Couple of weeks ago, when reading through, the temper hit my head and I felt the urge to contribute in a discussion board on Sunday Telegraph's site.
To understand the average human being's thinking pattern, one should really spend some time on reading newspapers' commentary sections - my favorite sports among with listening to religious radio stations. (topic for another entry). There you would understand how difficult it actually is to reach a peaceful world with current education systems (and with the current nurtition diets for that matter) on the globe.
There is so much to say on this topic that I couldn't include. Anyway; shallow as it is, I'm copy and pasting my stuff here:
Hello from Istanbul; I believe the Turkish perspective is definitely needed here.
First of all; I must say that I was deeply shocked by the level of ignorance displayed here in the commentary section and the apparent confidence displayed when doing so. It seems to me that everybody is pretty sure that nobody else knows much about the topic anyways and feels free to speculate about or even create historical “arguments”.
The paradigms we grow in establish a very essential part of our thinking process. The average being isn’t able to think out of this cage and completes his life having nothing added to the human culture. To maintain a monster-poor-savage Turk image is the easiest; so it is to forget that history isn’t that easy to grasp especially looking from only one side.
I will not argue whether Turkey should join the EU or not – to be absolutely honest I don’t care. All I care is some historical facts.
First of all, when Turks overtook the city of Istanbul 1453 it didn’t end a glorious Byzantine empire. They merely finished a painful process that had started 200 years ago by a force which was far more barbarian in the way they treated the city. You might be very interested in finding out who: For any questioning mind, here are Google key words: “Constantinople Latin Invasion 1204″.
Moreover, the conquest didn’t end the Byzantine culture, in fact Turks acknowledged that culture and built upon it. In our music, other art forms, imperial architecture, traces of the Byzantine culture is very evident
While kingdoms in Europe were persecuting the ones that weren’t from their own, in Istanbul, Christian (Catholic & Orthodox), Jewish and Muslim lived side by side for centuries. I mean side by side. Today in districts of Istanbul like Ortakoy or Kuzguncuk you still have a mosque, a church, a synagogue at the same little square – all still active. By the beginning of 20th. century there were more churches in Istanbul than there were in London.
Secondly – it’s true that Christian minorities were forced to leave their soils and even got killed in great numbers during the last years of 19th. century and first 20 years of the 20th. century. But we must place these facts into the big picture of that time and realize that nation state transformation was in place anywhere in the region. Turks wanted their own nation state and unfortunately they acted towards it in a shameful way. But they were not alone. Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbians, Macedonians did it. And Armenians tried to do it. And none of these nations have sent Turks who had been living on the same territory for centuries with flowers and waved good bye.
Thirdly, in 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus based on its rights coming from the London agreement which was signed between the UK, Greece and Turkey. In 1974, the military administration of Greece decided to add Cyprus island to their motherland. Some acts of terror have started, killings of civilians took place. And Turkey moved in making sure that only one third of the island is taken.
History is like this. No one is innocent. And I mean no one.
We are perfectly aware of our strengths and flaws. A strong sense of confidence is growing in Turkey. We have been transforming our identity and surroundings in the last 20 years in a positive direction. Yet we know we have to cover much more. This transformation process isn’t that smooth. Lots of ups and downs but eventually we clearly see where we want to reach and EU is not an essential part of it.
We are neither European nor Middle Eastern. We are a mixture, a fusion, just like our beloved city of Istanbul and we love every bit of this richness.
Illustration of two faced Roman god - Janus. One face looks towards the east - past, the other one to the west - future.
I believe I could finish with an anecdote. In 1964, when the Cyprus conflict started to gain pace, Johnson – the US president at that time – sent a message to Turkish president Inonu where he openly threatened Turkey against any military action in Cyprus. Inonu’s response was a public statement; ”if it’s necessary to do so, a new world would be set up and Turkey would not hesitate to take its part in it”
Please excuse possible errors in my English.
To understand the average human being's thinking pattern, one should really spend some time on reading newspapers' commentary sections - my favorite sports among with listening to religious radio stations. (topic for another entry). There you would understand how difficult it actually is to reach a peaceful world with current education systems (and with the current nurtition diets for that matter) on the globe.
There is so much to say on this topic that I couldn't include. Anyway; shallow as it is, I'm copy and pasting my stuff here:
Hello from Istanbul; I believe the Turkish perspective is definitely needed here.
First of all; I must say that I was deeply shocked by the level of ignorance displayed here in the commentary section and the apparent confidence displayed when doing so. It seems to me that everybody is pretty sure that nobody else knows much about the topic anyways and feels free to speculate about or even create historical “arguments”.
The paradigms we grow in establish a very essential part of our thinking process. The average being isn’t able to think out of this cage and completes his life having nothing added to the human culture. To maintain a monster-poor-savage Turk image is the easiest; so it is to forget that history isn’t that easy to grasp especially looking from only one side.
I will not argue whether Turkey should join the EU or not – to be absolutely honest I don’t care. All I care is some historical facts.
First of all, when Turks overtook the city of Istanbul 1453 it didn’t end a glorious Byzantine empire. They merely finished a painful process that had started 200 years ago by a force which was far more barbarian in the way they treated the city. You might be very interested in finding out who: For any questioning mind, here are Google key words: “Constantinople Latin Invasion 1204″.
Moreover, the conquest didn’t end the Byzantine culture, in fact Turks acknowledged that culture and built upon it. In our music, other art forms, imperial architecture, traces of the Byzantine culture is very evident
While kingdoms in Europe were persecuting the ones that weren’t from their own, in Istanbul, Christian (Catholic & Orthodox), Jewish and Muslim lived side by side for centuries. I mean side by side. Today in districts of Istanbul like Ortakoy or Kuzguncuk you still have a mosque, a church, a synagogue at the same little square – all still active. By the beginning of 20th. century there were more churches in Istanbul than there were in London.
Secondly – it’s true that Christian minorities were forced to leave their soils and even got killed in great numbers during the last years of 19th. century and first 20 years of the 20th. century. But we must place these facts into the big picture of that time and realize that nation state transformation was in place anywhere in the region. Turks wanted their own nation state and unfortunately they acted towards it in a shameful way. But they were not alone. Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbians, Macedonians did it. And Armenians tried to do it. And none of these nations have sent Turks who had been living on the same territory for centuries with flowers and waved good bye.
Thirdly, in 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus based on its rights coming from the London agreement which was signed between the UK, Greece and Turkey. In 1974, the military administration of Greece decided to add Cyprus island to their motherland. Some acts of terror have started, killings of civilians took place. And Turkey moved in making sure that only one third of the island is taken.
History is like this. No one is innocent. And I mean no one.
We are perfectly aware of our strengths and flaws. A strong sense of confidence is growing in Turkey. We have been transforming our identity and surroundings in the last 20 years in a positive direction. Yet we know we have to cover much more. This transformation process isn’t that smooth. Lots of ups and downs but eventually we clearly see where we want to reach and EU is not an essential part of it.
We are neither European nor Middle Eastern. We are a mixture, a fusion, just like our beloved city of Istanbul and we love every bit of this richness.
Illustration of two faced Roman god - Janus. One face looks towards the east - past, the other one to the west - future.
I believe I could finish with an anecdote. In 1964, when the Cyprus conflict started to gain pace, Johnson – the US president at that time – sent a message to Turkish president Inonu where he openly threatened Turkey against any military action in Cyprus. Inonu’s response was a public statement; ”if it’s necessary to do so, a new world would be set up and Turkey would not hesitate to take its part in it”
Please excuse possible errors in my English.
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