The Turks

[Joseph]

[QUOTE=Gavur]

Joseph

An average Enderun(Palace University) student could speak at least 5-6 langauges. In Ottoman beurocracy this was a very common thing, mst of the soldiers serving in Balkans knew Greek, Serbo-Croat and Hungarian. that was not only the case for Armenians, probably Armenians learned those foreign langauges in Ottoman Universities.

Armenians did learn the languages in Universities and also from universities abroad in Europe, from Catholic and Protestant missionaries and from having commercial and family ties to the early diaspora networks abroad in places like Antwerp and Amsterdam, Salonika, Beirut, etc






Thats laughable

[Joseph]

Well I am not familiar with such official stance but could be true, I dont know.

My aim was to point out the fact that the official Armenian thesis saying is that
Armenians have always been tortured and treated like inhumans throughout the hisotry beginning from Mongolian(Jengiz and Hulagu, who are enemies of Turks BTW) times thru Seljuks and all of the Ottoman period, Armenians were mis-treated. I simply say that it is no true, this is totally a seperate argument on 1915, the Armenian leaders of 1915 are not the same of those Armenians in 19th century and before likewise Ottomans in 1915 is not the same Ottoman as it before 1908. This simple distinction is not made(in my opinion thats on purpose) and Turks have been vilified as whole from beginning of the history. I personally have problem with that thats why I've posted, may be it needed some clarification

I would never claim the dhimmis were always mistreated. It usually depended upon the health and situation of the empire or which particular sultan was in power. My belief is that the Armenians faced savagery when the empire began it's steepest period of decline from 1877 onward and as such Armenians were looked at suspiciously and and often scapegoated. It's hard to say how Armenians faired up till that point, there isn't much written but life amongst the Kurds in the east was no picnic and being dhimmi was never very comfortable but in all fairness, as I have said many times, looking at the spirit of the times, prior the 1878, the Ottoman Empire was not different than any other with regards to its treatment of minorities.

[Joseph]

thats true

THat would be an interesting topic. Just as many of the leaders of the CUP were educated and lived outside of Anatolia, so did many members of the Armenian political groups. The had different interpretations of liberal ideals and in the case of the CUP, the Pan-Turks took over.

[Joseph]

I wonder what The Armenian male % was!

That's a good point. The Armenians male population was starting to move abroad to find work and send remittances home, and many were planning to bring over their entire families because life became so difficult in the east

[Behcet]

Bulgarian,

Why do you have all this hate for Turks?

You know that Bulgarians are Turks anyway? You are just Christian slavonic speaking Turks. And what was so bad for Bulgarians during Ottoman rule? You got to be soldiers and statesmen. Turks and Bulgarians had a lot of intermarriage, even today there are over a million Turks living in Bulgaria. We're all Turks. Bulgarians should have stayed Muslims, we would never have had problems then.

[Joseph]

Bulgarian,

Why do you have all this hate for Turks?

You know that Bulgarians are Turks anyway? You are just Christian slavonic speaking Turks. And what was so bad for Bulgarians during Ottoman rule? You got to be soldiers and statesmen. Turks and Bulgarians had a lot of intermarriage, even today there are over a million Turks living in Bulgaria. We're all Turks. Bulgarians should have stayed Muslims, we would never have had problems then.

What have you done to Cervantes’ arm?

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Elif Safak

This week is a significant time for readers who are into the details of literature history all around the world: It’s the anniversary of Cervantes’ death, and on this occasion the founder of the contemporary novel is being commemorated once more.
Elif Safak

**This week is a significant time for readers who are into the details of literature history all around the world: It's the anniversary of Cervantes' death, and on this occasion the founder of the contemporary novel is being commemorated once more.

**In my personal experience the story of my own encounter with Cervantes has taken a different path. I was only 11 years old when I left Turkey and went to Spain. I had never heard of Cervantes. In my first year at school, a classmate who happened to sit right next to me one day, a little older than me, asked me curiously where I was from. And when she got the answer ?Turkey,? she put on a sour face as a reflex that was to remain in my memory for years. "Ah pequena Turca! Que hiciste a Cervantes?"[1]

**I could not understand anything from this even after I translated every word one by one. As time went by, I forgot about this sentence until I came across the name Cervantes in a literature class. "Don Quixote" is a magnificent literary feast and has loyal readers in Turkey. But here, there are some unknown facts about the writer. Cervantes fought in the Battle of Lepanto and fell prisoner to the Ottomans. After a total of five years of imprisonment, he managed to return to his country but he lost his left arm in the ordeal. Hence his nickname the ?the cripple of Lepanto.? He had lost his arm to the Turks! Interestingly though, a minimal fact that even small children know by heart in Spain is known by very few in Turkey. Our history books cover the war in I?nebaht? (Lepanto), but indeed do not mention Cervantes' arm. We have almost no idea how Ottoman history is taught to schoolchildren in other countries. We don't know how history is taught, especially in those countries once ruled by the Ottomans. That's why we Turks are appalled when we hear negative comments about our history from a Bulgarian, an Algerian, a Viennese or a Serb.

**There is a striking dialogue in Ivo Andric's book, ?The Bridge on the Drina,? which*compares two separate interpretations of history.

**A Balkan nationalist says: ?The recruitment system of the Ottomans for the Janissary corps has drained our blood. The Ottomans have taken, kidnapped our brightest brains and used them for their own good. They have ripped them apart from their families, from their mothers, from their villages.?

**Another one replies, ?But if there were no such recruitment, these children would have never left their villages, never have been trained and never have made it to the post of vizier.?

**If we want to understand how the rest of the dialogue unfolds and how Ottoman heritage is seen in other countries, we must be able to move beyond the boundaries set by our official history. Without understanding how Ottomans are reflected in the collective minds of different nations, we cannot solve the background of today's ?Turk? perception that exists in the world.

**[1] ?Ah little Turkish girl! What have you done to Cervantes??*

[1.5 million]

You know that Bulgarians are Turks anyway?

Kurds are Turks, Bulgarians are Turks, Finns are Turks - and so on and so forth.....and if you believe some Azeris...everyone is descended from Turks and the Azeris invented all languages and cultures of the world....dream on...

[Bulgarian]

Turkey's stray dog abuses anger activists

By AMBERIN ZAMAN
Los Angeles Times

ANKARA, TURKEY - Turkish authorities are openly violating laws that prevent cruelty against animals, with abuses against stray dogs intensifying, according to rights activists and opposition lawmakers say.
The charges follow the recent discovery of hundreds of dead dogs in a garbage dump in Ankara's Mamak district that is controlled by the ruling Justice and Development Party.

Animal rights campaigners allege the dogs were either poisoned or shot dead by roving teams of municipal workers whose job is to curb the city's large population of strays.

Under an animal rights law adopted in 2004 in line with this predominantly Muslim nation's efforts to join the European Union, municipalities are to gather strays and neuter and inoculate them against rabies.

They can then either tag and set them loose on the streets again or place them in government-run shelters.

"Instead they just kill them on the streets," said Fersun Isitman, an animal rights campaigner.

On Wednesday, hundreds of people from across the country gathered with their pets in Tandogan Square to protest the killings. Many carried pictures of the dogs found at Mamak captioned, "Allah created us as well."
"Such barbarism violates the spirit of Islam," said Hatice Uysal, a 34-year-old housewife, her head covered Islamic-style. "It's hard to imagine Turkey joining the EU under these circumstances."

[TurQ]

The Tatars of Tataristan call themselves as Bulgars.

Kurds are Turks, Bulgarians are Turks, Finns are Turks - and so on and so forth.....and if you believe some Azeris...everyone is descended from Turks and the Azeris invented all languages and cultures of the world....dream on...

[Bulgarian]

Turkey is committing inhumain acts against animals.

The Turks are continuing their genocidal instincts alive. Maybe there are waiting for a big show down with Armenia or the Kurds?

There should be a law against the mass murdering of animals. This could be seen as a genocide against another species .