Very well put, it seems Trudy needs to grow up more, poor the Netherlands...

NO!!! poor thread!!poor people!poor world!!!!like look at this site, evrybody here has atleast onre thing in common,were from everywhere around the world and we cant get a long, i know im not free from this charge also, but....we should really try to get over this, if were over reacting on a topic like this no wonder presidents and countries fight!!!and we always wonder why? cant they just settle it out? But i guess if indivuals from fdifferent countries keep insulting each other then this world is doomed!lol, anyway both sides were wrong and both shoud apologize to each other,because, i noticed how the generalizing issue comes up here alot, dont generalize a country on one person!!!!!!again, PLZ PPL!!(please people )

You really make me laugh (:

Please dont act like you dont know anything.

Want prove?

Then :

http://tr.fgulen.com/content/view/8887/12/ 

( fettullah gulen´s web site. )

that text is written by : Şahin Alpay, from Zaman newspaper( check the name at the top )

Lets look what our Zaman newspaper´s writer say;

"......Zaman´ın esas gücü, toplumda mevcut farklı görüşler arasında diyaloğu, karşılıklı anlayışı güçlendirmeye çalışan sağduyulu yayın çizgisinde. Zaman´ın bu çizgisini demokratik kültürün özü demek olan, farklı fikirlere, farklı inançlara, farklı yaşam biçimlerine saygı göstermeyi; farklılar arasında kavga ve düşmanlık değil anlayış ve sevgiyi teşvik eden bir din adamı olan Fethullah Gülen´in düşüncelerine borçlu olduğu konusunda küçük bir tereddüt yok. Christian Science Monitor, bir dini cemaat tarafından kurulduktan sonra zamanla herkesin güvenle okuduğu, kaliteli bir gazete niteliğini kazanan bir Amerikan gazetesi. Bana öyle geliyor ki ABD´de Christian Science Monitor ne ise, Türkiye´de de Zaman o olmak yolunda....."

--

" The real power of zaman newspaper is because of the support of  dialogue of the different ideas and the rule of common sencial... etc ..etc.. there is no doubt these are cause of the ideas of the fetullah gulen who is honoroble man ...... "

The following is interesting

"...Christian science monitor, is established by a religional group, then they become a newspaper which is read by the people on trust is an quality american newspaper. I think zaman will be the newspaper what the christian science monitor is,in America.... "

Do you want that fetullah gulen to write you a letter that that newspaper is him ? Or do you want zaman newspaper to announce that that newspaper belongs to a guy under ban in Turkey whose guilt is same as terorrism ?

so everyone can see that there are no statements such as:

I was talking about offensive accusations, Of course "fethullah gülen is the founder of the newspaper" isn´t offensive. is it?

yeap david becham is good football player (:

So?

You are right, I shouldn´t have made that analogy with handicapped people but I got so mad when Tamikidakika was calling me dumb that I forgot to be polite. My apologies.

On the subject of Zaman .... I think many of you know that I write the book page for Sundays Zaman.

Yes, the paper is owned by the Zaman newspaper group, which is linked to Gülen´s organisation.

When a friend and I started writing for them, we decided to see what sort of editorial line they take, and monitor it to see whether we feel we can still be associated with them.

Yes, they do sometimes have articles praising Gulen, and interview people from the organisation, and also report on the activities of the Gulen schools.  BUT it has also been one of the fairest newspapers in Turkey when reporting on subjects such as minority rights, the Malatya trial and other subjects personally of interest to me as a Christian living in Turkey.  For years other "enlightened, modern, western-thinking" media groups have published negative reports about protestant Christians in Turkey (one even gave the home address of an English friend of the German murdered in Malatya).  Todays Zaman, contrary to many fears and expectations, has been fair on the religious front.

It has also continued to support columnists such as Andrew Finkel who can criticise the government, and Ayse Karaagac who can criticise the status quo in Turkey.

Tam - I have to confess that your grammar and command of the English language exceeds that of many native English.

Just who are you eh?

It has everything to do with nationalism I am afraid.

The instinct you are acting upon is smelling  ´raw nationalism´ in your post.

This is the instinct derived from the basic idea that ´there are some foreigners who are attacking my country from outside and I have to defeat them and defend the motherland´.

Trudy is right up there 100% and so as her orig post.

But ´the wrong thing´ is the fact that you trying to  dilute the  argument by pulling it up to an irrelevant corner.

Facts are always facts:

We/Turkey have been one of the worse violaters of human rights in decades.

We/Turkey have been found guilty of violating the human rights and paid million of euros.

Many Turks believe that west is NOT partial in these law suits  against Turkey and ´keep diluting this subject´ with sayings ´ah..this is the west for you; they never like Turkey anyway; they have the same things in their countries blah blah´, instead of trying to raise their voices and try to stop these crimes against our own people..

And because of those many Turks who tend to think that way, there have been all those ´ violations of human rights´ in my country for so many years .

And this conclusion does not even require a basic algebra..