Cyprus-Forum.com

[Agios Amvrosios]

the Loose use of the word "massacre" by some Turkish extremists, to descibe the death of two dozen turkish cypriots terrorists cannot be taken seriously. How many'innocent' or peaceful turks were killed all up during the ethnic clashes-less than five hundred-and this was over a period of twenty years.

The loose use of the term "massacre" by Turkish nationalists to try to justify the ethnic cleanising of hundreds of thousands and the murder of thousands in 1974 is getting old and fooling nobody. This gross exageration is always raised as a subtefuge by Turksih extremists trying to prevent kyrenia refugees from returning to their towns and villages.

[BirKibrisli]

Great!We have another bozkurt (grey wolf) on this site.God help us all.
You know the funny thing?The first sultan of the Ottoman empire was Orhan bey.His mother was Greek (or Bryzantine in those days),his wife was Greek (she was the daughter of the Bryzantine emperor).You can work out what their sons and daughters were.The Ottoman empire were ruled by the elite from the Balkans,most were born Orthodox and died orthodox.The only turks who lived in teh ottoman empire were the Turkmens who were farmers and shephards during peace time and soldiers in the front line during wars.Not many of them survived the centuries of conflict.Modern Greeks and Turks are the same people,let alone the GCs and the TCs.for the love of God,I don;t understand why all this hatred,why all this denial of history.Grow up people,get a life,learn some history,think about why we have to hate each other and who benefits from it.

[RAFAELLA]

European wannabe, your situation is getting realy serious....
You didn't have your Lexotanil yet?

Whats the matter Rafaella too racist for you? It is for me, but so is all that you write.

I didn’t have a doubt whether you’re a clown or not.
But from all I see you don’t miss a chance to ensure us about it… Clown!

European wannabe, your situation is getting realy serious....

If he is born on the continent of Europe he is european, full stop. How can somebody be wannabe europeans, if they are already born in a European country?
Turkey is surrounded by European countries on all side, Cyprus in the South, Armenia in the East, Ukrain in the North, and Greece in the West. It is most natural to assume that Turkey right in the middle should be considered part of Europe as well.

Donkeys do not become race horses by wearing racing saddles.

[Piratis]

bg_turk, I didn't say that the whole Europe is in EU. What i said is that the principles that are adopted by the EU are the common European principles. This doesn't mean that small exceptions do not exist or that every European country followers these principles. However the people of even those countries would much prefer if those principles were applied.

By the way, I don't know what the map you posted is, but it is not EU.

I have no problem with that, as long as you do not make it appear as if asians should be looked down upon.

I never said or made it appear in that way. Asia has some of the greatest civilizations (e.g. Chinese, Indians), not to mention that Chinese will probably be the next world super power.

[sadik]

Geographically only a small part of Turkey belongs to Europe.

However "European" is not just geography, but is also certain group of cultures and principles that started to develop with the ancient Greeks, then the Romans and so on.

Do you think that the Turkish culture, tradition and principles are closer to the one of Europe or Asia?

How many Turks consider themselves as European? How many would still consider themselves European if Europe was in deep recession and they had nothing to gain by associating with it?

Why don't you ask this same question to Norway and Switzerland which have nothing to gain economically by becoming members of the EU. If there were no economic, political or security benefits, nobody would be in the EU today.

Turkish culture might not be very close to the culture of Scandinavia but it's very close to the culture of Balkans. It's also has similarities with other neighbouring countries cultures as well, because your culture is shaped by the other cultures that you are in contact with. Turkey itself has many cultures, depending on the geographical location in the country.

Europeanness is not a well defined identity, but EU is. Rules, regulations and principles of the EU is very well defined, and a great majority of the population of Turkey agree that they need to follow these rules, principles, etc.

On the matter of Ancient Greeks, I totally agree that they made a great contribution to humanity. But human deveopment is a continium. Ancients Egiptians and Mesopotamian civilizations, civilizations in Asia minor made great contributions as well, and what Ancient Greeks developed are based on those prior developments. Arabs gave us the basis of the mathematics that we use today. Chinese invented most of the basic tools that a civilization needs like paper. Germans, Italians, Americans, the Japaneese, etc... goes on like this. There are many links in the history, in the absense of which we would have a completely different Europe and World.

You cannot "own" one part of human development, it belongs to all humanity. You definitely cannot "own" the whole human civilization. And this perceived ownership does not make it soley your right to achieve prosperity and safety.

(You is a rhetorical you, not you personally...)

[Piratis]

Why don't you ask this same question to Norway and Switzerland which have nothing to gain economically by becoming members of the EU. If there were no economic, political or security benefits, nobody would be in the EU today.

You missed my point.

What I am saying is that many Turks define themselves as Asians, and that many of the ones that define themselves as European they do so because being part of Europe (EU) has certain benefits. If EU was in deep recession for decades and being part of Europe didn't bring any benefits, don't you agree that much less Turks would define themselves as European?

On the other hand a Swiss will always define himself as a European no matter what the situation in Europe is.

[zan]

Great!We have another bozkurt (grey wolf) on this site.God help us all.
You know the funny thing?The first sultan of the Ottoman empire was Orhan bey.His mother was Greek (or Bryzantine in those days),his wife was Greek (she was the daughter of the Bryzantine emperor).You can work out what their sons and daughters were.The Ottoman empire were ruled by the elite from the Balkans,most were born Orthodox and died orthodox.The only turks who lived in teh ottoman empire were the Turkmens who were farmers and shephards during peace time and soldiers in the front line during wars.Not many of them survived the centuries of conflict.Modern Greeks and Turks are the same people,let alone the GCs and the TCs.for the love of God,I don;t understand why all this hatred,why all this denial of history.Grow up people,get a life,learn some history,think about why we have to hate each other and who benefits from it.

Welcome to my world. I don't want to upset you by saying that but this might be the reason for our differing views. Every day I encounter racism, every day. Not from a personal point as in directed at me because I seem to have a universal appearance. I have been mistaken for Spanish, Italian, Jewish, Greek, English and even a couple of times as a Turk. Sometimes I encounter serious racism as appears on this board and that is the basis for my argument. You want to put Raffaella and those others, living in the same street with only your love to protect them from themselves. All that will happen will be them tearing each other’s eyes out whilst you and I sit wiping away the tears of a clown.

[sadik]

Why don't you ask this same question to Norway and Switzerland which have nothing to gain economically by becoming members of the EU. If there were no economic, political or security benefits, nobody would be in the EU today.

You missed my point.

What I am saying is that many Turks define themselves as Asians, and that many of the ones that define themselves as European they do so because being part of Europe (EU) has certain benefits. If EU was in deep recession for decades and being part of Europe didn't bring any benefits, don't you agree that much less Turks would define themselves as European?

On the other hand a Swiss will always define himself as a European no matter what the situation in Europe is.

I don't understand what you are trying to prove by that. Europeanness did not man anything until recently. 500 years ago, people were not saying "yes we are Europeans, we are happy Europeans..." Geography, in no way, was an obsticle for them to sloughter each other. They were saying we are Catholics, or Muslims or this guy is our king, etc... But it's correct. Since Switzerland cannot move from cetral Europe to Asia, they will always be Europens, geographically speaking, unless scientists decide to change names and borders of continents.

In Turkey, the only people that call themselves Asians are Maoist communists, as far as I know. Some call themselves "Eurasians", a pro-Turkist, pro-Russian nationalist ideology that aims to unite all Turkic areas of Central Asia with Turkey in alliance with Russia, against Anglo-American imperialists. But these are fringe elements. People usually don't define themselves like that.

[zan]

By the way Birkibrisli, have you read "Birds without wings" by Louis de Bernieres.




Quote from book.

"And it was said that the ship took our people to Crete, which is a land in the west, and it was from that land that some Muslims came to replace them, but not as many as the number we lost. And these Cretan Muslims are rather like the Christians that we lost, so that we wonder why it was necessary to exchange them, because these Cretans dance and sing as our Christians used to do, except that they have a new dance called pentozali which it lifts the heart to watch. A few of these Cretans speak only Greek. At least all of our Christians knew how to speak Turk.”

“And when our people came home from seeing the Christians leave, two very strange things happened. One was that the bell of the church fell off the bell tower of St.Nicholas, and broke into two pieces on the paving stones, and the other thing is that for days afterwards all you heard at night was the crying of the cats. They drowned out the bulbuls and nightingales, crying and crying, lamenting and complaining, complaining and lamenting.”

[Main_Source]

another Turk who thinks Crete should be part of Turkey lol. great.