Job Discussion Forums

[ghost]

Bulgaria and Romania will join the big club in 2007.

Turkey will face problems for years to come.....but they will eventually probably get in.

Most Europeans have no idea what Turkey really is as a country, and the people in other Euro. countries just think...."it's a muslim country" and that is alien to our way of thinking and doing things.

The reality, as most of you know, is very different, and Turkey is very far off your 'standard' muslim country...especially when it comes to the western areas of Turkey.

Most Turks will confess that they feel much more affinity for European countries than they would for neighboring arab countries.

In fact most Turks ghost has met have told ghost that 'they don't like arabs' ......curious stuff.

[31]

[calsimsek]

The anti Arab feeling goes back to two points in history. One the attack on Akab on the gulf in 1916 and the fall of the Palistain by late 1917.
How can Arab brothers of faith carry arms against an Islamic rule who is the last Calif(?) (Islamic equal to the Pope).

Since the end of the first world war the Turkish state has never played a major part in Midlle East affairs.

They want nothing to do with the place.

How; they ask; can a small nation of a few millon defeat the millons of Arabs against it. Every time Jews are attacket in Istanbul the protest are not at killing the Jews but for Arads bring thier war here.

Once a King always a King. To see that the servent has oil dollars and you don't hurts. How can the son's of the sevent be equal to son's of the King.

It'll take years to change the anti Arab feeling in this country.

[whynotme]

indeed we do not hate Arabs...we just hate that westerners think we are like arabs...we neither get dressed nor eat like them ..physically we differ and culturely there are many differences...i hate it when i watch an American film and in the film Turks are dressed and behave like Arabs and there are still alot of people in Europe who think that we have 4 wives in Turkey...i agree it is a kind of ignorance (of westerners) but in other ways i think some europeans are so happy to introduce Turkish people like Arabs...

[31]

[calsimsek]

Cool off 31 told you befor I'm crap at the spelling on this thing.
As to your points you have miss understood what I was saying.

1. 'Caliph for Ottoman subjects' That's the point. What one saw as a right the subject saw as a lie.

2. N/Iraq was not an issues untill the late 80's early 90's

3. 'There are well over a hundred thousand Turks living and working in the Middle East' = Money thats all.

4. 'Nonsense. Turks were horrified.......' = Your right it did come over a bit wrong. Jews in Turkey are seen as Turks first and Jews second. Yet there are few tears for what happens in the West Bank and Gaze.

Perhapes things will get better yet, Since I'v been here things have not changed.

[31]

[almuze]

There's a book out by Francis Fukuyama (devlet insasi, in turkish, dunno the title in english...) where he argues that basically, Turkey shouldn't join the EU, because right now most of it's political strength lies in being a bridge between the east and west. Among other things, Turkey can play the 2 against each other to get what it wants. If Turkey finally joins the EU, it will only do so if they make a lot more concessions to the EU, end up being seen as a lap dog to the EU, and will lose any type of geo-political power base of it's own that it already has now. That's the jist of it, anyway. Fukuyama can be contorted sometimes.

[kanattas]

TR in EU?

Probably not.

Has anyone looked at a map recenty? Turkey (97%) is not in Europe! That should end the fantasy. Since when is only 3% taken as enough of the whole? V. Giscard D'Estaing is factually correct: Turkey is NOT a European country.

Now before any sentimental Turkish types get their "Irish" up (Hey,I am part Irish and I LOVE Turkey),
let me say that a statement of an objective fact is not a legitimate reason to take offense. so don't!
(Ataturk was a great statesman --- and a lousy husband and he died an alcoholic, right?)
Turkey not being European is a blessing, not a curse.

The best thing that Turkey could do is to take the good suggestions for improvement, and as much money from the EU as possible, use it WISELY, and then NEVER sign on the dotted line as a member.

Even before the "Frogs and Clogs" voted down the constitutional gambit, (to their honor) the statist trend was doomed. Either people/ nations move toward freedom or tyranny. The euro will fail too.

The last thing that Turkey needs is to submit its sovereignity to Brussels. More slavery anyone?

[calsimsek]

Tend to agree with kanattas, I would rather live in a well run effective free state than just be another slave to Euro sum.

[31]

[calsimsek]

Thats why E.U is the last hope. Perhapes Turkey can get its act together and not have to join, one can dream.

[dmb]

What do people mean they say Arabic. I've visted Arabic countries from North Africa through the Gulf to Syria on Turkey's border. They are quite different, especially oil rich Gulf states. What is European? Akdeniz(can't spell it in English) countries are very different from Northern European countries. On a recent lads weekend to Sofia I felt it was European, but couldn't put my finger on why. Turkey is neither European or Arabic, maybe that is part of the appeal.

[kanattas]

dmb wrote:

"What do people mean they say Arabic. I've visted Arabic countries from North Africa through the Gulf to Syria on Turkey's border. They are quite different, especially oil rich Gulf states. What is European? Akdeniz(can't spell it in English) countries are very different from Northern European countries. On a recent lads weekend to Sofia I felt it was European, but couldn't put my finger on why. Turkey is neither European or Arabic, maybe that is part of the appeal."

Arabic does not mean "unhinged Mohammedan jihadist" necessarily, nor even Muslim necessarily. There are Arab (ic?) Jews and Arab (ic?) Christians. Both of these groups --- and any other "unbelievers", one supposes --- are openly discriminated against in most if not all nations professing to be Arabic.

By the way, Mr. Arafat was Arabic but NOT Palestinian: he was born and raised in Egypt, a fraud and a con artist through and through. When I encounter the knee-jerk Turkish opinion that the Jews should leave Israel/Palestine and I ask why, I am usually told "because they took the land". So I offer a deal: When the Turks give up THEIR occupation of Anatolia, I will work toward getting the Jews out of I/P!

Concerning the concept European, the traditional view ...

First a word about tradition: I think it was the genius G K Chesterton who said "Tradition is the democracy of the dead" or something to that effect. That is usually interpreted to mean that tradition is the overwhelming majority opinion throughout the history of a people and, a such, should not be discarded willy-nilly.

The traditional view is that "European" has never included Turkey proper, which is part of Asia --- hello, A-S-I-A! --- Minor. The "sick man of Europe" because a relatively small part of that undeveloping, troublesome empire was in Europe (by occupation, NOT by the will of the conquered of European cultural heritage). The Turks were allowed to keep part of Thrace (because it has Istanbul, one supposes) after they were ejected from every other European part of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey is "the land between" ---...E and A and the Middle East, ... a rock and a hard place, ... ancient and modern. Culturally it is not sufficiently European or Asiatic or Middle Eastern to be correctly labeled as any of these. Thus the fascination for so many of us "guests". It does not share Europe's underlying historical cultural base of Christianity, thanks to the Ottoman invaders , nor the strict underlying cultural base of the Koran of most of the Middle East, thanks to Ataturk. Turkey's world view (also called "religion") is neither of those.

And let's not kid ourselves: Christianity and Turkish culture have divergent ethical positions. C says "Love the neighbor". T says " If the snake does not bite ME, may it live a thousand years" and " the riches of the State are as the seas; he who does not take from it/them is a pig".
A PIG, mind yiou, in an anti-pig environment! (There is no animal lower than a pig in Mohammedan thinking, as far as I know.)
Now THERE'S a recipe for economic lethargy at best, economic failure at worst.

"Burasi Turkiye" the paradox, the enigma and I am the richer for knowledge of her.