This movie is like a poison for the young minds. It has created thousands of wannabe Polats.

Thinking of the differences and similarities between this and The Godfather: The Godfather also depicted the life of mafia members but it did not so with an eye to revealing a reality of life The movie did that without praising the evil aspects of mafia members or by trying to turn them into idols. In the end, it did create idols but that was thanks to immense acting powers of the likes of Marlon Brando and the excellence of the whole production complete with the theme music. People praised Marlon Brando for the performance or the producers for the work. In the case of Kurtlar Vadisi, it is the mafia life that is presented as an enviable choice not the acting, not the music, not the photography etc. 

Nevertheless, I condemn Germany´s decision to call off the debut of the movie. The producers are purposefully playing these tricks to bring it up on the agenda by making it appear as if what is told in the movie is relevant to the current political affairs.

OK. I think we have both made ourselves clear and we can now rest assured that the world will be the same tomorrow no matter what we say. It is the internal dynamics of society that is responsible for radical changes and that usually happens at a very small pace.

Everything else aside,I wish you all the best as you are nearing the end of your pregnancy. I suggest you forget about the Arabs and the stuff for a while Arabs will always be there to be criticized. These are very precious moments and they seem to go with the wind.

Is this you second one? 

Regards.

Let me put it in a nut shell. I am not against criticism whether it be through mockery or irony. I enjoy reading satire myself. 

To set the record straight, I am against the notion that one civilization or a community has the correct answers to all the questions we face in life. Arabs are living in a different world and their values differ dramatically from yours. They perceive life quite differently and like any culture would naturally, they would like to hold on to their own values and enjoy the freedom of shaping their society according to their own perceptions. From your point of view, there are gross violations of female rights and thereby an acute set of restrictions on personal freedoms. You would have this problem with people from an Islamic country living in your country. You would expect them to obey the social values of the host culture as much as possible. But come on we are talking about people who live in their own land with minimal interaction with what is supposed to be more advanced civilizations. Just like we expect them respect us when they get in touch with us in our own environment, they are entitled to expecting respect from us. This is very basic.  We are not talking about Mohammad and a few of his friends. We are talking about a choice made around 1.5 billion people. There are 2.1 billion Christians in the world. These two religions together constitute majority of people living in the world. When you condemn both Christians and Muslims you are condemning almost the entire humanity. 

I would like to live in this world in a peaceful setting and what harms the peace most is the prescriptive approach. Don´t tell people what they ought to believe in or what they ought to do. This is being done in a large scale and every attempt made to ridicule their religion brings them together to stand strong against a common enemy. Don´t show enmity if you don´t want to arouse feelings of hatred uselessly.

You have posted a long reply, I will try to answer statement by statement in multiple posts:

You are saying:

"If people were not free to criticise religion because of wrongly understood respect, we´d still be in the Middle Ages in Europe. We´re not and I hope the eatsern world will end their Middle Ages as well."

I have no objections about criticizing religions. My concern is insulting religions and their believers. What would you do if you were the commander of the US rangers facing the Indians for the first time. Would you say: "Come on ye fools, there is no manitu, run for your lives..."?  You and I know (or guess) that Manitu does not exist. Nevertheless, Manitu is a product of their own culture with all the good and bad ingredients. If they didn´t believe in Manitu and opted for the Christian faith, their lives would not be any different unless of course, they were influenced by another culture. I conider this presumed necessity for unconditional influence of one culture on others as idiotic. We need Manitu, we need Allah, God, Shaman and you name it what. These are cultural products and they are destined to find new meanings as their host civilizations advance. For example, Arabs would probably not be very different from how they are now did Islam not spread among them. They would still be Arabs with a different God. It is their culture that determined the general outlook of Islam. 

As for the answer of you statement: We would not still be in the Middle Ages if we respected religions. I would agree with you more if you said, we atheists would not exist in such abundance, if we were in the Middle Ages.

Daydreamer you are pointing your finger at people who call themselves believers and call their prophet some deceitful Arabic shepherd.

You forget the realities of the world we live in and the fact that we are bereaved of the knowledge to have a peek at the big picture. There are questions but no one has the full answer that is why some people look for answers in the metaphysics and religion.

I don´t believe in Mohammad either but I will not call him fraudelent, indecent or fake because I know that mine is just one in the pool of opinions. And the number one rule to keep the pool peaceful for everyone is not to stir it with defiant statements.

Accordingly, just like all the countries around the world, I recognize Mohammad as a prophet of a legitimate religion. The same goes for Buddha, Jesus Christ and Moses. Although I may not believe in them they have my full respect. When entering their temples which are also the products of a sophisticated civilization behind them I abide by the rules designated by the communities of those temples and pay utmost attention in order not to disturb them. Any civilized person must act like that. I am sorry if you find this offensive but I geniunely believe that you should not target a whole religion like that in a public forum. Nevertheless, a discussion on the role of women in Islamic countries could be opened. As you see, there are vast differences among Islamic countries. Still, the women in those countries do not blame the religion in any way. They consider the role given to them as acceptable. After all this is a choice, a social choice to be exact. The other options are also on the table. It would be the easiest thing to switch to a more Western life style. Some countries are doing that by choice and some are not. 

Basically, you could let a Muslim woman to express her opinion about Western culture and Western women. You would be surprized at the level of critiicism and disdain in her words. They detest your life style and find it inhuman. Now let´s do the math, aren´t you feeling that way about her lifestyle?  What good will come out of targeting religions? You will call their prophet fraudulent and they will call you God knows what. Like always, the best policy is respect....

It is evident that the list refers to the volumetric alcohol content of all the liquors consumed. If a person consumes 1.5 liters of alcohol per year that will amount to about 16.5 bottles of wine or about 4.5 bottles of "big" (70cc) raki each year.

Since a certain percentage of people in Turkey don´t drink at all due to religious considerations, I think this list also includes the consumption made by tourists. As of 2008, 25 million foreigners visited Turkey each year. Assuming that these people are mostly from Western countries (including Russia) and indulge in drinking especially when they are on holiday.

As for my own statistics, I drank about 200 bottles of wine and 100 bottles of beer last year. Did Turkish people drink as much as I did, we would comfortably take the lead on that list. My wine consumption alone amounts to about 18 liters of alcohol. Beginning from this year, I am giving up on alcohol. Turkey has become probably one of the most expensive countries alcoholwise.

We know that art has almost a sacred quality. Regardless of how artists may irritate people with their works sometimes, they are given a privilaged status and anger is usually directed at those who try to restrict artist´s right to express himself. We know that Adolf Hitler was an artist too. Assuming that his works live up to artistic standards and that they are still available; should we have them on display? 

Sonra bir pencereden kendine
Ayışığı gibi vuran sen
Ne sana ne başkasına benziyor.

and you -reflecting on yourself

like the moonlight through the window-

don´t resemble yourself or any other person

Well, as far as I know the Harem is still very much intact and open to visitors. We must be neither proud nor ashamed of it. It is just a truth of the past very much like the concubine culture or the red streets of the West.

To Barba:

Time
(Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it´s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you´re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I´d something more to say.