Comments on: 17 Year Old Accused Of Murdering Turkish Writer http://www.theslant.co.uk/2007/01/23/17-year-old-accused-of-murdering-turkish-writer/ Taking a different one on the news Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:36:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 by: theo http://www.theslant.co.uk/2007/01/23/17-year-old-accused-of-murdering-turkish-writer/#comment-5075 Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:34:44 +0000 http://www.theslant.co.uk/2007/01/23/17-year-old-accused-of-murdering-turkish-writer/#comment-5075 Having studied the subject of turkey and its history for many years due to a tagic and personal interest i have just this to say about this particular death: Hrant Dink virtually guaranteed his death at the hands of one or other extremist borne of the Turkish state. To be a \"good Turk\" means to take on an ultra nationalist identity supplied in brown paper bags by the states schools and reinforced by the compulsory service in the armed forces where any deviation is severely punished. Years of propoganda leave the average turkish child benumbed and lost to rational independent thought and send them in to adulthood a pliant right wing, conservative robots. Indiviuality is rare and weird, something to be condemned and condemned he was. On the other side of this norm are leftwing reflexive anti-nationlists of the old school communist or socialist type that are at daggers drawn with the former and somwhere in the mix are new and growing Muslim traditionalists harking back to the Othoman era. Quite unlike the british model of political involvement there is also a tribal factor that sends everything into a tailspin. This is a very simplified Turkish social model , one that will lead to a very interesting 20 year wait for the EU application Turkey would love to make. On the other hand after having spent six months teaching English there ( in Istanbul) I met some incredible people and they are Turkey\'s last hope of salvation from being torn apart by these opposing factions.. Having studied the subject of turkey and its history for many years due to a tagic and personal interest i have just this to say about this particular death: Hrant Dink virtually guaranteed his death at the hands of one or other extremist borne of the Turkish state. To be a \”good Turk\” means to take on an ultra nationalist identity supplied in brown paper bags by the states schools and reinforced by the compulsory service in the armed forces where any deviation is severely punished. Years of propoganda leave the average turkish child benumbed and lost to rational independent thought and send them in to adulthood a pliant right wing, conservative robots. Indiviuality is rare and weird, something to be condemned and condemned he was.

On the other side of this norm are leftwing reflexive anti-nationlists of the old school communist or socialist type that are at daggers drawn with the former and somwhere in the mix are new and growing Muslim traditionalists harking back to the Othoman era. Quite unlike the british model of political involvement there is also a tribal factor that sends everything into a tailspin. This is a very simplified Turkish social model , one that will lead to a very interesting 20 year wait for the EU application Turkey would love to make.

On the other hand after having spent six months teaching English there ( in Istanbul) I met some incredible people and they are Turkey\’s last hope of salvation from being torn apart by these opposing factions..

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