Cyprus-Forum.com

[yialousa1971]

Turks reveal xenophobic, conservative attitudes in poll

Turks are xenophobic, socially conservative people who rarely read books, relegate women to second-class status and harbour ambivalent views about democracy, contentious new research has revealed.

The unflattering picture has emerged from a survey by one of Turkey's most respected polling organisations, Konda, which interviewed 6,482 people.

Some 73% opposed allowing foreigners to own Turkish land or property, while nine out of 10 said they had never taken a holiday abroad. Just under 70% said they never read books, and 72% said they never or rarely bought new hi-tech products as soon they appeared on the market. Many also expressed fears that Turkey's neighbours planned to carve up the country.

Nearly 70% said wives needed their husband's permission to work while 57% believed that a female should never leave home wearing a sleeveless top. More than half - 53% - favoured allowing women judges, prosecutors, teachers and other public servants to wear the Islamic headscarf on duty, something Turkey's secular constitution forbids.

While 88% agreed that Turkey should be governed by democracy "under each and every condition", this was undermined by the significant proportion - 48% - who said the military should intervene "when necessary". The powerful armed forces have toppled four elected governments in coups in the past 50 years.

The survey, entitled Who Are We?, was conducted on behalf of Hurriyet, one of Turkey's biggest selling newspapers, renowned for its secularist outlook.

Tarhan Erdem, senior analyst with Konda, said the research was aimed at understanding ongoing social transformation and seeing whether Turkey was the country many of its people thought they knew. The high support for military intervention showed Turks had reservations about democracy, he said, while attitudes towards women exposed a lack of gender equality. "The data shows that women aren't free in their private lives," Erdem said.

Ahmet Insel, a columnist with Radikal newspaper, said opposition to foreign travel and property ownership stemmed from a preoccupation with the 1919-1923 war of independence that established modern Turkey.

"We think the war of independence is still under way, so it's no surprise we are xenophobic. We're still fighting foreigners," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/turks-xenophobic-conservative-poll

[insan]

Xenophobia in Greece
There is an significant awareness historically of the foreign policy held by American and Britain towasds Greece, it is aimed more at governments than at individuals, and is based on both present and past foreign policy on the part of both countries in regard to the Balkans and the Middle East in general since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and World War I up through World War II (American involvement mostly since the latter), and in regard to Cyprus. Over 50,000 Greeks students study in both these countries anually even so.

Germans are general accepted by Greeks, despite the brutal occupation of Hitler's armies during World War II, with the burning of up to 1000 villages and massacres of civilians even on mere suspicion of supporting the resistance guerilla fighters.

Widespread antipathy is, however, expressed by Greeks towards Albanians, who make up the largest percentage of immigrants who have come to Greece for work since the early 1990s, and who are disliked by many Greeks for being the cheap labor force and source of public revenues that has been the basis of their being permitted to stay and apply for work permits.

They are also widely seen as being the cause of the significant rise in crime rates in Greece and are often scapegoated unjustly. Though many Greeks have Albanian employees whom they personally like and treat fairly, Greeks and Albanians generally don't socialize.

Other recent immigrants to Greece include Bulgarians, Ukranians, Moldavians, Philipinos, Africans, Iranians, and, more recently, some Chinese, Pakistanis and Bangladeshi.

Many Greeks, especially in the large cities, resent the large proportion of foreigners both in schools and neighborhoods, often expressing the fear that Greeks will be outnumbered if even more immigrants come. Greece has been criticized both by Amnesty International and by the EU for its treatment of both minorities and foreigners, and in particular for its failure to observe international asylum standard. Only a tiny fraction of those who petition for asylum in Greece are granted asylum.

http://www.greeceathensaegeaninfo.com/t ... phobia.htm

[insan]

Greeks xenophobic, insecure and distrustful of politicians

Greeks xenophobic, insecure and distrustful of politicians
According to a survey carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, Greeks on the whole are xenophobic, religious, insecure and distrustful of politicians. However, the survey shows that they trust the police and the laws, despite the fact that they have no confidence in parliament and politicians, whom they consider are interested only in receiving votes.

https://www.hri.org/news/greek/eraen/20 ... eraen.html

[insan]

"Greeks are xenophobic, insecure, religious, TV addicted and, most importantly, ultraconservative (bordering on reactionary)."


By Stamos Zoulas
10 November 2003

"Greeks are xenophobic, insecure, religious, TV addicted and, most importantly,
ultraconservative (bordering on reactionary).” This was the conclusion of a European
Social Survey that was organized in Greece by the government-funded National Center
for Social Research (EKKE). “Greece is advancing more quickly than the Greeks. There
seems to be a gap. The country is achieving political stability, a secure framework of
alliances and a strong currency. On the other hand, the citizens appear frozen, wary,
if not afraid, in facing the new era,” Greek coordinator Yiannis Voulgaris said,
comparing the findings with those of our European peers. It should be noted, though,
that in order to draw logical, fair and safe conclusions, a pan-European survey must
compare corresponding circumstances and data. For example, the stance held by a Greek
citizen toward the global migration wave cannot be compared to that of a Dutch or a
Portuguese citizen. These countries do not have to accept and integrate into their
economic and social life a percentage of foreigners that is over one-tenth of their
population. Had the poll’s questions been posed in another way, so as to present
Europeans with a similar prospect or threat, Greeks would probably have enjoyed the
highest ratings for tolerance, international solidarity and xenophilia.

Similarly, the Greeks’ religious sentiment — which is historically identified with
their national consciousness — must not be defined as that of other Europeans. As a
result, it should not be used as a criterion for measuring conservatism or
progressiveness. Focusing on the poll’s political findings, which based the conclusion
that Greeks are the most conservative among Europeans on a scale of 0 (Left) to 10
(Right), the respondents weighed clearly to the right.

This seems to be the poll’s most absurd conclusion: that “Right” and “Left” have some
special meaning in Greece that is different from that ascribed to these terms in other
European states, and hence bars any comparison on that basis.

The Left in Greece is — for ill or good — identified with Greece’s Communist Party
(KKE), which is the only one among the leftist parties in the 23 nations included in
the survey that still clings to the bankrupt ideology of “existing socialism.”

A similar difficulty besets the bulk of the Left, which has over the past 30 years
been identified by the ostensibly socialist PASOK. The party of the late Andreas
Papandreou started off with Third World principles and declarations, which caused it
in the first decade to even top traditional leftist parties in socialist rhetoric.
Over the years, however, and particularly under the leadership of incumbent Prime
Minister Costas Simitis, PASOK has not only shed all left-wing symbolism but, in
practice, it has gone as far as to deny its socialist identity. As a result, when
asked to classify themselves, many PASOK voters are in confusion or feel alienated
from their leftist identity.

Finally, it comes as no surprise that the “Right,” which is currently represented in
Greece by New Democracy alone, attracted the largest percentage of the respondents.
This is because in most other countries included in the poll, extreme rightist parties
play a significant role in civic life and, as a result, the term “Right” contains
negative connotations.

There can be little doubt about the above remarks. The fact that parties or other
para-political circles ignore or manipulate this data explains the survey’s most
unflattering finding — people’s disregard and disapproval of Greece’s body politic.

http://www.usenet.com/newsgroups/soc.cu ... 10785.html

[yialousa1971]

Greeks xenophobic, insecure and distrustful of politicians

Greeks xenophobic, insecure and distrustful of politicians
According to a survey carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, Greeks on the whole are xenophobic, religious, insecure and distrustful of politicians. However, the survey shows that they trust the police and the laws, despite the fact that they have no confidence in parliament and politicians, whom they consider are interested only in receiving votes.

https://www.hri.org/news/greek/eraen/20 ... eraen.html

Fool, this thread is about Turks not Greeks.

[Tim Drayton]

There is a huge conservative rural hinterland in Turkey. I think the results of this survey are accurate. On the other hand, there are smart neighbourhoods in the large cities where people's attitudes and lifestyles differ little from those of Western Europe.

[Kikapu]

Just under 70% said they never read books

I was riding in a "Dolmus" (public passenger van) with my niece to downtown Ankara several years ago, and what I mostly do, is read the newspaper while travelling. To my shock, my niece said to me, "uncle, please put the newspaper away, because people on the dolmus would laugh at you thinking that you are some snobbish educated intellectual or something." In another words, anyone who may ride public transportation is considered as the working class without education, and anyone who may read a book or newspaper in public, is only in trying to pretend to impress that they are better than others around them, unless of course one is in the upper class who is a "professional". I was totally shocked with this attitude. I was hoping that by now, reading in public may not be seen as being snobbish, but then again, perhaps not.!

[Oracle]

Yes I can see that belittling characteristic of anything scholastic right here on the forum by people like insan, who have a real chip on their shoulder that Greeks have been at the forefront of intellectualism and learning, and it is an ambition, achieved in varying proportions, by all present day Greeks and their descendants (Greek Cypriots, Greek Americans, Greek Brits etc).

Such a clash of mind-set cultures, Greeks and Turks, was always going to be bad news.

Unfortunately for us Cypriots, it's not the Greeks with their self-improvement tradition that we have to deal with, but the invading, expansionist spreaders of hate, malice and violence .... the Turks!

No wonder they also clash with the other great European practitioners of philosophical discourse and Literary tradition, the French!

[Oracle]

While 88% agreed that Turkey should be governed by democracy "under each and every condition", this was undermined by the significant proportion - 48% - who said the military should intervene "when necessary".

This actually means, that just a small minority agree with democracy, since the only testing question asked, revealed that they do not understand how Democracy works. The contradiction, by so many - 48% - who would allow undemocratic, military intervention, should be deducted from the final figures.

Maybe another question asking them what they thought about land grabs, colonisation of others' countries, violation of Human Rights, selling what doesn't belong to them, shooting protesters, constraining freedom of speech, anti-Turkishness etc may have revealed a more strikingly, worrying minuscule proportion really supporting Democracy ... much again as we find played out in Cyprus, both by the Turkish occupants of Cyprus and their leadership ....

[paliometoxo]

where old people asked these questions? thats some pretty backward thinking