Showing posts with label chauvinism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chauvinism. Show all posts

Monday, May 29, 2017

Turkish Ultra-Nationalist Education Produces Soldier-Students

The Turkish anthropologist, Ayşe Gül Altınay, is a good source on the militarist, virulent, Turkish education system. If anyone has interacted with the typical Turk in real life or online, one will wonder where their renowned fanaticism comes from. Well she partly answers it in her works. 


Bianet: Turk-Soldier-Muslim: The Ideal Student

"The ideal student, according to the education system in Turkey, is the student who looks at the world with a nationalist mentality, who defines him or herself as 'a Turk' based on ethnicity, and who is a soldier-student, ready to fight."

Presenting a paper titled "Who is a good Turk?: The 'Ideal' student according to Textbooks" at the "International Human Rights Education and TextBook Research Symposium" held last weekend, Assistant Professor Ayse Gul Altinay from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University, tackled this issue.
                ...
Another important characteristic of the "ideal" Turkish student in textbooks is being a "soldier-student." By extension, this ideal student, or the first-class citizen is basically a man.

Here, military service is defined as a cultural given and students are told that they will not be of any good to themselves, their families or their nation if they do not serve in the military. Under this definition, military service is no longer a citizenship obligation for male citizens. It is taken out of the political/legal framework, and is used in a social and cultural framework, which defines a person's life, and his relations with his family and environment.

The discourse about Turks being a "military-nation" underlies this argument and it naturalizes dying, killing and thus, violence.

Almost all excerpts reflect a homogenous nation that represents a "single race" and a single culture. Saying there are different "races" within one nation is defined as "separatism."

The general view in these textbooks is that, the Turkish nation is a homogenous nation with a single ethnicity. Thus the books ignore the diversity in Turkey and see every kind of diversity as an element of "threat."

Ayşe Gül Altınay went on to produce a related book that deals with this subject further:

In Turkey, the mandatory military course taught in high schools by military officers remains one of the most significant sites where the interdependencies between education and defense are established and naturalized. Taught under different names in different periods (Military Service, Preparation for Military Service, National Defense Knowledge, and National Security Knowledge), the military course has been in the curriculum of high schools since 1926. Currently, it is called National Security Knowledge and is mandatory for all students (male and female) in the second year of high school, regardless of the kind of school. ...

The most important continuity is that the course has been taught by military officers (or retired officers) who get paid by the Ministry of National Education or the school that employs them. However, neither the Ministry nor the schools have any say in the choice of these officer-teachers. The officer-teachers are appointed by the highest commander of the nearest garrison on an annual basis. ... Their qualification for teaching this course is defined solely in military terms: the most preferred category is that of staff officers (Staff Colonels, Majors, and Captains), followed by other officers ranked militarily.[5] ...

Source:
Altinay, Ayse Gul. Myth Of The Military Nation. (Palgrave, 2004; 1st Edition) p. 124.

Here is a Youtube video, Neden Hedef Türkiye(48:51), that was shown to Turkish students in those classes that teaches them to suspect neighboring countries and minorities. If anyone knows Turkish and is willing to translate please translate any section you wish in the comments.



Monday, September 16, 2013

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.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

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.
...


Tuesday, September 3, 2013

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

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

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).

Saturday, May 18, 2013

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.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

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.
...

Monday, March 18, 2013

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.)

Sunday, March 17, 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.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Eternal leader Ataturk's fascist address to Turkish youth

Many Western pundits, and media hacks often present Kemalism as a positive force, however it is an ideology referenced from Islam and that never morphed much from those origins. In a context more familiar to Westerners it strongly resembles fascism or the ridiculous Juche Idea of now deceased dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Il. However, when you ignore such hagiography meant to facilitate the integration of the Turkish bandit state into its present Western orbit, you come across monstrous gems like the following:

Turkish Youth! your primary duty is ever to preserve and defend the National independence of the Turkish Republic. 

That is the sole foundation of your existence and your future. This foundation is your most precious treasure. In the future too, too there will be ill-will, both in the country itself and abroad, which will try to tear this treasure from you.
 If one day you are compelled to defend your independence and the Republic, then, in order to fulfill your duty ... It is possible that the enemies who desire to destroy your independence and your Republic represent the strongest force that the earth has ever seen; that they have, through craft and force, taken possession of all the fortresses and arsenals of the homeland; that all its armies are scattered and the country actually completely occupied.

Assuming, in order to look still darker possibilities in the face, that those who hold the power of Government within the country have fallen into error, that they are fools or traitors, yes, even that these leading persons can identify their personal interests with the enemy's political goals, it might happen that the nation came into complete privation, into the most extreme distress; that if found itself in a condition of ruin and complete exhaustion.

Even under those circumstances, Turkish child of future generations, it is your duty to save the independence of the Turkish Republic.

The strength that you will need for this is the noble blood which flows in your veins.

The End.

Ataturk, Mustafa Ghazi Kemal. The Great Speech. Ataturk Research Center, (Ankara; 2005) p. 715-716.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Turkish media: salivating over the Greek crisis

A relatively non-fascist Turk describes the Turkish press's coverage and gloating over the Greek debt crisis on his blog:
Ferhatbingol: Saliva of Turkish newspapers
December 18, 2011 
Let me be clear from the first sentence; this post will not be a Christmasy one because I will write about something that makes me angry for a while. So, this is a hate post

Whom I am angry is Turkish Newspapers. Since the crisis in Greece has started they look like enjoying the show from the first row. The first days, there were political comments like EU state Greece goes down etc. Nowadays, the comments became insulting and no body stops them. 

For example, today’s Hurriyet newspaper there is a so-called business man commenting about Greece saying that The Greek companies trying to sell themselves to Turkish companies; and they are running after us. First of all, who the frack are you? How many Greek companies came to you to even talk? 

That is the thing I am angry about, the SALIVA of some people are dripping from their mouth. Nobody even aware that if Greek market goes down the regional market goes down. 

Turks bet on their local economy to grow; but what will happen when the micro-loans you gave around like pop-corn collapse? Why did the mortgage interest raised 10% in 1 year? Because, where you get the money (Europe) see that you are going down and do not want to stuck with another mortgage crises. Self confidence without knowledge should be considered as crime. 

In my opinion, Turks should be more clever and LEARN from Greek crises instead of acting like the regional Gods They will need it I admit, the things will not be as bad as Greece when the crisis hit; because of the heavy industry BUT again, the salaries will go down, devaluation of Turkish Lira is a big possibility. 

Why do people are so happy to watch other people’s misery? Do they feel better about themselves? Superior? Don’t they see what ever IMF does to Greece is actually a recipe of what will happen to the others???
This is nothing new, in Turkish society negative stereotypes against non-Turks are common, even before the Greek crisis this was the stereotype that even elite and educated Turks held against Greeks:
Bianet: Racist State Report Withdrawn from PublicationAnkara, 05-03-2009, Tolga KORKUT  ...
A report by the Governmental Auditing Commission (DDK) on shipyards has been found to contain racist descriptions of Greeks, such as “lazy” and “a genetic hostility towards Turks”. When reported, parts of the reports were taken off the website. 
...
Appendix 4 noted that this meeting took place on 12 December 2007 and was headed by Necmi Uğurlu, former Athens Trade Advisor. 
...
Following the observation that public offices opened 7.5 hours a day in Greece, the report continued: 
This shows how lazy the Greek people are and how inefficient they are in their business life. Within these working hours there are another one and a half hours for tea breaks. Even if the President came, employees would not interrupt their tea breaks.” 
...