Turkish View of Themselves

[TurQ]

I thought the same, Armenians probably saw something reminding their culture or same kind of jokes that he makes.

Which Kemal Sunal movie you guys like most? I like the hababam and Tosun Pasha

Armenians everywhere like funny people like (Mr.Sunal)cussing Turkish because it reminds them of their parents or grandparents.

But its probably not a good idea to slip in a Saban video in a Tashnak meeting.

[TurQ]

Are those vendors also Istanbul Armenians?

I saw a brand sold in TUrkish stores, "Toufian" is it an Armenian brand?

I grew up watching Kemal Sunal movies, but I'm an Istanbul Armenian, so I guess that is only natural. In Los Angeles, you can get all the latest Turkish movies, mostly from Armenian vendors.

[Gavur]

For the sake of Turks and TR, They better start to agressively make peace with theyre past through their past and present minorities, if they really love their country.

Instead they masochisticly try to argue and fight with the world in this issue and they are belittled every time .I don't know, it's kind of like a Kemal Sunal movie,The viewer doesnt know whether to laugh or to feel sorry.

[1.5 million]

TurQ - nice post (#8) - a few brief comments - Turkey is changing - and I have seen this - the differences between what I saw (and heard and participated in sometimes intense Raki fueled coversations) in the early 90s and what I have seen and heard during my last two visits in 02 and 03 were at times striking. In fact I could see many changes just between 02 and 03 - however what I saw in some cases was more conservatism (Islamic dress and influence) and other things that might cause quite a bump in your rosy view of the future.

Which brings me to another related point - some Turks - like (I speculate) yourself - when they think of Turkey and talk about it and tell us about it etc (and this is a good thing for you to tell and us to hear...) - well - I really wonder how much of a slice you really are exposed to (and this while always an issue is becoming much more so). I think a great deal of (rural/Eastern etc) Turkey is (essentially) not changing at all and hasn't changed much (and these disenfranchised people may never have fully bought into Kemalism in the first place...think about that for a bit..). You (and most) - I think - are talking about the more cosmopolitan (Western) parts of Turkey - and here I would mostly agree (still with mention of the caveat about increased Islamic influences)...in fact I think its quite revolutionary (in a number of areas) - changes in how Turks live and think - think of themselves - think of their relations with others - the types of discussions they have - the approach to life - how women can live (on their own for instance) - things that we take for grated here in (most of) the West - but would have been thought perhaps unbelievable in Turkey only a decade ago - are happening now in Turkey (and please give us some more specific examples as I know that you can). I do think there has been and is a great deal of change occuring...however the danger is twofold - 1) that there will be a backlash from reactionary elements (that in the case of hyper-nationalists have not gone away and in the case of Islamists are growing in power/influence and have outside help...). Much like when Yugoslavia broke up - or the Soviet Union - the bindling force of blind Kemalism is loosening its grip (people are no longer cowed to say and believe the rhetoric of such...and they are finding that they think differently about many things...)...and societal elements that had been supressed and denied are comming out and growing bolder (Kurds for instances...but this is just the tip of the iceburg i think...)...however not only on the liberal/left - but the reactionary as well - and among groups with [discovered?] [seperate] identity - and the more the liberal western cosmopolitan outside influence becomes prevelant the more the other (reactionary faction[s]) will seeth and boil. I predict interesting (and very dangerous) times for Turkey's future (even if at the same time agreeing with your likely more positive/hopeful outlook...)...however there will ceertainly be a complexity to your problems as there has never been before - can your nation - your government - and your (very young and incompletely conditioned/educated) people survive it? Will your government - that has never had to deal with any of these sort of issues (or even ever has had to be at all competent in any way - and in fact that it has not ever been is by design...) outside of the standard - supress any dissension with use of overwhelming force - show who is boss...etc - can they adapt? Can they deal with the multifaceted society when all they have known is the uni-society? - and will leaders arise who can lead (and not be like dear Kemal...suicide for you now...can't just kill those who don't agree with you - no?) and can avoid the tremendous schisms I see in your future from cracking and busting apart most bloodily? Capiche?

[Reincarnated Am]

Written by Raffi Sarkissian - Contributor

Wednesday, 23 November 2005

The problem of censorship and freedom of speech is an ongoing battle among people across the globe. Without a doubt, many people in many places have come a long way in promoting and making free speech a reality. Here in Canada, we have the ability to criticize, comment and take pride in anything we wish without the fear of negative repercussions. This, sadly, is not the case for countries such as Turkey, which is notorious for its horrible human rights record.

As the leading country in imprisonment for thought crimes Turkey continues to add prisoners to its list even while knocking on the European Union's door for admission. Just in the past few months, three new cases of violations against freedom of expression have already surfaced that have sparked a controversy.

On Oct. 7, an Istanbul court sentenced Hrant Dink, the editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, to a six-month suspended term for apparently "insulting and weakening Turkish identity through the media". Dink exercised his right to freedom of speech just like any other journalist across the globe - a right that unfortunately does not exist in Turkey, where "a person who insults Turkishness, the Republic, or the Turkish Parliament will be punished with imprisonment ranging from six months to three years."

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, non-profit organization, has already condemned the sentencing. According to CPJ, the government's accusations are based on Dink's various writings about the Armenian genocide, and he faces further charges on comments he had made in 2002, where he stated that he did not feel like a Turk, rather an Armenian who is a citizen of Turkey.

Orhan Pamuk, a world renowned Turkish novelist and recipient of France's top foreign literature prizes, is also facing charges for making comments on the fate of the Armenians in 1915 and the Kurds in modern Turkey, both being undeniable truths.

Dink, Pamuk and many others like them have been deprived of the ability to speak their mind and peacefully express their concerns, thoughts and feelings. These attributes and methods of expression are the norms in modern civilized governments and societies today. However, the people of countries such as Turkey continue to suffer under racist and discriminatory laws geared towards silencing, censoring and depriving Turkish citizens from the natural right to speak their mind.

Let us not allow the mistreatment of intellectuals and great humanitarian minds such as Dink and Pamuk, for their right to freedom of speech is just as precious as ours, and the deprivation of their rights must be just as painful and concerning for us as it is for them.

http://www.excal.on.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1166&Itemid=2

[Reincarnated Am]

Turkey: New Code Penalises Free Expression

Turkey's bid to join the European Union has come under renewed criticism following reports that legal reforms aimed at satisfying EU standards on human rights are failing to safeguard freedom of expression and press freedom.


International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) says Turkey's amended Penal Code, enacted in June 2005, has not led to fewer court cases brought against writers, publishers and journalists. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. Growing numbers of individuals are being sued under Article 301, which penalises those who insult the military and the State.

The Article states, "A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or the Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years."

Individuals being sued include internationally renowned writer Orhan Pamuk, who told a Swiss reporter in February that "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in [Turkey] and nobody but me dares to talk about it." Pamuk is due to appear in court on 16 December 2005.

Fatih Tas, the owner of Aram Publishing House, has also been charged under Article 301 for publishing a Turkish edition of the book "Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade", says WiPC. The book accuses the Turkish government of committing human rights violations and suggests that the government's treatment of Kurds in the southeast in the early 1990s amounted to genocide.

In other cases, a journalist, Hrant Dink, has been given a six-month suspended sentence for "insulting and weakening Turkish identity through the media," reports the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

As Editor-in-Chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly "Agos," Dink wrote a series of articles in 2004 dealing with the collective memory of the Armenian massacres of 1915-1917 under the Ottoman Empire. He called on Armenians to move beyond historical anger toward Turks and "turn to the new blood of independent Armenia."

Turkey does not acknowledge that the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks at the beginning of the 20th century amounted to genocide. The European Parliament has conditioned Turkey's entry to the EU on its formal recognition of the killings as genocide.

WiPC says there are about 60 individuals who are facing court proceedings in Turkey because of what they wrote or published.

They include publisher Ragip Zarakolu, newspaper editor Ersen Korkmaz, Rahmi Yildirim, Emin Karaca and Sehmus Ülek, vice-president of the human rights group Mazlum-Der.

In its latest report on Turkey's progress toward meeting EU membership criteria, the EU says the Penal Code will have to be amended if prosecutors continue to open new cases against individuals who express their opinions peacefully.

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/70665/

[ScythianVizier]

Anyone read Orhan Pamuk's book Snow? I'm reading it right now, and it has occured to me that Turks, particulalry in the Diaspora, may have a particularly low view of themselves. They seem to have an inferiority complex and they appear to compensate for it, by being excessively defensive. They criticize European values, and exalt their own, but they seem to admire European achievements without being able to point to enough of their own achievements, which causes them anxiety. Does anyone think that part of the problem as to why the Turks can't cope with their past is that they already have issues of low self-esteem as it is. It's as if a large part of the Turkish population, actually both in an outside of Turkey, is resigned to the idea that they are not as capable as others.

I havent read "Snow" though I read the some of his earlier works, such as "My Name is Red", "White Castle", "Istanbul: Memories and the City", and "The Black Book". Since I havent read to "Snow" yet, it is hard to tell what you have been refering. However, I feel like expressing my point of view in relation to the issues raised by you.

As you might be also well aware, the need for expariates in Europe in line with the economic boom following the WWII, resulted in massive unskilled migration from Turkey (and from some other countries) to various European countries. Respectfully, please also note that the diaspora Turks were the people who mostly migrated from the poorest areas of Turkey, namely the Central and Eastern Turkey. On top this initial trend, volatile political climate of the 1980s and 1990s also encouraged special ethnicites (namely the Kurdish people of Turkey) to take steps for seeking political protection in Europe due to the ethnic conflict existing in Turkey. The waves of unskilled migration from Turkey to Europe had several impacts which might be summarized as in the following:

1. People with low skills who moved to abroad (with their families and later with relatives) were not aware that they would be living in highly developed capitalist enviroment.
2. Those did work for the positions which almost required no skills, or education, placing them at the bottom of the income ladder of the host country they lived in.
3. They were not prepared or trained before their departure from Turkey. So, their experiences in an alien enviroment turned out to be completely personal and self-detecting.
4. These people, in most of the cases, lacked basic education that might be required in later stages of capitalist life style (compared to partly feudal structure of Anatolia inherited from the Ottomans).
5. These people were not taught or were not encouraged to learn the languages of the host countries that they lived in.
6. Respectfully, alienation within the host country due the reasons expressed above, encouraged them to live in concentrated areas in order to satisfy their human needs for socializing.
7. With the change of economic climate (end of long boom), and the effects of oil crisis of 1970s made things harder those people from Turkey since the unemployment turned to be a permenant problem of the capitalist economies, which resulted in questioning the jobs of the "temporary workers" in living Europe.

In the meantime, some other outstanding issues, such as bloody struggle between radical left and right-wing movements in Turkey, the Cyprus conflict, ASALA terror, Kurdish conflict, success of Midnight Express, and the 1980 Coup of the Army, had certainly strong (however negative) impact on perceptions about Turkey, and the people from Turkey.

Moreover, late 1970s and early 1980s were also recorded as the years that the European countries started to apply visa conditions for the Turkish citizens (It should be noted that such Eruopean policies were not even applicable during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire).Later, with the rise of the USA's policies towards Islam (included Green Belt policy around USSR), the radical Islam began to increase its political interests and started to have its own political agendas following the collapse of the USSR and the eastern block. Later radical actions of the US also triggered the terrorism and instability in the world whilst increasing the commodity prices accordingly. Respectfully, the social problems (mostly unsolved) of the European continent which caused the lives of some 40-50 million people in the world (WWII), started to restrike the European societies as the rise of Asian Economies became evident in early 1990s. Conversely, racism and discrimination, and rise of radical right-wing movements became evident in Europe once again.

As one could easily conclude, all those issues placed pressure and considerably negative impact over these people who emigrated from Turkey. Having neglected and despised in an alien environment whilst they do not have the tools to deal with such comlicated issues, caused problems with the communites who emigrated from Turkey to Europe. Seeking for "identity" in an alien environment resulted in utilizing the conservative values that were evident even in some South European countries until 1960 or 1970s. Isolation and growing weight of problematic issues resulted in "defensive approach", which found its ground in criticizing "European Values that are impaired" or getting impaired over time. Their social status within the alien environment and the lack of tools to change resulted in admiration of their political and technological achievements, whilst despising the core European values that make up a family or a community in a given environment.

Unfortunately, I believe that your description of the problems of the Turkish Diaspora appears to sound very racist and quite limited in scope. In fact, incapability and capability are inseparable notions that are entirely related to level of education that people receive in a given environment. In Turkey, education standards have never been as high as the ones in Europe, so the capabilites (in terms of creativity) of the most have never been over the ones in Europe. Those are the facts about Turkey, but not unchangeable facts (due to ongoing Eruopean achivements overriding the psychological caches of people of Turkey as a society) about the Turks or the people of Turkey. Respectfully, I must say that I totally disagree with your conclusive remarks lacking intellectual sensitivity and generosity.

Compare this to the typical Armenian attitude, which is that we are brighter, more creative, and more capable than any other group in the world. Could this be why we are relatively successful compared to other ethnic groups throughout Europe and America who have had to struggle under the same difficult conditions as we? Example: why have we exelled in Europe, particulalry France, whereas other ethnic groups are rioting out of desperation? My experience in the Armenian community has given me this impression about Armenians, but it may not be accurate, what is the impression that others here have?

I understand that you love your culture, people, attitude, and so on, and that is fair enough. However, your points embody racist remarks that stem from an subjective (nobody could be really objective about him/her self by default as we are all subjective about ourselves) notion that you must have developed around yourself, a process that is not quite related to being an Armenian or being any other ethnicity.

The Armenians are more successful in any western country since all of those countries are the places where mostly the Christian population live. The Armenians are also the first nation who adopted Christianity, and that is why, they are well respected in Christian countries, just like Turks are well respected and well accepted in distant, but dominantly muslim countries, such as Indonesia, Pakistan, or Malaysia.

Finally, the special success of Armenians in France is a case that might be studied. However, my view is that the Armenians is Turkey are relatively richer and well educated portion of the society, just like the Jews or Greeks. Perhaps, this stems from their historical roots as the native population of Turkey, such as land and business inherited from forefathers. In the meantime, the Turkish population are composed of Anatolian peasants and migrants who arrived to Anatolia from Balkans, Ukraine, Russia, and Caucasus. So, they are in most of the cases, are the members of working class who recently arrived to the cities, not like the Armenians who had been living in cities for centuries. In that regard, none of the points you raised can be deemed as good reasons to promote superficial ideas about superiority of any nation, ethnicity, culture, or religion.

[maral_m79]

I heard that Armenians in Lobenon loved to watch Kemal Sunal movies. But the extremists blame them being not loyal to Armenian cause by watching Turkish movies, so they would go an watch in secret.

No one "Blame" anyone for watching Turkish movies, listening to Turkish songs, my grandmother watch Turkish series sometimes, and she used to like songs of a Turkish singer Murat (something, I can't recall ) ,for she understand the language, it's like watching American movies or series if you know the language !

But if you ask my personal opinion, I don't "preffer" to listen to Turkish songs, for one I don't understand the words ... No body accuse any Armenian for high treason if they watch Turkish movies , that's a silly suggestion. But I'm not saying that there are people who can't stand it, they feel irritated when they listen to Turkish songs or watch movies, and you know what my firend, I can't blam them .

But one thing for sure ... NO one watchs Turkish productions in secret , I mean unless it's .......
you know what I mean

[maral_m79]

and it has occured to me that Turks, particulalry in the Diaspora, may have a particularly low view of themselves.

I don't understand you guys, Turks in Diaspora ?!!!

These are Turkish "Immigrants", who were "Willingly" immigrated to other countries, for better chances in life or any other reason...

They are not "spuork" ... They were not forcely exiled ...

Diaspora = spuork ..... Do you think that Turks are in spuork ?!

[hitite]

Daispora comes from a Greek word synonymous to dispersion, to scatter, to sow. Although used extensively for the Jews outside Palestine and for forceful exiles or escapees from Genocide it also has the broader meaning of "the breaking up and scattering of a people " or "A dispersion of a people from their original homeland" regardless of immigratory or migratory reasons.