Well, obviously, we don´t look like Turks in central Asia..Do they lost their Turkishness because of Mongolians? I am not entirely sure.. Because insisting that Turks/Turkmens did not mix with the other races in Anatolia/Mesopotamia but they mixed with Mongolians. So "the Turks in Anatolia are the real Turks but the ones in central Asia are less Turks"   does not have any credibility and genetic map of Turkey is  not supporting that idea either..

Why are you so sensitive about the genetics of Anatolian Turks? People are what they feel for. Why do you try to prove that we are not Turks genetically? What are you trying to do?

If you feel that you are a Turk then you are a Turk. Who cares about the genetics? (answer: apperantly the likes of you who have some discomfort with the idea of feeling/calling yourself a Turk).

Well central Asian Turks may be more Turk than us genetically (nobody denies that) but they are less Turk than us in some countries. The fact is they are more Russian than Turk (Many  prefer to speak Russian instead of their language and feel more Russian than Turk).

If you call yourself a Turk then what is big matter with that? You know "Ne mutlu Türküm diyene". But if you instead say "Ne mutlu ...im diyene" that´s OK we understand that! (That´s what you are trying to do, right?)

Well, excuse me but, look at all the posts from the beginning and tell me ´WHO really is SENSITIVE about genetics of Anatolian Turks´!!

Well, when I look at the post I remember your post about the genetics of the current Anatolian Turks. You keep mentioning all the time. I keep saying I don´t care about the genetics. I am trying to see why you keep doing it. Where are trying to get to?

There is a concept in history : ethno-transformation. People-individually or collectively- change/adapt/accept  other languages/accept other religions.

In history, clans/tribes joined to other clans/tribes..They lived in an intertwined forms.. Sometimes they joined into a collective federations. If this ´living together´ was for a long time, they changed their language.. (Timurlane who defeated Beyazid in Ankara insisted that he was Turkish but  his tribe, ´Barlas´, originally was Mongolian, but Turkified by language)..  

When you accept this ethnic-transformation as a reality, you don´t reject the other cultures/ethnicity. 

If  nationalism is just the nationalism, which does not have racism attached to it (I mean the racism in which everything is tied into the race, the roots) this ethnic-transformation, this richness of cultures, this mixture of ethnicity can be absorbed and everything and all others (Greeks/Armenians/Kurds etc) would be tolerated easily up to a certain point...

But accepting the concept of ethnic transformation brings ambiguity about the race and racism can not live with (or tolerate) this uncertainty.

OK but if somebody is happy with being (or considering themselves) a Turk, what wrog with it? Why do you try to say you consider yourself a Turk but you are not a Turk genetically.

That is the racist nationalism we should have the real problem with. 

I think I made myself clear with ´Ne mutlu Turkum diyene´ in previous years: I have no problem with it at all.. But we all know  some of our citizens have some issues. They simply insist that they are not Turks.. I find it difficult to oppose people if they want to say ´Ne mutlu, I am This and I am That´ really.. Fine, nowadys everybody says I am this and I am that as far as I can see. We see Kurds say it freely. Yesterday BDP were talking about Dersim parliament. They are talking about anything they want. Will all the things be fulfilled let´s wait and see.

The last paragraph is nothing to do with the Turkishness or race or nationalism.. It is just the manners and it is very much related to your family.. So I am not going to blame you on that  personally..

"How can you say that ´Turks´ came to ´Turkey´ long before the name Turkey existed? They were Mongols spreading into the West, so Mongolians are Turks? or Turks are Mongolians?"

Questions by another member

This is a good question. To solve the mystery here, one should be able to answer three basic questions.

1. While Mongols were on their way into Anatolia, they stopped by major Arab cities on their way and made sure all libraries were practically burnt out. WHY?

Because they believed that Turkic tribes of Anatolia were being assimilated by corrupted Arabs so they wanted to give lessons and stop these assimilation. Actually it seems they were very right on many things. They called Abbasids not muslim but "fasık" and declared God had sent them to punish corrupted Arabs. In Letter of Hulagu to Abbasid caliph same issues were mentioned. 

2. Mongols devastated Ottomans in one large battle near Ankara. The Ottoman Sultan was enslaved. Quite surprisingly however, Mongols first released the defeated and enslaved Ottoman Sultan, then stopped their campaign further West into Anatolia, though there was no one left to stop them. WHY ?

Maybe the words of Timur in his letter to Beyazid below will be the answer of your question;

"In your army there are Christians but mine is all from Turks, I am the one who represents Islam here."

According to Timur, Ottomans betrayed the laws of Oghuzs that is why Turkmens of Anatolia sided with Timur at war. After the war Timur gave back the lands of Turks who were persecuted by Ottomans. As we know very well from the history Turkmens were one of the most persecuted etchnic group during reign of Ottoman especially after the Ankara war. As far as I know the only general that Atatürk admired was Timur.

3. Before Mongols hit Ottomans, Ottomans were busy making life miserable for Europeans in the West. One would expect Europeans to take advantage of the loss Ottomans suffered and go for a sweet revenge, with no Ottoman army left to stop them. But that did not happen. No one dared attack Ottomans, even after they were practically plastered by Mongols. WHY?

This is simple because Ottomans rooted in Rumeli better than Anatolia, and christians were pleased of Ottomans(Serbian prince was brother in law of Beyazid and a huge army of Serbs fought against Timur with Beyazid), one of the reason that Ottomans was able to become power again if not they would possibly have been cleaned from the pages of history.

I shall not offer my own answers to these questions. They are however, worth thinking about - for those interested in Turkic history.

Above is my answers to these, they can be wrong of course since these preiods of history mostly blur. Now waiting for your answers. 

The question of "race" is always troublesome. It stems largely from the perception that "race" is a reality in itself, but it is actually no more than a perception. There are many variations on human features, and what were classified as "the four races" are actually no more than four extremes based on features that stand out to us. Eye shape skin color, hair type, etc. In reality it´s a continuum, but when people migrate and come across people who look differently, then it´s (for better or worse) human nature to try and classify folks.

During Ottoman times, the major dividing line was religion, not race and ethnicity as we think of them today. They only became a real issue during the age when the world was dividing itsulf up into nation-states, and some of those states were trying to grab parts of the failing Empire. The reasons various people in the Ottoman Empire wanted to break away are more complex than at first glance, and beyond the scope of this post. But the upshot was that out of the Ottoman Empire arose a group of nation-states, and one of those nations were the people that considered themselves (or were considered by others because of language and religion) "Turkish." And one of the difficult issues the new state of Turkey faced was to define what a Turk was. Unfortunately there was a point where some tried to define what a Turk was in terms of physical characteristics. Clearly this caused lots of problems. For one thing, Atatürk would certainly not fit into any definition of Turkishness based on Central Asian ancestry. And it also left people out - consider all the people who identified as Turkish, who fought in the War of Independence, and then (in the eyes of some) were considered to be of "doubtful" Turkishness. Without naming names, people in some areas were more subject to such attitudes, and it´s in such areas where we see the most extreme touchiness and nationalism.

In the end, Turkish, Greek, Kurdish, we´re all mixed, and most of our nationality is a construct of our education and the culture we were brought up in. To get caught up in fights about ethnic or racial purity just reeks of ignorance and hurts everyone.

In the end, Turkish, Greek, Kurdish, we´re all mixed, and most of our nationality is a construct of our education and the culture we were brought up in. To get caught up in fights about ethnic or racial purity just reeks of ignorance and hurts everyone.