a turk

[Haykakan]

Re: a turk

@Alexandros
I never heard that Demirel has Kurdish roots. However, Özal should have some Kurdish blood. It's true that in Turkey, you can find many successful statesmen who has Kurdish roots. However, they will not have an explicit Kurdish identity. As long as you identify yourself as a Turk and behave accordingly, everything will be fine.
(As a note, probably one exception would be the army. I don't think they'll let anybody to take an important role, such as being a general, there if he has Kurdish roots.)

That is the problem with turcky-as long as you pretend to be someone your not then you will be ok. This kind of society has serious issues which will do it much harm unless things change.

[Jos]

Re: a turk

That is the problem with turcky-as long as you pretend to be someone your not then you will be ok. This kind of society has serious issues which will do it much harm unless things change.

All societies require you to conform to varying degrees if you want to succeed. The amount of assimilation required to achieve this obviously varies depending on the cultural and democratic outlook of each society. Often the most successful minorities and immigrants are the ones that learn to 'pretend' whilst keeping a low profile with their true identity, rather than the ones that are resistant to the moulding with the dominant identity. This is no different to what the Armenians do in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina etc, so much so that many eventually become unrecognizable as Armenians to those in living in Armenia. The major drawback for Turkey is that it practices a heavy handed approach to assimilation rather allowing for the slower and natural process of integration of its minorities, but in reality it isn't too dissimilar to what many other countries already do in a more gentle and discreet way.

[Haykakan]

Re: a turk

All societies require you to conform to varying degrees if you want to succeed. The amount of assimilation required to achieve this obviously varies depending on the cultural and democratic outlook of each society. Often the most successful minorities and immigrants are the ones that learn to 'pretend' whilst keeping a low profile with their true identity, rather than the ones that are resistant to the moulding with the dominant identity. This is no different to what the Armenians do in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina etc, so much so that many eventually become unrecognizable as Armenians to those in living in Armenia. The major drawback for Turkey is that it practices a heavy handed approach to assimilation rather allowing for the slower and natural process of integration of its minorities, but in reality it isn't too dissimilar to what many other countries already do in a more gentle and discreet way.

Yeh but the difference here is warm and tolarable water vs scalding hot water that burns your skin off. In the other countries i can go to others and say i am armenian and my ancestors were victims of a genocide and they will investigate and see that it is the truth vs in turcky i will get arrested or beaten or killed. That is not a small difference at all.

[Jos]

Re: a turk

Yeh but the difference here is warm and tolarable water vs scalding hot water that burns your skin off. In the other countries i can go to others and say i am armenian and my ancestors were victims of a genocide and they will investigate and see that it is the truth vs in turcky i will get arrested or beaten or killed. That is not a small difference at all.

Sadly you do have a point. In less democratic countries irrational behaviour often manifests itself in voilent ways. Though this is a relative concept and not unique to any country, imagine a turk or azeri living in Armenia publicly claiming the opposite of what you stated, would they not be skinned alive by some radicals?

[Alexandros]

Re: a turk

@Alexandros
I never heard that Demirel has Kurdish roots. However, Özal should have some Kurdish blood. It's true that in Turkey, you can find many successful statesmen who has Kurdish roots. However, they will not have an explicit Kurdish identity. As long as you identify yourself as a Turk and behave accordingly, everything will be fine.
(As a note, probably one exception would be the army. I don't think they'll let anybody to take an important role, such as being a general, there if he has Kurdish roots.)

Thanks for pointing that out seruven.I mixed Demirel with Inonu.