Cyprus-Forum.com

[Cem]

Oracle, happy to be able to provide you with so many smileys !

1) Since you also confused the population of your motherland to be 8 m instead of 11 m thus 7 times smaller than Turkey not 10 times , we are somewhat ex aequo. you were rolling along with this basic mistake, thank Kifeas for stopping you short on this.

Still, in case you noticed 3 Greek 1 Turkish nobel laureates all revolve around peace and literature, nothing in the line of exact sciences (chemistry, physics, medicine, etc..) prize recipients for both countries.
Consequently, both countries have clearly an unstatisfactory record with respect to achievements in natural sciences.

Thus, if Turkey needs a model country to be inspired from, it should be Israel due to its academic/scientific output per capita for its sheer size, not Greece.

2) Your post about literacy rate is typically off-topic as this thread is about universities in Turkey not about the literacy rate, so stick to the topic.

3) turkish governments-past and present- having a dictating power in universities does not make these institutions racists but point to a general democracy problem which nobody can deny. Greece did not fare better under Dimitrios Ioannides rule either.

4) Still,you have not answered my question about how come Ankara (vicinity) becomes an ethnically cleansed land.

Cem you deserve the Nobel prize for clownery .... How can you make such a phenomenal error with all your obvious Googling .... maybe you should cut down on "Wikipedia"

We will share the prize then, since anyone who keeps boasting about her motherland and hellenic roots all the time and not knowing its exact population would oblige me to share the prize with him/her.

[Oracle]

Oracle, happy to be able to provide you with so many smileys !

1) Since you also confused the population of your motherland to be 8 m instead of 11 m thus 7 times smaller than Turkey not 10 times , we are somewhat ex aequo. you were rolling along with this basic mistake, thank Kifeas for stopping you short on this.

Still, in case you noticed 3 Greek 1 Turkish nobel laureates all revolve around peace and literature, nothing in the line of exact sciences (chemistry, physics, medicine, etc..) prize recipients for both countries.
Consequently, both countries have clearly an unstatisfactory record with respect to achievements in natural sciences.

Thus, if Turkey needs a model country to be inspired from, it should be Israel due to its academic/scientific output per capita for its sheer size, not Greece.

2) Your post about literacy rate is typically off-topic as this thread is about universities in Turkey not about the literacy rate, so stick to the topic.

3) turkish governments-past and present- having a dictating power in universities does not make these institutions racists but point to a general democracy problem which nobody can deny. Greece did not fare better under Dimitrios Ioannides rule either.

4) Still,you have not answered my question about how come Ankara (vicinity) becomes an ethnically cleansed land.

Cem you deserve the Nobel prize for clownery .... How can you make such a phenomenal error with all your obvious Googling .... maybe you should cut down on "Wikipedia"

We will share the prize then, since anyone who keeps boasting about her motherland and hellenic roots all the time and not knowing its exact population would oblige me to share the prize with him/her.

No the prize is all yours; for to flatly declare Greece had ZERO Nobel Prize winners when it had at least 3 (4 actually!) and to boast Turkey's dubious achievement of ONE ... is rather grand.

Kifeas' stick-ling for numbers is not your achievement, but his .... and my attempts to make my statement easier and quicker to post by rounding the numbers (excluding foreign nationals, illegal immigrants etc) did not meet with Kifeas' approval ... but would have gone right over your head.

[Bananiot]

Silly woman Oracle. My adopted country has the smallest number of pigs too. How about yours?

[Oracle]

Silly woman Oracle. My adapted country has the smallest number of pigs too. How about yours?

Is that adaptation in the Darwinian sense? .... at least mine don't try to fly!

Bananiot ... trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear :: trying to turn Turks into rational Humans!

[Bananiot]

What now? The a easily becomes an o, but stupidity remains your trade mark.

[Oracle]

What now? The a easily becomes an o, but stupidity remains your trade mark.

If you are trying to insult someone, at least have the foresight to cover your arse!

[Kifeas]

Oracle, happy to be able to provide you with so many smileys !

1) Since you also confused the population of your motherland to be 8 m instead of 11 m thus 7 times smaller than Turkey not 10 times , we are somewhat ex aequo. you were rolling along with this basic mistake, thank Kifeas for stopping you short on this.

Still, in case you noticed 3 Greek 1 Turkish nobel laureates all revolve around peace and literature, nothing in the line of exact sciences (chemistry, physics, medicine, etc..) prize recipients for both countries.
Consequently, both countries have clearly an unstatisfactory record with respect to achievements in natural sciences.

Thus, if Turkey needs a model country to be inspired from, it should be Israel due to its academic/scientific output per capita for its sheer size, not Greece.

2) Your post about literacy rate is typically off-topic as this thread is about universities in Turkey not about the literacy rate, so stick to the topic.

3) turkish governments-past and present- having a dictating power in universities does not make these institutions racists but point to a general democracy problem which nobody can deny. Greece did not fare better under Dimitrios Ioannides rule either.

4) Still,you have not answered my question about how come Ankara (vicinity) becomes an ethnically cleansed land.

Not necessarily because I want to disagree with you, but there are at least two issues that need to be discussed here.

First, Israel is not Israel, but almost the entire US behind it. Israel of nearly 7 million nowadays, has an additional 10 million Jewish-Americans, the by far richest and most influential community in the US, rallying behind it by all means and at all times.

Second, it is true about Ioannidis’ Greece. However, Ioannidis Junta managed to last 7 years only, rather than the more than 80 years of military Juntas ruling Turkey behind the scene. The most important difference though, is that during the 7 years of Papadopoulos and Ioannidis Junta, almost the entire Greek intelligentsia fled Greece and fought the Junta from the outside, in all 4 corners of the planet, managing among others to have had Greece kicked out of the Council of Europe, for the violation of Democracy in their country. In the case of Turkey, not only the Turkish intelligentsia has never taken a similar role and road, but in fact (with a few minor exceptions) they fully comply and cooperate with the ruling status quo of their country.

[Oracle]

Athens ....

http://www.topuniversities.com/universi ... llrankings

Joint 200 with Netherlands ....

(For the benefit of Cem: Israel represented for the first time )

[Tim Drayton]

Anybody who seriously wants to understand modern Turkey and the reasons for the poor international standing of Turkish universities (which eliminates 99% of the Greek speakers on this forum who simply seach for comforting reinforcment of their simple-minded racist stereotypyes which dictate, for example, that untermenschen like the Turks could never have universities, only "universities") has to examine the impact of the military coup of 12 September 1980 on academic life in that country.

In the wake of this coup, large numbers of teachers and academics were detained and tortured. About one thousand academics were thrown out of their jobs. Virtually the first act of the Kenan Evren junta was to abolish the 1963 constitution which guaranteed academic freedom and the organisation of civil society, and to replace it with a much more restrictive constitution. One of the first peices of legislation enacted by the junta was a new higher education law which ushered in the detested Higher Education Council, with the result that all academic life became tightly controlled by the generals. Soldiers are good at fighting wars, but not at running universities, and not surprisingly the academic standing of Turkish universities plumetted. In the sixties and seventies, the Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara was considered to be a regional heavyweight - now it is a minnow. The reason is because the CIA, the sponsors of the 1980 coup, wished it to be this way - or were prepared to accept this a regrettable side effect of bringing a fascist military dictatorship to power.

Will this state of affairs last for ever? I don't think so. I believe that eventually Turkey will be able to cast off the legacy of 12 September, even though it has probably cost the country two decades in terms of development.

It is far more comforting to brush all this under the carpet and let the current poor international standing of Turkish universities reinforce superficial stereotypes. How can a bunch of slit-eyed (actually the Turks of Anatolia have mixed so much with other peoples that they no longer have slit eyes!) huns (actually the Huns were a different people from the Turks who, for example, destroyed the Turkish Seljuq Empire!) who wandered in from the backwaters of Central Asia (actually my mother has just returned from a week in Uzbekistan, where she was awestruck by the architectural marvels of Bukhara and Samarkant, a legacy of the vibrant Turkic civilisation that one flourished there!) ever learn to write their names, let alone aspire to run a university.

Cherish these stereotypes all you like. Turkey is a major neighbour of Cyprus which occupies one third of its territory and aspires to control the whole island. This threat can only be encountered with a sober, realistic appraisal of developments in Turkey, one that accepts that there can be universities and not "universities" in that country.

[Bananiot]

Thank you Tim, very well said.