Have you heard of the Akhtamar church issue with Turkey

[Steph]

Hrant Dink even wanted to be an officer in the Turkish army. However, because he was identified as Armenian (on par with the Lausanne treaty), the Turkish army forbid it.

In Turkey, it doesn't matter what ethnic background you come from, as long you are proud to be CALLED a Turk, you are Turkish, and the state will not oppress you.

I'm sorry but I can't square this circle.......

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Egeli

Quote:
Originally Posted by egeli
Hrant Dink even wanted to be an officer in the Turkish army. However, because he was identified as Armenian (on par with the Lausanne treaty), the Turkish army forbid it.

In Turkey, it doesn't matter what ethnic background you come from, as long you are proud to be CALLED a Turk, you are Turkish, and the state will not oppress you.


I'm sorry but I can't square this circle......

Well you need to squint a little and turn your head

I know that doesn't make any sense, if someone is not Turkish they
are defined as a Turk, but they also aren't a Turk, its like the Outer Limits
(que the music )

[egeli]

Grey wolves? Those pack of murderers? Really i have never been as insulted in my life. You must have have very little contact with Turks. I just argued that Turkey should allow ethnic pluralism, that Armenians have the right to the high-levels of the Turkish Armed Forces, that Christians could be Turks, and that Christians were obliterated from Anatolia.

How on earth does that sound like a grey wolf speech? If i read that post outloud to grey wolves under the right circumstances, i would have been severely beaten. Just so you know Grey Wolves have murdered some of Turkey's most brightest and liberal intellecutuals. They are just as disgusting and thuggish as ASALA.

I really have lost all desire to debate with you. Try learning more about Turks. And be less sensitive, you can entertain a thought without accepting it.

[egeli]

Steph, what i am arguing is that a Turkish ethnicity doesn't exist. Its a form of nationalism. An ethnic Kurd could very easily become Turkish. Thats why there have been Turkish presidents of Kurdish descent. Erdogan is an ethnic Georgian ( his own words). But, at the same time he is just as Turkish as anyone else in Turkey.

However, a Turkish citizen of Christian-Anatolian descent cannot legally be identified as a Turk. This was stipulated in the Laussane Treaty with the intention to protect the hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens of Christian Anatolian descent (mainly in Istanbul and xxxcaada) from Turkification. Because they couldn't be Turkified, the Turkish government viewed them as a threat and organized mass pogroms (Istanbul 1955 pogrom) to expell the last Christian-Anatolian s from their homeland. For those Armenians who stayed (there are still 60,000 in Istanbul), they are politically oppressed and occasinly intimidated by the Turkish government. Hrant Dink, a Turkish citizen, was forbidden to become an officer in the Turkish Army because he was legally identified as an Armenian.

IN MY OPINION WHICH YOU ARE FREE TO DISAGREE WITH, i wish that the the Lausanne Treaty never distinguished Armenians from Turks. That way, the Turkish public and government would never have viewed them not as a threat, but as a fellow Turk. Of course, i am not asking for the Turkish-Armenians to give up their religion or identity. What I am asking is for the Turkish public and government to accept them as faithful Turkish citizens, and THEREFOR, (because being Turkish is not an ethnicity but a form of nationalism), as fellow TURKS.

[Pedro Xaramillo]

And will not debate wit someone who doesn't bother to read my posts

Grey wolves? Those pack of murderers? Really i have never been as insulted in my life. You must have have very little contact with Turks. I just argued that Turkey should allow ethnic pluralism, that Armenians have the right to the high-levels of the Turkish Armed Forces, that Christians could be Turks, and that Christians were obliterated from Anatolia.

No you said :

Turkification is a potent force. Turkish nationalism is not based on ethnic background or on a common heritage, it was created to unite the muslim inhabitants (who are mostly converts from indigenous Anatolian populations) of Anatolia. Without this Turkificaiton, the state of Turkey will internally collapse

First up, there is my point, you said it is okay to Turkify, i.e forced Turkic culture upon them, the Turkishess language and Turkish customs.
How is this a Grey Wolf speech, let me explain :
You say people must be Turkified for the sake of the Turkish Republic, you call for Nationalism (which is ethnic in origin) as a opposed to a Democratic Republic with an equal constitution, thereby enfore only the will of one group above the rest, with the choice of either assimilation or second class citizenship.

You problem as well is you think this whole problem is Christian vs Muslims and that has got nothing to do with it. Iranians are Muslims they get along fine with Armenians.

Its nice of you to say that you want Christians to have equality, but its unfair to say Muslims, Atheists, Jews, etc. shouldn't.
This is religious fascism as you claim it takes that everyone be Turkified for the sake of Islam and Turkey.

Now if you meant a Turkish Citizen, yeah thats one thing, but becoming an ethnic group means leaving your own ethnicity behind, maybe it is due to a language barrier that exists but that is how it sounded when you phrased it.

Another previous post you made :

To all those Turkiye haters out there, this is not going to happen. The Turkish language will become more and more Turkified by the kemalist TDK (Turk Dil Kurumu). Its not just Armenian or Latin names that have been removed from Turkish. Arabic, Persian, and Greek Turkish words have also been Turkified. Ironically, Ataturk's original speeches about language reform are now themselves archaic.

It is only a matter of time before Kurds in Turkey will be Turkified. They will soon be chanting Ne Mutlu Turkum Diyene. Look at Erdogan, he said himself that he was ethnically Georgian. Thanks to the rise of the AKP, as long as you are muslim, you will be Turkish.

You are actively removing West Asian (Arab, Iranian, Pontic Greek, Armenian and Kurdish) names and Turkifying them (in otther words indeed make them Central Asian Ural Altaic).

Now you yourself said that all Muslims are to be Turkish and Kurds be Turkified, based on the previous assertion we can see you hope to assimilate them and there destroy their ethnic identity.

[Steph]

I'm sorry but I can't square this circle......

Well you need to squint a little and turn your head

)

Turn my head to.......Mecca ?

[Steph]

IN MY OPINION WHICH YOU ARE FREE TO DISAGREE WITH, i wish that the the Lausanne Treaty never distinguished Armenians from Turks. That way, the Turkish public and government would never have viewed them not as a threat, but as a fellow Turk. Of course, i am not asking for the Turkish-Armenians to give up their religion or identity. What I am asking is for the Turkish public and government to accept them as faithful Turkish citizens, and THEREFOR, (because being Turkish is not an ethnicity but a form of nationalism), as fellow TURKS.

So, the Lausanne treaty is the root cause of the turks treatment of Armenians?

I suppose the pogroms and genocide were in anticipation of this treaty?

[egeli]

History lesson ...

The Ottoman Empire was an empire divided up not by ethnicity, but by religion. During the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey, Christian Western Anatolians were considered "Greek" and were expelled to Greece, while Balkan Muslims were considered "Turks" and expelled to Turkey. This is an example of how religion determined the ethnicity of Ottomans during the nationalization of the Empire.

This is exactly why Islam is such an integral part of Turkish identity. A Turk from Edirne (Balkans) and a Turk from Erzurum (Eastern Anatolian) have nothing ethnically in common, yet they are both Turkish. Why? Because their descendants were muslim.
For the record, i am not a religious person, but yet i fully realize that i am Turkish only because my descendants were muslim.

Pedro, you said "Nationalism (which is ethnic in origin)" Wrong, i am firstly American because i was born in the US. Yet, i am ethnically Eastern European on my mothers side, and Western Anatolian on my fathers side. There is NOTHING central Asian about being Turkish. The only component of Turkish identity that is central Asian is the Turkish language. BUT, remember that the Turkish language is a very artificial one, it was literally invented 80 years ago by Kemalists to help Turkify the nation.

Pedro, STOP CALLING ME A GREY WOLF. You have a very serious misunderstanding of the identity of Turkish people. Did you know that some of the most violent members of the Grey Wolves are in fact ethnically Kurdish? Yet paradoxically, Grey Wolves are a firm believer in that Turkishness is an ethnic race. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense because Turks are unfortunately clueless of their true ethnic origins.

If anything, call me a Kemalist, because thats what I am. You cant destroy ones ethnic background because it is genetic. However, you can nationalize them, just like how I consider myself to be American first despite my ethnic background. Nationalism, especially in the case of Turkey, is less ethnic than you think.

[egeli]

So, the Lausanne treaty is the root cause of the turks treatment of Armenians?

I suppose the pogroms and genocide were in anticipation of this treaty?

Steph, i am a firm believer in that the Armenian Genocide was primarily religious, not ethnic, in origin. Turkish elites even then manipulated religious sentiment for their own nationalistic purposes.

In Turkey, nothing is ever simple to understand. It really doesn't make sense how Ottomans (including Kurds, because it was a religious genocide) exterminated Armenians in Eastern Anatolia, yet spared and even protected them (through the Lausanne Treaty) in the Ottoman capitol of Istanbul. At the founding of the Turkish republic, there were still hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Istanbul. I wish they were still there, because they have contributed so much to the Turkish nation.

Did you know that the first head of TDK (Turkish language Assosiation, the kemalist group responsible for Turkifiying the Turkish language) was infact Armenian? Agop Dilaçar openly expressed his Armenian heritage by keeping his first name. Yet, I argue, he is just as Turkish as me, because being Turkish is a form of nationalism and has nothing to do with ethnic background..

[egeli]

From Wikipedia about Agop Dilacar -

"He was invited on September 22, 1932, as a linguistics specialist to the First Turkish Language Congress held in Dolmabahçe Palace supervised by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, together with two other linguists of Armenian ethnicity, İstepan Gurdikyan and Kevork Simkeşyan. He continued his work and research on the Turkish language as the head specialist and Secretary General of the newly founded Turkish Language Association in Ankara. Following the issue of the Law on Family Names in 1934, Atatürk suggested him the surname Dilaçar (literally meaning language opener), which he gladly accepted."

Who would have ever thought that the backbone of the Turkish language was formed by Armenians? It is absolutely disgusting that the Turkish nation betrayed these faithful Turkish citizens of Armenian descent.