Turks: The Bad Part

Interesting article. Turkey is one country i really want to visit/live in for a while. MY cousin who lived in the rich district of europeanised turks also mentioned this inferiority complex vis-a-vis europe and embarassment of being muslim amongst such turks.

on the other hand some of the proudest muslims i`ve met have been turks. turkish women can be very beautiful indeed.

Excellent and balanced article.

Would like to know more about what you are studying in Turkey...

...thank you for educating me about turks and their inherent inferiority complex...i was unable to understand why this particular interactor on chowk who claims to be a turk among other things, made fun of arabs, darker pakistani males and homely females who prided about his grandmother`s beauty whose bikini-clad shapely form attracted huge crowds on hawk`s bay beach of karachi in the early fiftys...;)

The article is written clearly and quite well, I have to give you that. However, based on such touch and go contact you cannot caricature an entire people. Your caricature, if I stretch it might apply to a small segment of the Turkish population but not the varying diversity that exists within them. Such ``personal experience`` as you have used in writing this piece is invaluable in directing us in avenues towards research but can never be and should never be taken as the final product.

I tend to agree with #4. I see this as a discussion of the writer`s experiences in college (where everyone seems to be self absorbed) and not much more.

One word for this article-

BS......................

This article belongs to the kiddie section.

What the author says about Turks in this article is of course true. As I have said on this website many times, human beings have the same weaknesses across the globe. I remember Salim Chauhan frequently tried to paint Turks as people who were color-blind in sharp contrast to people from our sub-continent. And many idiot Pakistanis often wax poetic about Turkey. Always brings to my mind the time when one Turkish woman (she was very white, but not very pretty) complained to me how Pakistani men would constantly stare at her and how uncomfortable it made her feel.

Some idiots have to get over their skin-based worldview. But then judging by Pakistanis on this website, that ain`t happening anytime soon.

#1...beauty ..lies in the eyes of the beholder! is all i can say!
If you have a soft corner for turkey ..you will find its women (albeit some only) beautiful!

#3..man! Arabs can be made fun off! They did not all fall from heaven! Havent you read salim chauhans excellent article on ``what not to do when in the US? ..especially if you are of the fundoo variety and muslim?

#4..masadi and #5..two birds of a kind..no! there seem to be $6, #7 flocking together too.

#8..smack on target.

Overall an interesting article!
Bet the Ummah will regret if the turks all enmasse ``become europeans`` !!
The ``reflected glory`` of the ottomans will go away overnight!
Jayen

in other words, then, Turks are like people everywhere else. (except indians on chowk, who have made chowk a cesspool - as evidenced by #8 and #9).

Fenasi,
Thank you for sharing your experiences while studying in Turkey. I must compliment you for your determination because Turkish is not an easy language and Turks can be very chauvinstic when it comes to language. I think that you have summarized quite fairly the dichotomy that is Turkey - a little in Europe, but mostly in Asia; Muslim in religion, but committed to secularism; fasting in Ramadan, but drinking the rest of the year; modesty in the streets, but the latest swimwear on the beach. If Turks are somewhat awed by European superiority, it is because from 1683 to 1917, as you correctly pointed out, they have suffered one humiliating defeat after another at the hands of various European Christian powers - Austrians, Poles, Russians, Italians, British, Serbs, and even Greeks. These defeats were temporarily interrupted by Turkish victories against Russians, Australians, and Greeks. The positive contribution by Ataturk, a European Turk from Macedonia, was the sense of self-reliance, pride, and modernity that he instilled in the Turkish people. Turkey has not lost a war in almost a century now and Ataturk had promised that from now on Turks will only die defending Turkey - the short engagement in the Korean War was a necessary evil to please the Americans.

As far as racism is concerned, I beg to differ with you. With so much diversity in skin color, hair color, eye color, nasal shape, height, and built, Turks really have no racial pecking order. The fact is that many of the blond/blue eyed Turks are the ``mohajirs`` and their descendants from Macedonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia, Chechnya, and the Ukraine.

Informative article and some useful feedback, especially the one regarding perception of Arabs. Thanks,

Turks: The Good Part

While there are so many bad things to say about Turks and Turkey, it is a mystery that thousands upon thousands of Germans, British, and French people are buying up beach houses, condos, and vacation/retirement homes in Turkey. As Pakis, Arabs, and Iranians blame Turkey for being too submissive, too servile to Europe, there are Austrians, Serbs, Greeks, and Hungarians who think that Turks are too Muslim, too Eastern, too Asiatic. Meanwhile Turkey, ignoring both the hatred of the Central Europeans and the envy of its ``brethren`` to the east, keeps on moving forward. Without any oil bubbling from the ground or gas emanating from every hole in the ground, Turkey is a more stable, more egalitarian, better educated, more sanitary, and stronger country than the ones whose citizens want to blame Turkey and Turks for everything from the Crusades to the siege of Vienna to the creation of Israel. It would do Pakis a lot of good to clean up their own country, which lacks far far behind Turkey in every aspect except nuclear weapons, satellite telephones, and American choppers.

Turks are still trying to find an identity after Kemal Pasha played havoc with the original one and made them inferior. But they`re a people with their head squarely between their shoulders, and by now they would have realized what the europeans really think of them making excuses and not letting them into their little club with Turks humiliated and bending over backwards and being a Nato member and what not .. Europe will never let them in. That should be a lesson to the modernizers and west-chasers in other Islamic countries.

When their dream of being European is finally shattered and they eventually find an alternative identity, I wonder what it`s going to be. Likely it will be that of the modern educated Egyptian banker I met on 12th September 2001 who commented on the previous day`s events by saying ``It was nothing. There will be much more``.

Turks will be better off grabbing a chunk of Northern Iraq while the pie is still on the table before it`s all gone, and go back to their old empire building-expansionist ways. They will surely have all the Jehadis of the world on their side who are looking for lost glory too ... plus regain their lost identity, plus become an oil producing country ....

#8, Ramanujan {``Always brings to my mind the time when one Turkish woman (she was very white, but not very pretty) complained to me how Pakistani men would constantly stare at her and how uncomfortable it made her feel.``}

Ram Bhayya,
She must have felt very secure confiding in you as you sat next to her in your high-heeled shoes, your shocking pink shirt and pea green pants, while you waved your polished fingernails to shoo away the Paki gawkers.

Re: #11
[As far as racism is concerned, I beg to differ with you. With so much diversity in skin color, hair color, eye color, nasal shape, height, and built, Turks really have no racial pecking order. ...]

In that case they must be DISTINCTLY different from all their neighbors surrounding them. A Lebanese classmate who was dating an American girl used to boast to us that his girlfriend was blonde. The fact that she was blonde was UNDENIABLY a big deal with him.

Now I haven`t done any opinion surveys in that region (and frankly I`ll never go to any Islamic country, or a country with an Islamic majority, although middle easterners mostly don`t know/don`t care about the India/Pakistan thing, but then there could be someone ``misinterpreting`` some verse or another and ``eliminating`` me in the process), but my experience has been that people from that part of the world MOST DEFINITELY have their likes and dislikes aligned along the expected lines - where blond/blue eyed is most coveted etc. This is not the ``bad part`` about Turkey, and neither is it racism, but just shows they are like everybody else.

#14 by Salim_Chauhan

[Ram Bhayya,
She must have felt very secure confiding in you as you sat next to her in your high-heeled shoes, your shocking pink shirt and pea green pants, while you waved your polished fingernails to shoo away the Paki gawkers. ]


I would rather not go into the details of HOW I was sitting next to her.