Cyprus-Forum.com

[DT.]

I saw that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer Simpson called the crew on a Turkish Freighter "Cyprus-Splitting Jerks!" I suppose there's another negative for you...

That was a great episode!

[utu]

I saw that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer Simpson called the crew on a Turkish Freighter "Cyprus-Splitting Jerks!" I suppose there's another negative for you...

Why are you on a witch hunt utu......Still wound up about Expats treatment....Are you qualified to try and gage the mental state of a people???

Zan, I don't know what you're talking about. I had watched that episode on TV a couple of nights ago (thinking that Matt Groening must have had some Greeks on his staff perhaps). When this thread came up, it seemed the place to mention it as it clearly sounded like something a Turk would regard as negative. What Expatkiwi has to do with it, well... you tell me.

[zan]

I saw that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer Simpson called the crew on a Turkish Freighter "Cyprus-Splitting Jerks!" I suppose there's another negative for you...

Why are you on a witch hunt utu......Still wound up about Expats treatment....Are you qualified to try and gage the mental state of a people???

Zan, I don't know what you're talking about. I had watched that episode on TV a couple of nights ago (thinking that Matt Groening must have had some Greeks on his staff perhaps). When this thread came up, it seemed the place to mention it as it clearly sounded like something a Turk would regard as negative. What Expatkiwi has to do with it, well... you tell me.

You seem to be putting things in here that have already been discussed on ATCA a long time ago...This is like the question you asked about Cyprus splitting from Turkey as a land mass.


Now about the Simpsons.....Homer Simpson is supposed to be a thick Typical American who always says the wrong thing and is a prejudiced redneck.....We are supposed to take what he says as wrong wrong wrong......So I would say that the Greeks have something to worry about with that comment because he writer and the producer must actually think the opposite...


I am not just trying to put a spin on it but have had this conversation with those at ATCA who got a little carried away with not knowing the meaning of SATIRE!!!!

[utu]

Now about the Simpsons.....Homer Simpson is supposed to be a thick Typical American who always says the wrong thing and is a prejudiced redneck.....We are supposed to take what he says as wrong wrong wrong......So I would say that the Greeks have something to worry about with that comment because he writer and the producer must actually think the opposite...


I am not just trying to put a spin on it but have had this conversation with those at ATCA who got a little carried away with not knowing the meaning of SATIRE!!!!

Still, when people watch that show - and it is VERY popular - little tidbits like that getting added pushes a message across to a lot of people. This bit about Cyprus is by no means unique. At lot of other political opinions have been added to the series ever since it started.

[Oracle]

Now about the Simpsons.....Homer Simpson is supposed to be a thick Typical American who always says the wrong thing and is a prejudiced redneck.....We are supposed to take what he says as wrong wrong wrong......So I would say that the Greeks have something to worry about with that comment because he writer and the producer must actually think the opposite...


I am not just trying to put a spin on it but have had this conversation with those at ATCA who got a little carried away with not knowing the meaning of SATIRE!!!!

Still, when people watch that show - and it is VERY popular - little tidbits like that getting added pushes a message across to a lot of people. This bit about Cyprus is by no means unique. At lot of other political opinions have been added to the series ever since it started.

Zan doesn't like the messenger; yet The Simpsons are reflective of the American mindset - genre (I like that word ). Homer's humour hits home, with hidden honest homilies ....

[zan]

Now about the Simpsons.....Homer Simpson is supposed to be a thick Typical American who always says the wrong thing and is a prejudiced redneck.....We are supposed to take what he says as wrong wrong wrong......So I would say that the Greeks have something to worry about with that comment because he writer and the producer must actually think the opposite...


I am not just trying to put a spin on it but have had this conversation with those at ATCA who got a little carried away with not knowing the meaning of SATIRE!!!!

Still, when people watch that show - and it is VERY popular - little tidbits like that getting added pushes a message across to a lot of people. This bit about Cyprus is by no means unique. At lot of other political opinions have been added to the series ever since it started.

Its about Homer utu......I am not accounting for the numb nuts of an American but those with an once of sense......As far as I am concerned it is a negative comment to them...It is inviting those that will to look into the other side of the story....There they will find a Greek coup.....and atrocious behavior towards TCs...

[CopperLine]

Turkey attained the status of a nation state at a very late historical stage, at a time when nationalism was ceasing to be a progressive ideology of liberation and was being harnessed by the forces of totalitarian . This has left the Turkish state with the legacy of being based on an outdated, extreme form of nationalism which many outsiders find rather distasteful.

I think the premiss to be mistaken in fact and it is difficult therefore to see how your conclusion is necessary.

If we say that Turkey became a nation-state in 1923 and just compare this with other European states, we find that modern Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Baltic republics, and several of the Balkan states also became nation states at the same time, or at least in the period 1918-1923. So it is stretching it to say that Turkey "attained the status of a nation state at a very late historical stage." Indeed if we're talking about 'stages' both Germany and Italy had only secured something approximating a nation-state in 1860-1870. And if we're talking about consolidation of the nation state in a form recognisable today then, all the Balkan states (Greece included) Germany, Poland, Russia, central European states etc, post-date 1918.

If 'lateness' expresses a more totalitarian nationalism then (a) how do you account for the fact that the earlier nationalisers (Germany, Russia) were the exemplars of totalitarianism ?

And when did nationalism become progressive and stop being progressive ? Was there a sell-by date ? (I half joke )

[CopperLine]

All the negatives of Turks

This is the kind of CyProb thread I hate... nothing of essence but plain old boring racist crap!

Well said, Get Real

[Tim Drayton]

Turkey attained the status of a nation state at a very late historical stage, at a time when nationalism was ceasing to be a progressive ideology of liberation and was being harnessed by the forces of totalitarian . This has left the Turkish state with the legacy of being based on an outdated, extreme form of nationalism which many outsiders find rather distasteful.

I think the premiss to be mistaken in fact and it is difficult therefore to see how your conclusion is necessary.

If we say that Turkey became a nation-state in 1923 and just compare this with other European states, we find that modern Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Baltic republics, and several of the Balkan states also became nation states at the same time, or at least in the period 1918-1923. So it is stretching it to say that Turkey "attained the status of a nation state at a very late historical stage." Indeed if we're talking about 'stages' both Germany and Italy had only secured something approximating a nation-state in 1860-1870. And if we're talking about consolidation of the nation state in a form recognisable today then, all the Balkan states (Greece included) Germany, Poland, Russia, central European states etc, post-date 1918.

If 'lateness' expresses a more totalitarian nationalism then (a) how do you account for the fact that the earlier nationalisers (Germany, Russia) were the exemplars of totalitarianism ?

And when did nationalism become progressive and stop being progressive ? Was there a sell-by date ? (I half joke )

Perhaps it is not so much the emergence of a nation state per se as the acquisition of the national consciousness underpinning this state that appeared relatively late on the scene, and under different historic circumstances. Turkish-speakers identified themselves as 'Ottomans' in the heyday of the Ottoman Empire and it is generally accepted that a Turkish national consciousness only began to emerge among certain intellectuals grouped around Ziya Gökalp at the very end of the 19th century.

There is a text in which Mustafa Kemal Atatürk himself berates the Turkish nation for being so late to acquire a national consciousness, including the words:

Biz ulusallık düşüncelerini uygulamakta çok gecikmiş ve çok gevşeklik göstermiş bir ulusuz [...] Özellikle bizim ulusumuz ulusallığını anlamamazlıktan gelişinin çok acı cezalar gördü.

We are a nation that has been very late and very sloppy in applying nationalist thinking. [...] Our nation in particular has paid a very heavy price for feigning ignorance of nationalism.

I think that nationalism was a progressive ideology at the time of the 1848 revolutions that rocked Europe; it is generally agreed, I think, that with the birth of Romanticism, nationalism acquired a very different, more conservative flavour.

The 1848 revolutions certainly affected the Austro-Hungarian Empire - a short-lived independant Hungarian state was established in 1849, for example - whereas I don't think that this process had any resonance whatsover in the heart of the Ottoman Empire. As you rightly say, several modern states whose territory once formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire attained their statehood at about the same time as Turkey. Even so, their traditions of nationalism are partly steeped in the failed uprisings of 1848 whereas Turkish nationalism does not draw on such roots and was fomented in an era when Romanticism had come to the fore.

I think the situation is very different in the case of Poland. Poland was once a huge feudal kingdom whose territory stretched far further than the current borders of the state that bears this name. It gradually began to loose territory to Russia, Sweden, Austro-Hungary and Prussia until it totally dissapeared from the map by the end of the 18th century. However, Poles retained their national identity and staged countless rebellions against their various conquerors. Polish national consciousness draws on a tradtion that predates the establishment of the Polish state in 1918.

I certainly feel, and I know that other Westerners who have lived in Turkey share my opinion, that there is something extreme and distasteful about the nationalism underpinning the modern Turkish state. The explanation for this must lie in the historical development of this ideology. The above is my attempt to account for this phenomenon. There may well be better explanations.