Cyprus-Forum.com

[erolz]

Too bad you ancestors didnt make anything out of their contact with the motherland of western civilization.

This would be the same 'western civilisation' that even today is based on the exploitation and theft on a scale and efficency never before seen. The same western civilisation that produced and used nuclear weapons, that created the nazis and other facisit regiemes, that have raised the art and science of killings to heights undreamt of by more 'primative' cultures, that has seen the slaughter of more of it's own people in countless nationalistic wars, that even today is driving us towards the rape and death of the very planet that brought for life and sustains us. Yep I guess ancient Greek 'civilisation' as the motherland of all this has much to answer for then for the delporable state of the world today, dominated as it is by 'western powers' and cultures.

[Viewpoint]

erolz yes be annem....

[Murtaza]

In Turkey We know Greek army made the genocide, when they are retreating Anatolia, burned cities and killed Turks.2 million Greek went to greece with the TREATY OF LAUSANNE. If we killed greeks where did this 2 Million went to Greece? Still no answer for my questions.

Did your people prefer Venetians?

What would happen Turkish Cypriot if Turkey dont attack the island?

You lived 300 year under the harsh rules of Turks.
Will Turks bear 300 year in cyprus?

http://www.turk-yunan.gen.tr/english/ma ... index.html

Look who made massacres at the side of Turkish.


"Although their homeland had been dominated by foreigners for many centuries, it was only after the imposition of Ottoman rule that Orthodox Christians began to develop a really strong sense of cohesiveness. This change was prompted by the Ottoman practice of ruling the empire through millets, or religious communities. Rather than suppressing the empire's many religious communities, the Turks allowed them a degree of automony as long as they complied with the demands of the sultan"

I think if there is a "magnificent civilised greek culture" in Cyprus, You own it to Ottomans.

[MicAtCyp]

Erol,

first welcome back from the army.How was it my friend?

Now answering your post, is a bit difficult I mean jumping from answering provocative and often wrong arguments to well organised rational ones, but I will try.

1)The criteria for what constitutes a "civilisation" be it technological,sociological,etc are well defined, and I expected a reply along those lines. The fall of Byzantium had nothing to do with its’ civilisation.

Civilisation is just a term used by the powerful to justify and mediate their expolitation of others imo.

No! This is absolutely wrong. Like I said the criteria for what constitutes a "civilisation" in contrast with "primitiveness" is known. The same of what constitutes "an advanced civilisation" to just a "civilisation". Whether "civilised" groups exploited others to achieve their level of civilisation is again irrelevant. I don’t know for example who Pythagoras had exploited to draw his mathematical formulae, nor do I know any exploitation of a Nobel prize winner to invent what he invented and thus advance his civilisation, nor do I know who Bill Gates exploited to Invent windows. It is true however that once this "civilisation" is achieved, it is also used to exploit others, but it is not a precondition. Again coming back to the matter of the Ottoman empire they did exploit all their subjects but they did not produce or advance "civilisation" on the contrary they took it backwards.

To me the acceptance that these things are all relative and than no culture is more 'advanced' than any other excpet by arbitary criteria is the most 'civilised'

Again you consider the criteria for civilisation arbitrary, which is NOT.

My point is do you not think this kind of 'denial' is something we all do, or do you really see it as something unique to Turks and TC (who trace their roots culturaly, not genticaly, to the ottoman empire)?

I see it as something we all do. But hey, the point of discussion was the Ottoman era, and obviously I had to refer to what the Turkish/TCs are taught/not taught in this respect.

PS.It's sad to have old friends missing.Where is Insan?

[erolz]

Erol,

first welcome back from the army.How was it my friend?

Bearable - thanks for asking. This second (and final) two weeks was a lot less hard than the first. There was no marching or any phyical stuff. The hardest bit was dealing with the sheer boredom of sitting around all day doing nothing.

No! This is absolutely wrong. Like I said the criteria for what constitutes a "civilisation" in contrast with "primitiveness" is known. The same of what constitutes "an advanced civilisation" to just a "civilisation". Whether "civilised" groups exploited others to achieve their level of civilisation is again irrelevant. I don’t know for example who Pythagoras had exploited to draw his mathematical formulae, nor do I know any exploitation of a Nobel prize winner to invent what he invented and thus advance his civilisation, nor do I know who Bill Gates exploited to Invent windows. It is true however that once this "civilisation" is achieved, it is also used to exploit others, but it is not a precondition. Again coming back to the matter of the Ottoman empire they did exploit all their subjects but they did not produce or advance "civilisation" on the contrary they took it backwards.

I do not agree that what consitutes a civilisation is well defined. It is well defined by those that wish to define it to show the superiority of thier culture over others. But these 'measures' are subjective. I still maintain that there are 'primative' cultures that in their ability to live in harmony and sustainablilty with their environments shoe more 'civilisation' than anything shown today by moder western cultures. We however chose to ignore such measures because we know that we score badly on these and thus chose the criteria that proove our desires. At least that's how I see it.

As for pythagoras, I doubt he would have been 'free' to devote the time and effort he did to his studies had it not been for the wealth of the society he lived in, gained by exploitation of others as almost all wealth is in one form or another.

As for Bill Gates - he did not invent windows. He did not develop the whole WIMP graphical environment- he 'stole' this idea from others. He did not even write windows - he paid workers to write whilst personally accumulating in a vastly disproprtionate manner the wealth from their labours.

It is imo (and I am not a historian and I have been brought up and educated in the 'western tradtion' with all it's inevitable bias to ancient greek culture) not correct to assert that the ottomans did nothing to produce or advance civilisation. I think this is a racist / biased based view based not on historical fact and evidence. I am not however any sort of expert, but the idea that one culture is superior to any pother is to me an anethma by default.

Again you consider the criteria for civilisation arbitrary, which is NOT.

Again then I ask is a culture that manages to live in harmony and sustainability with its environment more or less civilised than one that rapes and destroys it's environment? Who get's to deifne if this is more civilised or not?

PS.It's sad to have old friends missing.Where is Insan?

I am not sure. I suspect he is just 'tired'. I also guess and hope that he will return in due course.

[garbitsch]

If you can convince me that the Ottomans had a higher standard of Civilisation than the Byzantium go ahead.

Every empire had its peak times and the stagnant and eventually disentegration times. I am not going convince you which was more civilised than the other. Both empires had achieved a lot and both empires had collapsed in the end. The time periods of the existence of both empires were different so it will be ridiculous to compare the "standard of Civilisation" of both. Ottoman empire ended in early 20th century, whereas Byzantium ended in 15th! It is obviously that Ottomans had a higher standard of Civilisation than Byzantium because of the time period. But if you compare the Seljuk Turks or other Turkish sultanates at the time of Byzantium, the latter was far more civilised than the former. I hope you got my point here.

You shouldn’t be offended.For two reasons a)Because you are no more their decentands than you are decendents of the local population.Did the Ottomans bring their wives with them? b) for the same reason I am not offended for the attrocities against the TCs in the 60s. I just accept what my ancestors did and feel sorry.

What matters for me is to understand why todays people of the other side feel the way they do. And by the way this was my initial point in response of your own sarcastic argument that the Ottomans were barbaric, etc May I remind you that I told you to think of the reasons why the GCs feel like that?

If your father is Ottoman but your mother is Greek, this does not make you Ottoman or Greek but both. So you are saying that my ancestors are not Ottomans because they didnt bring wifes. I didn't get the logic. I am also not offended what TMT and Turkey did to Greek Cypriots and I also feel sorry for them. But isn't it time to stop this systematic blame of each other and look for the future? I mean what will you get by disgracing Ottoman empire?

I think as I said before the Greeks believe in that way because they are taught to do so. They believe Turks are their enemies so everything "the other" does must be barbaric and inhumane.

Look if you prefer to divert the discussion to jokes, do it by yourself.Tell me what are you celebrating today 19 May? 300,000 Pontians is a genocide for me what is it for you? And the pontians were not living in Brazil by the way, they were living at the areas where your father of Turks first arranged to secure the country from it's "enemies" to bring peace in the country piss in the world.

Why does only Greeks claim that there was a Pontian genocide? We celebrate 19 May because this was the start of the national resistance against the invadors. Remember the Turkish lands were occupied by British, French, Italian, Armenian, Greek, Russian nations!! What did you expect? To subordinate them and accept Serves? I am quite sure that Turks did murdered Pontians, but the Turks were slaughtered at the other parts of the country and nobody damn cares about the loss of Turks as if it was a right thing to murder Turks but if Turks kill, it must be a genocide...

I expect nothing! I fear no-one.... Sounds familiar to you? I am not expecting you to beleive in my sincerity-I don't even need or want that. Katalaves?

Nai katalavenw. Ok I admit, that was something I didnt intend to say. You well know when people are pissed off they say things they don't want to. You did it many times. Remember you called me Garbage?

That's what they teach them Kifeas.The nice and glorious things. The best they can say is that the Ottomans were not Angels. Ask them for an example of how they were not angels nobody knows!!

And they teach you how you were the center of the world, the cradle of advanced civilisation, and how your civilised democratic empire was destroyed by the mongolians from asia, who can create nothing apart from destroying. They do teach you nice and glorious things too... They never teach you what Greeks did to Turks during the invasion of Turkey! Come on Mic, admit that your last argument is biased.

[Murtaza]

Mongolians are not Turk. Infact Turk comes to Anatolia because of Mongol invasion. Turks fought Mongolian in Anatolia,Russia even in Egypt.
And Turks lost the war everyplace other than Egypt.

I dont hate or feel ill about mongolian, But we are not.

Just for information.

[achilles]

That you can not name a single great painter, poet, writer or archictect or anything 'great' that relates to the ottoman empire is simply a reflection of your own limited knowledge and blinkered and narrow education and nothing more. That you can use your own ignorance as 'proof' of your thesis is also quite telling. I strongly suspect that you personally would struggle to find examples of the above from any civilisation other than your own beloved and venerated ancient Greek civilisation - which as I point out is not a testment to these other civilisations but to your own ignorance and limited knowledge.

Countless examples could be given but what would be the point. Your own intelligence should tell you that there were such people from all cultures even if you personaly have no knowledge of them and have never been toaught about them. It seems however that an irrational beleif in the supremacy of Greek culture above all others is a more comfoting crutch for you than intellignet logical enquiry. Anyway on the off chance that you are genuinely interested in sonme education and expansion of your mind and your horizions here is a link to get you started

Drawing very strong conclusions on what i know or dont know does not really promote any sort of discussion. You dont know what i know and vice cersa. Your ad hominem approach can only expose your inability to argue based on fruitful grounds. Back to the point.

Nice article by the Guardian but it didnt really beat me to it. If the examples are countless then i point them out, but remember we need examples of a certain magnitude here. It is certain that all countries, empires, groups of people have generated men and women of the spirit, irrespective of how you define the latter. I know Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Pakistani, Colombian, Mexican people of the spirits and creativity with a significant impact on the world thinking. Show me the corresponding contributions of the Turkish historical think-tank throughout the years...Show me a Turkish mega-acheivement, a revolutionary trend in thinking, an architectural breakthrough, something that Turkey will be remembered for for generations and generations to come.

I am not projecting my arrogance about the wonder that is called 'Hellenic Civilization', non-Greeks can verify that instead of me. I am just saying that your ancestors' culture was inferior as compared to all western and far-eastern civilizations. You probably have to live with the fact that in there is a 'better' and a 'worse' in EVERYTHING, including civilizations and cultures, although it is not the easiest of the tasts to quantify the latter.

Tell me something that the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey will be remebered for 1000 years down the line...

[Murtaza]

Tell me something that the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey will be remebered for 1000 years down the line...

Their Genocides! And will remember 5000 year by Greeks!

[achilles]

Tell me something that the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey will be remebered for 1000 years down the line...

Their Genocides! And will remember 5000 year by Greeks!

Word!