Cyprus-Forum.com

[Sega]

Hello all,

I was speaking to umit a few minutes ago and he was shocked how little the GC know about the TC, bearing in mind that most of the people here were not born during the devision, it is no suprise were completely uneducated in your culture.

I am not even going to get into the minor details I believe I know. So here are the questions I am going to ask, it would be appreciated if you answered the questions seriously as it will be used as a source of education.

1. I understand the TC are Muslim, I experience Muslims before when I was in the UK, take a look at www.bbc.co.uk/news, their always in the media. The muslims I knew use to attend madradas and go to their place of worship at least twice a week, some even ran out of the class because it was their time to pray. Is this true for TC true?

2. I knew a fellow student from Oman, he was telling me that because he was Islamic he could marry more than one woman, he told me that 5 was a good number. Do TC act like this, if not why not?

3. Do TC and Turks from mainland Turkey have different customs, or are you mostly the same (apart from the fact the TC did not invade us).

Hopefully this will help most GC understand, if indeed they want to, I for one am interested. I prefer to know something than to be clueless.

[iceman]

man,are you for real,or is this a piss take?

[Sega]

man,are you for real,or is this a piss take?

For real man, most GC are unaware so if you know answer just post something up, serious replies only.

[paliometoxo]

i knew some people in uk that worked and they had to take a break to go pray every X amount of time

[umit07]

iceman I had the same reaction at first but it is for real!

Firstly sega being a muslim is not all about praying all day and going to a medresa.

To make sure you get a better outlook I'm not going to answer the questions directly.

Let's start with the times of the collapsing ottoman empire, in the times of the ottoman empire there was a system which diffrentiated between it's subjects by religion , there was not a strong perception of national identity for turks. Towards the fall of the empire national identity started to become more and more important as the british started to take control over the middle east. After the ottomans lost with the germans in world war 1, the british took control of istanbul with no force at all. ( 100's of thousands of turks died at gallipoli, defending the straits leading to istanbul ). At this time turks were really pissed at their sultan for signing the sevr agreement with the allies. During this time a man named "Mustafa Kemal" ( later named "Ataturk" meaning father turk ) who was then a general in the army, was sent by the sultan to trabzon by boat to counter resistance towards allied resistance at this time Mustafa Kemal was already a national hero in the hearts of many turks for winning the battle for gallipoli. What Ataturk did was exactly the opposite he in time became the leader for the resistance against all the allied forces who had invaded anatolia ( British,French,Italian,Greek ) . If we fast foward a bit, in the end after many bloody battles across the land Ataturk was able to free his people. The problem was that the nation had been living in a non-western style so he started to transform it. Religion was abig problem because through out the centuries had interpreted all sorts of crap from the Kuran, making up their own rules which had by now become tradition. Ataturk started the process of reforming the new born Turkey to make it part of the west. He officially proclaimed Turkey a secular state, changed laws to comply with modern western standards, changed the alphabet to latin letters closed all medrases , introduced western clothing and so on..... . Sega whil all this stuff was going on in Turkey the same changes were welcomed by TC's as well.

Getting back to the questions madrases are illegal in Turkey and Cyprus.

In the north and Turkey you are only allowed to marry one wife. The reason being there aren't enough woman to go around in 5 to one ratio .

Your last question about differences in culture, to understand this you have to know the demographics of Turkey. The problem in Turkey is that the east of the country is much more poorer than the west also the ethnic balance differs alot as well. Usually people from eastern Turkey are much more religious than others. In the east there are many people of Kurdish or Arab origin ( most of the ones in Cyprus are form the east ) they come here to earn better money and TC's need them because they work for shit money.

I suggest you read this wiki link to get a better uderstanding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal

[miltiades]

1.The T/C Muslims when compared to the Pakistani , M.Eastern muslims are like chalk and cheece .There is not one iota connecting the T/Cs to the rest of the Muslim world.
2.They , T/Cs marry the same way and under the same considerations that the rest of the Cypriots do .
3. Yes they do have a different outlook to life. The T/Cs are progressive , European minded and although share religious customs with Turkey , they are nevertheless their own people .That is why it would be such a tragedy to loose their T/C culture and identity.

[Sega]

I think I understand now, I did not realise there was such a large difference between those Pakistanies in the UK and the TC. I just thought you were one of the same.

[miltiades]

I think I understand now, I did not realise there was such a large difference between those Pakistanies in the UK and the TC. I just thought you were one of the same.

Sega dont take the piss mate , you bloody well know the difference between Pakistanis , Bangladeshis etc and T/Cs .
How many bearded T/Cs do you see in the UK with ankle length trousers wearing Niki trainers and no socks in freezing weather !!!
There is as much similarity as there is between a car and a donkey !!!

[umit07]

miltiades, I don't think he Sega has had any contact with any TC's, he doesn't want to say but I don't think he is very old.

[Sega]

miltiades, I don't think he Sega has had any contact with any TC's, he doesn't want to say but I don't think he is very old.

I did ages ago, one was a family in the North, they mostly spoke Turkish and a bit of English, well the children spoke English. And another time was in the UK when this family came in the shop. But I never spoke to any of them, I let my dad do that.

How old are you people? In order for me to have had contact I would have had to be pre-74, that would make me over 30 years old, and even then I would probably have to be sometime like 40+ years old. I don't class myself as young, or old, what's the average age of people in this forum anyhow?