II, Part I, pp. 74-77, gives a brief survey of the virulence of the Turkish press.

154. Sarres, Ibid., has an informative account of the meeting as well as of the perception of the coming London gathering from the pen of a more junior member of the diplomatic mission, Mahmut Dikerdem, as presented in the latter's memoirs, Ortadoğuda devrim, pp. 121-159.

155. Chrestides, Ekthesis, pp. 157-158, where it is translated into Greek.

Source:

Vryonis, Speros. The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom Of September 6-7, 1955, And The Destruction Of The Greek Community Of Istanbul. Greekworks.com (New York, 2005). p. 80-88.