Turkey's self-inflicted wounds
As the debate over Turkey's EU membership looks set to intensify, it would be in Turkey's best interest to come to terms with its Ottoman past and rethink its sentiments of cultural exclusivity.
..............
Ankara's problem is not that Turkey is almost exclusively Muslim while most of the EU-member states are predominantly Christian. The problem is much larger.
The EU is based on the premise that member states are culturally diverse and that the rights of various ethnic and cultural groups are respected and guaranteed, both in law and in practice. The national identity of these countries is not exclusive but allows various religious as well as ethnic groups to maintain their individual space.
Turkey on the contrary, still clings on the notion that it is an exclusively Turkish nation, and it is not ready to accept and recognize the non-Turkish component of its population. Nor is it ready to come to terms with its historic treatment of the non-Turkish populations in the area.
The preamble of the Turkish Constitution talks of "the eternal existence of the Turkish nation and motherland." The expression "Turkish nation" appears frequently in the Constitution. Ever since Kemal Ataturk founded the republic in 1923, this "Turkification" has been its hallmark. This exclusive Turkish identity does not reflect the cultural aspirations of the Kurds who constitute about one-sixth of the population.
Since the days of Ataturk, Kurds were banned from using their native language, proscribed from giving Kurdish names to their children and denied any space or tolerance for their culture. The limited concessions towards the Kurds in recent years were primarily the result of repeated pressure from the EU. But Turkey is still long way from coming up with an identity that is not exclusively Turkish.
.................
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=17773
Even in India, where the author of this article comes from, they have discovered was a full of complexes perverted nationalists those kemalist Turks are!
Exactly the same shit they have tried to stuff us GCs with, when they tried to sell us the Annan plan and its TCCS constitution!
Vagabond Kemal-lover Kofi Annan had taken and copied the mainland fascist Turkish constitution and then pasted it into his plan for the "TCCS," in order to sell the 30% of Cyprus to Turkey in the expense of the 250,000 indigenous GCs that were ethnically cleansed from the north, so that he completes and permanently consolidates the fait accompli of the 1974 Turkish invasion. He even had the audacity to lie to us that his monstrosity was a UN plan in compliance with the UN resolutions, and he had the audacity to blame the GCs for having trashed his Trojan horse!
And the other vagabond, Verheugen, had the even greater audacity to first try to cheat on the GCs to accept Annan’s monstrosity, and then when he did not succeed with his tricks he went to the EP and blamed the GCs for having cheated him!
Is it a coincidence that hours after Verheugen made his infamous speech in the EP, Turkey had signed the ordering of 500 Leopard tanks from Verheugen's country, Germany? Verheugen, before explaining to us how you were cheated by Papadopoulos, please tell us how much commission have you made from the above deal, for promoting Turkey's illegitimate and immoral claims to Partition and turn into a Turkish province the 30% of our country, through your friend's monstrosity plan!
